Not much people on the board lately.

[Dario_M]

Hey guys how's everyone doing?

I just woke up way to early (like i often do) so i thought let's make another topic.

I notice that i don't see much people on the board anymore. This is going on for quite a while now. Some people do pop by from time to time but not as often as they normaly do. How is that posible? I get that people also have their own life and things to do. But i can remember that this board was way more crowded 2 years ago when i was new here. So many differend people where active at that time. Some of them i hardly see anymore. Others have completaly vanished and i don't see them at all anymore. Especially some saints. That's unfortunately i find. 😞 sooo... i just wanted to adres this problem. A solution is hard to find offcourse. 

 

Edited October 22, 2024 by Dario_M

[BCSpace]

You probably never saw me. I used to post regularly about a decade ago. Maybe 3 or 4 posts since before today. My favorite activity was to engage critics of the Church. Still is. Yet, I get tired of so much winning and rarely so engage and usually it's on other forums now. Perhaps once you get to know a board, you know what the response will be before you post. I don't have to bash the critics though. Occasionally some interesting topics come up. They're all interesting actually, just not all at the same time.

[Dario_M]

9 minutes ago, BCSpace said:

You probably never saw me. I used to post regularly about a decade ago.

This is the first time i see you indeed. And i was curiously looking and saw that you had made an account in 2003. 

9 minutes ago, BCSpace said:

Maybe 3 or 4 posts since before today.

But why? Don't you find it fun anymore to post more often? 

9 minutes ago, BCSpace said:

My favorite activity was to engage critics of the Church. Still is. Yet, I get tired of so much winning and rarely so engage and usually it's on other forums now. Perhaps once you get to know a board, you know what the response will be before you post. I don't have to bash the critics though.

I notice that there are not many LDS members left on this board. While this is a "Mormon Dialogue" 

9 minutes ago, BCSpace said:

Occasionally some interesting topics come up. They're all interesting actually, just not all at the same time.

Well...nice to meet you, BCSpace. 

Edited October 22, 2024 by Dario_M

[BCSpace]

4 minutes ago, Dario_M said:

Well...nice to meet you, BCSpace. 

You too Mr. Dario_M. I see some of the original group here. Tough old codgers some of them are. Perhaps if you ruffle their feathers in the right way, you might stir up a lively conversation.

(No offense intended against any codgers. Just nostalgic for the old times.)

[Dario_M]

7 minutes ago, BCSpace said:

You too Mr. Dario_M. I see some of the original group here. Tough old codgers some of them are. Perhaps if you ruffle their feathers in the right way, you might stir up a lively conversation.

I don't know. You need people for a active conversation. And there aren't many. I don't even see Calm here right now. And normaly she is always active. Edit, just got an upvote from here. She is here. 

7 minutes ago, BCSpace said:

(No offense intended against any codgers. Just nostalgic for the old times.)

That must have been lovely. Was it really active here bevore my time? 

Edited October 22, 2024 by Dario_M

[BCSpace]

1 hour ago, Dario_M said:

That must have been lovely. Was it really active here bevore my time? 

Super active. Many of the banned topics you see now come out of that era. There was a previous board. And before that several LDS boards that folks all came from and merged their conversations here. I actually should show 18k to 20k posts and not 5.6k. But likely most got archived.

Edited October 22, 2024 by BCSpace

[Pyreaux]

Oh, I still haunt this place all the time. I just wait for good moments to jump out and surprise people.

[Dario_M]

1 hour ago, BCSpace said:

Super active. Many of the banned topics you see now come out of that era. There was a previous board. And before that several LDS boards that folks all came from and merged their conversations here. I actually should show 18k to 20k posts and not 5.6k. But likely most got archived.

Oh my oh my. How lovely. That must have been amazing. I'm only 2 years here. I made an account here after i got baptized and recieved the holy ghost and Aaronic priesthood. I was completaly new in the Mormon world and wanted to meet other members of the church from everywhere around the world. And so i made my account on here. But i'm sad to see that this board is slowely dying now. 😞

[Dario_M]

13 minutes ago, Pyreaux said:

Oh, I still haunt this place all the time. I just wait for good moments to jump out and surprise people.

