The reason for the decline in forum membership - anyone?

I thought often, what is the purpose of this site ?

The purpose is to educate and promote the mainstream of science?
Moderators are teachers, and members are students?
In this case you do not need critical/logical thinking . You need memory to reproduce the mainstream.

Or it is intended for discussion of new ideas or new arguments?
Where the emphasis is on the subject discussed, and not on the person who exhibits.

Why the members are here?
To learn the mainstream or to participate in interesting, civilized discussions about new ideas, based on mutual respect?

 

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Reason for decline.
Not enough cute cat threads.

 

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It's very easy to get obsessed with the comings and goings on which occur on the forum, but you have to consider that it's just "Trending".

The mainstream methods of communication have altered greatly in the last couple of decades, once the mainstream place for discussions was Bulletin boards served by a premium dialup number, then came Usernet/Newsgroups, followed by live communication via IRC, further still the advent of Forums software such as this and in more recent years the increasing trend of people using Twitter, Youtube and Facebook (and other social sites), now it's particular phone applets allowing people to communicate via their mobiles.

As for the future, we'll I don't want to speculate "flying cars" but there will obviously be a greater saturation in the media types made available. Heck with the current direction in cybernetics and mnemonics, people will likely post actual captured thoughts for other people to share via specific devices.

The fact there in is that this type of forum isn't at the top of the trending shift anymore, people are more likely to chase brand-names assuming they offer some sort of familiar, mass trusted format that is mainstream while neglecting to understand that the oversized, conglomerate behemoth loses it's capacity to rationalise with an individual and suppresses identify for an increase in sales. (Their support sucks)

If you are concerned there isn't enough "new blood" then you have to look to how to negate the trending, to bring ourselves up to speed with the current and of course anticipate the future (no flying cars)

 

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http://www.videobash.com/video_show/idiocracy-intro-245281

 

Double post removed. RC.

 

I agree however there is still and will be a need for those who wish to read more than one liners and get into the issues a bit more profoundly than available on the networking sites. Face book only has to launch a comprehensive "long post" forum system [and i am sure they are thinking about it] for these sorts of discussions and their membership of 300+million will do the rest. There is a demand for "boutique" forums such as this one that are not oppressed by the marketing needs of a large commercial platform such as facebook. [any one want to write a facebook forum app let me know? Could be worth a billion or 2 [chuckle]]

So I would confidently expect sciforums will have a strong place into the future regardless of facebook type competitions. However all forums have to market in some form and demonstrating good poster behaviour and moderation is vital to securing that future.

 

as long as we can deal properly with posts such as this one left standing in a pseudo science thread that bears no tangible relationship to the OP:

which could even be the output of an experimental bot using key words/syl's similar to this one [if posted]

lorem Ipsum.

 

wow. reading that last post inflamed my migraines. I'll have to take a break for a while. I'm going to a forum with some cute cat threads now.

 

yeah... can i come with you....

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Agreed.

I have not been active for some time, so I'm not sure that I am really qualified to answer, but I'll give it a shot.

Firstly, I am not sure how we are defining "significant decline", nor what period of time is being considered. From my POV, I seem to see a lot of new members that have recently arrived but only seem to stay for a few posts - usually less than 100. Concurrently, I have noticed that a lot of old timers seem to be absent or at least less active. My immediate take would be that the reasons are as many and varied as the number of members under consideration. Take Cosmic for example, his farewell thread mentioned certain personal, individual reasons for leaving if IIRC.

To properly answer the question I think one would need to identify a sampling of members that have left or are no longer active and see if enough information could be garnered to identify a common pattern. To my knowledge this has not been done, as I said, I'm not even sure the underlying question has been properly defined.

So we are left with "gut" feelings. As has been previously pointed out, Social Media has probably taken its tole, but I think you may be looking for an answer endemic to Sci itself. It would seem to me that the influx of new members are qualitatively less prepared to offer content coherent and interesting enough to pique the attention of the long time members, and I'm quite sure many of the old-timers get tired of rehashing the same old tired questions that can be answered by a simple Google or Wiki search. So maybe part of the question is why we are not attracting the calibre of newcomers needed to replace natural attrition, thereby contributing to the perceived decline in membership.

Many here long for "the Golden Age" when things were fresh and new, or at least are remembered in that fashion. Free wheeling "intelligent" discussions with more tolerance for pseudo-flame wars and a general atmosphere of fun and frolic. Now and then a member from that era will resurface, witness the recent return of Bebelina, for example. She may be a good source of insight on this topic.

As to the moderation strategy here, I would agree that the forum has "matured" over the years and some of the rambunctiousness has been curbed. This, of course, is only to be expected. Perhaps even inevitable. Is this a good thing? Probably depends on your POV. For all we know, the site is more profitable to the owners under the current paradigm than it was previously. We peons are not privy to this sort of information, so to an extent we operate in a vacuum.

In summary, I do not believe that there is a singular factor that could be isolated and quantified that would satisfactorily explain the "decline". Again, that's just my guess...

