The Future of Internet Forums

[Bill Ryan]

I posted this under The Internet (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/forumdisplay.php?133-The-Internet). But it might also belong in The Human Condition (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/forumdisplay.php?178-The-Human-Condition). :)

The thread title is perfectly descriptive, but I'd also like this to be a consultation. A number of other forums are becoming more and more inactive, and some have closed. But I'm not actually a member of any other, and maybe those of you who are can report back more specifically about how others are faring.

Why? Well, recently on my Personal Q-and-A thread (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?104824-Bill-Ryan-s-personal-Question-and-Answer-thread.-Pile-it-on.--&p=1263363&viewfull=1#post1263363) I wrote:



The main problem, as I see it, is that forums are far less popular than they were in the earlier days of the net. Even though those early 1990s 'bulletin boards' were a 'fast-food' way of communication, so to speak, people now living almost their whole lives on cellphones and tweets make forums look (to some) as thick and weighty as a heavy book. And even Facebook seems rather cumbersome now.
I've posted on a couple of other threads about Alvin Toffler (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alvin_Toffler)'s seminal and prophetic Future Shock (http://avalonlibrary.net/ebooks/Alvin%20Toffler%20-%20Future%20Shock.pdf), written in 1970. Toffler noted that the pace of change was steadily accelerating, and predicted that within a generation we'd all start to be overwhelmed.

The 'future shock' that he coined would be a personal response to this... to shut things down, go into emergency mode, and only deal with the information input that was necessary.

In practice, we see now, that means:


Feeling that any video beyond 20 minutes is 'long'.
Skimming books rather than reading them. (and often not even doing that)
Sending and receiving shorter and shorter messages. (though, ironically, more and more of them)
Sending two-line SMS texts in place of what 100 years ago might have been a carefully crafted 4-page handwritten letter. :)

In this Brave New World, an internet forum is a luxury, and (like a good book you can hold in your hand) something that might feel attractive as an idea but in practice takes quite a lot of time and effort to engage in.

I've written elsewhere, also, about how so many new members just have a post count of 2. (Look through the Welcome to Avalon! (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?7225-Welcome-to-Avalon-) thread for a few seconds.) Their application, and their Welcome thread message. Then, 50% of them never post again.

Why? Well, it's a good question. One answer might be because learning to navigate the forum takes some time, maybe a lot longer than most people are willing to spend with their 2019 limited attention spans.

One can learn how to open a Facebook page and start adding content, or open a Twitter account and start tweeting, in minutes. I suspect for at least some new folks here, the forum can't be grasped and assimilated in that same short time, and so they simply give up, bounce off, and return to other social media where communication is much easier.

In a phrase: it's about fast food. And all internet forums, not just Avalon, require a lot more time to prepare, think about and digest than grabbing a quick burger on the run.

So, here are two interesting questions.


What's the current health and membership of other forums out there?
What will the future bring to us all?

[Arak]

I am and have been a member of many forums in the past 20 years. Much of the general discussion has moved to social media, but those topics which are best to keep anonym still thrive on forums. Social media tends to be very shallow and polished.

[Shende]

I despise social media so I'm not involved in it, but as is quite interesting to note, I'm less involved in forums than I used to be as well.

Hard to say what the future will bring maybe it will evolve to sending pics to each other rather than Twitter or SMS and then telepathy! lol

[Valerie Villars]

I was only on one other forum, back in the 2004's or so, where I found the depth and level of discussion on the same par as this forum. Back then, though, that was a fairly new type of platform and certainly was NOT bombarded with videos and news from every person on the planet.

What happened was one or two gleeful trolls came in and started to disrupt the forum by goading members and then delightedly sitting back while all hell broke loose.

One enlightened being meditated and invited a group of us to move to a new forum he started and all was fine. As life got busier for me and Katrina hit, I lost touch.

The only other forum I tried to join after my intense spiritual awakening was cassiopaea.org. I found it to be pedantic and very intolerant. Every once in a while I check back on it and it's just the same. It's just on a different level than this one and I find nothing new and exciting there, though I do have respect for the news site connected to it, SOTT.

Every single day I find something here new, different, exciting, thoughtful, open minded and an esprit de corp I have never seen anywhere else. Some of the input on this forum makes my mouth hang open. What a place. How special it is.

I know that doesn't really answer your questions, but it's my own observation after having been here for over a year. It's my starting point for almost everything I read or find and just about the only place I have to voice my unconventional understanding of the world.

:sun:

[Clear Light]

Oh, this is meant just as an Observation but I'd propose that one reason for the rise in the use of Social Media is now because of the apparent Dominance of the "Materialist Reductionist" world view ... where there is simply no need to consider questions (or realities) outside of its remit that only the "Material World" is truly real ... perhaps our Survival Instincts have come to the fore and spending "time" on non-survival issues seems superfluous or rarely see the "light of day" in our Consciousness eh ? :noidea:

[Forest Denizen]

...Every single day I find something here new, different, exciting, thoughtful, open minded and an esprit de corp I have never seen anywhere else. Some of the input on this forum makes my mouth hang open. What a place. How special it is.

I know that doesn't really answer your questions, but it's my own observation after having been here for over a year. It's my starting point for almost everything I read or find and just about the only place I have to voice my unconventional understanding of the world.

:sun:

Yes, I very much agree with Valerie.
I am not an active member on other forums, just a reader/lurker :blushing:
That said, I do feel a bit of the Future Shock syndrome; however, for me it has resulted in a preemptive form of whittling away the chaff, so to speak. That is, I simply pick and choose with greater discrimination what I am going to read or look at.

I still love to read books and I watch whatever I feel might be of most interest to me (which is, granted, quite a lot). I think like this forum, and as you posted elsewhere, it’s about quality over quantity for me. Yes, I am being bombarded with more and more options, but have simply had to be more discriminating about what I will invest my time in.

The exception being writing, unfortunately. I don’t generally write letters anymore, with the infrequent exception of the lengthy email, an electronic letter. Those would only be directed to close friends who I feel would actually take the time to read it, as they would have read a letter if they had received it from me.

[Kryztian]

One other thing I notice about social media, is that it doesn't want your intelligent thoughts, it wants your reactions, it wants your emotions. If you have a long complex idea, Facebook hides everything that is longer than two sentences, but if you want to express something in seven words, it blows them up in big letters with a color background, taking up more space then six intelligent sentences. Twitter also dissuades real intelligence. The laws of social media reward hysteria and punish critical thinking.

Just as the invention of the postal system, telephones, fax machines, text messaging have all changed how we communicate and how we think. I am an optimist and I think some of us humans will learn to resist the opium of thoughtless social media promoted by the world's Zuckerbergs and Bilderbergs, and some how figure out how to express our intellect in other ways.

I would like to say more on the matter but since I now live in the age of social media, I will leave the rest of my thoughts to be represented by a few carefully chosen emoticons:

:croc: :llama: :flypig: :cantina: :ufo:

[Anchor]

People still write long posts. I read reddit a lot and some of the longer posts often have "TL;DR" (Too Long Didnt Read) summaries at the end, a sort of one or two sentence short form summary of the post, it is almost considered etiquette these days for posting longer posts and if you fail to provide one, say for a story you were trying to tell, you might get people pressuring you to add one!

I noticed some people use that form on this forum and there have been some threads also advising people to do it.

For example:
http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?102527-Overly-wordy-lazily-formatted-or-wall-o-type-posts-will-dilute-the-radial-power-of-a-thread.
What is interesting about that thread is that the OP (Original Poster) used a lot of acronyms in common use on social media form and got told off for it - including tl;dr :)

[Bubu]

I posted this under The Internet (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/forumdisplay.php?133-The-Internet). But it might also belong in The Human Condition (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/forumdisplay.php?178-The-Human-Condition). :)

The thread title is perfectly descriptive, but I'd also like this to be a consultation. A number of other forums are becoming more and more inactive, and some have closed. But I'm not actually a member of any other, and maybe those of you who are can report back more specifically about how others are faring.

