Re: Help grow The Science and Philosophy Forums!
by Athena on June 21st, 2015, 1:22 pm
Well, I just responded to a PM questioning why I am not here much. I don't really feel welcome here because I am interested in science, but really don't know much about it, and whoo is it a bad experience to say the wrong thing here. There is an elitism here that it makes posting here unsafe for people who are not well informed.
However, the forum that holds most my time is full of very small-minded, insulting people, who hold discussions down to their level, and that is a totally turn off for me. However, what makes it a super good forum is all the ways it hooks people in. If someone's name is mentioned, the person is notified. If a person is quoted, the person is notified. If someone likes a post, and clicks the like button, a person is notified. All the threads we post to are automatically listed in our profile, so it is easy to return to discussions we are involved in. We log on and immediately see all of our notifications and this keeps us involved. On days when I have no notifications, I wonder off to other forums. So you get me when I am being engaged elsewhere.
Like others said, my friends do not engage in forums. It seems forums are ruled by young, and aggressive males, who make the forums unpleasant places for older and more refined people. Laugh, in one forum, the most offensive person is a moderator who thinks moderators should have power and authority and the peasants should not. He insults people all the time, and defends this practice, making the rules to avoid offending people and turning them away, pointless, and also obviously biased by his likes and dislikes. The people I know, just are not going to involve themselves with this. Also, my friends are mostly female and females are interested in other things, like how we should educate children and prepare them to be adults. We are social creatures with human concerns, more than technologically interested in matter. Kind of the difference between the gods and goddesses you know.