The feedback being presented is extremely appreciated and valuable to us growing and structuring the site. As stated, the way the separate forums were running in that there was not enough activity at certain times to justify them sadly. They are a great idea no doubt in that it provides individual havens actually for those groups. I will take this feedback up to the Staff/Advisors and we will go from there.
And as always, thank you to everyone for your continued support.
Thank YOU guys for providing this forum!!!
IF I may...... And this is just my half cent..... one of the most common reasons why new ventures fail (including websites) is that they don't have an UBER-CLEAR sense of mission/purpose/reason - what very, very clear and distinctive thing they will offer, and they haven't determined that what they are offering is actually needed (to the extent their new venture will thrive). Too often, people just jump in and wing it. It's almost an insurance of failure.
Personally, I've been a part of probably two dozen websites since I was 10 or so. FEW of them still exist, most have gone either belly up or they are still "up" but completely DEAD. The reason is the same: they never knew why they existed (Or over-moderation and power struggles killed it.... often both). I think there have been at least half a dozen spin-offs of CF (usually begun by former Admins of that site) - at times with some fuzzy idea of "we'll duplicate CF but without the problems" I think a couple still exist but none thrive.
The NAME implies this is a HAVEN. If that's the case, then this is YET ANOTHER of the many, many, many relativistic, feel-good, truth-doesn't-matter, fellowship sites. There are already a LOT of them - WAY ahead of you. If you are going to try to complete with Starbucks by being the SAME THING, I suspect you'll never get anywhere. What the NAME implies to ME is yet another 'kumbyah' site - there are zillions of them already. You might CONSIDER offering something different, something distinctive, an alternative?
But it BEGINS with a very clear, carefully crafted, well thought out mission statement, vision statement. That defines - clearly - how you are different than the zillions of alternative. And THAT impacts everything you do - from how the site is named, how the look is established, the publicity, the staffing. EXample: Some 15 years ago, a medical doctor from Australia - frustated by the theological divisions among us - decided to found a site where Christians of all persuasions from all over the world could come for OPEN, HONEST, REAL and mostly unbounded converstation in pursuit of unity of truth, a unity based on agreement. That site (ChristianForums) became the largest Christian site on the internet - because no other major site was doing THAT and because it was not only his visition, his purpose, his obsession - but he kept it in clear vision. That was forgotten and the site went into decline. I use taht example not to suggest copying THAT mission but to note the importance of having ONE. Clearly stated. Everywhere. And THE reason for all that is done. And make it as unique as possible..... "me, too" is never cause for any to join (when there are already bigger, better sites doing the same thing).
Just my half cent. Ignore if you like.
Again, thank you for the site!
- Josiah