 

I tend to feel that this is the most salient point so far made.
Is the forum about question and answer in that poster poses a question and waits for an answer?
Or is it about discussion about both the question and the answers suggested.
There is a basic issue involved in al this and that is the ART of respectful dicussion and sciforums I believe is struggling with this.
The old members with some answers are not here to simply give answers, they are here to enter into discussion to hopefully improve the answers they feel they have.
For example, if Philosophy was a "closed to improvement" subject then there would be no need for discussion.
The Physics and Math boards are about what? Teaching ? or discussion about what is or isn't taught? as a example of the apparent confusion.

 

Why is Sci?

Thank you. I'm glad I could contribute something.

I would imagine that the scope of this board encompasses both, depending on the situation.

I believe this goes to the root of the question, and relates to the basic mission statement of Sci itself. Something I have never really gotten a clear picture of from the get go.

This would be the ideal situation, but would seem to require peers sufficiently able to engage in insightful discussion. For whatever reason, it seems that many or most of the "new" members are unable to provide this, as I alluded to before. So, my comment on rehashing the same simple answers also applies to "discussions" to some degree. The veterans are probably weary of starting from first principles on many topics, meaning a significant amount of effort must be expended just to bring many participants "up to speed" enough to make the discussion interesting. I might venture that this could be an explanation for someone like Glaucon departing, although that is pure speculation on my part.

Agreed. I do not believe anyone thinks that this is the case though, and philosophy may be a poor example because many of the questions addressed by that discipline are by definition impossible to unambiguously conclude.

To me, this represents an example much more on point as to what I believe you are trying to illustrate. To answer your question, these fora are certainly about teaching, and many learned members display extraordinary patience in helping newbies learn. They seem to enjoy teaching and passing on knowledge to those willing to learn, unfortunately they are beset with more than their fair share of close minded cranks out to overturn the mainstream methodology, often without even bothering to learn what the mainstream has to offer in the first place. On the other hand, I have seen few "new" competent physicists or mathematicians join recently, perhaps making it difficult for the old timers to find stimulating conversation and debate leading to new insights. Then again, I would venture that these two areas likely do not greatly influence overall membership growth or decline simply because of the narrower appeal of these subjects to the average layman. The addition of the new Pseudoscience categories probably attract more new members than the hard mainstream science boards.

Perhaps James, Stryder or Tiassa might better expound on the underlying mission of Sci, although I seem to recall periods of confusion about this very issue on their own part.


In closing, this whole phenomenon of "declining membership" may simply be transient in nature. Have you checked the trending graphs for indications of cyclic influences or other insights?

 

On behalf of all participants to this thread I wish to thank you for your contribution. I personally concur with most if not all that you have written. It appears a fundmental vexation is involved generating most of the problem and finding a specific solution may or may not be possible.
perhaps this point may help us all find a better way:

I shall consider more and post again later and possibly others may wish to add to the line of enquiry..

 

How about stupidism. IE disrespecting the rights of people to be stupid and remain so indefinitely.

 

The key reason I have realised why this forums membership is in decline is that the board is way to adversarial. In that sciforums may as well put out a billboard that reads, "If you want to come in for a fight loaded with insult and disrespect then this is the forum for you". It is also blatantly obvious that "rule" enforcement has been seriously compromised for reasons that can't be made public.
It was not always this way as I recall from earlier times when members actually were friendly.

Persons I have referred here have declined to register simply because they see no value in being attacked for their opinions or "lesser inteligence" and it appears that only those persons who value confrontation will join the board , not to pursue any altruistic goal but merely to enjoy warfare with other persons of similar intellectual level. I have stopped refering persons to this forum ages ago as I happen to value my friendships and wish not to add them as fodder for the viscious adversarial agenda that some posters appear to be running. [and condoned by the impotency of the forum rules]
It is up to the prospective members to decide if they wish to either enjoy fruitful discussions or enter into endlessly futile conflicts. Only joining if they choose the later or go somewhere else where they are more welcome for their opinions and views no matter how "stupid" they may be.
The world is only able to function with "Good faith" and "Good will" at it's foundation, all rules and laws are subject to these two important factors and when persons destroy another persons desire to act in good faith and good will then anarchy and self defeat is the only outcome and a terrorist is born.

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and now for something not so completely different:
[video=youtube;qE41YPdPuis]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qE41YPdPuis[/video]
ha ha.. gotta love Aretha "freedom" "freedom" !

 

The main problem with internet discourse isn't whether folks 'are nice or not nice' it's rampant intellectual dishonesty. You're either intellectually honest or not. If you need to be right all the time then you're most likely a 'not'. If you make scientifically illiterate claims you're most likely a 'not'. The internet is a great place for intellectual sociopaths and fools.

 

maybe you would care to inform the readers what you mean by intellectual dishonesty and how you can claim such?
Are you suggesting that posters are acting deliberately to commit a fraud ? or is their dishonesty somehow accidental?