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There is a forum called bogleheads which is frequented by people who follow the index investing strategy. That strategy is basically buy the market and hold.
I don't know how that forum survives, because if people posted the same way they invested, there would be no traffic. Post a thread about your investment strategy, bump the thread in twenty years when you start to shift to bonds, and then bump again in twenty more years when you retire. There's no drama or complications to discuss, it just takes time.
Likewise with an atheism forum, there's not much to discuss once you have worked out the failures of theodicy. You can do a deep dive on the various traditions and find all the flaws, but that's not really necessary. Once you've convinced yourself that there's no there there, picking apart the various theres is gratuitous.
Some topics lends themselves to frequent discussion, others don't.
Okay, I failed. I was trying to be funny ironically. The word "pray" you see, since we atheists do not pray. The <giggle> and the faces should have also said "joke". Oh well. As Scott Adams of Dilbert once said, "If you have to explain it, then it's not funny."
I think the big problem is that it’s become BORING. Whatever the initial topic, within about three pages the same four or five folks basically flood the thread by grinding their favorite axes with each other. Sure other folks try to carry on around them, but you still have to wade through walls of text you’ve seen dozens of times before.
I gotta say it used to be fun when you could have a full on proper heated debate with people.
Anyone that knows me knows I'm a person that likes to keep things civil.
I've never resorted to insults and stuff like that. I've always said, I'd never say anything on here that I wouldn't be prepared to say directly to someone's face, and I'm British so I'm pretty polite.
All that aside, if you pick out the right language you used to be able to have some pretty heated entertaining theological battles with people. It was a lot of fun.
Now the sticky on R&S posting guidelines is a full 18 extremely lengthy posts explaining what you are and are not allowed to talk about. Which leaves what you are able to talk about so narrow that there's not much room left to discuss anything.
Just my humble opinion.
I'm glad we have the chat about anything threads were we can ramble on about our lives which I contribute to more than anything now. Good to check in with old friends, see how people are doing.
I gotta say it used to be fun when you could have a full on proper heated debate with people.
Anyone that knows me knows I'm a person that likes to keep things civil.
I've never resorted to insults and stuff like that. I've always said, I'd never say anything on here that I wouldn't be prepared to say directly to someone's face, and I'm British so I'm pretty polite.
All that aside, if you pick out the right language you used to be able to have some pretty heated entertaining theological battles with people. It was a lot of fun.
Now the sticky on R&S posting guidelines is a full 18 extremely lengthy posts explaining what you are and are not allowed to talk about. Which leaves what you are able to talk about so narrow that there's not much room left to discuss anything.
Just my humble opinion.
I'm glad we have the chat about anything threads were we can ramble on about our lives which I contribute to more than anything now. Good to check in with old friends, see how people are doing.
You make some valid points. I find the biggest constraint is the change that did not allow the discussion of science in the R&S forum. It removes the abilities to discuss real facts, rather than just opinion.
My suspicion is that there would be much more robust discussion points if that constraint were removed, returning the TOS for the R&S forum what it was before the change on January 2017.
Moderators, please discuss this among yourself, and reconsider removing that part of the TOS. Perhaps if needed, keep it in the Christianity, Buddhist, Judaism and Islam sections, but remove the constraint for the General and Pagan. Why include Pagan? Because one can have spiritual or pagan thoughts that coincide with scientific realities.
Please have that discussion, Moderators, as it is a valid perspective.
I gotta say it used to be fun when you could have a full on proper heated debate with people.
Anyone that knows me knows I'm a person that likes to keep things civil.
I've never resorted to insults and stuff like that. I've always said, I'd never say anything on here that I wouldn't be prepared to say directly to someone's face, and I'm British so I'm pretty polite.
All that aside, if you pick out the right language you used to be able to have some pretty heated entertaining theological battles with people. It was a lot of fun.
Now the sticky on R&S posting guidelines is a full 18 extremely lengthy posts explaining what you are and are not allowed to talk about. Which leaves what you are able to talk about so narrow that there's not much room left to discuss anything.
Just my humble opinion.
I'm glad we have the chat about anything threads were we can ramble on about our lives which I contribute to more than anything now. Good to check in with old friends, see how people are doing.
Curious as to which specific rules you have problems with. Not quoting correctly? Posting links without commentary (which I think is actually an overall forum rule)? Not calling another poster Beezelbub? Ok, I'm being facetious, but a lot of the rules come out of religious people not understanding that this is not a forum just for the religious or a particular religion or a particular version of a particular religion.
Quote:
Originally Posted by normstad
You make some valid points. I find the biggest constraint is the change that did not allow the discussion of science in the R&S forum. It removes the abilities to discuss real facts, rather than just opinion.
My suspicion is that there would be much more robust discussion points if that constraint were removed, returning the TOS for the R&S forum what it was before the change on January 2017.
