Reviving the Board

[msnobody]

It’s summertime. People have interests outside of Mormonism. Honey, the discussion board will go down when we’re six feet under. Proclaim your victory then.

[Jersey Girl]

Once more, here we are! Someone brings forward a subject for discussion that is at odds with what is regularly read here, and it is immediately attributed to AtlanticMike or right-wingers! Do you not comprehend how exhausting it is for people to continue attempting to read the rubbish you constantly post on the board? Have you ever thought about the possibility that the lack of fresh posts on the board is a result of your progressive, anti-Mormon ideology? You still obsess with the AtlanticMike character despite the fact that he hasn't post in over a year.

You know the history of the board re: AM and yet you joined on the 4th of July of this year with 6 posts to your credit.

Or rejoined as the case may be.

[ceeboo]

Any ideas as to how the board might be revived?

This board, like any other space that is designed to have people gather and discuss, is a community of people that is largely influenced, in tone and messaging, by the majority of its members. To be clear, I don't think this reality is a bad thing or a good thing - it is just the thing.

For example: Take another discussion board like CARM (A space where the majority of its members are Christians) you would find plenty of community support for posters who post things positive about Jesus and/or the Bible. On the other hand, if you were agnostic or an atheist or a Mormon (for example), you would, at best, be treated with great skepticism, you would be challenged, and you would most likely not be given the benefit of the doubt when you posted. At worst, you would be attacked, mocked, and dismissed.

This board, mostly, is a space for ex-Mormons who happen to fall left of center politically. Generally speaking, this is how humans behave - We try to find other humans that can relate to our own experiences, have things in common with us, and where we are comfortable hanging out. Most of us do it. Most of us.

Ideas to revive the board? If the majority of members don't believe that the community is dying, from their view, there would be no need to revive it, obviously. If you, on the other hand, think the board needs to be revived, the only thing you can do is to start threads that you think others will find interesting and see where it goes. If you do decide to do this, I think it would be very helpful for you to understand, recognize, and accept the space that you are in.

Anyway, just my take.

[Res Ipsa]

Any ideas as to how the board might be revived?

This board, like any other space that is designed to have people gather and discuss, is a community of people that is largely influenced, in tone and messaging, by the majority of its members. To be clear, I don't think this reality is a bad thing or a good thing - it is just the thing.

For example: Take another discussion board like CARM (A space where the majority of its members are Christians) you would find plenty of community support for posters who post things positive about Jesus and/or the Bible. On the other hand, if you were agnostic or an atheist or a Mormon (for example), you would, at best, be treated with great skepticism, you would be challenged, and you would most likely not be given the benefit of the doubt when you posted. At worst, you would be attacked, mocked, and dismissed.

This board, mostly, is a space for ex-Mormons who happen to fall left of center politically. Generally speaking, this is how humans behave - We try to find other humans that can relate to our own experiences, have things in common with us, and where we are comfortable hanging out. We all do it. All of us.

Ideas to revive the board? If the majority of members don't believe that the community is dying, from their view, there would be no need to revive it, obviously. If you, on the other hand, think the board needs to be revived, the only thing you can do is to start threads that you think others will find interesting and see where it goes. If you do decide to do this, I think it would be very helpful for you to understand, recognize, and accept the space that you are in.

Anyway, just my take.

I think it’s a good take, although I would describe it as “a board currently used by” as opposed to “a board for.”

The imbalance between LDS critics and believers is largely an artifact of the decision by the LDS apologists who used to participate to leave here and participate only in venues where they controlled the content of critics’ speech. It’s perpetuated by the hostile response most faithful LDS folks receive when they wander in here.

The political imbalance, to the extent it actually exists, is just dumb luck. The former Mormons that post here are a tiny percentage of former Mormons. Some people here that are labeled as progressives or Marxists identified as conservatives pre-Trump. Some may still do so, although they may be anti-Trump/Freedom Caucus. The MAGA movement that Trump led and that various politicians are jockeying to inherit, is kind of lateral to the conservative-liberal spectrum, so it’s made for some odd political bedfellows.

[drumdude]

It’s summertime. People have interests outside of Mormonism. Honey, the discussion board will go down when we’re six feet under. Proclaim your victory then.

AMEN!

[ceeboo]

I think it’s a good take, although I would describe it as “a board currently used by” as opposed to “a board for.”

Yes, that's fair.

[sansfoy]

Communities change and evolve over time. I've been in a few Mormon-related ones, including NOM and the old Zion's Lighthouse. They all tend to die off over time. I sometimes visit the exmormon subreddit these days, which is very active, but it's not the same as when you could get into interesting theological discussions with slippery apologists like Dan Peterson, and outright nutjobs like Wade Englund.