Halloween is comming soon. 💀

[sunstoned]

2 hours ago, BCSpace said:

You too Mr. Dario_M. I see some of the original group here. Tough old codgers some of them are. Perhaps if you ruffle their feathers in the right way, you might stir up a lively conversation.

(No offense intended against any codgers. Just nostalgic for the old times.)

Good to see you here BCSace!

[MorningStar]

I'm still here sometimes. Life got crazy busy. 

[Dario_M]

12 minutes ago, MorningStar said:

I'm still here sometimes. Life got crazy busy. 

That's no excuse.😇

Btw..why is nobody checking out my other topic. About praying in the woods? 🌲🌲🌲

[smac97]

13 hours ago, Dario_M said:

Hey guys how's everyone doing?

I just woke up way to early (like i often do) so i thought let's make another topic.

I notice that i don't see much people on the board anymore. This is going on for quite a while now. Some people do pop by from time to time but not as often as they normaly do. How is that posible? I get that people also have their own life and things to do. But i can remember that this board was way more crowded 2 years ago when i was new here. So many differend people where active at that time. Some of them i hardly see anymore. Others have completaly vanished and i don't see them at all anymore. Especially some saints. That's unfortunately i find. 😞 sooo... i just wanted to adres this problem. A solution is hard to find offcourse. 

 

I summarized my thoughts on this back in 2018, and these trends continue to appear today:

Quote

Quote

Years ago, when I joined this site, the field of Mormon apologetics was active.  I remember active engagement from Mormon academics from various backgrounds, consistent publications, debate, amongst other activities.  Nowadays, Mormon apologetics seems close to non-existent relative to ten years ago.  What changed?  Where are the apologists?  

A few thoughts:

1. There really isn't much new to discuss.  We end up re-litigating the same topics over and over again, or else minor variations of the same topics.

2. The topics that are discussed seem to have reached sort of an end-stage.  The data points and talking points are being recycled.

3. FAIR, Mormon Interpreter, BookofMormonCentral, Jeff Lindsay, and a few other resources seem to have addressed pretty much all of the substantive criticisms of the doctrines of the Church.  That is not to say that these explanations and such are undeniably persuasive.  There's still plenty of room to disagree.  But both sides have argued each other into a stalemate.

4. Online debates about the merits of the truth claims of the LDS Church can only get you so far.  Moroni's Promise, prayer, faith, humility, service, patience, endurance, and so on are, I think, the means God intends for us to use when seeking a determination on the Church's truth claims..  Adversarial discussions . . . not so much.

Thanks,

-Smac

[Dario_M]

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

I summarized my thoughts on this back in 2018, and these trends continue to appear today:

Thanks,

-Smac

Yeah this was all bevore my time here. I can imagine how bussy and it must have been and sparkling. I know for a fact that public forums where very populair in the begin 2000s. Unfortunately things change. And now is Snapchat the new hype. Oh my. 

[Frank11]

8 hours ago, Dario_M said:

That's no excuse.😇

Life is the best excuse. Your partner's appreciation is worth more than 1000 likes here. 

[Dario_M]

4 minutes ago, Frank11 said:

Life is the best excuse. Your partner's appreciation is worth more than 1000 likes here. 

Yeah i was making a joke offcourse Frank. 😇

[halconero]

The board has gone through ebbs and flows over the years, and is currently in an ebb (IMO).

Part of that is the associated ebb and flow of life. I joined soon after I got home from my mission at age 21. I am now in my mid-30's, with a family, and pretty intense career, and a calling that keeps me busy. Others here have had grand-kids since they joined, graduated various professional programs, or simply moved on. Such is life, and the reason I'm not on much.