Why? Well, recently on my Personal Q-and-A thread (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?104824-Bill-Ryan-s-personal-Question-and-Answer-thread.-Pile-it-on.--&p=1263363&viewfull=1#post1263363) I wrote:



The main problem, as I see it, is that forums are far less popular than they were in the earlier days of the net. Even though those early 1990s 'bulletin boards' were a 'fast-food' way of communication, so to speak, people now living almost their whole lives on cellphones and tweets make forums look (to some) as thick and weighty as a heavy book. And even Facebook seems rather cumbersome now.
I've posted on a couple of other threads about Alvin Toffler (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alvin_Toffler)'s seminal and prophetic Future Shock (http://avalonlibrary.net/ebooks/Alvin%20Toffler%20-%20Future%20Shock.pdf), written in 1970. Toffler noted that the pace of change was steadily accelerating, and predicted that within a generation we'd all start to be overwhelmed.

The 'future shock' that he coined would be a personal response to this... to shut things down, go into emergency mode, and only deal with the information input that was necessary.

In practice, we see now, that means:


Feeling that any video beyond 20 minutes is 'long'.
Skimming books rather than reading them. (and often not even doing that)
Sending and receiving shorter and shorter messages. (though, ironically, more and more of them)
Sending two-line SMS texts in place of what 100 years ago might have been a carefully crafted 4-page handwritten letter. :)

In this Brave New World, an internet forum is a luxury, and (like a good book you can hold in your hand) something that might feel attractive as an idea but in practice takes quite a lot of time and effort to engage in.

I've written elsewhere, also, about how so many new members just have a post count of 2. (Look through the Welcome to Avalon! (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?7225-Welcome-to-Avalon-) thread for a few seconds.) Their application, and their Welcome thread message. Then, 50% of them never post again.

Why? Well, it's a good question. One answer might be because learning to navigate the forum takes some time, maybe a lot longer than most people are willing to spend with their 2019 limited attention spans.

One can learn how to open a Facebook page and start adding content, or open a Twitter account and start tweeting, in minutes. I suspect for at least some new folks here, the forum can't be grasped and assimilated in that same short time, and so they simply give up, bounce off, and return to other social media where communication is much easier.

In a phrase: it's about fast food. And all internet forums, not just Avalon, require a lot more time to prepare, think about and digest than grabbing a quick burger on the run.

So, here are two interesting questions.


What's the current health and membership of other forums out there?
What will the future bring to us all?


can we add to the questions? how can we help new comers: How can we make the forum better?

[johnf]

Bill, I like the fast food analogy. It covers the rushing aspect of present day life as well as the toxicity of most social media
as well as burgers and fries.


John

[RunningDeer]

I was invited to join a new forum two-three years ago. It was the only one other than Avalon I’ve been a part of. I lasted three days, maybe four. The main reason why someone open it was for this prolific author which will remain nameless.

It took a couple of threads to see that whatever anyone wrote it was wrong because it wasn’t in line with his vague OP that went on and on and without a central theme. The members more or less brainstormed their thoughts. He’d come back and let everyone know how off topic they were and repeat the same gibberish from the OP and expected something different. I couldn’t believe how some would even bother to give it a second or third go.

The forum wasn’t a good fit for another reason. You could only modify your post 2-3 times before you were locked out. That’d never work for me. I still catch posts from years ago that need spelling and grammar corrections. A couple of months later, I went back to unsubscribe only to discover the forum folded.

He’s since went on to create a PayPal forum. I signed up and lasted a few days into the second payment cycle. It wasn’t worth my time to even try to make it to the end of the month. The members would regurgitate back what he said. Then he’d cycle into how no one was responding to his remarks and questioned why he even bothered to continue. There was a clear and recognizable pattern to his behaviors. It was strange how a bright man couldn’t see it.

https://i.imgur.com/F8DcMlm.gif

I like that I can be RunningDeer on Avalon. Sometimes, there’s a quirky side and sometimes not. I’m appreciative that most don’t poke at the quirky. If I can’t be that then it ain’t fun.
................https://i.imgur.com/CIEhvsN.gif

NOTE: I do understand and respect there’s a time and a place for it.

[Bubu]

I was invited to join a new forum two-three years ago. It was the only one other than Avalon I’ve been a part of. I lasted three days, maybe four. The main reason why someone open it was for this prolific author which will remain nameless.

It took a couple of threads to see that whatever anyone wrote it was wrong because it wasn’t in line with his vague OP that went on and on and without a central theme. The members more or less brainstormed their thoughts. He’d come back and let everyone know how off topic they were and repeat the same gibberish from the OP and expected something different. I couldn’t believe how some would even bother to give it a second or third go.

The forum wasn’t a good fit for another reason. You could only modify your post 2-3 times before you were locked out. That’d never work for me. I still catch posts from years ago that need spelling and grammar corrections. A couple of months later, I went back to unsubscribe only to discover the forum folded.

He’s since went on to create a PayPal forum. I signed up and lasted a few days into the second payment cycle. It wasn’t worth my time to even try to make it to the end of the month. The members would regurgitate back what he said. Then he’d cycle into how no one was responding to his remarks and questioned why he even bothered to continue. There was a clear and recognizable pattern to his behaviors. It was strange how a bright man couldn’t see it.

https://i.imgur.com/F8DcMlm.gif
.
................https://i.imgur.com/CIEhvsN.gif

NOTE: I do understand and respect there’s a time and a place for it.

Hi Paula, may I offer an explanation to his behavior. His behavior is typical of that a salesman. Insistent in not so obvious way. Ironically we can also learn from him. Maybe he is following the logic of "lies repeated equals truth" same logic and means that have many of people become sheeple. And my logic says that maybe we can undo the brainwashing the same route "truth repeated equals truth":sun: hope youll have a sunny day today inside and out. Well tomorrow is another day:)

[Bubu]

I posted this under The Internet (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/forumdisplay.php?133-The-Internet). But it might also belong in The Human Condition (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/forumdisplay.php?178-The-Human-Condition). :)

The thread title is perfectly descriptive, but I'd also like this to be a consultation. A number of other forums are becoming more and more inactive, and some have closed. But I'm not actually a member of any other, and maybe those of you who are can report back more specifically about how others are faring.

Why? Well, recently on my Personal Q-and-A thread (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?104824-Bill-Ryan-s-personal-Question-and-Answer-thread.-Pile-it-on.--&p=1263363&viewfull=1#post1263363) I wrote:



The main problem, as I see it, is that forums are far less popular than they were in the earlier days of the net. Even though those early 1990s 'bulletin boards' were a 'fast-food' way of communication, so to speak, people now living almost their whole lives on cellphones and tweets make forums look (to some) as thick and weighty as a heavy book. And even Facebook seems rather cumbersome now.
I've posted on a couple of other threads about Alvin Toffler (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alvin_Toffler)'s seminal and prophetic Future Shock (http://avalonlibrary.net/ebooks/Alvin%20Toffler%20-%20Future%20Shock.pdf), written in 1970. Toffler noted that the pace of change was steadily accelerating, and predicted that within a generation we'd all start to be overwhelmed.

The 'future shock' that he coined would be a personal response to this... to shut things down, go into emergency mode, and only deal with the information input that was necessary.

In practice, we see now, that means:


Feeling that any video beyond 20 minutes is 'long'.
Skimming books rather than reading them. (and often not even doing that)
Sending and receiving shorter and shorter messages. (though, ironically, more and more of them)
Sending two-line SMS texts in place of what 100 years ago might have been a carefully crafted 4-page handwritten letter. :)

In this Brave New World, an internet forum is a luxury, and (like a good book you can hold in your hand) something that might feel attractive as an idea but in practice takes quite a lot of time and effort to engage in.

I've written elsewhere, also, about how so many new members just have a post count of 2. (Look through the Welcome to Avalon! (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?7225-Welcome-to-Avalon-) thread for a few seconds.) Their application, and their Welcome thread message. Then, 50% of them never post again.

Why? Well, it's a good question. One answer might be because learning to navigate the forum takes some time, maybe a lot longer than most people are willing to spend with their 2019 limited attention spans.

One can learn how to open a Facebook page and start adding content, or open a Twitter account and start tweeting, in minutes. I suspect for at least some new folks here, the forum can't be grasped and assimilated in that same short time, and so they simply give up, bounce off, and return to other social media where communication is much easier.

In a phrase: it's about fast food. And all internet forums, not just Avalon, require a lot more time to prepare, think about and digest than grabbing a quick burger on the run.

So, here are two interesting questions.


What's the current health and membership of other forums out there?
What will the future bring to us all?


can we add to the questions? how can we help new comers: How can we make the forum better?

