Why is this forum attracting so few new members?

[Hope]

I suppose it couldn't be god's judgment?

ippy

I hadn't realised that you thought like that, ippy.

[BashfulAnthony]

Dear Floo,

Sorry, I am asking about numbers, in the early days were number of members small, I could ask this question of Wigs, Leonard, Susan, Shaker, Bashers.

Just wondering if membership of this forum simply needs time or do we need to think about how to increase numbers.

Gonnagle.

I was on there in the very early days, and as I recollect, there were a good many members, though there tended to be a hard-core of regular posters, some of whom eventually reached here, some via the old, original NGL, which I was also a member of.  Some of those old Beeb posters found their way here, and so the athests among them are now well past the tenth anniversary of their wasted posts!!   

[Owlswing]

Dear Rhiannon,

Well said

On the subject of new members, can I ask how old is this forum, I can only compare it to the old Beeb, how long did it take before it had lots of members and of course the Beeb had a name which people could flock to.

Were any of our forum around in the early days of the beeb forum.

Gonnagle.

The Beeb R and E appears to have run from July 2005 to June 2011.

I was posting on the Beeb forum well before 2005.

Unlerss the Beeb have culled the earlier posts - the earliest post on most topics is dated July 25 2005

[floo]

Dear Rhiannon,

Well said

On the subject of new members, can I ask how old is this forum, I can only compare it to the old Beeb, how long did it take before it had lots of members and of course the Beeb had a name which people could flock to.

Were any of our forum around in the early days of the beeb forum.

Gonnagle.

The Beeb R and E appears to have run from July 2005 to June 2011.

I was posting on the Beeb forum well before 2005.

Unlerss the Beeb have culled the earlier posts - the earliest post on most topics is dated July 25 2005

They must have culled them, I started posting on the forum in the late 90s.

[Aruntraveller]

Some of those old Beeb posters found their way here, and so the athests among them are now well past the tenth anniversary of their wasted posts!!   

Some of those old Beeb posters found their way here, and so the athests Christians among them are now well past the tenth anniversary of their wasted posts!!   

Fixed that for you BA ;-)

Also please note I even took the trouble to spell 'Christians' correctly and even capitalise it.

[floo]

Some of those old Beeb posters found their way here, and so the athests among them are now well past the tenth anniversary of their wasted posts!!   

Some of those old Beeb posters found their way here, and so the athests Christians among them are now well past the tenth anniversary of their wasted posts!!   

Fixed that for you BA ;-)

Also please note I even took the trouble to spell 'Christians' correctly and even capitalise it.

That was kind of you TV, some people need a bit of help with spelling and grammar!

[Owlswing]

Some of those old Beeb posters found their way here, and so the athests among them are now well past the tenth anniversary of their wasted posts!!   

Some of those old Beeb posters found their way here, and so the athests Christians among them are now well past the tenth anniversary of their wasted posts!!   

Fixed that for you BA ;-)

Also please note I even took the trouble to spell 'Christians' correctly and even capitalise it.

That was kind of you TV, some people need a bit of help with spelling and grammar!

Hmm. A bit?

[Sassy]

If people are insulting other members and being aggressive to other members and this is resulting in members leaving the board isn't this something that should be addressed by the moderators?

Would that be with the wand of partial or impartiality? Or both?

I think we know interest in the internet is a dying thing...
Social media like twitter and face book take up so much of peoples time.

Personally, maybe the fact that a lot of believers were driven away means the atheists have very few people who can be bothered to answer the same old, same old.

Then again some we use to post with still post on other forums.. Including people like Andrew, Victoria Plum and Greg...

VP still posts on this forum under another name.

I wondered about that... But I know she would have let me know if posting here as she posts on one of my forums.
Though we post on others together too.
I guess that it would be a recent thing so to speak if here.

OR someone who has now left.

[floo]

If people are insulting other members and being aggressive to other members and this is resulting in members leaving the board isn't this something that should be addressed by the moderators?

Would that be with the wand of partial or impartiality? Or both?

I think we know interest in the internet is a dying thing...
Social media like twitter and face book take up so much of peoples time.

Personally, maybe the fact that a lot of believers were driven away means the atheists have very few people who can be bothered to answer the same old, same old.

Then again some we use to post with still post on other forums.. Including people like Andrew, Victoria Plum and Greg...

VP still posts on this forum under another name.

I wondered about that... But I know she would have let me know if posting here as she posts on one of my forums.
Though we post on others together too.
I guess that it would be a recent thing so to speak if here.

OR someone who has now left.

Her last post was on July 20th.

[ippy]

If people are insulting other members and being aggressive to other members and this is resulting in members leaving the board isn't this something that should be addressed by the moderators?

Would that be with the wand of partial or impartiality? Or both?

I think we know interest in the internet is a dying thing...
Social media like twitter and face book take up so much of peoples time,

Personally, maybe the fact that a lot of believers were driven away means the atheists have very few people who can be bothered to answer the same old, same old.

Then again some we use to post with still post on other forums.. Including people like Andrew, Victoria Plum and Greg...

VP still posts on this forum under another name.

I wondered about that... But I know she would have let me know if posting here as she posts on one of my forums.
Though we post on others together too.
I guess that it would be a recent thing so to speak if here.

OR someone who has now left.

I couldn't help noticing where you refer to some forums of yours Sass, oh dear, sigh.

ippy.

[Leonard James]

I couldn't help noticing where you refer to some forums of yours Sass, oh dear, sigh.

ippy.

It's the royal prerogative! 

[Nearly Sane]

I couldn't help noticing where you refer to some forums of yours Sass, oh dear, sigh.

ippy.

