Catholic Answers Forums Closing

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I have been here 15 years…watching and reading carefully. This forum was grossly abused by a number of people for Democratic political gain this year. It has experienced exploitation by various users/special interest groups promoting agendas.
Patron $$ levels didn’t stop special interest and exploitation.

…wise decision to move on.
 
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Cruciferi said:
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Dolphin:
Perhaps they will move to a new cheaper one?
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Nope. This is the end of the road.
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I think the move was made to Discourse to save money from the old platform.
 
I sort of wish the costs were shared. No way to really assess the decision without that info. What specific amount are we talking here?
 
Donkey said:
It has experienced exploitation by various users/special interest groups promoting agendas.
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You have proof special interest groups exploited CAF? What are you talking about???
 
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The reddit forum doesn’t look very visually appealing or user-friendly. CAF is very much user-friendly and visually appealing. But I’m not really sure how reddit works tbh
 
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Donkey said:
You got to be kidding me…go back and read your own 15 years worth posts by thousands of people.
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Would appreciate if we didn’t turn this thread into a political argument. I was kinda hoping to discuss solutions to the impending doom of the forum. 🤨
 
Well, if we can start a new forum, I propose Rule #1: No Politics!
 
That would be nice to have the ol’ days back but really…the flavor of CAF has changed and is wantonly exploited by various special interest users. I can’t see how that aspect can be reversed…for all the money in the world.
 
Been here sixteen years (2004). If I had a baby back then, I would be teaching that kid to drive by now.

Back in the day, CAF was good. It had good apologetics and faith discussions.

Not so anymore. CAF is a shadow of its former self. I am quite frankly not sorry to see it go. Catholic Answers the organization is great, and their money should be directed to more worthwhile endeavours.
 
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AdamP88 said:
I do “get” the reasons they are doing this. But I think giving just a month’s notice and not suggesting any alternative shows how they have viewed this. They also wasted money on migrating the entire forums to a new format about three years ago. Nobody asked for that really. Now it’s costing too much. The problem is that this forum is probably one of the biggest and most popular catholic forums on the internet and it’s a community that won’t be replicated anywhere else.
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I actually reached out to Steve Ray to see if he was still running his forums. He handed those over to Ave Maria Radio, and it appears they have taken them down (or at least they are not presently functional). Other than that, I don’t use discussion forums so I won’t vouch for any others.

Just so you know, we didn’t waste money migrating the forums. It absolutely had to be done. The old platform was no longer supported and we were vulnerable to spam and cyber attacks. The migration actually saved us a little money. But between that and all the other efforts I made to keep this going, it was ultimately not enough.

I’m sorry for the upsetting news. I figured it would be a bummer for many of you. But I really did put a lot of effort into this for a very long time and the decision to shut it down was not made quickly.
 
@Jon_Sorensen, thank you for all the work you’ve done. I’m so sorry it’s come to this, I know you made it clear about the financial situation a while ago. It’s such a shame. I just wanted to say thank you to you and to the rest of Catholic Answers, because I’ve really loved this place and all the wonderful people I’ve talked to as a result.
 
Convert3 said:
Well, if we can start a new forum, I propose Rule #1: No Politics!
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Just a few days ago I noticed just how many threads on CAF had little to do with anything conducive to a peaceful discussion. It was (is) mostly personal stuff, or political stuff. The letter from Chris Check said basically the same thing.

I’m just guessing that this is the result of our culture growing more polemic and inward turning.
 
Jon_Sorensen said:
I actually reached out to Steve Ray to see if he was still running his forums. He handed those over to Ave Maria Radio, and it appears they have taken them down (or at least they are not presently functional). Other than that, I don’t use discussion forums so I won’t vouch for any others.

Just so you know, we didn’t waste money migrating the forums. It absolutely had to be done. The old platform was no longer supported and we were vulnerable to spam and cyber attacks. The migration actually saved us a little money. But between that and all the other efforts I made to keep this going, it was ultimately not enough.

I’m sorry for the upsetting news. I figured it would be a bummer for many of you. But I really did put a lot of effort into this for a very long time and the decision to shut it down was not made quickly.
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Thanks for your reply and for explaining that. As I said, I get why you would want to cut the discussion forums loose from the Catholic Answers brand.

Yeah it is upsetting. Is there no chance you would recommend a new format to users who want to continue on in a different platform? Reddit or some other thing. Just so that perhaps the regulars would be inclined to use it.
There are a few members that I would like to stay in touch with and I’ll probably message them but it’s be excellent to have a site wide announcement if something was arranged.
 
Lou2U said:
@Jon_Sorensen, thank you for all the work you’ve done. I’m so sorry it’s come to this, I know you made it clear about the financial situation a while ago. It’s such a shame. I just wanted to say thank you to you and to the rest of Catholic Answers, because I’ve really loved this place and all the wonderful people I’ve talked to as a result.
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I second that. And thanks doubly from me as I met my lovely wife here. :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:
 
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You can start threads on that subject. I definitely won’t stop anyone from doing that. I reached out to the only other Catholic discussion forums that I thought was trustworthy, but they appear to no longer be functional as well. I can’t recommend any others. That’s something I think you folks will have to vet for yourselves.
 
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