I definitely agree with your first point; being 16, I don't find the parenting section too... alluring and the pop culture section makes me feel depressed sometimes, so I don't often check it.

And just like a church, everyone on wondercafe is appreciated. Atleast, I appreciate everyone!

Back to my analogy of Wondercafe and the church and the Wondie Awards.

Here,  like in a church, you can't  advertise to one group of people. You can't just tell the UCW and expect the youth and the parents ( who are teaching  in church school), for example to get the message. the message has to be to the whole congregation.

So, it is my opinion, that the Wondie Awards should have been advertised  on all the forums and then the advert would have been to everyone.The party crowd would not have been the only ones to participate in Social. Those who go to Politics  or relationships only would have been able to participate.

Very true. Next year that should be done.

Crazyheart - I too assumed that most people checked in on all the forums, at least once in awhile.  I realize that working people don't have as much time to spend on the computer as we retired people (unless they are able to check in at work).  I know I check most forums daily - except Pop Culture that gets a check once in awhile.  It seems to me that we used to get more action on Parenting, and on Health & Aging - but they hardly get any attention lately.  The new format does make it slower to check the various forums.

I also assumed that many of the people coming on the Cafe would be looking for community - a place where "everybody knows your name".  That if a person started a thread they would continue to be present on it - at least for awhile.  And that if a person posts to a thread they would come back on to see if anyone responded to what they had to say.

I have discovered that threads develop a life of their own.  They sometimes go off in directions that I never expected.  Sometimes to explore related topics that I find interesting - and sometimes to be a back and forth argument between two or three people.  If the original poster wants the thread to go in a specific direction I would assume that they would continue posting, calling it back.

Perhaps sometimes too we need someone to draw attention to a thread - maybe go into social and say "Hey, everybody, there is an interesting question over in Health and Aging about eating disorders (for example).  Have you checked it out?

I must have been away for a few days, and I missed the voting for the Wondie Awards, but it appears others did also. When and where did it take place?

Hi crazyheart,

Well, that may or may not be true.  If I only have limited time then I limit my choices and Religion and Faith is always a priority for me.  If I have time to pop into the other forums I tend to lurk.  I will make the odd comment and start the odd thread but most often I'm just gathering information. 

Within reason.  Dumping a health and aging thread into Religion and Faith just because you want it to get traffic defeats the purpose of the various forums.  Religion and Faith gets the most traffic.  Does it get the most thought?

The longer the thread the more likely it is full of reactivity and emoted response.  This is particularly true in Religion and Faith where we are very cautious of people telling us how things should be.

The other forums do not appear to suffer from the same emotional reactivity.  And where a dumb comment is tossed out it doesn't derail the thread.  On Musical Mackenzie's post which she started as she was beginning to miscarry she commented on spotting.  Those of us with experience knew that this was potentially serious.  One poster asked if she was spotting trains.  It was meant to be light hearted but it soared like a lead balloon.  We didn't jump down the throat of that poster and when it became clear to that poster what was going on that poster was quick to try and reconcile.

If that had been Religion and Faith it would have been prelude to a beat down.

It is always a possibility and always an option.  Family has more unwritten rules than they do written ones.  It can take some time to fit in.

However, I also think that this is just an assumption that I had.Many do have a community feeling but others just drop in and out or post once and never post again. And I do know that real Life does get in the way. ( lol)

I assume everyone who participates is up to actually having a conversation.  Other than that I expect that since we are all human it is going to look like we are all human.

Grace and peace to you.

John

CH, will come back to this...but I really feel the re-design has had an issue with the posts..

That "last active thread"...doesn't show enough...especially with long names.

Frequent posters can help by making short thread titles.

For example, this thread takes up 3 lines on my screen in the frame.

That means, instead of seeing three activee threads, I only see one.  Plus, the way to jump around discussion areas is now slower.  I jsut don't do it.

I do occasionally pop in on other forums, but I came and stay primarily for R&F. The other site where I hang is pop culture (gaming, specifically) oriented to start with and has a very good "Other Media" forum for discussions of pop culture not directly related to the primary subject, so I rarely go into pop culture here. The social community over there is livelier than Social and has politics (and any other non pop culture topic) rolled into it. However, the one subject I avoid over there like the plague is religion, since religion threads, even ones that start out fairly positive, tend to end to in lots of dogpiling and mod warnings about personal and group attacks. So, when I learned about WC (ad in either Today's Parent or RD, I believe), I popped over to see whether it would be a friendlier place to discuss spiritual matters and, indeed, it is.

So, I suppose I'm an example of your first assumption being wrong (I don't really go into other forums much) and your second being right (I did come to be part of the WC community and I am continuing to be so). I suppose that my assumption coming in was that this would be a more "spiritual" site. That's largely true, although I've seen a couple threads threaten to go the route of religion threads on the other site (although folks here tend to be fairly pleasant even when dogpiling someone. It's that "Canadians are such nice people" stereotype, I guess).

i agree.  i find the new format has made it less user friendly.  much harder to see what is going on and jumping around does take more time.

I find that, like RevJohn - time is my main influence on where I post.  When I have time, I go step by step through the forums, starting with Social, and then R&F and so on.  If I'm kind of strapped for time, I'll just go as far as I get in my usual order, but if I'm really in a hurry, the Active threads get the first attention and maybe into Social to say hi. 
It means I've missed people's 'need help' threads at times and I hate missing those. 

