What is happening?


Traveler
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Anciently, while I was serving as a missionary in the church, my mission president counselled us that there were 3 kinds of missionaries.   First are the missionaries that dig in and regardless of the difficulty work and make good things happen.  The Second are the missionaries that avoid anything difficult and so they sit on the sidelines and watch things happen.  He then would say that the rest of us fall into the category of the third type of missionaries that wonder what is happening.

There use to be a grand number of posters sharing ideas, asking questions and spilling wisdom all over the place.  Have all the problems and new ideas been used up?????   Did I doze off and miss the thread where everything was solved????   Has everyone gone to Portland to protest????  Or cure the protesters????  

What is HAPPENING????

 

The Traveler

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Many regular users have left the site, some thankfully (IMHO) others are missed.   I still read the site daily, but only comment when I feel I have something to add.  
 

While the communication here has slowed, I personally feel it is much more faith-centered and less distracted by trolling and inactive Saints offering seedy advice and opinions that don't firmly side with Church teachings.  
 

Im not the site owner or administrator, but in the past I've stepped back from the site several times due to the conversations.   Now, much of what is posted goes over my head but I still learn by reading.  

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I haven’t been involved nearly as much as I use to.
 

some observations that may attribute to this:

- A LOT of politics, and in any community if you aren’t participating in the echo chamber, you get booted out. That being said I agree with virtually all of the conservative Political views held in here... but I don’t see the need to participate in The political echo chamber we have, nor engage in frivolous political debates  with those I disagree with.

TLDR: Online political discourse bores me

- The topics I see I have little interest in. Either they are of little value (white supremacy in the Book of Mormon, nature of angels, nature of deer stones) or I read the thread and feel I have nothing to add from what was already written 

- I have transcended the need of gospel discussion with you mortal heathens

 

despite that, I do agree with your observations . I will try to spark some interesting conversations based on my studies.

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I have noticed that some posters are not here as often in posting and am somewhat worried regarding that.  I hope that some will post more in the future.  I have missed some of the more prolific posters of the past as they seem to have reduced their usage of the forums drastically.

I am not one to create topics a lot, though I will comment on items.  Recently, as I have not been able to do my  normal research abroad this year, I have been doing some other forms of research which have distracted me from other things.  In addition, as the school year has started, I have had to do things differently in regards to students (preparing in person, as well as online materials which have made me far more busy these past few weeks than normal).  This stuff has increased my normal workload.

Perhaps I should go back to a thread I made for specific thoughts I had regarding LDS culture, teachings and culture, or another thought is to create one where I simply go over my basic scripture readings of the week or scriptural thoughts, though that probably would not increase the amount of postings in the forum by a huge amount. 

I do appreciate the focus of this forum on Pro-Church sentiment and posting uplifting ideas regarding the Church and the gospel of Jesus Christ.

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4 hours ago, Jamie123 said:

Also Anatess seems to have been banned. I'm not asking why, so please keep your hair on - I'm just commenting that this forum won't be the same without her.

I consider @anatess2 to be one of the sharper minds I have encountered.   A kindred spirit - Maybe I will be next???

As a side note - I had a high school teacher that talked me into joining the debate team.  One of my favorite quotes about life comes from him -- "Think small, big ideas will upset just about everybody."

And for the record - try as I may I have not been able to keep my hair on - except for my eye brows, nose and ears.

Another note.  I have been stuck at home because of surgery (both myself and the wife).  Posting is about the only thing left to do - TV has no sports and the news has not changed in months and if there is anything on TV worth watching - it has been removed????

 

The Traveler

Edited by Traveler
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I took a bit of a sabbatical when I moved and lost regular internet access.  I came back and saw that it had been a bit inactive, which is not uncommon for message boards. 

I'm mostly here to connect with people who share similar religious and spiritual beliefs, so I don't often visit the current events or political discussions.  Also, I get enough of that elsewhere.

 

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15 minutes ago, dprh said:

To me, it seemed to happen near the end of the Mask thread.  MG and Grunt got into it.  MG left and the thread got closed.  The forums haven't seemed the same since then.

