why is CH so dead?

[Nazareth]

Very few posts, not busy at all. Why?

 

[Lamb]

We have activity daily, so we aren't dead.

 

[Lees]

Very few posts, not busy at all. Why?

If you participate on some other forums, Christian Haven does appear to move slower with less posts.

I guess 'busy' will depend on how busy you want it.

I have noticed on all forums, that many people will join yet never respond with even one message. I think it is somewhat intimidating to many.

Lees

 

[Albion]

If you participate on some other forums, Christian Haven does appear to move slower with less posts.

I can think of several other forums which fit that description, but at the same time there seem to be more "Christian" or "Religious" forums online that are slower moving than CH. Some of them hardly have any activity at all.

 

[Lamb]

A simple solution to get this place more active...invite your friends to join us

 

[Lucian Hodoboc]

Very few posts, not busy at all. Why?

You joined at the end of June and you have 64 posts. That's less than a post a day. And you didn't even bother to add a profile photo (avatar). Do you really think you're qualified to complain about the lack of activity?

 

[Stravinsk]

If I understand it's origins, this forum was started by mostly members of a more popular christian forum dissatisfied with it for various reasons. I was a member of said forum but was banned and couldn't use my regular username. That was one reason I joined. Forums have more competition these days with other forms of online communication. They are sort of a relic of the former internet. A google search for "christian" and "forum" doesn't bring this up (at least on the first page), and if found one could imagine it might be a secondary choice among forums with this theme, through no fault of it's own.

 

[Lamb]

If I understand it's origins, this forum was started by mostly members of a more popular christian forum dissatisfied with it for various reasons. I was a member of said forum but was banned and couldn't use my regular username. That was one reason I joined. Forums have more competition these days with other forms of online communication. They are sort of a relic of the former internet. A google search for "christian" and "forum" doesn't bring this up (at least on the first page), and if found one could imagine it might be a secondary choice among forums with this theme, through no fault of it's own.

Yes, most of us are from that supersized Christian forum that has over 250,000 members with non-stop activity...but a lot of rules and regulations that have pushed many away. We can't compete with something like that, and yet, we're really not competing, just filling the gaps for those who want something else or have no other forum home to go to.

On DuckDuckGo if you google Christian forum, we're on page 2.

 

[Josiah]

Quality, not quantity....

As such forums go, CH is larger, busier and certainly better in every way than most. But there are a handful of Christian sites that are very big, although a LOT of posts at those are entirely unrelated to Christianity.

IMO, there are 3 ways to increase activity:

1. Post. Start threads of interest to Christians, post in threads. Try to post something of substance. Make an effort to make a substantial post every time you come here.

2. Dig. There are a LOT of threads here that are "buried" since there's not been any activity in them for some time. A LOT of those are great threads that newer members may be unaware of. Some are closed now but we can do a copy/paste of the OP and restart it.

3. Invite others. Frankly, I use to do this a lot, I pretty much invited everyone I could but I admit didn't get much response. Nearly all of them were a part of the mega site that most of us are from and they just wanted to stay there in spite of all the problems. Members sort of "bond" with others and may stick with them through all the problems. For me, I had left the "website that shall not be named" and was a part of another site but became dissatisfied with the dictator and just began considering moving when Lamb emailed me and told me she was starting this site. I've been here ever since; a very happy part of the community here. A couple of others from there followed me but neither stayed.


Thanks

Josiah



.

 

[tango]

I have vague memories of the other site people are talking about. They had threads where people count. Seriously. They post "1". Then they post '2", then "3" and so on. It doesn't seem to serve any useful purpose other than to give them enormous post counts. One user I saw had a post count so high I ran some numbers, and it turned out he'd averaged something like one post every 10 seconds for six years (and that's based on 24x7 activity, assuming he didn't stop for anything useless like eating, working, sleeping etc). I'm not sure that's a useful metric.

The other forum also had all sorts of sub-forums and the rules were such that the majority of areas were off-limits to any given user even when things were based on natural progressions of life. So, for instance, if you were married you weren't allowed to post in the area for engaged couples. Because, you know, married people have no experience of being engaged. Nothing was done to catch it if you tried to post, you just got a snarky note from a moderator that you'd broken the rules. From my recollection there wasn't even a whole lot of grace, even when someone was trying to offer useful advice. Here the limited private areas aren't even visible. I'm a man and I can see the men's area. I know a comparable women's area exists but I can't see it, so there's no way I can inadvertently post in it. Sure, I could create a new profile and pretend to be female but I'm really not that interested in the discussion, I'm just glad to have something set up so I can't accidentally break the rules. Even if I catch myself before posting it's annoying to have taken the time to write something only to notice I'm not allowed to post there so I might as well just delete what I wrote.

