Men, how do you feel about the forum?

[FollowingHim]

Would it be sufficient to reorganise the forum main page so that it starts with a section for "Real Life", being all the sorts of discussions you outline, and then later there is a section for deeper discussion, but leave everyone with access to all? That way people can choose how deep they jump in and we're not offending anyone by saying "you're not ready for that", but they can stay in the first section forever if they like.

The only problem is that the deeper discussions will continue to jump up in the "what's new" feed. I don't have a technical way to limit that unfortunately. But people who aren't interested in everything, if the forum is structured more clearly, may have no need to use that feed.

 

[FollowingHim]

Actually, people can use the "watch forums" tool to just "watch" the forums they are interested in, and see a list of new posts from those only instead of all forums. That's actually really simple to use if I just explain it to people.

 

[Cap]

Oy, a loaded question. The subdivision of Meat and General discussion if it is enforced is a good start. Looking at Biblical Family as first a Ministry for marriage. First I would say restructuring so that new comers and lurkers only have acess to The general subdivision of certain topics. What a biblical family, whether mono or poly, looks like, what in general does a biblical man look like and his role and duty in a family, what in general does a biblical woman look like and her role and duty in a family. Testimonies of success of biblical minded (beleivers in Yeshua) families and of failures to be avoided.

One problem arises immediately is not everyone one the forum hold the same beleif of theses topics so in discussing them it's already a meat topic.

Also threads about courtship/dating, structuring life to accommodate a Biblical poly family. These should be what lurkers and new commers should first have acess to. I know some folks come with a better understanding than others and could hold there own in the meat but the meat tends to be about non biblical or nonapplical matters that evoke passion.

With tenure and trust access to The meat threads. Maybe going back to the old threads and archiving I am more of a Calvinist Shiite type post to avoid confusion.

Great idea, I wonder too is there a way to limit a new person to the family/marriage section first, get them to focus on that first. Probably not a easy way to do that though.

 

[FollowingHim2]

Would it be sufficient to reorganise the forum main page so that it starts with a section for "Real Life", being all the sorts of discussions you outline, and then later there is a section for deeper discussion, but leave everyone with access to all?

I think reorganising things, and changing the names of things maybe would help. For example, right now in the 'community' section, there's the thread on 'what is good and what is evil'. That's a meat thread, and isn't really just 'community' stuff, if that makes sense. The messianic/Hebrew roots section is under there too, and we all know how meaty some of those posts can get.
Then under 'marriage and family discussions' you've got book reviews, which doesn't really fit.
I don't agree with blocking people out of a part of the forum (besides men's and women's sections), but I could be wrong there.

 

[FollowingHim]

It's easy to limit access to places. The problem is deciding what that looks like, and when they should get access to the next bit. And deciding whether access should have been limited anyway, which I still don't really agree with.

Should people have read-only access to "meat" discussions, or no access at all? If no access, then this will disappear from the public internet and be no longer available as a resource to people browsing the forum looking for information. So that's not an option, it's too big a change.

We'd have to be talking about only limiting people's write-access, but still being able to read it all. Which really defeats the purpose as they're still just as easily scared off by it.

Getting access to the next part can be done automatically (e.g. a certain time after signing up, or after they've made a certain number of posts, or received a certain number of likes, or whatever) - but that's frustrating to everybody as it doesn't really work for anybody, everyone's different.
Or manually (only on approval of a moderator - but I really don't want to add that workload, and it's not effective as people will end up being forgotten and missing out for years while everyone assumes they already have access).
Or with an opt-in system, with people changing something in their own personal information to get access (but that's confusing and people will get very frustrated figuring it out).

Furthermore, people lurk here for months, even years, and then sign up when they want to post something. Or their spouse is here for years, and they're familiar with the forum through them, then sign up themself to post something. If we limit everyone to only the "milk" section (for want of a better word), it just frustrates people who have been lurking, now want to post, sign up - and find they still cannot comment on the one thread that they wanted to comment on. Just because someone is a new signup doesn't mean they're actually new.

I'd prefer to keep things as simple as possible, and not hold people back or confuse them if we don't really need to. Let's find what we can do that achieves the required goals without being quite that drastic.

 

[Nikud]

It's easy to limit access to places. The problem is deciding what that looks like, and when they should get access to the next bit. And deciding whether access should have been limited anyway, which I still don't really agree with.

Should people have read-only access to "meat" discussions, or no access at all? If no access, then this will disappear from the public internet and be no longer available as a resource to people browsing the forum looking for information. So that's not an option, it's too big a change.

We'd have to be talking about only limiting people's write-access, but still being able to read it all. Which really defeats the purpose as they're still just as easily scared off by it.

Getting access to the next part can be done automatically (e.g. a certain time after signing up, or after they've made a certain number of posts, or received a certain number of likes, or whatever) - but that's frustrating to everybody as it doesn't really work for anybody, everyone's different.
Or manually (only on approval of a moderator - but I really don't want to add that workload, and it's not effective as people will end up being forgotten and missing out for years while everyone assumes they already have access).
Or with an opt-in system, with people changing something in their own personal information to get access (but that's confusing and people will get very frustrated figuring it out).

Furthermore, people lurk here for months, even years, and then sign up when they want to post something. Or their spouse is here for years, and they're familiar with the forum through them, then sign up themself to post something. If we limit everyone to only the "milk" section (for want of a better word), it just frustrates people who have been lurking, now want to post, sign up - and find they still cannot comment on the one thread that they wanted to comment on. Just because someone is a new signup doesn't mean they're actually new.

