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#Post#: 201--------------------------------------------------
Re: Domain name ideas (poll)
By: Mackie Messer Date: July 14, 2020, 9:44 am
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Those were doing poorly before the forum even opened. They've
been dead for years. With the exception of Ed's blog, the big
Thomism, Scotism, etc. groups are all on Facebook.
I don't think the forum is necessary (it never was), but I do
think it can provide a service for those who want to talk about
philosophy, scholasticism, religion, theism and related
political issues, and the like, without censorship. It's just
that I can't be the one who puts in the work to build it up this
time.
#Post#: 202--------------------------------------------------
Re: Domain name ideas (poll)
By: Mackie Messer Date: July 14, 2020, 10:26 am
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I'll add a few more quick comments. The first is that Ed's
combox isn't what it used to be, either. I remember back when
Scott was alive, Dan was active, Brandon was way more active (I
barely ever see him comment there anymore), monk was there,
Kantian Naturalist hadn't been chased off yet, etc., and the
level of conversation on there has gradually devolved over the
years. One of our other moderators once said he thinks that it's
because Ed rose to popularity on the back of the New Atheist
movement, and that as the New Atheist movement dwindled so did
his blog.
The second is that I honestly do think that the average level of
conversation on forums is higher than on Facebook or blog
comments sections. There are, sometimes, very exceptional
conversations on Facebook because of its reach. You can end up
finding a conversation between a bunch of professionals. But
most of the time it's quite low brow. The forum usually manages
to stay above that level.
The third is that I think the forum has the potential to develop
non-English subforums and serve people interested in
scholasticism outside the Anglosphere, or who aren't
particularly confident in English. There is a real poverty of
scholastic or classical theism groups in those languages. (There
is one decent place in French, but it tends to be dominated by a
very specific, history focused way of philosophizing. There is
nothing wrong with that, but there is a lot more to philosophy
than just that. I don't know of any in German.)
(Edit 7/18/2020: I should add one more thing, Jason. (I'm just
having a bit of fun with you. I assume you're the gentleman who
contacted Brian a while ago.) In your previous comment, you
seem to have assumed that this forum was never a debate forum.
That isn't so. A lot of the best threads were essentially
informal debate threads. As an experiment, I tried setting up a
formal debate forum on the vBulletin forum, but it never took
off. The preponderance of Q&A over debate on the old forum has
more to do with that being what people wanted out of the forum
than regulars or moderators' preferences.)
#Post#: 206--------------------------------------------------
Re: Domain name ideas (poll)
By: Ouros Date: July 21, 2020, 10:51 am
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@Mackie
As one of the newest member on the old forum, I must confess
that I'm one of the Q&A crowd. As an excuse, if I have to, of
which I'm not sure, it's because I don't even study philosophy
in a rigorous way. That's not the case of the oldest members, at
least it seems so. Doesn't all the contributors of the blog of
Ontological Investigations have actual, academic training in the
discipline, for example?
And when the majority of you lost interest in the forum, for
X,Y,Z reasons, that was one of the deadly blow that put the
forum in its actual shape.
#Post#: 207--------------------------------------------------
Re: Domain name ideas (poll)
By: Mackie Messer Date: July 21, 2020, 11:21 am
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Yes. There is truth in that. If there is no one knowledgeable to
answer questions, there can be no Q&A. Hence, if the forum
relies primarily on Q&A for traffic, then if there is no one
knowledgeable to answer questions the forum is likely to die.
Incidentally, Scott had no formal philosophy training, but was
knowledgeable. He had degrees in mathematics, computer science,
and law. So, even today there are exceptions to the rule that
only those who have studied philosophy formally are
knowledgeable about it.
#Post#: 208--------------------------------------------------
Re: Domain name ideas (poll)
By: Mackie Messer Date: July 22, 2020, 8:11 am
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It's worth noting that part of the reason we opened Ontological
Investigations was that we were spending so much time answering
questions that we decided we may as well switch to a format
better built for it. The other is that we always expected that
over time the people who were asking questions would become
knowledgeable to answer them and pick up some of the slack.
Presumably, that was why they were asking questions, but the few
who stayed either kept asking the same questions, or lacked
confidence to help others. (Ouros, you, I think, were one of the
exceptions who showed actual development.)
#Post#: 209--------------------------------------------------
Re: Domain name ideas (poll)
By: Mackie Messer Date: July 22, 2020, 8:27 am
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As for advice, I have a long list I'll post in the moderator
forum before disappearing, but, in the meantime, the first order
of business is to rebuild the administrator and moderator team,
which must include philosophically or theologically
knowledgeable people. If you like, I can recommend some people
who might be interested. (Worry about ability, not degrees.
Several of us lacked philosophy degrees when we started, but now
have professorships, or are studying for higher degrees at,
e.g., Cambridge, Oxford, or other top notch universities. That
is part of why we no longer have time.)
#Post#: 213--------------------------------------------------
Re: Domain name ideas (poll)
By: Ouros Date: July 23, 2020, 9:58 am
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[quote author=Mackie Messer link=topic=39.msg209#msg209
date=1595424443]
As for advice, I have a long list I'll post in the moderator
forum before disappearing, but, in the meantime, the first order
of business is to rebuild the administrator and moderator team,
which must include philosophically or theologically
knowledgeable people. If you like, I can recommend some people
who might be interested. (Worry about ability, not degrees.
Several of us lacked philosophy degrees when we started, but now
have professorships, or are studying for higher degrees at,
e.g., Cambridge, Oxford, or other top notch universities. That
is part of why we no longer have time.)