The other part is a very different atmosphere to the one I first joined. I missed the late 1990's and mid-aughts heydey of discourse between Evangelicals and Latter-day Saints that often relied on gross miss-characterizations of our position (there are way better Evangelical critiques of our faith than the lazy ones of yesteryear) and somewhat more defensible miss-characterization of Evangelical belief on our part. I say defensible, because, while there's always been some implicit (sometimes explicit) polemics against certain strains or doctrines of Protestantism or Catholicism, most responses of that era were a reactionary defence against stuff like the Godmakers.

The early 2010s, when I joined, the conversations had shifted to emerging Church history and its interplay with certain doctrines, especially plural marriage and the temple. To a lesser extent, Adam-God, exaltation, and blood atonement. I have to say, that conversations on this very board helped me navigate those parts of history and doctrine way earlier and way more thoroughly that most of my peers. I would say I was about 3-4 years ahead of the curve when it came to exploring this stuff, which entered popular conversation among Latter-day Saints in the mid-2010s. Those were quite active times on the board, with plenty of faces then that I don't see much of today, if at all.

Things began to change in the mid-to-late 2010s with the advent of social issues over historical ones in the Church. The Church's opposition to same-sex marriage was old news, with stuff like Prop 8, but members who had been teenagers at that time found their testimonies clashing with the wider shift in values in US society (most members here are American, with a few exceptions, including myself). I state that as objective fact rather than a normative one - look at the number of politicians who previously opposed same-sex marriage into the late-aughts, who shifted positions in the mid-2010s, along with the number of social media and traditional media shifts in news, music, movies, and more. The conversation around sexuality and membership, was talked about vigorously here, and coincided not only with the trends described above, but Church responses to those trends, which included policies, statements, and talks (both in General Conference and more regional ones).

It was around the same time that discussions of gender and the Church were in vogue, not with reference to transgendered individuals, but around women, the priesthood, and leadership in the Church. It's easy to say that discussions around gender identity and the Church are a continuation of that, but I think they're a somewhat distinct trend (as in, the conversation around same-sex marriage here ebbed before the rise in conversations around transgender identity and membership).

The very late 2010s and the early 2020s probably bring us closest to the current era of this board. By now, we've gotten away (in my perception), from most discussions around Church history and doctrine, to discuss political and social issues. The polarization in US society has been reflected here at times, with members suggesting that 'X' political view or 'Z' politician is coherent/contrary with 'Y' doctrine in the Church, implicitly or explicitly. I'm not saying they're right or wrong, it's just soaked up a lot of attention.

Now? I would say that most discussion here still trends around that last theme, along with transgender stuff (though that's on the downswing). This is interspersed with discussions of continued policy changes, evolving social norms around members in popular media (momfluencers, Utah pop culture, etc.). That includes social norms and pop culture on either end of the ideological spectrum. Maybe I'm wrong, but stuff like Sound of Freedom, Tim Ballard, conspiracism, and quasi-spiritual charismatic movements among subsets of the Church are an outgrowth of subcultures and media than serious concern with real issues they're responding to (e.g., real-life human trafficking looks quite different to pop media trafficking, and has much more 'boring' solutions to it than guns-blazing spy stuff).

I do think there's opportunity for Gospel discussion and re-visiting historical claims for good discussion, but it's hard to facilitate because others might not all be on the same zeitgeist at the moment, so it requires one board member taking the lead in putting forth an idea, and hoping others catch on. I would love, for example, to discuss what I see as an emerging exploration of Atonement Theory among Church leadership, and its implications for communal worship and ordinances, but I wouldn't expect others here to immediately know what I was talking about, because it's simply not something that's part of the wider Church and non-Church-related discussions at the moment.

All that is to say, the board isn't in a rut, but it has exhausted some of the easiest wells of discussion with projects like the Joseph Smith Papers now codifying most information, and social issues affecting the Church having been present for many years now exiting popular attention (see the Economist's recent discussion on the current downward trend in 'wokeism' as a cultural totem).

[manol]

12 minutes ago, halconero said:

...

Did you shave?  Is my memory bad, or did you used to be a lot fuzzier? 