Actually there is a thread here http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?105944-The-last-laugh
that goes way off topic but delve into the question I asked and seems to be not so interesting to many and tasteless to most so never mind.:idea:

[Savannah]

Avalon is not a narrow focused Forum, thus to post often you must have knowledge worth sharing in multiple subjects. It takes time (many years) and researching consistently to provide relevant information. Thus many new to these ideas discussed may feel they don’t have that level of knowledge yet. They came to learn and will engage at a letter date. Thus it its not the platform that is overwhelming but the subject.

In social media you can be outed fairly soon if you pretend to have in-depth knowledge that is actually very shallow. Many wisely just lurk, learn and leave. Some threads can be rather intimidating because it’s clear those posting really know what they are talking about (even opinions are informed ones). However I think that’s rather a good thing, I don’t have to weed through a bunch of posts that that don’t say much (aka redit).

I my opinion I think people remain at Avalon because:
Multiple topics and one is bound to interest you
Good moderation that helps stop trolling and abuses
Informed participants that have been screened before giving them membership

So it maybe not posting is not an indication that Avalon is a dinosaur on its way out. The posts have changed to those posting videos or quick replies that can also be very valuable. Thus as the participates change so will how they engage in the platform, that will remain the same.

[RunningDeer]

Hi Paula, may I offer an explanation to his behavior. His behavior is typical of that a salesman. Insistent in not so obvious way. Ironically we can also learn from him. Maybe he is following the logic of "lies repeated equals truth" same logic and means that have many of people become sheeple. And my logic says that maybe we can undo the brainwashing the same route "truth repeated equals truth":sun: hope youll have a sunny day today inside and out. Well tomorrow is another day:)

I’ve read 25+ of his (their) books cover to cover; some of them two to three times and took notes. He made a lot of sense. I couldn’t wait for his next book to come out. That is until his narcissist disposition outweighed any tidbits I’d glean.

As for taking time to read these days? It’s been a challenge to find anything that holds my interest. It all sounds the same. At the moment, my focus is on the health genre. The other focus is learning how to sit and take in the winter sun in my reading corner, feed the birds and explain to my ladybug friend that it’s still too early to go out and play.

Thanks, Bubu. You have a sunny day today and today and another today, too. http://avalonlibrary.net/paula/smilies/sun-clouds.gif

♡

[ThePythonicCow]

I’ve read 25+ of his books cover to cover
I know only one author, offhand, who has written so many books; I've only read about a dozen of those books so far, sorta mostly cover to cover (my reading style is oddly non-linear, like a humming bird working a flowering bush.)

Welcome to the Nefarium :).

[RunningDeer]

I’ve read 25+ of his books cover to cover
I know only one author, offhand, who has written so many books; I've only read about a dozen of those books so far, sorta mostly cover to cover (my reading style is oddly non-linear, like a humming bird working a flowering bush.)

Welcome to the Nefarium :).

I’ve only read one of Joseph P. Farrell’s books - “Rotten to the (Common) Core: Public Schooling, Standardized Tests, and the Surveillance State”. It was spot on.

Clarification: his and her books. Husband and wife complement each other in their knowledge.

[Mike]

someone has to come along and make reading and writing cool again. that's what needs to happen. some eccentric iconoclast has to arrive and just do something atomic....some literary muhammad ali or something.

we need a literary star. i don't mean that in some empty or superficial way either. i think we're at the point where we actually need something like a savior.

i get text messages from my friends that look more like hieroglyphics than anything else. it is astounding. a mishmash of misspelled words with no breaks and no sensible arrangement. and here's the thing: when i tell them i can't understand the text and to please make it legible, they act as though i'm the one who is being unreasonable.

we've reached a point where the articulate people are the misfits. it's cool to dumb everything down now. the world has unapologetically embraced it's stupidity..held it up as honorable and hip. that's why forums are becoming irrelevant, imo

[Sadieblue]

Avalon is not a narrow focused Forum, thus to post often you must have knowledge worth sharing in multiple subjects. It takes time (many years) and researching consistently to provide relevant information. Thus many new to these ideas discussed may feel they don’t have that level of knowledge yet. They came to learn and will engage at a letter date. Thus it its not the platform that is overwhelming but the subject.

In social media you can be outed fairly soon if you pretend to have in-depth knowledge that is actually very shallow. Many wisely just lurk, learn and leave. Some threads can be rather intimidating because it’s clear those posting really know what they are talking about (even opinions are informed ones). However I think that’s rather a good thing, I don’t have to weed through a bunch of posts that that don’t say much (aka redit).

I my opinion I think people remain at Avalon because:
Multiple topics and one is bound to interest you
Good moderation that helps stop trolling and abuses
Informed participants that have been screened before giving them membership

So it maybe not posting is not an indication that Avalon is a dinosaur on its way out. The posts have changed to those posting videos or quick replies that can also be very valuable. Thus as the participates change so will how they engage in the platform, that will remain the same.

Thank you Savannah, you wrote exactly how I feel as a new member....but I do enjoy lurking, liking others post, and jump all around Avalon, reading and learning, I am an avid reader of books and most anything I get my hands on, I am gaining a lot of good information here on Avalon and truly enjoy this forum.

[chris_walker]

I'm a member of 6 forums and lurk on many more. It's where I get the news I consider important. I observe those who walk around in a zombified state looking at social media and quite frankly I'm not sure they'd be the awake types. They'd be the types who get all their news from the fakestream media.

[Joe from the Carolinas]

What will the future bring to us all?



I'm quite curious to see what others will have to observe about the current health and membership of other forums out there. Personally, I enjoy the format of being able to pull up the forum on a large screen with a real keyboard and read.


As far as the future, I think until cellphones begin projecting large dynamic displays, any text based communication which requires visual processing is going to be more & more truncated, skimmed, disregarded, and not well internalized.

Many people have small screens which have even smaller keyboards. This increases typos, the time it takes to edit posts & add legible formatting, let alone to edit forum brackets / BB code and shorten quotes :sun:.


Additionally, smaller buttons and smaller screens mean that people will naturally overlook details, such as "Thanks" and "Quote"-- there is a very ergonomic component at play here that I am seeing influence quite a bit.


Case in point. Here is a slice of youtube's analytics for a youtube channel. The image compares devices used on that same youtube channel.

This is a 28 day time period. Notice that desktop & phones are nearly equal:

http://projectavalon.net/forum4/attachment.php?attachmentid=39968&d=1550287188


This is where we are headed. More people are sticking to mobile phones, but average view duration (how LONG people stay on any one thing) is the lowest out of all of the device types. This is startling to me.

Notice the larger the display (TV) the longer the view duration?

I'd be really curious to see similar analytics for more text-based formats, such as forums. I wonder if the same metrics would hold?


I think that future dynamic platforms that allow people to click less and type less will win the attention and TIME competition game that is happening online right now.

I do not think that forums will become a fossil, however I DO think that technology itself will CONDITION people into naturally putting less value in focus and concentration, and more into visual & thinking heuristics just to process everything that draws the eye.

[Denise/Dizi]

I believe there will ALWAYS be a place for sites like forums. If not a forum itself, something similar. There will always be people who use it for their social interactions. Right now the public is still being fed almost TOO MANY options for social contacts.. And I believe THAT is what is causing people to "Site shop"..

There are almost TOO MANY platforms and options coming out... And everyone is moving around in a frenzy to test out the next new thing.. They're not going away they're just morphing. "MySpace" was replaced by facebook... Skype, really moved aside a bit when apple came out with facetime.. etc.. it is a work in progress... The movement to other platforms will happen as our technology develops, but these sites keep popping up for one reason, PEOPLE WANT TO BE SOCIAL.. forums are unique. I do not think they will ever disappear, they too will just morph into a new format.. They're "Social" in a very specific way..

I believe the more people begin to work from home, the more they will rely on having a "Place" to go. facebook "Kind of" suits those needs, but most have gone to using that more on the lines of how they use Twitter and such. So I don't think that the future of the forum, is at risk. I think it is more WHO RUNS THEM, and how they do it, that is causing some to collapse from within.. Personally I think they will become more interactive as the technology develops, as this is what is happening in the gaming industry.. We may have avatars that interact in real time rather than PHOTOS, but it will still be a forum, or interactive site for interactions as we are sharing here now. We just may be using headsets, or having the data sent directly to our minds to "See"..

