Had a good chat to Mark Hadley today. He asked if I had any ideas about how to get the “lurkers” to contribute more to these forums, and how to encourage newbie posters to post more and stick around.

This sounds like a great idea to me, as the more variety on these forums the better. Anyone got any ideas?

Let them talk about dead horses if they want.

Dead horses? They already can! (and do). Once the topics have been dead horsed, they can talk about them until the cows come home.

Fill me in on why variety is good though? Do we want 2 of everything or something?

2 Mormons. 2 serial killers. 2 dogs who know the lord. 2 satanists. 2 former members of the Russian KGB. 2 gay bishops. 2 psychopathic liars. 2 trolls. 2 anti-semitic neo-Nazis. 2 angry creationists.

Nup, not seeing it.

Proverbs 10:19

Actually, that would make a pretty fascinating forum…

Anyway, much as I love all our top 10 posters, it would interesting to hear what the other 69,990 people in the diocese think as well.

I think it would make a cacophony.

I can’t see any benefit in variety for its own sake. The fascination factor may be good, or may be the sort associated with the fight that breaks out in the schoolyard. More often the latter. If you really want to find out about Mormonism, Satanism, or the Russian KGB there are better ways to do it than having 2 representatives of each battling it out here on the Sydney Anglican forums.

Anyway, here’s the end point of variety with a somewhat Anglican flavour, so if you want it and want it done better than sydneyanglicans.net can ever hope to manage, have at it. Personally, I think the benefits are well outweighed by the costs, and that website is proof.

And here’s some stuff on Mormonism, in case anyone is feeling held back in their understanding by the absence of Mormons on this site.

If you want further contributions, you do need more variety in the topics… a lot of the topics here are spectacularly Ned Flanders in their church nerdiness. Partly born out of the fact that it FEELS like 75% of the posters here are either ministers or have been in churches for decades. While I have little interest in discussing the latest Opeth album here, it does thin out your ability to generate traffic. Every forum I have ever been to over the last 10 years moves forward on the basis of off topic discussion and conflict.

Btw, that Israel thread got closed, so even though it’s dead, it can’t be talked home with the cows…

Dannii Willis - 26 May 2008 08:10 PM

Btw, that Israel thread got closed, so even though it’s dead, it can’t be talked home with the cows…

Yes, that seems questionable.

Have you raised it with the relevant moderator?

No, I was lazy, and don’t really care.

And, it is interesting that YET AGAIN, this thread is taken over by people who are NOT newbies.  Why would you bother?
Gill.

Those rotten regular contributors. How dare they contribute regularly!

But I suppose people, new or not, would bother if they wanted to say something. It’s not as if there is a limit on thread length.

Anyone got any thoughts on Craig’s original question?

Are people too intimidated to post?

Do they not want to get sucked into a pointless, never-ending discussion?

Love to know…

OK, serious hat on now, and also not at work (home sick) that time is a factor.  When I have taken interesting and (what I think is helpful) issues raised to my ministers and other Christian workers, they say they don’t have time to get involved.

And I note that a lot of the backwards and forward comment is done in what would be normal work time, and I wonder if that is an issue for some.

It is not that I am concerned about the regular contributers contributing, but (for me) they often take it off in another direction, rather than answering the actual question raised.  And they don’t seem to “hear"/understand what the other has said.  Or they “banter” backwards and forwards (cv Craig and Gordon above) which, while interesting, and sometimes funny, might prevent others from entering into the banter (let alone answering the question acdtually raised).
Gill.

Perhaps we need a forum called “Newbies only”, and topics started in those forums can only be posted to by people with less than 100 posts. Technically that shouldn’t be too hard…

What do others think of Craig’s idea?

Would it address some of the concerns that have been raised with me privately?

Hmmm would Craig’s idea turn out like, the thread somebody tried to establish to encourage women to post (many of whom are not comfortable wtih the aggressive nature of these forums) and it was deliberately and quite aggressively derailed by men posting.  I am comfortable in giving as good as I get but many women in particular are not (I"ve actualy had private messages about this issue from women who lurk) and I think that thread for women was a nice initiative that was derailed by regular male posters.

In general bullying is very evident on these forums whenever anybody bucks the trend.  A great case in point is the Catholic bashing thread, where an issue was raised in allbeit a moderately aggressive way but the responses completely ignored the issues raised and instead have focused on accusing Luke of being “politically correct” and now nonsupportive of the diocesan mission such that he is now an exemplar of “not good” moderation in a thread all its own.

In other cases the bullying is more subtle, eg derailign a thread by silly OT jokes instead of allowing an orthodox view to be challenged.

Sadly I have no suggestions to overcome the culture, it does tend to become selfperpetuating somehow.  Maybe defining what the purpose of the forums is would help, is it for discussion of alternative views or to publicise the missionary activities of a selection of particular churches or what???