[Buckeye]

34 minutes ago, halconero said:

The board has gone through ebbs and flows over the years, and is currently in an ebb (IMO).

Part of that is the associated ebb and flow of life. I joined soon after I got home from my mission at age 21. I am now in my mid-30's, with a family, and pretty intense career, and a calling that keeps me busy. Others here have had grand-kids since they joined, graduated various professional programs, or simply moved on. Such is life, and the reason I'm not on much.

The other part is a very different atmosphere to the one I first joined. I missed the late 1990's and mid-aughts heydey of discourse between Evangelicals and Latter-day Saints that often relied on gross miss-characterizations of our position (there are way better Evangelical critiques of our faith than the lazy ones of yesteryear) and somewhat more defensible miss-characterization of Evangelical belief on our part. I say defensible, because, while there's always been some implicit (sometimes explicit) polemics against certain strains or doctrines of Protestantism or Catholicism, most responses of that era were a reactionary defence against stuff like the Godmakers.

The early 2010s, when I joined, the conversations had shifted to emerging Church history and its interplay with certain doctrines, especially plural marriage and the temple. To a lesser extent, Adam-God, exaltation, and blood atonement. I have to say, that conversations on this very board helped me navigate those parts of history and doctrine way earlier and way more thoroughly that most of my peers. I would say I was about 3-4 years ahead of the curve when it came to exploring this stuff, which entered popular conversation among Latter-day Saints in the mid-2010s. Those were quite active times on the board, with plenty of faces then that I don't see much of today, if at all.

Things began to change in the mid-to-late 2010s with the advent of social issues over historical ones in the Church. The Church's opposition to same-sex marriage was old news, with stuff like Prop 8, but members who had been teenagers at that time found their testimonies clashing with the wider shift in values in US society (most members here are American, with a few exceptions, including myself). I state that as objective fact rather than a normative one - look at the number of politicians who previously opposed same-sex marriage into the late-aughts, who shifted positions in the mid-2010s, along with the number of social media and traditional media shifts in news, music, movies, and more. The conversation around sexuality and membership, was talked about vigorously here, and coincided not only with the trends described above, but Church responses to those trends, which included policies, statements, and talks (both in General Conference and more regional ones).

It was around the same time that discussions of gender and the Church were in vogue, not with reference to transgendered individuals, but around women, the priesthood, and leadership in the Church. It's easy to say that discussions around gender identity and the Church are a continuation of that, but I think they're a somewhat distinct trend (as in, the conversation around same-sex marriage here ebbed before the rise in conversations around transgender identity and membership).

The very late 2010s and the early 2020s probably bring us closest to the current era of this board. By now, we've gotten away (in my perception), from most discussions around Church history and doctrine, to discuss political and social issues. The polarization in US society has been reflected here at times, with members suggesting that 'X' political view or 'Z' politician is coherent/contrary with 'Y' doctrine in the Church, implicitly or explicitly. I'm not saying they're right or wrong, it's just soaked up a lot of attention.

Now? I would say that most discussion here still trends around that last theme, along with transgender stuff (though that's on the downswing). This is interspersed with discussions of continued policy changes, evolving social norms around members in popular media (momfluencers, Utah pop culture, etc.). That includes social norms and pop culture on either end of the ideological spectrum. Maybe I'm wrong, but stuff like Sound of Freedom, Tim Ballard, conspiracism, and quasi-spiritual charismatic movements among subsets of the Church are an outgrowth of subcultures and media than serious concern with real issues they're responding to (e.g., real-life human trafficking looks quite different to pop media trafficking, and has much more 'boring' solutions to it than guns-blazing spy stuff).

I do think there's opportunity for Gospel discussion and re-visiting historical claims for good discussion, but it's hard to facilitate because others might not all be on the same zeitgeist at the moment, so it requires one board member taking the lead in putting forth an idea, and hoping others catch on. I would love, for example, to discuss what I see as an emerging exploration of Atonement Theory among Church leadership, and its implications for communal worship and ordinances, but I wouldn't expect others here to immediately know what I was talking about, because it's simply not something that's part of the wider Church and non-Church-related discussions at the moment.

