I highly doubt it was by accident.

I agree with Doom. These forums seem to be dominated by a clique who seem more concerned with their own private humour rather than address the topics. Humour is good as long as it stays on topic but often silly stuff completely hijacks the topic. Also a few people tend to personally attack when a sincere question is asked. I'm always a bit scared to ask questions here. The other thing is that I don't get questions answered such as the one I asked about finding a spiritual adviser in the Sex and the City thread in Cath 101.

It's late to reply, but I agree with theJack, back on 22 Nov. But as I often note, I'm a guest here, and don't like to cavil about the rules, practices, or general ambiance of the place. If it came to the point I couldn't abide it, I'd pull up stakes.

Been here a long time. Sometimes, I think, have contributed stuff of substance. Sometimes spent a long time chasing Yukon around. Board seems a nice balance of flavors, to me.

Please provide examples of threads which descended into post-padding and humour before the original question had been answered.

I object to the idea that threads descend into post padding and humor. I've seen post padding threads reach sublime heights of absurdity.

In Choosing the right path thread, first of all I was criticised and side-tracked merely for saying "It's very confusing to someone who is open minded. How is a fair and honest open minded person to decide?"

And then 11 of the last 12 posts in that thread were frivolous off-topic posts.


In Marriages that are not Catholic marriages there are 10 in a row, posts 7 to 16, before I had to say nobody really answered my question, and two more later in the thread (then it was locked for other reasons)

In Is God unchanging, 5 of the last 6.


In the mediaeval mind and hell thread I set out an argument for what I considered to be a very good point on Thursday 13 September and it was immediately followed by four entirely off-topic frivolous posts followed by two inadequate replies and nothing more.

And you had three full pages of having your questions fully and sincerely addressed.


As Doom noted, your questions had already been answered, esp posts #2, #4, and #5.


Obi responded inside of 30 minutes with the correct response with a nice conversation between other board members after that nuancing that answer a little bit. You asked a follow up question nine days later (!), which Obi again answered a few hours later and TC as well. Again, those answers were absolutely correct, and the fun came only afterwards.


The thread was at that point 5 days old. Let's grant that you asked a question (that some immediately tried to answer, not to your satisfaction). It wasn't your thread and the issue under discussion had already been explored with fair nuance. The fact that others didn't feel particularly compelled to answer your questions (again, in a thread not your own) says absolutely nothing negative about them whatsoever, much less about the board. The implication that somehow if you ask a question you are entitled to someone else's time in answering you, that they cannot enjoy playful banter with friends until they have granted you your due, strikes me as less than charitable.

In short, Denise, your questions have been taken seriously. You have been offered serious answers. How seriously you have taken those serious answers from serious people is another question entirely, and the fact that those people feel free to enjoy one another's company rather than sitting merely and only to answer your questions is, in my own opinion, to their credit; it's one of the reasons I actually enjoy this board. It's one of the reasons you would enjoy it if you would let yourself, my dear sister.

Obi has given some excellent answers. I didn't say it was all bad. Edited by Administrator to remove a snarky comment that would normally result in a vacation from the board.

There you go, that is the thing I was going for but couldn't articulate. This board is INCREDIBLY cliquey. The post padding consists of the endless repetition of the same stale jokes over and over again, jokes which I have to admit I don't understand, even though I've been here longer than any other member, and it is this cliquiness, this feeling that I am not in on the joke, that makes me feel alienated and leads me to avoid threads that devolve into post padding. It is like being back in high school, where there are the 'cool kids' who behave in a certain way in order to identify 'insiders' and 'outsiders', and I am an outsider. That's why I don't like post padding. Thank you.

Longer than any other member?

How can I get it for free? They tell me to subscribe, I do, they say they'll send it to my inbox, they don't, I go to the page again, they tell me to subscribe.

1. Please provide examples for threads which degenerated into post padding without answering the original question.

2. Please respond to responses to your previous comments making similar point:

You had asked, "I would love an alternative explanation for the vast decrease in traffic to this board over the last several years... What is the reason for the decrease in traffic if I'm wrong?"

You got replies:

"As already noted, very few people use discussion boards anymore. It's old internet. It's not any more complicated than a change in technology."
"<facebook>"
"[Reddit]"
"Siggy once attributed the loss of members to the blogging mania in the early 2000s."
"Message boards are quaint, olde things. I'm probably the only person in my class who participates in any message board whatsoever." Come to think of it, I'm probably the only person in my grade who knows what a message board is!


To your statement that you don't "understand the appeal of this kind of 'discussion' at all", theJack said, "People are here as much for the community as they are for answers to theological and philosophical questions. And as silly as post-padding is, the whole point is that it is silly. It's play, and people bond around play."

3. I'm relatively new here, and I didn't feel "alienated" by the "cool kids". That's my testimony.

Yes Doom "got replies" but those replies to which you refer, Jack3, all suggest reasons why people are not interested in message boards and therefore don't come to these forums. But Doom was not referring to those people, he was referring to people who come here and don't "stick around". None of the replies explain why that happens.

In the Welcome And Introductions forum, I have counted that 36 new people have come here in the last 12 months. So why have so very few stuck around?

1) how do you know they have not "stuck around"... they could be lurkers

2) i invite you to check the board population to see the 100s (1000s?) that have signed up for the board and made less than 5 posts

3) to get an accurate answer, i suppose you could pm all those 36 and ask them...assuming they would respond to a pm... i would bet you money the answer would NOT be as doom proposed

1) People can lurk without signing up. Therefore people who sign up to be a member do so for reasons other than to lurk. But very few "stick around" to do what they signed up to do. They stop participating in threads very soon after their first post.

2) Yes, that's my point. Why do so few continue after going to the trouble of registering in the first place?

3) Anyone could just as easily say the opposite of what you have said.

0. Doom asked why the traffic on the board was so low.
1. The number one reason many posters leave is probably that they never intended to stay in the first place : they had a question to ask, asked it, or made one point they wanted to make, then the whole reason why they joined got over.

I don't know. Since I already had it, I haven't tried to download it.

Have you checked your spam email folder?

I have got it now. Thank you.