Do you care what other CAF posters think of you?

[exnihilo]

Sadly it seems there is very little actual “Catholic Answers” content on CAF these days. I do recall the activity used to feature much more actual Catholic apologetics. The Ask an Apologist forum was very popular, as was the Apologetics forum in general. Now people mostly either (1) pray for intentions or (2) argue about politics.

I agree with you and I miss the “glory days” of CA, including the forums. I think it’s obvious there is a letdown of quality and content. But I’m willing to ride it out and I’m hopeful that maybe after some turbulence, it’s smooth sailing…
Let’s let them try to right the ship before we sharpen our pitchforks.

I wonder what has led to this change? The content is from forum members. So what has caused a decrease in good content from members?

I will say I do appreciate this forum for non religious topics because of the moderation. Other forums can be awful.

 

[BlueEyedLady]

I always thought I was the only person who viewed forums this way.

For me at least, I think it’s the era I grew up in. I was a kid just as the internet was really becoming a thing, and in my rural Midwestern town there were not a lot of early adopters. My teachers and parents were very wary of it because of all the chatroom horror stories, and I really took their concerns to heart. I’m still very protective of my identity online, both my real name and my screen names. I Google myself regularly as a check. Online dating was HUGE and scary for me, so I really limited myself to guys in my immediate area who I could meet quickly and follow-up on via social media to make sure they were who they claimed to be.

There are some people even on CAF who I won’t converse with via PM, because they’re either very committed trolls or truly unhinged people. I don’t give every crazy person on the street my time or energy, so why should the internet be any different? The internet just essentially gave every one of those people a megaphone, and I won’t engage.

 

[Mary_Gail_36]

I hope that throughout the course of the years that I’ve been a good example with my posts. That, to me is more important than anyone linking me because I’m “popular”.

I hope I’ve been truthful and charitable.

I have been touched by a number of posters for their support during hard times. I appreciate that very much.

 

[Xantippe]

I hope that throughout the course of the years that I’ve been a good example with my posts. That, to me is more important than anyone linking me because I’m “popular”.

I hope I’ve been truthful and charitable.

I have been touched by a number of posters for their support during hard times. I appreciate that very much.

Yes!

 

[ToeInTheWater]

I wonder what has led to this change? The content is from forum members. So what has caused a decrease in good content from members?

I will say I do appreciate this forum for non religious topics because of the moderation. Other forums can be awful.

Much of the decrease in good content, has resulted from a decrease in posters. I think some of that was inevitable, for the general popularity of all “internet forums” or “BBS” has declined, as many of the target audience for such forums, have moved over to using social media sites instead.

Many posters formerly active here have stopped coming altogether, or post much less frequently, and will openly tell people they are now spending most of their on-line time on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.

I even know of a fairly large and active evangelical Christian site, Crosswalk.com. that shut down its online forum and told all the posters there to join their Facebook page instead. And this is a site that is part of the Salem Network and most likely has a higher operating budget than CA.

And perhaps, although CA is not totally getting rid of the forums, I get the feeling that CA staff decided to lighten up the moderation, assuming the strict moderation was driving posters away, since certainly you can be much nastier and uncharitable on Facebook and other social media sites.

If that was the case, I think it was a mistake. Especially as this “standing down” by CA mods took place just as one of the nastiest presidential campaigns ever was going on. And I know many posters have now left precisely due to the lack of moderation resulting in a “wild west” or “take no prisoners” environment.

I suspect that the attrition due to this was much more than any prior attrition due to stringent moderation. But I have no proof.

ETA: Very ironic because we see that actual Churches that lighten up their moral standards hoping to retain members, actually have the opposite take place. Mainline protestant churches are losing members, fundamentalist and “non-denomination” churches are gaining them. And where the Catholic Church is concerned, it seems most Church leaders in Germany are very liberal, yet the Church is losing members there too.