A few people left/got banned.  It's not the first time two people have disagreed.  MG had been the focal point of several threads leading up to that, which is why I assume he left, unless the mods said something to him.  Then Anatess was banned.  Vort has been silent/gone.  Zil left awhile ago.  

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I very rarely check in any more as it mostly seems like a waste of time for me these days. I'm busy with young children and when I have gone to the effort to share thoughts they don't appear to be helpful to anyone, so I figure I might as well spend my time with my family instead of trying to share insights with people I don't really know and doubly so when what I share is not helpful anyway. I did try for a time a couple years ago to work with some fitness help as that's something I do, but I started to just feel like a nag and people stopped responding so I stepped away from that too. 

That's on top of the fact that too often I just felt all of the conversation was becoming toxic and participating wasn't uplifting. Perhaps, I need to check in and try to contribute more again? 

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8 hours ago, SpiritDragon said:

I very rarely check in any more as it mostly seems like a waste of time for me these days. I'm busy with young children and when I have gone to the effort to share thoughts they don't appear to be helpful to anyone, so I figure I might as well spend my time with my family instead of trying to share insights with people I don't really know and doubly so when what I share is not helpful anyway. I did try for a time a couple years ago to work with some fitness help as that's something I do, but I started to just feel like a nag and people stopped responding so I stepped away from that too. 

That's on top of the fact that too often I just felt all of the conversation was becoming toxic and participating wasn't uplifting. Perhaps, I need to check in and try to contribute more again? 

I think you should contribute more.  This very well may just be my perception, but the posts that seem to get the most attention are the controversial posts.  I really miss the basic, uplifting posts about beliefs and doctrine.  I never really posted on them because I would usually have to research them to truly understand, so that probably contributed to their decline.  Some of them really sent me on goose chases that increased my knowledge and understanding of some things.

The long posts about outlying theology are over my head and I find them uninteresting.  

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17 hours ago, SpiritDragon said:

I very rarely check in any more as it mostly seems like a waste of time for me these days. I'm busy with young children and when I have gone to the effort to share thoughts they don't appear to be helpful to anyone, so I figure I might as well spend my time with my family instead of trying to share insights with people I don't really know and doubly so when what I share is not helpful anyway. I did try for a time a couple years ago to work with some fitness help as that's something I do, but I started to just feel like a nag and people stopped responding so I stepped away from that too. 

That's on top of the fact that too often I just felt all of the conversation was becoming toxic and participating wasn't uplifting. Perhaps, I need to check in and try to contribute more again? 

Just as a side note - I have discovered both from my posting and responding to other posts - - - That when something is well thought out and logically posted that when others read it they will seldom respond.  But if you are to post something quite stupid or bazaar - everybody will respond in great lengths.

As for toxic conversations - I like to reference Shakespeare who said, "Nothing is as good or as bad as it seams only that thinking makes it so."

 

The Traveler

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On 8/26/2020 at 2:10 PM, Traveler said:

Just as a side note - I have discovered both from my posting and responding to other posts - - - That when something is well thought out and logically posted that when others read it they will seldom respond.  But if you are to post something quite stupid or bazaar - everybody will respond in great lengths.

As for toxic conversations - I like to reference Shakespeare who said, "Nothing is as good or as bad as it seams only that thinking makes it so."

 

The Traveler

Is this a round about way of patting yourself on the back seeing how you said in another thread that your posts are always ending threads? 😁

So I guess we just need to recruit a bunch of half-wits and not allow you to respond until at least the second page. That'll get things going around here. 😉

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On 8/31/2020 at 3:30 PM, laronius said:

Is this a round about way of patting yourself on the back seeing how you said in another thread that your posts are always ending threads? 😁

So I guess we just need to recruit a bunch of half-wits and not allow you to respond until at least the second page. That'll get things going around here. 😉

Most of the post I have made ending threads are specifically designed to garner responses - I thought sure you (and perhaps others) would easily decipher something so obvious and sarcastic.  😎  🤡

 

The Traveler

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