Thanks to those who participated, especially with comments, in Keepa’s First and Second poll regarding your understanding of the meaning of “first” and “second” in reference to counselors in Church organizations. This was very helpful.

I had not even thought of that responsibility of the first counselor to preside in the event the president/bishop/other presiding officer was unavailable, or I would have tried to control for that in the way I worded the question – that is, we can easily say that “first” outranks “second” in that one narrow instance, OR we could consider that “presiding in the absence of the president” is one of the arbitrary tasks assigned to one counselor for convenience. No matter – I had not thought of that assignment, and that was an important reminder for me. Kent G. Budge’s note that “first” and “second” are not present in the Doctrine and Covenants was also particularly useful. (Joseph Smith’s designation as “first elder” and Oliver Cowdery’s as “second elder” had as much to do with point in time as with hierarchy, no?)

Besides reading comments, I watched the stats as they developed. Early in the poll, the count ran as high as 80% for “rank” and 20% for “convenience.” As it stands now, it’s about 57% “rank” and 43% “convenience.” The numbers seemed to get more even as commenters discussed the assignment to preside. I’m guessing – but obviously there isn’t any way to verify it with this extremely basic poll – that the numbers may have begun to approach each other as readers considered the comments and decided that if presiding in the absence of the president was the only practical difference, (acknowledging that several commenters did suggest other possibilities, such as a second counselor sometimes being “promoted” to first counselor when the former first counselor was released, or auxiliary groups seen as more privileged being assigned oversight by “ranking” members of the bishopric), then “rank” was a lesser concern than they might have at first thought.

This question occurred to me because of the precise historical occurrence Mike R. suggests – people sometimes perceive J. Reuben Clark’s call as second counselor to David O. McKay after Pres. Clark had served originally as second counselor, then first counselor to Heber J. Grant and later as first counselor to George Albert Smith, as a “demotion.” I have never perceived “first” and “second” as ranks, and so sometimes I’ll read a sentence that doesn’t make much sense when the writer makes the assumption that those areranks. That happened the other day, so I thought I’d take advantage of Keepa’s platform to see what broader perceptions might be.

And a note about internet polls in general: Most polls for newspapers and blogs are worded as though the majority “vote” determines truth. Obviously no vote of bloggers will determine whether or not, or to what extent, any hierarchy is intended by Church leaders with the designations “first” and “second.” All I was surveying was your general perception of those designations, which you have supplied. Thank you!