 

[Hoosier_Daddy]

Much of the decrease in good content, has resulted from a decrease in posters. I think some of that was inevitable, for the general popularity of all “internet forums” or “BBS” has declined, as many of the target audience for such forums, have moved over to using social media sites instead.

Many posters formerly active here have stopped coming altogether, or post much less frequently, and will openly tell people they are now spending most of their on-line time on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.

I even know of a fairly large and active evangelical Christian site, Crosswalk.com. that shut down its online forum and told all the posters there to join their Facebook page instead. And this is a site that is part of the Salem Network and most likely has a higher operating budget than CA.

And perhaps, although CA is not totally getting rid of the forums, I get the feeling that CA staff decided to lighten up the moderation, assuming the strict moderation was driving posters away, since certainly you can be much nastier and uncharitable on Facebook and other social media sites.

If that was the case, I think it was a mistake. Especially as this “standing down” by CA mods took place just as one of the nastiest presidential campaigns ever was going on. And I know many posters have now left precisely due to the lack of moderation resulting in a “wild west” or “take no prisoners” environment.

I suspect that the attrition due to this was much more than any prior attrition due to stringent moderation. But I have no proof.

ETA: Very ironic because we see that actual Churches that lighten up their moral standards hoping to retain members, actually have the opposite take place. Mainline protestant churches are losing members, fundamentalist and “non-denomination” churches are gaining them. And where the Catholic Church is concerned, it seems most Church leaders in Germany are very liberal, yet the Church is losing members there too.

It’s all speculation but here is my speculation which differs from yours. CA radio and CA forums have declined. I think turnover has had a toll. I think under the new site even finding the forums is harder and I think there is less advertising of them from more stable media, like the radio show. And I think less traffic on all forms of CA has lead to a reduction in resources. I think that is the main approach in the moderation aspect. If you advertise it and put it front and center, the maintenance will be intense and costly. I also think that between the infighting and attacks from those who wish CA harm it became a liability. The frustrating part for me has been a lack of uniformity in moderation. What one is chastised for one day is free game on another. Also, I noticed a cleaning house style where bans seemed to hit other posters in waves.
Personally I think the new forums will offer much less in variety. And I’m ok with that. But I do hope for a couple of things. 1. That CA is invested in this type of communication and environment. One almost has to be. 2. That it stays away from mandatory Facebook accounts that so many communities seem to have. 3. That someday my postings here can be read in defense and investigation of my cannonization cause.

 

[ToeInTheWater]

It’s all speculation but here is my speculation which differs from yours. CA radio and CA forums have declined. I think turnover has had a toll. I think under the new site even finding the forums is harder and I think there is less advertising of them from more stable media, like the radio show. And I think less traffic on all forms of CA has lead to a reduction in resources. I think that is the main approach in the moderation aspect. If you advertise it and put it front and center, the maintenance will be intense and costly.

At least you are aware of the radio show. Many who post on these forums do not listen to the show or even visit the main website. And I have actually heard the forums advertised on CAL on occasion, but I agree that perhaps CA has decided that publicizing them more would result in too much traffic than the current system can handle. I hope the new forum format is easier to maintain.

I also think that between the infighting and attacks from those who wish CA harm it became a liability. The frustrating part for me has been a lack of uniformity in moderation. What one is chastised for one day is free game on another. Also, I noticed a cleaning house style where bans seemed to hit other posters in waves.

I recall an official CAF fundraising email noting that moderation hours have been cut back. So likely they are not checking the forum regularly and so it seems a particular rule is not being enforced, but it’s merely a question of “when do the mods actually look over the forum for offensive posts”?

As for bans, I know that the current version of CAF uses a points system, much like demerits in Catholic school, and if someone racks up a certain number of points they get banned. And where most of the banned posters are concerned, usually when they get banned I wonder “why weren’t they banned 100 posts earlier”. I also know some who suddenly get banned are actually “reincarnations” of prior banned accounts. I can see why such bans may come in waves, as it takes some detective work to figure that out and likely the mods only do that, say, once a week, or perhaps if they get deluged with complaints about a particular poster.