All that is to say, the board isn't in a rut, but it has exhausted some of the easiest wells of discussion with projects like the Joseph Smith Papers now codifying most information, and social issues affecting the Church having been present for many years now exiting popular attention (see the Economist's recent discussion on the current downward trend in 'wokeism' as a cultural totem).

Excellent analysis. 

[halconero]

1 hour ago, manol said:

Did you shave?  Is my memory bad, or did you used to be a lot fuzzier? 

Yeah, with the end of covid I had to start teaching in public again. Boo.

[Dario_M]

10 hours ago, halconero said:

The board has gone through ebbs and flows over the years, and is currently in an ebb (IMO).

You can say that. 

10 hours ago, halconero said:

Part of that is the associated ebb and flow of life. I joined soon after I got home from my mission at age 21. I am now in my mid-30's, with a family, and pretty intense career, and a calling that keeps me busy. Others here have had grand-kids since they joined, graduated various professional programs, or simply moved on. Such is life, and the reason I'm not on much.

Yes but normaly new people replace the old generation that decided to move on. But there are not much many new people comming. So it gets's more empty here. Plus i see a lot of LDS members who leave or decide to come less often here because they got misunderstood by the others. And that's just a waste. I mean ... this is a "Mormon dialogue" after all. And what is a "Mormon dialoque" without Mormons?

10 hours ago, halconero said:

The other part is a very different atmosphere to the one I first joined. I missed the late 1990's and mid-aughts heydey of discourse between Evangelicals and Latter-day Saints that often relied on gross miss-characterizations of our position (there are way better Evangelical critiques of our faith than the lazy ones of yesteryear)

Maybe not lazy. But they have less knowlege. That's also possible. 

10 hours ago, halconero said:

and somewhat more defensible miss-characterization of Evangelical belief on our part. I say defensible, because, while there's always been some implicit (sometimes explicit) polemics against certain strains or doctrines of Protestantism or Catholicism, most responses of that era were a reactionary defence against stuff like the Godmakers.

Sounds interesting. 

10 hours ago, halconero said:

The early 2010s, when I joined, the conversations had shifted to emerging Church history and its interplay with certain doctrines, especially plural marriage and the temple. To a lesser extent, Adam-God, exaltation, and blood atonement. I have to say, that conversations on this very board helped me navigate those parts of history and doctrine way earlier and way more thoroughly that most of my peers.

Yeah but that's also why i joined the board. Because i wanted to learn more. And on here there is so much information to discover. It just makes your head explode haha. 🤯

10 hours ago, halconero said:

I would say I was about 3-4 years ahead of the curve when it came to exploring this stuff, which entered popular conversation among Latter-day Saints in the mid-2010s. Those were quite active times on the board, with plenty of faces then that I don't see much of today, if at all.

Tell me about it. A lot of LDS members have left the board and there must be a reason for it. Probably to much bad criticism i'm afrait. 

10 hours ago, halconero said:

Things began to change in the mid-to-late 2010s with the advent of social issues over historical ones in the Church. The Church's opposition to same-sex marriage was old news, with stuff like Prop 8, but members who had been teenagers at that time found their testimonies clashing with the wider shift in values in US society (most members here are American, with a few exceptions, including myself). I state that as objective fact rather than a normative one -

Yeah i don't know much about that though. I've joined the board in begin 2020s

10 hours ago, halconero said:

It was around the same time that discussions of gender and the Church were in vogue, not with reference to transgendered individuals, but around women, the priesthood, and leadership in the Church.

Well...those topics are important a well. So i think it's good that there is discussion going on about it. 

10 hours ago, halconero said:

It's easy to say that discussions around gender identity and the Church are a continuation of that, but I think they're a somewhat distinct trend (as in, the conversation around same-sex marriage here ebbed before the rise in conversations around transgender identity and membership).