I love having real conversations with others, about issues of interests. And I am constantly amazed at the vast array of topics people discuss! From technology, to human behaviors, to favorite music, and even the evaluation of the platform itself. If manicured properly as the technology advances, the platform will change but the idea won't.. Just how we interact with it...

[ClearWater]

I started up a forum late last year, and simultaneously created a Twitter to share the articles I post on the forum.

There are about 600 followers on Twitter. I just checked, and over just the last 2 days the Twitter has had about 6,000 impressions, 83 likes, and 30 retweets. This is from only 1 tweet per day.

Twitter brings most of the activity to the forum, which averages around 250 visitors per day.

Only 35 members have joined the forum since its inception. About 90% of those who registered on the forum haven't logged in since they originally registered, and only a handful have ever submitted a single post. There have been 760 posts submitted, with over 650 of them coming from me, lol.

I realize this isn't a great example since it's a completely new forum, but I'm seeing something similar at the other forums I frequent. Much less activity on the forums, and more activity on social media.

Another big impact are Chat services like Skype and Discord. These are huge, and have replaced a lot of the conversations that used to happen on forums. The good thing about these is that they're more conversational. I fairly regularly see people have discussions that go on for an hour or more, which isn't really something that happens within a forum structure.

Personally, I love forums though. I find it to be a nice middle ground where there can be good discussion, and it can be organized in a way that's easy to refer back to even years later. I hope they make a comeback at some point, but I don't have high hopes.

[Spellbound]

Look at Usenet / Newsgroups. I was heavily involved with a few newsgroups from the late 90's to the mid 2000's....and today they are non-existent.

To Joe's point above....I will always be a desktop person. Not a big fan of surfing the internet by phone.

Dave - Toronto

[Rawhide68]

Short answer to Mr Ryan Survey
What's the current health and membership of other forums out there? - I dont know
What will the future bring to us all? -I dont know

[celticwarrior]

I am a member of 2 other forums. I post infrequently, but am an avid reader of just Avalon and one other. I love Avalon for it's diversity, and agree with a lot of the contributions on this and other threads.
For me a lot it boils down to time. I am in information overload, and simply don't have the time to write and contribute consistently to forums or other social media. My wife thinks I'm going deaf because I sleep with an iPod stuck in my ear. :bigsmile:. I maybe download 6-12 hours of audio versions of youtube vids to listen to, then find out I'm zipping out the zeds after 1/2 an hour, and have to find the time somewhere else to relisten. By then of course I have another 6 or so I want to listen to. As for reading, I have I don't know how many books I've bought that are just gathering dust. Is it just me or is time just disappearing so fast?
My tuppence for whatever it is worth.
Keep up the good work Avalonians. I love it here :heart:

[Sunny-side-up]

To me Avalon is:
Heads up for important and interesting information,
jump point for follow up investigation,
Quality,
Family, friends
Avalon is a safe solid and trusted place.

I always come back here, even after passing through other great sites.

[greybeard]

First may I express my appreciation for Avalon.
I am not currently a member of any other forum.
I come here to converse with like minded people.
There is no one locally, that I know of, to discuss non-duality with.

I think unfortunately that forums will diminish in active membership.
There were in the past subjects that people good get their teeth into--not too many, but just enough major ones
Now, as in another thread mentioned, its overload--just too many events to get a focused attention.
A wealth of information on u tube---some may be true.
Also there is this desire to exhibit selfies--thats not a forum thing--its gone beyond sharing helpful information, though there is some of that--its mainly about me and my latest selfie.
If I want to know what my children are up to I would join face book.

Good forums like Avalon will survive--as long as there is enough income/donations to cover the costs.
We tend to expect "Something for nothing"
Please donate.
Chris

[Arcturian108]

Without consciously being aware of it, the Project Avalon Forum, and similar forums, are a Jesuit wet-dream.

Let me explain: The Roman Catholic Church had its hands full with the beginning of the Reformation. How to combat the wide availability of printed bibles suddenly available to the masses? One answer was to create, and promote, universities. And that’s what the Jesuits did, and they made sure that they trained the children of the elite. By which means although the bible might be taught according to their creed at such universities, the point was to create as many competing courses and disciplines as possible, so that fewer and fewer students would show any interest in studying the Bible, in order to absorb the knowledge available from so many other interesting courses. The Catholic Church created our secular society, and they are totally responsible for the development of it, even though they pretend otherwise.

Project Avalon Forum presents a plethora of ever expanding topics with no particular order emphasized. Thus the individual participant decides what is important, and thereby truly important threads get buried in the mix. My suggestion for how to improve Project Avalon would be to elevate, in a tier system, certain topics and/or certain contributors in a way that features their ongoing importance to the threats that we face now and in the coming years.

[OopsWrongPlanet?]

Hi all,

Thanks Bill for starting this thread. I have already learned a lot by reading (most of) the posts. I am deeply grateful for all that Avalon offers, and the great way in which it is run.

I am a member of two forums:

1. Avalon, for the last three years, in which it has been a bit overwhelming to try to get my 'feet under the table', but I have been trying - off and on. On the whole it has been a mine of insightful information and intelligent debate on stuff which is coming up in the world today. I find it especially helpful for keeping my own critical faculties sharpened eg on Blue Avian cult, subtle commercialising of exopolitics researchers etc. etc. I am trying to contribute, but it can feel challenging to say anything which feels relevant when there are so many opinions being voiced on most of the topics I am interested in.

2. Since a 'spiritual awakening' (hate that term, but it probably gets closest) a few years back, I founded Nonduality Forum ( link https://www.nondualityforum.com ) about 18 months ago, where we explore nonduality and awakening, and aim to accompany those who are in the early stages of waking up to the 'one continuous flow of Life'. Still in its infancy, it is a relatively small forum with at present less than 200 members but steadily growing, as folks ARE waking up and DO want help with this. We try to be experientially based, non-commercial, non-hierarchical, non-religious and non-dogmatic. Probably part of the reason that it is growing is that we offer 1-2-1 facilitating/enquiries.

In Nonduality Forum, the challenge - just as here in much better-established Project Avalon - is, in an internet world of spectators, lurkers and short attention spans, to get people engaged and participating. We are aiming to make and keep Video Meet-Ups central to what we offer, to build on the sense of community and face-to-face relationships, which is important to us.

Yes, it's been a problem trying to lure folks away from the hypnotic, manipulative world of Facebook, Twitter and the like, but we seem to be making some headway, at least so far. It will be really interesting to see how this plays out in the future, both in Nonduality Forum and here in the more established Project Avalon.

x

M

[Ernie Nemeth]

The way I have gathered information is four fold. I engage intelligent people in conversation and pick their brains. I watch TV shows and now utube for interesting data. I read books and magazines, and research at libraries for in depth knowledge. I also do non-formal apprenticeships for skills I want to learn.

Of these four I now only poke around a bit on the internet and I rely on Avalon to keep me informed and engaged.

My strength and my favorite type of learning is one on one conversations. I used to find the most intelligent people and we would brainstorm for long hours. My most memorable such conversations were with a person with an eidetic memory. She could open a book she had read in her mind and begin reading. It was uncanny. I picked her brain for months.

I also developed my own theories on every aspect of reality before I allowed myself to read up on those topics and research what others believed. This is how I learned to appreciate that logic is universal and that there seemed to be streams of knowledge out there that anyone could tap into. My theories were not much different than other people who were lauded as pioneers in their fields. This led to the understanding that there is a very good chance that we are either all latent mind readers or that we share the same mind. All of that work re-enforced my belief in god. Until I came here to Avalon.

To me Avalon has been a roller-coaster ride of information over-load, unheard of topics, and interacting with high-class members far beyond my level in different ways. So much conspiracy, so many fringe discussions, so many strange happenings. I lost my god in here. Then found my god, then lost it again. My mind churned with ideas I had never thought of and I even now believe in aliens, which I always thought were a made up story.

Although at one time I was brave and naïve and thundered through topics with my own discretion and discernment, I find I now do not believe anything until I check in here for verification. I understand that I am not in any position to uncover truth on my own. I rely on Avalon to keep my head screwed on straight.