Personally I think the new forums will offer much less in variety. And I’m ok with that. But I do hope for a couple of things. 1. That CA is invested in this type of communication and environment. One almost has to be. 2. That it stays away from mandatory Facebook accounts that so many communities seem to have. 3. That someday my postings here can be read in defense and investigation of my cannonization cause.

LOL.

 

[Irishmom2]

1. That someday my postings here can be read in defense and investigation of my cannonization cause.

:bowdown:

Funniest thing I have read in a long time on CAF!

 

[SuperLuigi]

Sadly it seems there is very little actual “Catholic Answers” content on CAF these days. I do recall the activity used to feature much more actual Catholic apologetics. The Ask an Apologist forum was very popular, as was the Apologetics forum in general. Now people mostly either (1) pray for intentions or (2) argue about politics.

I get the feeling the main CA brass have essentially given up on CAF as actually contributing anything to the actual apologetics mission by itself, and I suspect the new forum will be much more hands-off and anything-goes because they just don’t see the forum as that important to their overall mission. (It’s also telling how the blog articles no longer allow for discussion anymore ever since the main site upgrade.)

Maybe I’ll be proven wrong, I get the feeling they hope “Well maybe 5% of the CA forumers will actually check out the main site, And maybe 10% will donate funds to help keep the REAL apostolate running. So the forums are still good for something, but not enough to justify the amount of manpower we’ve been dedicating to it so far”.

I’m not sure what these comments are getting at, but people want to do more on here than just discuss how times we should bow before communion and what last week’s homily was about.

I will say for myself I’m not on here out of a sense of obligation which is a concept that is strangling Christian media.

So I know I won’t go to sites that are mundane, and I think it’s obvious a lot of others won’t either.

 

[SuperLuigi]

=BlueEyedLady;14821166]For me at least, I think it’s the era I grew up in. I was a kid just as the internet was really becoming a thing, and in my rural Midwestern town there were not a lot of early adopters. My teachers and parents were very wary of it because of all the chatroom horror stories, and I really took their concerns to heart. I’m still very protective of my identity online, both my real name and my screen names. I Google myself regularly as a check. Online dating was HUGE and scary for me, so I really limited myself to guys in my immediate area who I could meet quickly and follow-up on via social media to make sure they were who they claimed to be.

The market has caught up to that somewhat. The big issue is people who are really young or really older who aren’t familiar with the internet and all of the gimmicks that go along with it.

And I know that especially in the skeptic community doxxing has been a serious issue.

There are some people even on CAF who I won’t converse with via PM, because they’re either very committed trolls or truly unhinged people. I don’t give every crazy person on the street my time or energy, so why should the internet be any different? The internet just essentially gave every one of those people a megaphone, and I won’t engage.

If you’ve had a real conversation with someone via PM, you deserve a trophy. Over half of what I get are insults and vapid misrepresentations of my comments. I happen to know for a fact in the six years I’ve been on here that people say things about comments and other media they’ve never read or watched and have been caught red-handed doing so.

 

[Gordon_Sims]

For me at least, I think it’s the era I grew up in. I was a kid just as the internet was really becoming a thing, and in my rural Midwestern town there were not a lot of early adopters.