It's the royal prerogative! 

I thought Sass had a forum that she had set up, in which case it is her's.

[Leonard James]

I couldn't help noticing where you refer to some forums of yours Sass, oh dear, sigh.

ippy.

It's the royal prerogative! 

I thought Sass had a forum that she had set up, in which case it is her's.

But she actually said :- "on one of my forums".

[ippy]

I couldn't help noticing where you refer to some forums of yours Sass, oh dear, sigh.

ippy.

It's the royal prerogative! 

I thought Sass had a forum that she had set up, in which case it is her's.

But she actually said :- "on one of my forums".

It's allright for you lot, I wont be getting much sleep now and probably for some time too.

Poor old god sitting there under instruction, I bet he she or it wishes it hadn't contacted Sass, it must regret the day?

ippy

[Jack Knave]

Maybe because they see us all as a bunch of losers who keep going round in circles. 

Isn't that what pagans do?

[Owlswing]

Maybe because they see us all as a bunch of losers who keep going round in circles. 

Isn't that what pagans do?

Yes, Pagans go round in circles, depending, of course, which ritual they are doing, some don't need going round in circles.

[OH MY WORLD!]

 That's right, some don't need to, those ones were born dizzy. What a bonus!

[Owlswing]

Why are there so few new members?

Could it possibly be that anyone from outside the forum perusing the various threads on the forum will find that thread after thread consists of the same opinions and sentiments repeated again and again and again - put simply, because there are so few posters the forum has become boring, deadly boring?

Virtually every siingle thread, regardless of the subject of the OP, winds up becoming an argy-bargy between the non-Christians and the Christians, the prove it and the prove otherwise, interminable reams of posts saying things that have been said a myriad times before.

Not only that but by reading an OP the responses from the various members can be predicted almost word for word; read an OP, think of a poster, and you can usually predict exactly what is going to be said by that poster, we know each other too well.

As I said the forum has, from lack of variety become boring, it has stagnated, and I, as much as any here, have contributed to that stagnation.   

[Leonard James]

As I said the forum has, from lack of variety become boring, it has stagnated, and I, as much as any here, have contributed to that stagnation.

Same here. Our two camps are entrenched in our own ideas and cannot help but repeat ourselves.

I used to hope that silent readers would be influenced one way or the other, but I am becoming more and more convinced that there ain't no such people!

All we are doing is banging our heads on opposite sides of the same brick wall. 

[Gordon]

I don't think the mods are accepting new members.

Or the registrations are getting lost in the system.

A friend of mine applied ages ago but nothing ever came of it.

Moderator:

Tell them to apply again Julie, and PM me with the Username they intend to use and I'll look out for it.

On an average day we get registrations from between 60 - 80 spammers (sometimes more) that we have to wade through, so it is possible that we could have missed a genuine one.

[Nearly Sane]

I don't really see it as 2 camps - it's messier than that. I post more than 50% of stuff on non religious topics and when it comes to the political threads there is every shade under the sun. Even on religion, I agree in many ways more with Jim and Gonnagle than lots of those who regard religion as an evil. If there is a poster here that I haven't had a disagreement, or indeed supported in some way, with I would be surprised.

Yes there is an issue about repetition but it is more on a set of relatively small issues, homosexuality, evolution (which I try to avoid as it's not really an argument), objective morality - but the other stuff can throw up interesting discussions. I would encourage others to set up topics that interest them - perhaps too few of us try to expand the areas of discussion.


As to getting more members, I know boards with many thousands of members and there is no real difference to the cyclical repetition in some subjects. It's, as has already been noted, about the brand and we ain't one. We are merely a small collection of waifs and strays from the BBC boards thrown together with a couple of additions, on a small raft of the interweb to bicker and cajole through cybertime. In the end I don't see anything wrong with that.

[Gordon]

We are merely a small collection of waifs and strays from the BBC boards thrown together with a couple of additions, on a small raft of the interweb to bicker and cajole through cybertime. In the end I don't see anything wrong with that.

Nicely put NS.

[Rhiannon]

We are merely a small collection of waifs and strays from the BBC boards thrown together with a couple of additions, on a small raft of the interweb to bicker and cajole through cybertime. In the end I don't see anything wrong with that.

Nicely put NS.

I thought we were a dysfunctional group of co-dependent nutters but there you go.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

We are merely a small collection of waifs and strays from the BBC boards thrown together with a couple of additions, on a small raft of the interweb to bicker and cajole through cybertime. In the end I don't see anything wrong with that.

Nicely put NS.

I thought we were a dysfunctional group of co-dependent nutters but there you go.

I agree.

[Leonard James]

I don't really see it as 2 camps - it's messier than that. I post more than 50% of stuff on non religious topics and when it comes to the political threads there is every shade under the sun. Even on religion, I agree in many ways more with Jim and Gonnagle than lots of those who regard religion as an evil. If there is a poster here that I haven't had a disagreement, or indeed supported in some way, with I would be surprised.

Yes there is an issue about repetition but it is more on a set of relatively small issues, homosexuality, evolution (which I try to avoid as it's not really an argument), objective morality - but the other stuff can throw up interesting discussions. I would encourage others to set up topics that interest them - perhaps too few of us try to expand the areas of discussion.


As to getting more members, I know boards with many thousands of members and there is no real difference to the cyclical repetition in some subjects. It's, as has already been noted, about the brand and we ain't one. We are merely a small collection of waifs and strays from the BBC boards thrown together with a couple of additions, on a small raft of the interweb to bicker and cajole through cybertime. In the end I don't see anything wrong with that.

Yes, you are right, and I was referring to only the small section which is religion versus evolution. I should have made that clear.