Those new forms of communication that others seem to enjoy, I have never even tried, nor would I know how. I don't know what Twitter even is, or any of those types. I can't even access blogs, whatever that is. I find such communication far to shallow anyway. It is a form of sensationalism to me. Meme creation is easy when only memes are shared in little 200 character posts.

I know I am constantly under surveillance. And now having been woke up in the middle of the night because my phone over-rode its settings and issued a state-wide alert for a missing child, I know we have not much time left to uncover any truths before the entire system becomes policed and censored.

The entire internet, I believe, has been invented to continue the secret agenda of the controllers to dumb down society and to confuse and over-whelm the citizenry.

So what is the future of the internet? Control and meme sharing. Until everyone begins acting and thinking the same. It wont take very much longer...
I don't know anything about other forums but if other forums do not have in place a means to keep the 'signal to noise ratio' high, they will just become meme sharers.

[Dick]

hello all, I'm just a member here, don't post very often, but I'm reading a lot, and for me the Avalon forum is a sort of "check point" for the truth.
Over the years I have read a lot, which I think its totally nonsense, on other forums or website, and some are quite good.
When I feel the need to check things, then I do it right here. that's the Avalon forum for me: great people with a great knowledge :clapping:

Dick.

[Chanie]

Young people don’t really use Facebook much. This might be true of forums as well. It could be a generational thing.

I do find that Twitter is a useful tool. There is a lot of drivel on it, but there are some worthy sites as well. Current events tend to move so quickly. The good Twitter accounts tend to be hours ahead of what is posted on Avalon so it is good in that regard. It is not unlike an office “grapevine” where you hear what’s happening behind the scenes long before the official announcement is made.

Avalon is like a good research library where you can drop by and spend as little or as much time as you want. There is a breadth and depth of information on a vast array of subjects. I have learnt a lot here and try to support it financially so it will keep going.

Although I use it mostly for the information, it’s also a family-community. It can take a new person time to figure that out and to navigate around all the personalities. Someone like Foxie Loxie was beloved because she was so warm and fuzzy. I’m pretty sure she was one reason why I was drawn to Avalon in the first place. She was the friendly face at the reception desk when you first walk in.

I’m not a great fan of squabbling and discord. I understand why it happens. Usually, I can see all the different perspectives, but I’m not going to jump into the fray. Real life has enough drama without me adding to it. In that sense, Avalon is an escape as well—an oasis where I can drop by and meditate on what really matters in life.

[TrumanCash]

I think that forums that trolls can't trash (i.e., sanely moderated forums like Avalon) will continue. I don't think this has been brought up yet but unlike SMS, threads on stable forums can appear on search engines.

[Flash]

People still write long posts. I read reddit a lot and some of the longer posts often have "TL;DR" (Too Long Didnt Read) summaries at the end, a sort of one or two sentence short form summary of the post, it is almost considered etiquette these days for posting longer posts and if you fail to provide one, say for a story you were trying to tell, you might get people pressuring you to add one!

I noticed some people use that form on this forum and there have been some threads also advising people to do it.

For example:
http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?102527-Overly-wordy-lazily-formatted-or-wall-o-type-posts-will-dilute-the-radial-power-of-a-thread.
What is interesting about that thread is that the OP (Original Poster) used a lot of acronyms in common use on social media form and got told off for it - including tl;dr :)

yes you are totally right.

Other questions we may ask to this forum members are those ones:

The numerous acronyms of social media differ from language to language. No way a French French will understand the American acronyms. When I see posts like Doazen's, in the thread you refer to, I cannot understand. So I pass my time on google trying, in English, to find the definition. To end up not reading, too cumbersome.

So question: do we want an international forum? When I got in, years ago, the forum was much more diverse than it is now. Not only was there people from all over the world, but the number of them (quantity) was more.

Other question: we are getting quite old, the gang of members here. Is the cross-generational misunderstanding the same as the cross-cultural? Is it a question of language, or values, ways of living, etc?

There is not doubt that it takes more time to read long posts, and no doubt that I am guilty of it, since I am always looking for words I do not find in my head (their English equivalent not readily available in my head), so I circumvent the problem by finding others words but using longer sentences.

One place where the forum is pretty balanced now but was not 10 years ago is the number of women/men. Good for us. Women's bullies have been quite successfully kept in check, or society may have changed on that aspect. But it makes a forum different in many ways.

[Flash]

What will the future bring to us all?



I'm quite curious to see what others will have to observe about the current health and membership of other forums out there. Personally, I enjoy the format of being able to pull up the forum on a large screen with a real keyboard and read.


As far as the future, I think until cellphones begin projecting large dynamic displays, any text based communication which requires visual processing is going to be more & more truncated, skimmed, disregarded, and not well internalized.

Many people have small screens which have even smaller keyboards. This increases typos, the time it takes to edit posts & add legible formatting, let alone to edit forum brackets / BB code and shorten quotes :sun:.


Additionally, smaller buttons and smaller screens mean that people will naturally overlook details, such as "Thanks" and "Quote"-- there is a very ergonomic component at play here that I am seeing influence quite a bit.


Case in point. Here is a slice of youtube's analytics for a youtube channel. The image compares devices used on that same youtube channel.

This is a 28 day time period. Notice that desktop & phones are nearly equal:

http://projectavalon.net/forum4/attachment.php?attachmentid=39968&d=1550287188


This is where we are headed. More people are sticking to mobile phones, but average view duration (how LONG people stay on any one thing) is the lowest out of all of the device types. This is startling to me.

Notice the larger the display (TV) the longer the view duration?

I'd be really curious to see similar analytics for more text-based formats, such as forums. I wonder if the same metrics would hold?


I think that future dynamic platforms that allow people to click less and type less will win the attention and TIME competition game that is happening online right now.

I do not think that forums will become a fossil, however I DO think that technology itself will CONDITION people into naturally putting less value in focus and concentration, and more into visual & thinking heuristics just to process everything that draws the eye.

Your comments are quite interesting Joe.

I always found the format of this forum cumbersome (and pretty much any other forum). It is not appropriate for short attention span nor for fast global understanding of any thread.

I did work quite a lot with mind mapping techniques. To me, forum built on this kind of framework would not only appeal to both, short/long attention span, but also to critical thinking and holistic grasping at the same time. Also, you can have small screens and use it or large screens for larger content. You can have written content, videos, anything you can link, as in a forum but visually much more handy. I have not seen any forum up to now using the powerful software abilities we now have. The forum platforms have to be redesigned if they want to remain successful.

[bogdan9310]

There are places like Quora that compete with traditional forums, I still find forums very usefull and interesting though. I think places like Quora don't offer the type of connection with people that forums do.

[ThePythonicCow]

To Joe's point above....I will always be a desktop person.
I don't know if I'll always be a desktop person; I've only been one since the late 1970's, when I went from punched cards (80 column Hollerith) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punched_card) and line printers (http://www.righto.com/2019/01/accounting-machines-ibm-1403-and-why.html) to an ADM 3A monochrome CRT (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ADM-3A) (80 columns by 24 lines of text only). Before all that, I was on a wonderful (still have) K&E (Keuffel & Esser) mahogany slide rule (https://www.sliderule.ca/ke.htm) and Friden mechanical adding machines (https://www.oldcalculatormuseum.com/fridenstw.html).

Who knows what the future will bring. But if I fall into a manhole while walking down the street, it will more likely be because a lovely young lady walked by, than because I was texting on my mobile.

[ThePythonicCow]

A wealth of information on u tube---some may be true.Ever the eternal optimist you are :bigsmile:.

[greybeard]

A wealth of information on u tube---some may be true.Ever the eternal optimist you are :bigsmile:.

Paul my tongue in cheek humour is an acquired taste Lol
I dont take life to seriously
Regards Chris

[Bluegreen]

A television network does not have the same clout as it did a few years ago, as overall viewership is down, and that is across the board. However, there is still that core contingent of folks who enjoy watching TV, and the numbers are not negligible. Those folks will often look to a particular network first because they know that network offers programming that aligns with their interests, be it cop shows, animal shows, ufo shows, whatever. If that network unveils its new fall programming and find their ratings taking a nosedive, they are going to take a cold, hard look at themselves and no one else because its all about content. They know the formula is pretty simple: bad shows = no viewers and good shows = viewers, so they are going to try and come up with better shows. This scenario played out last year, will play out next year, and will likely continue to play out in the years to come.