I’ve been using forums regularly since the early to mid 90s. In the very early days I had some real life friendships grow out of those online acquaintances. Unfortunately, a lot them turned out to be psychos. I dealt with way more than my fair share of cyber-stalking (long before it was even a term), real life stalking, lies, theft and all sorts of other craziness. I was pretty open with my identity back then (as were lots of other folks) but it didn’t take long to find that a lot of people weren’t who they claimed to be and some were deceitful to a ridiculous degree (at one point I was pretty handy at tracking people down online and was able to prove on a few forums that certain members were using multiple ID’s or had totally different personalities elsewhere online–fun stuff like that). I had a PC die around the time I switched internet providers and took it as an opportunity to delete my old ID’s and come up with new ones. Since I had a new PC, new provider, new email address and new IP address there was no way to connect the new “me” to the old me. That’s when I really started taking the approach that the “people” I was talking to weren’t real in the sense that real-life, flesh and blood people are. Even the most open people online aren’t necessarily giving a true representation of themselves most of the time. At the same time, I took a much different approach to how I presented myself online, mainly in that I stopped sharing things openly and generally obfuscate the details. That doesn’t mean I lie–everything I say is factually accurate–but I go to great lengths to alter a lot of the details so that, while the “truth” comes through, I could easily add the same disclaimer you see on movies about how any similarity to any person living or dead is merely coincidental (at least, as far as you know). In other words, if I say this or that happened, it definitely did, but some of the principals and particulars have been altered to avoid any connection with real people and to avoid divulging any accurate personal details. I always make the assumption that everyone else is doing the same, at least to some degree, which reinforces the idea that they’re not entirely real people. (I’m sure I’ve put far more thought into this than is necessary, especially since I severely truncated my thoughts on this, but you get the idea.)

 

[Gordon_Sims]

If you’ve had a real conversation with someone via PM, you deserve a trophy. Over half of what I get are insults and vapid misrepresentations of my comments. I happen to know for a fact in the six years I’ve been on here that people say things about comments and other media they’ve never read or watched and have been caught red-handed doing so.

In the forums I frequented in the past, despite being extremely active in the actual forums, I was a far more active PM’er, as were most of the regulars. I always assumed that was a standard behavior since so much of my forum communications from my first 15-20 years online was via PM’s. It wasn’t until I joined CAF that I realized that not everyone communicates the same way. I’ve had several rude and/or defensive responses from people who believe the only reason PM’ing exists is for leches to hit on female forum members, or for people to engage in online adultery. I found that rather sad since some of my best online communications and relationships have been via PM.

 

[SuperLuigi]

In the forums I frequented in the past, despite being extremely active in the actual forums, I was a far more active PM’er, as were most of the regulars. I always assumed that was a standard behavior since so much of my forum communications from my first 15-20 years online was via PM’s. It wasn’t until I joined CAF that I realized that not everyone communicates the same way. I’ve had several rude and/or defensive responses from people who believe the only reason PM’ing exists is for leches to hit on female forum members, or for people to engage in online adultery. I found that rather sad since some of my best online communications and relationships have been via PM.

If it’s any consolation, I’ve had oh, a couple of accounts post some of my PMs on the Forums.

Which is fine…because I write appropriate, AWESOME PM’s!!!

Free PR too!

Oh, and someone recently wrote a quote and attributed it to me, even though I didn’t write it!

That’s also about as common.

 

[Gordon_Sims]

If it’s any consolation, I’ve had oh, a couple of accounts post some of my PMs on the Forums.

I haven’t had that happen here that I can recall, but I’ve had it happen in the past. I’ve also had people use the quote feature and completely alter what I wrote (as opposed to just posting the relevant text). I was embroiled in a horribly nasty argument years ago where someone started doing that, only to find they couldn’t hold a candle to me when I decided to return the favor. I was much younger and those were different times. A lot of fun at the time, but not something I’m inclined to engage in now.

 

[Bruised_Reed]

I wonder what has led to this change? The content is from forum members. So what has caused a decrease in good content from members?

I will say I do appreciate this forum for non religious topics because of the moderation. Other forums can be awful.

I’ve noticed over the last several months that the number of members online is about half of what it used to be. I don’t know if that means that more members are simply not logged in or if fewer members are posting. A lot of the good content probably came from people who no longer post because they were banned or suspended or took a break from the forums and haven’t come back. Every so often someone resurrects an old thread and I see members that had been very active but haven’t posted in a months or years.