I'd prefer to keep things as simple as possible, and not hold people back or confuse them if we don't really need to. Let's find what we can do that achieves the required goals without being quite that drastic.

It seems like there's no easy fix, simple would be best. It makes it harder when you take in the account of the frustrations of those who may never log in and post because of changes and compare them to the frustrations of those who may never log in and post because of no or too little changes.

 

[Cap]

@FollowingHim2 suggestion about putting things in order seems to be the simplest way to bring clarity.

 

[FollowingHim]

Here's one I prepared earlier...
How does this look for a reorganised forum structure? First 5 sections of the forum main page get shrunk down to these 3 sections.

Start here:
- About the website (current "new website and forum")
- FAQs - Key topics
- FAQs - Other topics

Family life:
- Help! (new subforum, but shift some existing threads to it. Gives an obvious place for anyone to ask for advice with real-world issues, that's not obvious right now)
- Looking for information
- Introductions
- Prayer requests
- Retreats, meetups, local connections
- Health, food and more
- Ladies only
- Gentlemen only
- 25 and under
- Testimonies

Deeper discussion (theology and more):
- Marriage issues
- Family issues
- Singles issues
- Problems and solutions
- Book reviews
- Online outreach
- Biblical issues other than marriage and family
- Messianic Jews / Hebrew Roots Gentiles
- Off topic
- The Best of the Forums

It's not perfect. It's impossible to do this "properly" as we have meat and support threads scattered everywhere, and I'd like to keep Ladies Only and Gentlemen Only together even though in practice one is meaty and the other is not. But with some key mismatched threads moved to different subforums, I think it could work.

 

[PeteR]

And, if I understand the numbers correctly, the viewership and lurkers are growing... so, the key is to figure out how to get them to take the plunge and being the tentative swim and get the feel of the waters...

 

[Slumberfreeze]

Maybe some effort to restrict/limit access to topics that are not "Mission Critical". ?
The mission statement mentions:
1 The mission of Biblical Families is to support and encourage all families
2 to teach what the Bible has to say about marriage and family and the God-given roles of men, women, and children
3 to support local groups—both existing fellowships that may come to accept this truth and those who are starting from scratch

And as much fun as I have debating minutia, that isn't what BF was envisioned to be about. It might be worth drawing the dividing line somewhere around there. That way any offenses that come that drive people away will be at least On Topic offenses.

 

[FollowingHim]

Thanks for the pointer back to the mission statement @Slumberfreeze. I still don't think limiting access is needed, but that's a good justification for dividing up the forum accordingly.

 

[Nikud]

Maybe if we say,

Hey you lurkers log in and post your opinion.

It will get them to post.

 

[Cap]

Given "Biblical issues other than marriage and family", what is "off topic" used for?

Like the memes, or link?

 

[Nikud]

I thought about taking the most common names for 40 year-olds and comon American last names and saying

That's right.

• Michael Smith
• Jason Johnson.
• Christopher Williams.
• David Jones.
• James Brown.
• Matthew Davis.
• John Miller.
• Robert Wilson.

We're watching you and would like your opinions, but that could be creepy.

 

[FollowingHim]

Given "Biblical issues other than marriage and family", what is "off topic" used for?

Like the memes, or link?

Have a look. It's a real mixed bag. If in doubt, I put it in the "deeper issues" section in the above list, hence why I dropped that there.

 

[FollowingHim2]

Given "Biblical issues other than marriage and family", what is "off topic" used for?

Anything else that isn't about biblical issues. I posted in there about home schooling and learning Chinese for example.

 

[Cap]

Have a look. It's a real mixed bag. If in doubt, I put it in the "deeper issues" section in the above list, hence why I dropped that there.

Oh, I see. I thought the list you created was hypothetical, I see you already made the change. Cool.

 

[Slumberfreeze]

Personally I don't know how much actually needs fixing. On the one hand, if someone is just casually curious about biblical poly, I don't try to hard to push them here. Don't need them equating personalities with a doctrine. On the other hand if they are desperate for an online resource, this would be the only place I'd point them to. And since the site activity keeps climbing, I can only assume our message is gaining in cultural relevance right along with it.

We can mix and match labels for things all we want, but at the end of the day we'll be known by our fruit no matter how hard we try to segregate our bitter tasting stuff.

 

[frederick]

On the other hand if they are desperate for an online resource, this would be the only place I'd point them to.

Likewise. This ministry was the only place/people where I got the encouragement and counsel I needed when my whole life seemed to be disintegrating before my eyes. I thank God for the men and women here who come alongside and hold up the brother or sister who are shell-shocked and wounded by (former) friends and family. My suggestion here for people like I was; people who are in the midst of the battles and desperate for help, is to make the 'Help' section more prominent and resources; e.g. like the book Samuel wrote, easy to find. This is really life and death issues. For those of you who have lost just about everything because you have stood steadfast on the truth of God's word, you know what I'm talking about. We've a little over two weeks left till we've got to be out of the house, so that's the family (grown kids and other immediate relatives), income, and house gone.

You people are beyond just helpful, you are life savers so don't make anything harder to locate but make the life-vests easier to find for those sinking. Shalom

 

[FollowingHim]

Oh, I see. I thought the list you created was hypothetical, I see you already made the change. Cool.

I haven't changed anything. That section has existed for years. This list is hypothetical - but it's almost all just reorganising existing sections.