There are so many forums like this one covering so many interests they are near uncountable, and I don't see that disappearing tomorrow. Some may disagree, but I see forums falling into the category of 'show business' or 'entertainment' just as much as 'journalism'. Substitute 'forum' for 'television network' or 'watching TV', and those are my thoughts.

[AutumnW]

Online forums are taking a hit currently for a few different reasons. Many people are working way too hard and not by choice. They are too drained to participate, though they may want to. Something people probably want to discuss more in detail and might make the time for is discussing the economy and real survival issues as those issues relate to them. Joe from the Carolinas alluded to this, I think. (Correct me if I am wrong, Joe)

There are several online forums designed for survival in tough economic times. I find they are geared more toward practical solutions and revolve around survivalism, which is fine. But, they end up catering or representing those who have enough resources to own property and or gold. Again, all well and good. But they ignore the fact that a majority of people don't have these kind of resources, nor can they escape working in the service economy. They want to vent. There doesn't seem to be an online forum that provides or encourages this kind of focus.

In recessionary times, that are fast approaching, three things will happen. (1)People will have more spare time to join online forums.
(2) They will not be on Facebook displaying their last meal (wieners and beans aren't particularly photogenic anyway) as they will be broke. The whole edifice of materialism and judging people by what they have rather than what they are, will collapse.

(3)people will need, want and should drop all shame surrounding reduced means. And they may want to address and discuss it from a spiritual angle, which is very appropriate.

Forums that provide and encourage these kind of discussions will out compete other spiritually based and general discussion forums.

[ceetee9]

I can’t address Bill’s first question: “what’s the current health and membership of other forums out there?” since I’m only active on the Avalon forum—and then only marginally so in recent years. I am a member of a couple of other forums, but I haven’t visited them in years.

As for Bill’s second question: “what will the future bring to us all?” unfortunately, I am not optimistic that it will be good for critically thinking and questioning people. Why do I think this? The quick and simple answer (which is all we seem to care about anymore) is: take a look around.

Communication between us is being dumbed-down to the point where it’s almost pointless to even try to communicate any longer—which may, in fact, be part of the plan.

Arguably one of the most popular methods of communications today is the tweet (140 characters up to 280 characters). Add to that the use of Emoji’s and single characters and digits to replace words and it’s pretty easy to see how the use of intelligent dialog and language is being degraded and/or discouraged.

I don’t see Facebook being much better. I posted a nine minute video a few weeks back and one of my friends said he didn’t watch it because it was too long. He has also admitted that he “skims” most articles I post—primarily, I believe, because they don’t gel with his political bent—yet he will dismiss the article with not so much as one intelligent or factual rebuttal and often uses puerile and acrid statements and/or memes. And this guy has multiple degrees. Unbelievable!

Aside from our school system that graduates students who can barely articulate a complete and coherent sentence, we have legislators who tell us that they don’t have time to read a bill and that they have to pass the bill to find out what’s in it. And yet millions of Americans seem perfectly fine with this insanity. How does this help any of us? Why are we not calling for the removal of such incompetent and irresponsible representatives? Have we lost our minds?

Then there’s the mainstream media news sources that regurgitates the same scripts in one or two minute sound bites that tells us what we should think and believe. We’re bombarded with mind control propaganda 24/7, but only a few will take the time to research anything and most won’t look at alternative media sites because they’ve been programmed to believe that they’re all conspiracy theory or disinformation sites.

From what I’ve seen it seems that most of the instant, quick and dirty communication methods being used today are used more for trivial communications like posting selfies, what they ate for dinner, their latest relationship faux pas, etc. and for posting biased and clueless political rhetoric. There’s very little substantive communication going on anymore.

So when I consider all of this I find myself agreeing with Michael LeBron (Lionel) that “most people have the attention span of a gnat” and it becomes understandable why forums appear to be falling out of favor.

It seems to me that very little useful communication is going on anymore. Perhaps there is some on forums like Avalon, but I fear they will soon all be going the way of the dinosaurs as will we all if we continue to let this societal downward spiral to unfold.

[prc]

What's the current health and membership of other forums out there?
I cannot offer any help regarding this question, I am not a member on any other forum and I ended up here because I used to read Rense.com and TheTruthseeker.co.uk websites frequently because I found that the Main Stream Media was not offering a true narrative of many facts. I had no one in real life that I could speak about the subjects that were being discussed here. So I am very grateful that Bill created this Forum and accepted my membership. I haven´t posted many things because honestly I am not knowledable about the subjects specially when they take place outside of my country, in other words, I learn more here than I could teach and I decided to contribute with the subjects that take place inside my country that reach international news outlets. I remember I read a post of Bill Ryan also complaining about the huge number of people that log as guest instead of log in as member. I can only think that people are afraid of the police state and don´t want to be publicly linked with conspiracy theories. I read once, outside this Forum that all Foruns are monitored and there is no such a thing as privacy in any Forum on internet, so people maybe afraid of being surveilled, that is one reason I can think of.

What will the future bring to us all? I am not optimistic about the future ( it includes the future of the Earth Planet, The future of civilization and also the future of Foruns like this on the internet), why I am saying this, right now Thetruthseeker website is being blocked, it started one day ago. It is not clear what is exactly the reason but the website is under attack. There is a clear orientation from the Internet Giant Companies like Facebook, Google etc to censor and shut down alternative medai websites. There is another problem to consider, the quality of education received by the Millenium Generation is really bad, the majority is not capable of analyse, summarize, connect the dots, They llok like zombies spending hours sliding their fingers on a smartphone screen and most probably on a social media website and doing and discussing superficial things. It is my impression that it is a small percentage of people worldwide that is questioning the truth of information presented to us on a daily basis. There are those who react with anger when find that has been deceived and start to do a search for the truth elsewhere, there are those that do not admit that are being deceived and would rather defend the status quo,
There are those that think that it is too absurd and crazy the narrative presented by alternative media, but what I am trying to say is that you might apply some Marketing Analytic strategies to attract people to Avalon but you might end up attractting the wrong type of person. There is even another problem, the lack of education and respect that people forgot how to discuss and disagree in a gentle way.
So that are the reasons why I am not optimistic with the future of us all.

[HaveBlue]

Bill Ryan says 50% of the new members never post after signing up and isn't sure why?.

This is obviously so that they can view the members only threads. Occams razor?

[Mike]

Bill Ryan says 50% of the new members never post after signing up and isn't sure why?.

This is obviously so that they can view the members only threads. Occams razor?



Hey, this might be it LOL. I'm a little embarrassed to say that this has never occured to me:facepalm:

[Violet3]

I am not a member of any other forum. I like to listen to a few researchers who post on u-tube, like Dark Journalist, Joseph Farrell, Catherine A Fitts. I read real books and avoid TV except for the occasional downloaded movie. As others have commented, I don't post often as I am here to learn. Though I am not uneducated I observe that others know a lot more than I do about many topics, and reading comments or looking at links leads me to widen my own researches.
I don't know about the future but at present I think that a site such as Avalon is very helpful for people like myself who can't talk to many others about a lot of what is on here because it is too weird for most people. There are also important archives of books etc, very kindly placed, for all the seekers looking for ways to navigate the 'rabbit hole'. The Avalon resource and 'shelter' will become more important if it can be protected enough to continue. I take the point made earlier (Paul?) that this also costs money and will get a donation together.

[Hazelfern]

Before I read anyone's reply, god don't let me look below :) It is more about being dismissed. It seems nobody has the time, wherewithal or inclination to engage.
No time to address or post. The job, the nagging wife....suck all good intentions.

And being honest, how would I know my comment was buried within 4 pages? Just saying, if one engages online you just got to hang for the answer.

[Them]

Bill Ryan says 50% of the new members never post after signing up and isn't sure why?.

This is obviously so that they can view the members only threads. Occams razor?

True. In my case, I've remained a member to learn. Anything I've wanted to say, someone else already has or soon will.

I have no complaints. I'm glad to have been walking these halls for seven or so years and hope to continue doing so for
years to come.

[najara12000]

I am basically a lurker here. I don't consider myself able to discourse intellectually and be able to take all the time to cite facts, etc. However I love to follow conversations and topics. Social media even on Facebook of groups, the discourse is harder to follow because it is NOT a forum where one can go and look at Topics. Everything just rolls down the news feed into oblivion. I don't like it, personally. Social Media just seems like a place to "hold a banner" up of a belief or idea and have others Like it or Hate It or whatever. With Social Media communication I do not believe we are really communicating at all. It seems superficial. No depth. I like this forum. I visit daily and check out the topics. So, no, I don't post, but I'm here.

