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My children will probably see this as a positive development!
I’m going to have to get a new hobby… woodworking?
 
White_Tree said:
But they didn’t do that this time. They simply said, “We’re done.” Kind of curious.
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They’ve done lots of fundraisers. They’ve cut costs by letting the entire moderation staff go. They’ve tried ads. As they said in the notice, they’ve tried patrons, which couldn’t even get up to 10% of what was needed. IMO this was the logical final step in a long, drawn-out process.
 
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JanR said:
I have said that I would pay to use these forums IF my payment could be accepted by some other method that strictly online. I simply do NOT do financial transactions on the internet. I wouldn’t mind at all being able to send a check in the (snail) mail. Surely, a broader variety of payment options should be possible.

That said, I wish to convey that I have generally and specifically found these forums helpful, and I hope I have been helpful to at least some of the members here.
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Same here. I am very reluctant to set up a regular payment on the internet, but over the years here I have donated annually (proactively) and also, from time to time, in response to a “fund raiser”.

Several years ago they closed the option of “one off” donations, insisting that the only finances they’d accept would be regular “patrons”. I resisted this for a couple of years, feeling that I was being “bossed”, but eventually agreed to play by their rules, so set up the regular donation.

They haven’t exposed their financial position, but I suspect that it was this insistence on regular subscriptions which has made the difference - negatively.

This is a great loss. In my ten years here I have learned so much, and also greatly valued the community.
Jen95 said:
My children will probably see this as a positive development!
I’m going to have to get a new hobby… woodworking?
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🤣👍

My children would have said the same, in the time when I had them at home and also allowed myself to get worked up about something someone had said to me in CAF. But that’s all long past, as the kids have been away from home for years.

Still, it will be a blessing to not have the option of spending too much time in CAF, or getting upset by the (occasional) hurtful remark.
 
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I have mixed feelings about this. I am not a frequent poster but visit a lot. In the past, this forum was a great resource for apologetics topics. There were lots of questions answered with charity and a heart felt desire to help someone.

The past couple of years, things have changed and have started to reflect the general disfunction of public discourse that is poisoning the United States currently. There is a general sense of trying to dehumanize and demonize people who are not of the same opinion. This has been happening on all sides of issues.

There are also those who appear to come in to bait people into “gotcha” type answers (trolls), After a while it gets really soul-sucking-ly depressing to see this type of uncharity and duplicitousness infect every conversation that appears on this board. It is very frustrating to try to wade through the muck just to get an honest answer.

It is really sad because there are some great posters here and their voices end up getting drowned out by all the noise. Thanks to all who have given some truly uplifting and informative info here. I will miss you and pray for you. I will not miss all those who insist on “winning” an argument that is not being made and I will also pray for you.
 
Now you see, exchanges like this I’ll really miss! So satisfying to see you give the perfect response you did LOL
 
praytell said:
There are also those who appear to come in to bait people into “gotcha” type answers (trolls), After a while it gets really soul-sucking-ly depressing to see this type of uncharity and duplicitousness infect every conversation that appears on this board. It is very frustrating to try to wade through the muck just to get an honest answer.
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Could be. Maybe they have observed that they can’t have both an “open” forum and inhibit the mud-slinging and “gotcha” attacks - which are a poor witness to the faith. They are a minority, but also regular. I’ve even seen it, sadly, when someone inquiring about the faith asks a question or presents a difficulty in good faith, and is attacked for it. Not by the majority, but by just one or two - which would be enough to sting.

Your point that this reflects a wider dysfunction in public discourse is a good one.

It would also have been very time consuming for them to manage frequent reports of inappropriate posts.
 
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Wampa said:
They’ve cut costs by letting the entire moderation staff go.
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If they let the entire moderation staff go, then who is moderating the forums?

And if they’re not paying moderators, then what are their primary costs, besides servers and bandwidth?

They’re making between $325 and $650 per month from patrons. Based on what they’ve told us, that implies the cost of the forums is somewhere between $39,000 and $78,000 per year. They can’t be spending all that on tech.

I know another large, popular religious website, with a forum, that spends less than $10,000/year on information technology. So what is eating the money here?

I suppose it doesn’t really matter, since the forum is closing. But I am curious as to what the cost structure is for an operation like this.
 
Hint: Try doing so with charity, and it might be good to consider that your take on dogma might not exactly mesh with the Church’s.

Each and every time I get in trouble it is for lack of charity. Charity is a struggle in a world full of idiots.

Oooops…
 
I’m glad it’s closing. It didn’t bring out the best in me and was certainly not spiritually edifying.
 
Well, this is the fourth forum in two years I am a member of that is going to be shut down. And the reason is always the same. It is definitely a trend…
 
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White_Tree said:
If they let the entire moderation staff go, then who is moderating the forums?
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Users.
White_Tree said:
Based on what they’ve told us, that implies the cost of the forums is somewhere between $39,000 and $78,000 per year. They can’t be spending all that on tech.
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I think that we can assume that there are paid staff members who spend a portion of their time on Forum business. It’s pretty easy to assign a hard dollar value on that cost.
 
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