In a small forum if you take the time to post and get to know people a bit you'll find you can actually achieve it. On a huge forum the chances are you'll just be another name lost amidst a sea of many names and unless you're a hugely prolific poster you won't really get to know much about anyone. And the larger a forum gets the more trolls you'll get, and the higher the chance the trolls will get away with being a little bit disruptive because they aren't technically breaking rules. SO they can be disruptive enough to derail threads but without getting banned because they aren't crossing rigidly defined red lines.

If you want more activity here, post more and invite people to join and post.

 

[Lucian Hodoboc]

I have vague memories of the other site people are talking about. They had threads where people count. Seriously. They post "1". Then they post '2", then "3" and so on. It doesn't seem to serve any useful purpose other than to give them enormous post counts.

Many forums have those kind of threads.

 

[Nazareth]

You joined at the end of June and you have 64 posts. That's less than a post a day. And you didn't even bother to add a profile photo (avatar). Do you really think you're qualified to complain about the lack of activity?

Yes.

 

[Nazareth]

If I understand it's origins, this forum was started by mostly members of a more popular christian forum dissatisfied with it for various reasons. I was a member of said forum but was banned and couldn't use my regular username. That was one reason I joined. Forums have more competition these days with other forms of online communication. They are sort of a relic of the former internet. A google search for "christian" and "forum" doesn't bring this up (at least on the first page), and if found one could imagine it might be a secondary choice among forums with this theme, through no fault of it's own.

Yes, I noticed if I Google Christian forums one forum makes first place,first page. And has for years because the name is key.

There are only a handful of Christian forums that are highly active. And most of those are battlefield like on their Bible discussion boards.

 

[Lamb]

Yes, I noticed if I Google Christian forums one forum makes first place,first page. And has for years because the name is key.

There are only a handful of Christian forums that are highly active. And most of those are battlefield like on their Bible discussion boards.

That forum has been around for decades, so it's going to be high up in the rankings. We've been around for 7 years and we're really doing well compared to other Christian forums that started up around the same time we did and are now defunct.

 

[Nazareth]

I have vague memories of the other site people are talking about. They had threads where people count. Seriously. They post "1". Then they post '2", then "3" and so on. It doesn't seem to serve any useful purpose other than to give them enormous post counts. One user I saw had a post count so high I ran some numbers, and it turned out he'd averaged something like one post every 10 seconds for six years (and that's based on 24x7 activity, assuming he didn't stop for anything useless like eating, working, sleeping etc). I'm not sure that's a useful metric.

The other forum also had all sorts of sub-forums and the rules were such that the majority of areas were off-limits to any given user even when things were based on natural progressions of life. So, for instance, if you were married you weren't allowed to post in the area for engaged couples. Because, you know, married people have no experience of being engaged. Nothing was done to catch it if you tried to post, you just got a snarky note from a moderator that you'd broken the rules. From my recollection there wasn't even a whole lot of grace, even when someone was trying to offer useful advice. Here the limited private areas aren't even visible. I'm a man and I can see the men's area. I know a comparable women's area exists but I can't see it, so there's no way I can inadvertently post in it. Sure, I could create a new profile and pretend to be female but I'm really not that interested in the discussion, I'm just glad to have something set up so I can't accidentally break the rules. Even if I catch myself before posting it's annoying to have taken the time to write something only to notice I'm not allowed to post there so I might as well just delete what I wrote.

In a small forum if you take the time to post and get to know people a bit you'll find you can actually achieve it. On a huge forum the chances are you'll just be another name lost amidst a sea of many names and unless you're a hugely prolific poster you won't really get to know much about anyone. And the larger a forum gets the more trolls you'll get, and the higher the chance the trolls will get away with being a little bit disruptive because they aren't technically breaking rules. SO they can be disruptive enough to derail threads but without getting banned because they aren't crossing rigidly defined red lines.

If you want more activity here, post more and invite people to join and post.

I do post. For some they derail that thread because they don't comprehend what I posted. So then the thread becomes about blaming me for their lack of understanding.

I have posted threads that get no replies.

Which is what prompted this thread and question.

I don't know what community is being referred to in the other posts here.

I'm surprised posts like those mentioned at that site or any site posting 1,2, 3, etc...one after the other to garner search engine attention would be allowed.

 

[Lamb]

I have posted threads that get no replies.

Could you point out those threads? I'm not finding any of your threads that have no replies.

 

[Castle Church]

Well, the "other" forum doesn't have the counting threads any longer, FWIW.

Both this, and other forums like it, serve their purpose for what they are designed for. This is, by and large, a fairly small group of people that are friendly and helpful, while also being Biblically literate. It is not super busy, but it is steady.

 

[tango]

Many forums have those kind of threads.

They are a really good use of storage and bandwidth...