Yeah..i find it interesting that subjects on the board were not about same sex issues in the begin 2000s on here. It must have been a bit of a taboo at that time i guess. 

10 hours ago, halconero said:

The very late 2010s and the early 2020s probably bring us closest to the current era of this board. By now, we've gotten away (in my perception), from most discussions around Church history and doctrine, to discuss political and social issues. The polarization in US society has been reflected here at times, with members suggesting that 'X' political view or 'Z' politician is coherent/contrary with 'Y' doctrine in the Church, implicitly or explicitly. I'm not saying they're right or wrong, it's just soaked up a lot of attention.

Yeah i also have noticed that. Those subject don't really interest me a lot. Mostely i just place a short post in a topic like that and move on. 

10 hours ago, halconero said:

Now? I would say that most discussion here still trends around that last theme, along with transgender stuff (though that's on the downswing). This is interspersed with discussions of continued policy changes, evolving social norms around members in popular media (momfluencers, Utah pop culture, etc.). That includes social norms and pop culture on either end of the ideological spectrum. Maybe I'm wrong, but stuff like Sound of Freedom, Tim Ballard, conspiracism, and quasi-spiritual charismatic movements among subsets of the Church are an outgrowth of subcultures and media than serious concern with real issues they're responding to (e.g., real-life human trafficking looks quite different to pop media trafficking, and has much more 'boring' solutions to it than guns-blazing spy stuff).

True. 

10 hours ago, halconero said:

I do think there's opportunity for Gospel discussion and re-visiting historical claims for good discussion, but it's hard to facilitate because others might not all be on the same zeitgeist at the moment, so it requires one board member taking the lead in putting forth an idea, and hoping others catch on. I would love, for example, to discuss what I see as an emerging exploration of Atonement Theory among Church leadership, and its implications for communal worship and ordinances, but I wouldn't expect others here to immediately know what I was talking about,

But i always feel like sometimes it's just difficult to attract peoples attention to a topic. Some topics i place on the board hardly get any attention while other topics (like this one) get more attention. It's kinda confusing to me. 

10 hours ago, halconero said:

All that is to say, the board isn't in a rut, but it has exhausted some of the easiest wells of discussion with projects like the Joseph Smith Papers now codifying most information, and social issues affecting the Church having been present for many years now exiting popular attention (see the Economist's recent discussion on the current downward trend in 'wokeism' as a cultural totem).

Well... anyway. I hope that new people will find this board. And it will get bussy again here. Younger people who have more time on their hands. Who knows. 🤷‍♀️

[Calm]

12 minutes ago, Dario_M said:

It must have been a bit of a taboo at that time i guess. 

It wasn’t really a big issue for most members I am guessing politically wise until gay marriage, though there was political activity for other rights, such as protection of employment and housing. 
 

It wasn’t until same sex marriage became legal that the argument homosexual sex was as chaste as heterosexual sex when it occurred within a marriage could be made. 

[Dario_M]

15 minutes ago, Calm said:

It wasn’t really a big issue for most members I am guessing politically wise until gay marriage, though there was political activity for other rights, such as protection of employment and housing. 
 

I see. Strange that thinks can change so much. 

15 minutes ago, Calm said:

It wasn’t until same sex marriage became legal that the argument homosexual sex was as chaste as heterosexual sex when it occurred within a marriage could be made. 

Has same sex marriage became legal just a few years ago in Utah then? I thought that same sex marriage was legal in the whole US for many many years allready.

[Tacenda]

On 10/22/2024 at 2:25 AM, MorningStar said:

I'm still here sometimes. Life got crazy busy. 

Good to see you MorningStar, I've missed you.

[Tacenda]

On 10/21/2024 at 9:16 PM, BCSpace said:

Super active. Many of the banned topics you see now come out of that era. There was a previous board. And before that several LDS boards that folks all came from and merged their conversations here. I actually should show 18k to 20k posts and not 5.6k. But likely most got archived.

Long time no see, BCSpace!