[MsJack]

Much like network broadcasting, long-form discussion boards - and I’m only talking about the art and phenomenon of Internet long-form discussions, not the tech - is going the way of the do-do. What can anyone do about it? Travel back in time.

-Doc

This.

This board has been around for the better part of two decades. The Internet has changed a lot in that time period. People don't post on message boards much anymore; it's all about social media and YouTube / TikTok videos now.

As for our forum, some people have moved on; some have actually died. We've been around that long. And a number of us who used to be dyed-in-the-wool Republicans have now drifted center or left because of the absolutely insane alt-right shift of the Republican party since 2016.

Nobody is going to go in for a more "balanced" forum with mixed moderation because that was already tried. It was called Zion's Lighthouse Message Board, it ran from about 2001 - 2006, and it featured a panel of moderators who were LDS, skeptical, evangelical, and everything in between. The owner was also a faithful Mormon, and he made an honest effort to treat everyone fairly and give everyone a voice; he even favored the Mormons a bit and was more lenient with them. The board failed because the LDS apologists were caught in an enormous lie and decided they needed the safe spaces of extremely biased moderation in their favor. It was the LDS apologists who abandoned the forum, not the critics.

That said, while the few LDS apologists / believers / political conservatives who participate here (when they drift by) are sure to be outnumbered, they will 100% be treated fairly by the moderators and admin here. They will not be silenced or banned just because they're LDS. The rules will be fairly applied to everyone. You can't say that for any number of the pro-LDS forums out there.

[Res Ipsa]

Communities change and evolve over time. I've been in a few Mormon-related ones, including NOM and the old Zion's Lighthouse. They all tend to die off over time. I sometimes visit the exmormon subreddit these days, which is very active, but it's not the same as when you could get into interesting theological discussions with slippery apologists like Dan Peterson, and outright nutjobs like Wade Englund.

Good points. I think that both Facebook and Reddit have impacted the extent to which people are willing to invest time and energy into stand alone forums like this. When Postmormon was taken down by hackers, it wasn’t construed in part because folks were migrating to Facebook groups. RFM seems to be still going strong, but it prohibits promotion of Mormonism.

This forum was created during and thrived during what I think of as the online Mormon apologetics wars. It may have started earlier, but the first battleground I recall was the (Usenet?) group ARM — alt.religion.Mormonism? Remember those days, Philo? Good times.

As the internet evolved and forum moderation became more accessible, much of the battle was over the terms of engagement. This forum was designed to address those issues and provide terms under which both sides were willing to participate under.

in my opinion, with the decision by Mormon apologists to leave this forum, the wars ended. No longer did contesting slam dunks extend to online forums where faithful LDS folks didn’t have complete control over the speech of critics. Now the War so bravely waged by FARM-style apologists, has been reduced to Peterson and Midgely’s lobbing shells from the safety of the Sic et Non bunker to the sounds of ridicule and mocked heard in the trailer park.

With Mopologetics having fallen out of favor, reduced to pseudo-scholarly blog posts and odd films, the glory days of critics doing battle with critics over ruins in Central America, Egyptology, Smith’s sex life, etc. are gone. Leadership, as they say, has decided to go a different direction.

Perhaps we should build a monument.

[Res Ipsa]

Much like network broadcasting, long-form discussion boards - and I’m only talking about the art and phenomenon of Internet long-form discussions, not the tech - is going the way of the do-do. What can anyone do about it? Travel back in time.

-Doc

This.

This board has been around for the better part of two decades. The Internet has changed a lot in that time period. People don't post on message boards much anymore; it's all about social media and YouTube / TikTok videos now.

As for our forum, some people have moved on; some have actually died. We've been around that long. And a number of us who used to be dyed-in-the-wool Republicans have now drifted center or left because of the absolutely insane alt-right shift of the Republican party since 2016.

Nobody is going to go in for a more "balanced" forum with mixed moderation because that was already tried. It was called Zion's Lighthouse Message Board, it ran from about 2001 - 2006, and it featured a panel of moderators who were LDS, skeptical, evangelical, and everything in between. The owner was also a faithful Mormon, and he made an honest effort to treat everyone fairly and give everyone a voice; he even favored the Mormons a bit and was more lenient with them. The board failed because the LDS apologists were caught in an enormous lie and decided they needed the safe spaces of extremely biased moderation in their favor. It was the LDS apologists who abandoned the forum, not the critics.

That said, while the few LDS apologists / believers / political conservatives who participate here (when they drift by) are sure to be outnumbered, they will 100% be treated fairly by the moderators and admin here. They will not be silenced or banned just because they're LDS. The rules will be fairly applied to everyone. You can't say that for any number of the pro-LDS forums out there.

Amen.