My #1 suggestion for newcomers is to participate/say hi in Social and also participate in their interest threads.  The Social aspect has been where we smooth hurt feelings, find more to a poster than just a strong opinion, and build the community - very helpful in developing our thoughts & understandings elsewhere.

It makes sense to me that most people come here to have "open minded discussion about religion). So...I always assumed that R&F was the "main" forum - and others were more or less just for fun and interest. I never once went to Health until I had a health problem - lol.

the wondie awards is just another game thing, imho... aotn did it, and it flew for a year.  this year, not so much.

imho, the problem was that it was just TOO MUCH WORK for me to sit down and go through all the categories... if more participation is the goal, then keep it short and sweet. 

Wondercafe posters come from all walks of life with many different interests (and in my case a different country). There is also a wide age range.

Thus, it seems natural to me that some discussion categories attract different groupings of posters.

Revjohn's comment about the Religion and Faith category is interesting. "The longer the thread the more likely it is to be full of reactivity and emoted response."

It's ironic that one of the purposes of faith is to experience a sense of connection, and yet it seems that the Religion and Faith category is often devisive.

personally, i am glad that people feel free to challenge me and others on the religion forum... my faith is about growth and knowledge, and that is impossible without questions and challenge. 

Greetings!

I kind of missed out on the "wondie awards" - wasn't exactly sure what the process was.  And I was away for a bit, so I guess I missed it all.

While yes, it is tempting to post for example a parenting related topic in religion and faith to get more "look ats" I think it is important to post a topic starter in the appropriate forum.

One of the things I miss on this new format of WC was the place where I could go into and look at all the places only I had posted a comment - I can't find that here?  Not that I post in that many, but sometimes after a few days I forget where I have posted - the other format enabled me to look quickly and go back and check that topic.

I think sometimes in any kind of community - virtual or real - we can forget that "new" people aren't automatically in the know and sometimes repeated information is necessary if is our desire that they are in the know.  Like any community, different posters/lurkers on WC are looking for different things - some want to become a more involved, active, contributing, accepted, cared for, part of the community, and some want to look in and pop out.

Hope, peace, joy, love ...

Beloved, if you go to your profile and click on "track" it will give you a list of the threads that you have posted on. 

Hi Pilgrims Progress,

The divisiveness appears to come from style.

Once upon a time it was possible to order the view of any given forum according to the responses to a particular topic.  With the upgrade we have lost that function.  Of the five threads currently appearing on archive page 182 in the Religion and Faith forum 1 has 272 responses and the rest have less than 100.  The abberational thread points to a poll claiming that 53% of Americans do not believe in evolution.  On page 181 only 1 thread tops 100 responses.  This thread is asking if a Gay male would find acceptance in the United Church.

Both issues seem to draw out individuals who compartmentalize God in a certain way and provoke others who compartmentalize God in other ways.

Archive pages 180 and 177 contain no threads nabbing 100 responses.  Even though they contain threads devoted to what it typically where the divisiveness rears its ugly head.  Of course, there aren't many new faces popping up in these threads so it would seem that the fire and heat have died down somewhat.

There are cycles of sound and fury here in the WonderCafe.  Most of that heat and light is manifest in Religion and faith where more extreme voices tell more moderate voices what is wrong with them and more moderate voices are only too happy to point out the flaws in the more extreme voices.

Battle lines are drawn quite readily and easily in Religion and Faith.

Grace and peace to you.

John

Sorry I've been gone so much, super busy.  Anywho, for me personally I like reading all the opinions and comments in Religion and Faith but find a majority of the conversations to be to intense for my liking.  I'm still finding my way and mabye once I undersatnd my relationship with God a little better I will be more comfterable.  As of right now I am content to post on occasion and mabye start a thread every once in a while in that forum, but I do like reading and learing from everyone elses experiances and opinions.  Believe me I have learned alot. 

Hi  revjohn,

I take your point about the conflict between the more extreme and  the more moderate voices.

It seems that often the literal/orthodox believers are inflexible in their views, and this upsets both the progressives and the athiests. Some progressives and athiests then respond in an extreme way due to irritation.

In the words of an Aussie bushranger, Ned Kelly,  "Such is life."

(This was said shortly before his hanging - not that I suggest we should take our conflicts to this level.)

Greetings!

Thanks, somegirl.

Hope, peace, joy, love . . .

Hi Pilgrims Progress,

Where that conflict doesn't enter into a thread it usually stops at about the 50 post mark.

Lumping the literal and the orthodox together is unfortunate.  Orthodoxy has never held literalism in high regard.  Literalism might, fit into some neo-orthodoxy but not orthodoxy proper.

That's just a nit-picky thing.  Sorry.

We probably shouldn't and thank God we aren't that literal (even our literalists) but we have our metaphorical equivalents.

Grace and peace to you.

John

 Crazyheart, this site has legs. Once you are in, you are never really out--it does something to you. Sometimes I'll drop by and lurk, occasionally (rarely) I'll post, but the site always means something to me, even when I am away--a 'good place' where I know acceptance is the norm and good people are waiting. It was once an active part of my faith experience, It is now a refuge and a place to be refreshed. Who knows what else it might be in the future?

For those who are deciding the fate of the site, try not to be too introspective about its 'value.' I suspect that for many, as for me, it has greater meaning and worth than surface indicators would suggest.

amen, snow... AMEN.

 I assumed that I'd post more and be a more active participant.  I read often, every night when I get a chance.  But rarely have time by myself to concentrate and actually post.