I think CAF will lose a few active members with the switch but will gain a few as well, and maybe some will return.

I wonder if banned and suspended statuses will be maintained. When another forum I was involved with changed platforms, they also changed the name and tried to appeal to a broader audience; the number of active members had shrunk with the popularity of new social media. But with the new name and platform, one thing I noticed was that a couple of members who had been banned on the original forum were welcomed back on the new one. Could this be a jubilee for banned and suspended members?

 

[Gordon_Sims]

I wonder if banned and suspended statuses will be maintained. When another forum I was involved with changed platforms, they also changed the name and tried to appeal to a broader audience; the number of active members had shrunk with the popularity of new social media. But with the new name and platform, one thing I noticed was that a couple of members who had been banned on the original forum were welcomed back on the new one. Could this be a jubilee for banned and suspended members?

Years ago I got banned from a forum I had been posting on for years (all due to innocuous comments I made on a different site–really silly situation). When that forum migrated to new software, I found that I was still banned based on both my email and IP addresses. A couple years later they switched to yet another new software package and I was able to sign back up using a different email address, so I think it could be software dependent to some degree.

 

[SuperLuigi]

I actually met someone who knew me from here. That was a surprise. I try to be charitable and hold to my Catholic identity. I care what people think of me, not so much what they thing of the things I believe that are part of my faith and my morals. As I see it, if I am being offensive on any sort of personal level, then I am a poor writer.

You will want to rethink that because some people are too easily offended and it has zero to do with your writing.

 

[adamhovey1988]

I do and I don’t. It really hurts my feelings when I start a prayer thread, say for the poor, and someone tries to inject politics into it (which really did happen). I was annoyed by the person that did but I don’t know what they think of me. I think the problem is, when you’re like me, you want to be involved in so many conversations on CAF but you get a kind of burn-out and sometimes, unfortunately, you lose it with some folks. Some people are more patient than others. I am, however, not as patient as I should be. There are almost 7.5 billion people in the world (census.gov/popclock/) better just not to let some folks get to you.

 

[Patavium]

So in light of the recent announcement about the new forum, and the caution that not all the material on the current forum may survive the upgrade, I’ve been reviewing my prior posts.

I’ve noticed that many times I have disagreed, sometimes vehemently, with posters on certain issues, yet able to reach common ground on others. Sometimes I agree with a poster about, say, feminism, but not about immigration, or vice versa.

For the most part I don’t get too attached to particular posters. Yet at times I admit I am more reluctant to publicly disagree with posters who I “get along” with, and I get sad if a poster I respect doesn’t agree with me.

Does anyone else feel the same? Or are other posters just impersonal internet beings that you debate with on a purely intellectual level?

Frankly, I don’t. Maybe I used to, but not anymore.

I’ve had positive experiences and negative experiences with members. I met my wife here!! , isn’t that the most positive experience?? . Unfortunately, others I had positive experiences left CAF, others were banned for x, y, z reason, and etc… Life happens, and you lose contact. I’ve experienced fall out with members that decided they know better than me about my own life and provided unsolicited reprimands . I guess you see just about everything in CAF just like outside of CAF.

 

[chloride]

I try to remain civil, and hopefully get civil responses in turn. It doesn’t always work, but it’s worth a shot. There are definitely some posters here who I do care, at least to some degree, about what they think of my opinions. I lurked these forums for a couple years before registering (registration always seemed to be closed whenever I tried), so I formed a general idea of who the usual posters are, their leanings, etc. before ever actually having a chance to say something myself.

As far as the ignore list, I refuse to use it. Although there are some posters I definitely don’t agree with, I don’t think I can comment on a particularly topic unless I can see what other people have said - even if I have a good idea what they probably will say. Sometimes I’m surprised.

I’d also hope that if someone decides to put me on their ignore list that they’d PM me and tell me why. I know sometimes I come off as harsher than I mean to, or word my responses in ways that can be misinterpreted.