[Hazelfern]

Bill Ryan says 50% of the new members never post after signing up and isn't sure why?.

This is obviously so that they can view the members only threads. Occams razor?



Hey, this might be it LOL. I'm a little embarrassed to say that this has never occured to me:facepalm:

Splain plz :blushing:

[Mike]

Bill Ryan says 50% of the new members never post after signing up and isn't sure why?.

This is obviously so that they can view the members only threads. Occams razor?



Hey, this might be it LOL. I'm a little embarrassed to say that this has never occured to me:facepalm:

Splain plz :blushing:



sure. maybe these people had no intention of posting at all, but just wanted to view the threads that are invisible to non-members.

[Wmel]

I check this forum almost daily for new info, interesting discussions and potential material for self study. Sometimes my understanding on topics are limited by my English standard. But nonetheless I will remain here for the quality of the posts, thank you.

[Sunny-side-up]

Bill Ryan says 50% of the new members never post after signing up and isn't sure why?.

This is obviously so that they can view the members only threads. Occams razor?

Could be, but I like to think they are taking their time and bringing themselves up to speed, after all there so much to take in here :sun:

[Mike Gorman]

I may appear somewhat perverse to some on this forum, because I do not believe social media is a large evil, or a mind control matrix - in fact I think social media is the manifestation of global freedom, and the liberation of publishing access for the common man.
Yes Silicon Valley might have something of a monopoly in these early days of the global network, but if you care to look around, mainstream media and the enormous power groups who had their 'day in the sun' via the Broadcast media era (1910-1995) are being massively challenged by the accumulated mass result of over 20 years exchange of new ideas, and global fraternity at the grass roots level. Mainstream media empires are desperate to discredit Facebook, and all digital media, simply because the people now have broad access to a pluralistic range of alternative media, and discussion.
Don't be too quick to dismiss the healthy benefits of global communication, and interaction, despite tech giants. The entire world of media journalism, and corporate affiliates of the media cabal are publishing endless negative spin articles about social media.
I am quite happy to debate, in a civil way with anyone who disagrees with me, but I ask you to look at the current populist shift in western politics, the potential for radically new movements, all made possible by this emergence of a connected world, and the ability of ordinary people to experience this mass exposure to narratives.
Terrence Mckenna spoke about this acceleration of 'novelty' and the rush towards a time of rapid change, there is a palpable subjective difference in the entire quality of social time, which many are reporting.
We could be accelerating towards a major shift in human consciousness-or drawing towards the renewal of the universe, the 'Torus' middle, which Arthur Young spoke about - or perhaps some ultimate ragged hole of annihilation-we don't know.
In any case, I see the internet as an accidental release into the public domain, and it is a major thorn in the established power group's side. I love social media, it is the media of the people, we can publish to very large audiences for 10's of dollars, without needing any covert relationships with powerful people-this alone makes it incredibly valuable, and dangerous for the shadowy 'Bilderberg' types, we shall prevail.

[norman]

I don't think anyone has ever found a pile of books lying around inside a UFO/UAP.

For thousands, if not millions of years, humans developed their communication abilities within their primary senses. The abstraction of text came late and is a tiny blip in the long human history.

Text can be valuable for record keeping and for identification of technological user interface components. Even UFOs, apparently, have little graphics identifying which place to lay a hand or finger etc. Other than that, text seems to have had it's day.

I won't mourn it's demise at all, in fact, I'm pleased about it. Text has been a divisive thing from it's start. Oh, and when was it started? Was it by those Annunaki kings, to lay down the law over their new slaves ? I'm not sure, but the whole short history of text has been one very sad episode for us humans.

We humans have a highly evolved set of primary senses. Text trashes those senses and forces it's own regime complete with class division on us. There are those who read a lot, and there are those who don't. That's the first division, but then it subdivides further from there. Text is a kind of firewall that decides who will get access to higher thought and the societal clout that enables. It ensures that cerebral lingual muscle gets to have the biggest clout, and intuitives, the least.

The sooner we a rid of it the better. I think it's a positive and healthy sign that people are moving away from heavy textual interfacing. That, alone, is certainly not enough, tho'. There has to be a facility for transference of higher thinking, other than elite dinner parties etc. I can't quite see what it is yet, but I'm hopeful it will manifest shortly.

NLP, OMG. Let's hope those days are well and truly gone, and any other lingual engineering cults.

[Mike Gorman]

I am piping up again, Hazelfern brings up a terrific point: People are far less inclined to fully engage with others in today's social world. Forums are based on the assumption that people will focus, and consider the ideas and opinions of others, and even 'change their thinking as a result' (!)

This is a big ask today, so many are way more inclined to project their own position, to promote their own 'brand'. The idea of 'Traffic' has corrupted our perspective, traffic is People, not an abstraction.
We can see how this dynamic operates, the two-way communication flow of the internet is still very strange to us, it seems we have been conditioned so powerfully by the "Broadcast Era" when we were all passive receivers of the provided social narrative, that we find it difficult to manage the opening of two-way communication?
Forums belong to the old world, when debating, and argument were valued as an intellectual skill, today everyone wants to be a presenter, a media personality!

[TomKat]

People still write long posts. I read reddit a lot and some of the longer posts often have "TL;DR" (Too Long Didnt Read) summaries at the end, a sort of one or two sentence short form summary of the post, it is almost considered etiquette these days for posting longer posts and if you fail to provide one, say for a story you were trying to tell, you might get people pressuring you to add one!

I noticed some people use that form on this forum and there have been some threads also advising people to do it.

For example:
http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?102527-Overly-wordy-lazily-formatted-or-wall-o-type-posts-will-dilute-the-radial-power-of-a-thread.
What is interesting about that thread is that the OP (Original Poster) used a lot of acronyms in common use on social media form and got told off for it - including tl;dr :)

I tend not to read long posts. Seems like they're usually trying to sell something or recruit someone for something. I'm more interested in people's original thoughts than what group think they've bought into or are promoting.

[Ernie Nemeth]

What I have observed is that the average IQ of a group is inversely proportional to the number of people assembled.

The best communication occurs one-on-one, in person. Every other format truncates not the amount but the quality of information exchanged.
As we all know not all information is accurate or pertinent and merely clouds the central issue. Then there are the meanderings down memory lane and tangents that just protract the entire purpose of the assembly, or thread, or platform discussion. These add up to a great deal of 'noise', that although may be entertaining or even informative in their own right, lowers the 'signal' ratio.

That's why properly moderated forums are useful, they allow far more information to flow than a chaotic discourse among millions and limited to a few hundred characters per post.

Although, again, it could train people to use language more succinctly - like a poet might. Or any artist for that matter, if multi-media is an option on the platform.

[Chanie]

What I have observed is that the average IQ of a group is inversely proportional to the number of people assembled.

The best communication occurs one-on-one, in person. Every other format truncates not the amount but the quality of information exchanged.
As we all know not all information is accurate or pertinent and merely clouds the central issue. Then there are the meanderings down memory lane and tangents that just protract the entire purpose of the assembly, or thread, or platform discussion. These add up to a great deal of 'noise', that although may be entertaining or even informative in their own right, lowers the 'signal' ratio.

That's why properly moderated forums are useful, they allow far more information to flow than a chaotic discourse among millions and limited to a few hundred characters per post.

Although, again, it could train people to use language more succinctly - like a poet might. Or any artist for that matter, if multi-media is an option on the platform.

When I went to high school, we had to study “the Precis” in English class. It entailed reading a long document and distilling the key facts down to a limited number of words. This proved to be surprisingly useful when I went out into the world.
See: https://www.learnesl.net/what-is-precis-writing-in-english/

[edina]

The most active forum I was ever on was a forum for forum administrators.

There were a lot of tech and policy related type discussions.

It's been a few years since I was there. I went to look to see how it is doing today.

It doesn't exist anymore.

[edina]

I did a survey once on my on Facebook profile, to see how many of my friends were reading from a desktop, a phone, or both.

The ratio was about 90% reading from their phone. This was even among my older friends.