[/quote]
May I ask who's going to Cambridge and/or Oxford? That's pretty
amazing.
#Post#: 215--------------------------------------------------
Re: Domain name ideas (poll)
By: Mackie Messer Date: July 23, 2020, 11:47 am
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Dan!
#Post#: 219--------------------------------------------------
Re: Domain name ideas (poll)
By: MightyFool Date: July 23, 2020, 4:42 pm
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[quote]Thank you, Gerlof. Are English and Dutch the only
languages you speak?[/quote]
I also speak a bit of German, but that's mostly because it's so
similar to Dutch.
Here are my 2 cents regarding this forum.
Maintenance
I think I'm able to maintain the technical part of this forum.
I've got some basic knowledge of HTML/CSS and web hosting that
should hopefully be sufficient. I've mailed Brian regarding the
security of the forum. He hasn't got back to me with an answer
regarding the recovery mail he should have to restore this forum
in case of a hack. So I'll ping him again soon.
The biggest risk any forum has is too many administrator
accounts. Hack 1 of them and you have everything (including
private info). So I'm not a supporter of more than 2 or 3
administrators. All administrators should also have very strong
passwords.
Moderation
My experience with managing and being part of online communities
is that people are quite power hungry and can abuse their
position as a moderator. So only people who are very open to
different opinions should be moderators. Moderators don't have
to know much about philosophy or religion etc. in my opinion, as
long as they know what the rules are and what to do when someone
breaks them. I for example am an absolute beginner when it comes
to philosophy, and want this forum to be active BECAUSE I have
so many things I want to learn and discuss. Trolls of course
should be warned and eventually banned if necessary.
Bringing life to this forum
One thing I learned is that a community is never going to behave
as you want it to. Restrict them too much and no-one feels the
freedom to post anymore. Too much freedom isn't good either.
Now we can have meta discussions forever, but I'd like to take
action. The old forum still has members joining. So there are
people who are finding it and wanting to participate. I still
think that the forum is just simply not known enough. That's why
I first want to pull through with the domain name phase so we
can start the promotion phase. We can then steer this forum the
way we want.
I don't think people just having questions is a bad thing. Not
all discussion has to be high level. A simple question from
someone who is doubting his fate (I'm also covering my own
ground a bit here lol) that sparks an interesting discussion is
also fine to me. If people are too intimated to post I think we
won't attract much new members. So I would vote to keep the bar
low.
[quote]You need advertisement, you need knowledgeable, active
people, and after you reach a certain size you don't need, but
should have, someone with technological skills. The first is so
that people know you exist and where to find you. The second is
so that people will stay after they find you. The third helps
with aesthetics, security, and things like that. The second
takes the most time. I was probably burning at least five hours
a day on here after Scott died. It got better after a while, but
the fact is that most people aren't interested in contributing
to forums. They ask questions, get what they want, and leave.
[/quote]
I'm technical, can help with promotion and do everything
regarding aesthetics (I'm a UX/UI designer IRL), and know things
about security as well. The second point is the hardest yes. I'm
afraid I can't contribute much yet regarding to answers or
debates.
[quote]I supported moving to Facebook at the time, but in
retrospect I think the decision to not move was right.[/quote]
What are the current Facebook pages you guys post on? I'm not a
fan of Facebook (ethically and content wise) and almost no-one I
know uses it anymore in this country (and I think in Europe in
general). So I'm a big fan of our own place. Also because it
allows anonymity to a certain degree and everyone can read the
threads.
I agree that the name of the forum doesn't matter much (keep
voting though!)
[quote] I wonder if most of the interested folks have some other
place already besides here and reddit (facebook, Feser's blog
etc.) and maybe this forum isn't really necessary. What do you
all think?[/quote]
I'm curious about this as well. Most of the forums I encounter
are very low level in discussion or are filled with trolling
atheists. I'm hoping to have at least the Feser crowd all active
on here. I can't imagine people are satisfied by just posting in
the blog comments, since you can't really go off topic on there.
[quote]the big Thomism, Scotism, etc. groups are all on
Facebook[/quote]
Could you link those Mackie?
[quote]The third is that I think the forum has the potential to
develop non-English subforums and serve people interested in
scholasticism outside the Anglosphere[/quote]
This would be very cool indeed, although I think we should first
get a decent English speaking community before we branch out.
[quote]I can recommend some people who might be interested.
(Worry about ability, not degrees. Several of us lacked
philosophy degrees when we started, but now have professorships,
or are studying for higher degrees at, e.g., Cambridge, Oxford,
or other top notch universities. That is part of why we no
longer have time.)[/quote]
Please do! We can invite them after we have a domain name.
This is a bit of a messy post and I'll clean it up if I have
time (have to sleep now, way too late)
#Post#: 220--------------------------------------------------
Re: Domain name ideas (poll)
By: Mackie Messer Date: July 23, 2020, 5:03 pm
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Gerlof,
Could you link those Mackie?
HTML https://www.facebook.com/groups/TeamAquinas/
HTML https://www.facebook.com/groups/1861608004153751/
This would be very cool indeed, although I think we should first
get a decent English speaking community before we branch out.
I agree in general, but you already have a few French speakers,
and I notice that the French Aquinas forum has been down for at
least a week. So, I think it might actually be worth adding a
French subforum. (Certainly I'm more likely to take the time
read philosophical discussions on a forum in French than
English.) Partly, it's just nice for people to be able to fully
express themselves. For example, one of our older members, who I
don't think has signed up an account yet, has quite bad English,
but is surprisingly quite eloquent in French. (I was a bit taken
aback the first time I read something by him in French. It's
like he's a whole different person.)
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