Moderators, please discuss this among yourself, and reconsider removing that part of the TOS. Perhaps if needed, keep it in the Christianity, Buddhist, Judaism and Islam sections, but remove the constraint for the General and Pagan. Why include Pagan? Because one can have spiritual or pagan thoughts that coincide with scientific realities.
Please have that discussion, Moderators, as it is a valid perspective.
We can discuss it, but you know why the rule is in place. The no-science rule predates my being a moderator. However, I've seen the reasons that are laid out in mensaguy's January 2017 post in action on the occasions when such threads still popped up. Every single time, it goes from being a discussion about science AND religion to a purely scientific discussion after the religious posters drop out, and we're left with pages and pages of non-religious posters playing "Look how much more I know about quarks than you do!" There's no longer any religious aspect in the conversation whatsoever, it devolves into the same old arguments by the same old suspects, the reports start to come in, and the mods end up having to slog through endless repetitive posts to see who said what to whom on a thread that has nothing to do with the subject of our assigned forum.
If you have any practical suggestions for stopping that from happening, let us know.
You make some valid points. I find the biggest constraint is the change that did not allow the discussion of science in the R&S forum. It removes the abilities to discuss real facts, rather than just opinion.
My suspicion is that there would be much more robust discussion points if that constraint were removed, returning the TOS for the R&S forum what it was before the change on January 2017.
Moderators, please discuss this among yourself, and reconsider removing that part of the TOS. Perhaps if needed, keep it in the Christianity, Buddhist, Judaism and Islam sections, but remove the constraint for the General and Pagan. Why include Pagan? Because one can have spiritual or pagan thoughts that coincide with scientific realities.
Please have that discussion, Moderators, as it is a valid perspective.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mightyqueen801
Curious as to which specific rules you have problems with. Not quoting correctly? Posting links without commentary (which I think is actually an overall forum rule)? Not calling another poster Beezelbub? Ok, I'm being facetious, but a lot of the rules come out of religious people not understanding that this is not a forum just for the religious or a particular religion or a particular version of a particular religion.
We can discuss it, but you know why the rule is in place. The no-science rule predates my being a moderator. However, I've seen the reasons that are laid out in mensaguy's January 2017 post in action on the occasions when such threads still popped up. Every single time, it goes from being a discussion about science AND religion to a purely scientific discussion after the religious posters drop out, and we're left with pages and pages of non-religious posters playing "Look how much more I know about quarks than you do!" There's no longer any religious aspect in the conversation whatsoever, it devolves into the same old arguments by the same old suspects, the reports start to come in, and the mods end up having to slog through endless repetitive posts to see who said what to whom on a thread that has nothing to do with the subject of our assigned forum.
If you have any practical suggestions for stopping that from happening, let us know.
I understand that it may be an issue, which is why I suggested the main R&S forum, and the Pagan sub-forum. I'm not sure if I recall religious posters dropping out, and obviously not be aware of the reports moderators get.
But I honestly feel the rule, as applied to all parts of the R&S forum, stifles discussion and participation. As in all cases in the City-Data forums, the discussion should be relevant to the topic. If we start wandering off to the fine details of quantum mechanics and the impact 1/trillionth of a second after the big bang occurred, then I can see your point
(can refer you to Sean Carroll's recent podcast of that discussion of what occurred)
Curious as to which specific rules you have problems with. Not quoting correctly? Posting links without commentary (which I think is actually an overall forum rule)? Not calling another poster Beezelbub? Ok, I'm being facetious, but a lot of the rules come out of religious people not understanding that this is not a forum just for the religious or a particular religion or a particular version of a particular religion.
We can discuss it, but you know why the rule is in place. The no-science rule predates my being a moderator. However, I've seen the reasons that are laid out in mensaguy's January 2017 post in action on the occasions when such threads still popped up. Every single time, it goes from being a discussion about science AND religion to a purely scientific discussion after the religious posters drop out, and we're left with pages and pages of non-religious posters playing "Look how much more I know about quarks than you do!" There's no longer any religious aspect in the conversation whatsoever, it devolves into the same old arguments by the same old suspects, the reports start to come in, and the mods end up having to slog through endless repetitive posts to see who said what to whom on a thread that has nothing to do with the subject of our assigned forum.
If you have any practical suggestions for stopping that from happening, let us know.
Okay, I failed. I was trying to be funny ironically. The word "pray" you see, since we atheists do not pray. The <giggle> and the faces should have also said "joke". Oh well. As Scott Adams of Dilbert once said, "If you have to explain it, then it's not funny."
FWIW, I don't think you failed at all! I got the joke right off the bat, even without icons and other hints. But some of the best jokes are funny because they have a modicum of truth, and I think we're seeing that in many of the responses, which express a lot of what I've been thinking lately myself.
Put another way, it may have been a joke, but you tapped into something.
Maybe we should all be praying to bring it back to life? <giggle>
Or maybe we should recognize that it is Summer and people's activities change slightly.
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