I'm 58. I definitely prefer a desktop, and do not use my phone at all for social media.

I was surprised to discover how many people don't even have a desktop.

They do everything on their phone.

My neice doesn't type.

She talks into her phone and then edits the voice to text which she then shares as comments and posts on her Facebook profile.

She's very controversial. She has found her voice on the circumcision issue and speaks out about that a lot on her profile.
She calls herself an Intactivist.

People often spontaneously thank her for the information she shares, and how it helped them decide whether or not to circumcise their sons.

There's a whole movement on that issue.

I've seen her posts get several hundred comments. Lots of huge engagement on her posts.

She's had at least 3 of her FB accounts shut down. She just opens another, friends her friends and starts all over again.

She asks a lot of questions. She's just a natural at engagement.

Her generation is very social media savvy. And, they are mostly on their phones.

If a platform is not mobile-friendly, they will bypass it.

(This typing style I use, is one I adapted over time, to be mobile-friendly. It's easier to read on mobile devices.)

[norman]

People still write long posts. I read reddit a lot and some of the longer posts often have "TL;DR" (Too Long Didnt Read) summaries at the end, a sort of one or two sentence short form summary of the post, it is almost considered etiquette these days for posting longer posts and if you fail to provide one, say for a story you were trying to tell, you might get people pressuring you to add one!

I noticed some people use that form on this forum and there have been some threads also advising people to do it.

For example:
http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?102527-Overly-wordy-lazily-formatted-or-wall-o-type-posts-will-dilute-the-radial-power-of-a-thread.
What is interesting about that thread is that the OP (Original Poster) used a lot of acronyms in common use on social media form and got told off for it - including tl;dr :)

I tend not to read long posts. Seems like they're usually trying to sell something or recruit someone for something. I'm more interested in people's original thoughts than what group think they've bought into or are promoting.
Or, they are still working through their thought evolutions trying to get to the point where they would have something really good to share, but are fond of the old habits of co studentship.. and miss it when it's not there any more.


Here's a thought, what if learning to read overwrites the part of the brain/body mind that is or was capable of telepathic transference of information ? Is our word literate culture the block that is preventing our being fluently telepathic ?

[petra]

Without good moderators, forums are useless imo. The future of forums is going to depend on the moderators.

As for other forum activity, I don't know - but I do see a LOT on stack exchange, which is an evolved kind of forum style (ie: worldbuilding.stackexchange.com). It's really just a bunch of questions and answers, but the people answering questions can also earn "reputation points" and badges (kind of like boy scouts ha ha)

PA is the only forum I read or post on currently, so of course I hope PA will still be around in the future. If this forum eventually goes kaput though, I'd understand. I'm just being frank when I say the moderation is only going to get worse from here.



Project Avalon Forum presents a plethora of ever expanding topics with no particular order emphasized. Thus the individual participant decides what is important, and thereby truly important threads get buried in the mix. My suggestion for how to improve Project Avalon would be to elevate, in a tier system, certain topics and/or certain contributors in a way that features their ongoing importance to the threats that we face now and in the coming years.

I like this idea, and I consider how I skipped the middle two pages of this thread and only read most of page 1. I'm not trying to be lazy, I'm trying to be efficiently using my time! My not reading those gives me time to post a reply, and the only risk I am taking is possibly overlooking a jewel on page three.

[petra]

Here's a thought, what if learning to read overwrites the part of the brain/body mind that is or was capable of telepathic transference of information ? Is our word literate culture the block that is preventing our being fluently telepathic ?

I had this thought already too. What if...
It's not as if I can un-learn English (ha ha)
Telepathy with words sounds like a headache to me, and besides, it'd be a lot faster to communicate without words

[Bo Atkinson]

As forum uses evolve… On line, spoken discussion, supported by special filtering tools, could assist people to find just the right discussion or contacts, as well as filter out polite irrelevance of tedious diplomacy; only by gradually finding agreeable discussions, potentially followed up with the old fashioned human discussions on skype, etc.., based on closer-mutual interests, using minimal bandwidth costs, also including file or link sharing, thus avoiding or greatly reducing needs for the advertising and profiling clutter of bigger-board-forums and, also reducing expenses for the matrix-escapees, (who actually get shunned and framed, to receive fewer work contracts with income). The historical value of archived forums is nice, but people may also use personal websites for such records and theoretically the archive org might maintain some things.



I did a survey once on my on Facebook profile, to see how many of my friends were reading from a desktop, a phone, or both.

The ratio was about 90% reading from their phone.
[...]
And, they are mostly on their phones.

If a platform is not mobile-friendly, they will bypass it.

(This typing style I use, is one I adapted over time, to be mobile-friendly. It's easier to read on mobile devices.)


A trend of this nature sounds possible for enhancement, where bandwidth costs might change the game. As 5G starts up, personal bandwidth costs might provoke people to stream line usages to one “mobile account”, at least speaking from an off-matrix approach to life’s expenses. If mobile phones provide better deals than land phones, why not quit the land phone? (I ask myself as rural land lines might cost more after 5G). Our private land line number has become so bogged down with spam calls, the time is right for closing the land line account and secreting the phone number, (where we advertised for contracting purposes previously).

The-bottom-line-costs will determine communications and also forum options.

I expect mobile phones could become more and more accessible to plug in PCs and also to keep the desk top, wired in through connectors, and use the phone at safe distances, somehow, as wireless devices are designed to maim humans in current usage habits, (causing serious damage over the decades). I found it easy to disconnect the internal antennas of modems to improve safety and instead use ethernet connectors, instead of wireless options. Checking with electro-smog meter verifies there is less electro-pollution. The possibility here is that 5Gs huge bandwidth, regardless how dangerous it might prove, has so much more bandwidth space than have the land lines; therefore the connection providers could compete them to death and the ethos of our time seems to be ruthlessness in business practices.

[edina]

I remember that the long term plan was to get everyone dependent on their phones.
And then to directly wire them into the system, without the hard devices (phones).

If you watch the patterns you can see it inexorably moving in that direction.

I remember when working as a Pharmacy Tech, realizing how many people think only one meal ahead.
Corporations think about 2 to 5 decades ahead.

The people who are setting these long term goals think centuries ahead.

That's a huge "thinking" gap to close.

[Hazelfern]

Without good moderators, forums are useless imo. The future of forums is going to depend on the moderators.

As for other forum activity, I don't know - but I do see a LOT on stack exchange, which is an evolved kind of forum style (ie: worldbuilding.stackexchange.com). It's really just a bunch of questions and answers, but the people answering questions can also earn "reputation points" and badges (kind of like boy scouts ha ha)

PA is the only forum I read or post on currently, so of course I hope PA will still be around in the future. If this forum eventually goes kaput though, I'd understand. I'm just being frank when I say the moderation is only going to get worse from here.



Project Avalon Forum presents a plethora of ever expanding topics with no particular order emphasized. Thus the individual participant decides what is important, and thereby truly important threads get buried in the mix. My suggestion for how to improve Project Avalon would be to elevate, in a tier system, certain topics and/or certain contributors in a way that features their ongoing importance to the threats that we face now and in the coming years.

I like this idea, and I consider how I skipped the middle two pages of this thread and only read most of page 1. I'm not trying to be lazy, I'm trying to be efficiently using my time! My not reading those gives me time to post a reply, and the only risk I am taking is possibly overlooking a jewel on page three.

Petra, this forum that you and I love will no go kaput. I appreciate, sometimes adore your thoughts expressed and could not find them anywhere else. If Bill gave it up, not sure how that would go.

[Bill Ryan]

I'm just being frank when I say the moderation is only going to get worse from here.



Does that mean that it can't possibly get any better? :)

[petra]

I'm just being frank when I say the moderation is only going to get worse from here.



Does that mean that it can't possibly get any better? :)

Ha ha! How in the heck did I manage to word things that badly.

No, Bill. You can't get any better. You're already perfect (wink wink)

What I mean to say is, the job is going to get worse. Not the moderators (lol).
Why would it get harder to moderate forums in the future? Well that's mostly directed towards PA (I don't use other forums) and not forums in general. I predict an influx of new users, as people begin to "wake up more" so to speak, which will surely contribute to the difficulty of moderating.

GOOD moderation is always difficult, I think so anyway. I also realize PA moderators don't moderate alone, and often decisions are made as a group - which really is ideal.