Forum Usage and Purpose - A Survey!

[Kaesekopf]

Hey Forum,
I may be overthinking things, but I would like to ask you to answer the following questions, either in PM or on the post (I don't really care, so long as your answers are constructive!). 

1)  What keeps you "at" Suscipe Domine?
2)  Besides moderation, what could this Forum stand to have added to it? 
3)  What are the things you dislike about this Forum (besides lack of moderation)?
4)  How can we grow the activity and participation of this Forum? 
5)  General comments, concerns, etc.

Thank you for your help in guiding this Forum forward! 

[Jayne]

1)  What keeps you "at" Suscipe Domine?

What keeps me at Suscipe Domine is my sense that there are real people out there with whom I communicate on this forum and that I have a real relationship with them.  Sometimes I get very frustrated with the forum.  Sometimes I leave for a while.  But when I come back it is the people who draw me.

2)  Besides moderation, what could this Forum stand to have added to it?

I cannot think of anything that would have even one tenth of the impact that restoring moderation would.  Perhaps someday when there are fewer travel restrictions, it might be nice to encourage more real-life meet-ups.  I have noticed that I feel especially close to the members that I have met in person.

3)  What are the things you dislike about this Forum (besides lack of moderation)?

I dislike discussions where people make personal attacks instead of addressing the arguments.  That isn't a problem with this forum specifically, but a general characteristic of online interactions.  Or may maybe human interactions.

4)  How can we grow the activity and participation of this Forum?

That contest in honour of Our Lady (with a Rosary for the winner) that Gardener organized was great.  I think it would be nice to have similar activities in the future.

5)  General comments, concerns, etc.

Forums, in general, are probably going to be replaced soon by other forms of social media.  I don't see us growing much in the face of the general trend.  But it does not need to be a big forum.  It needs to be a godly forum where we help each other to grow in the Catholic Faith that has been handed down to us.

[dellery]

1) The lack of moderation. SD tends to police itself, for the most part, and when a poster comes along that's intolerable to others they eventually get banned.
Try to find anywhere else on the internet where the participants self-moderate their posts. The members of SD aren't usually too weird either. Some of the Catholic corners of the internet can be strange.

2) Dunno. It's a forum.

3) The "thank you" button. It enforces group-think by encouraging posters to seek out "thank you's" instead of making an effort at typing an edifying post irrespective of its potential popularity.

4) You need to create a New Springtime with SD2 and bring in a team of SJW's to moderate us 24/7 irl with Zoom or something similar.
Or you could think of what people in general, but Catholics in particular, need, instead of what they want, and see how your forum could help provide this in whatever small way.

5) It seems like trolls tend to wander in here, and that's a good thing. The first step in evangelization, especially for us contemporary Catholics, is to demonstrate first what you are not. This forum is a good tool for this. Hiding from the trolls does us no good. Use them to demonstrate to themselves and others, who we are not, and then they may be curious to see what Catholicism actually is.

[Michael Wilson]

1. What keeps me at S.D. Is the same reason I joined i.e. To have an intelligent discussion about the Catholic faith and issues that are related.
2. Don't add anything.
3. Dislike people who disagree with Catholic teaching and personal attacks.
4. Don't have a clue.
5. Nice group we have here; I'm sorry that some of our regular posters have left, and I hope the new members will make up for the loss.

[Jacob]

1)  What keeps you "at" Suscipe Domine?

I like reading what people have to say about books and movies and television when those things come up.  The discussion on current events in the Church and around the world is always edifying.

2)  Besides moderation, what could this Forum stand to have added to it?

Nothing.  I think it is alright as it is right now.

3)  What are the things you dislike about this Forum (besides lack of moderation)?

One thing I do get tired of is people lacking discipline in feeding the trolls.  Especially when the troll says trollish things and people start to get hostile in defense of the Faith.  It's a troll, what do people expect him to say?

4)  How can we grow the activity and participation of this Forum?

Try to lure back some of our older members?

5)  General comments, concerns, etc.

I like it here.  I check in several times everyday.

[Bernadette]

1)  What keeps you "at" Suscipe Domine?  I like many of the posters and find a lot of the topics interesting
2)  Besides moderation, what could this Forum stand to have added to it?  can't think of anything
3)  What are the things you dislike about this Forum (besides lack of moderation)? the non-Catholic subforum
4)  How can we grow the activity and participation of this Forum?  I don't know.
5)  General comments, concerns, etc. I hope the forum is around for many years to come.

[nmoerbeek]

Hey Forum,
I may be overthinking things, but I would like to ask you to answer the following questions, either in PM or on the post (I don't really care, so long as your answers are constructive!). 

1)  What keeps you "at" Suscipe Domine?
2)  Besides moderation, what could this Forum stand to have added to it? 
3)  What are the things you dislike about this Forum (besides lack of moderation)?
4)  How can we grow the activity and participation of this Forum? 
5)  General comments, concerns, etc.

Thank you for your help in guiding this Forum forward! 

1) I like reading certain long time posters, and pointing towards people at resources or authorities they might find helpful.  I also enjoy sharing religious things that I either find, work on, or contribute to.
2)  I think it would be great if we added a Catholic multimedia section for sharing livestreams, homilies, and so forth, but only explicitly Catholic things.

I think it would be great if we had some pinned threads were we could pin scholarly debates.  A moderator could pin a debate that was over an area of controversy where the posters used authorities rather than feelings and emotions, so that new posters could look through it to see if a discussion was already had.

3) ...Perhaps we could have a pinned thread for people to put themselves as inactive, and we can discourage dramatic exits which I think may sound good to the people at the time, but they may regret later.

4)  We could have banners that people could add to their blogs, or other websites to inform peoples of its existence. 

5)  I hope the forum keeps going. 

[Kaesekopf]

Thanks for the responses so far, guys and gals!

I'll get to particular replies in the coming days, but I just wanted to reassure people - I have no plans on ending the Forum.  It'll stay around as long as I'm active online. 

[Miriam_M]

THIS:

discourage dramatic exits

They tend to degenerate into divisive debates that indirectly solicit "voting" on the departure of one or more people. 

Similarly, I don't think it adds to a sense of community to make public pacts that are negative in nature:  "I'll stop posting if you will."  I can understand why two posters would have a private discussion about it and make a private agreement -- and only then announce that agreement, but other than an imposed ban by a moderator, a decision to stay or leave or just take a vacation is an individual choice, it seems to me.

[Daniel]

3.) and/or 5.) Please get rid of the non-Catholic discussion forum. I think it's doing more harm than good. If anything, maybe change it into a Catholic apologetics forum. Xavier has posted some good stuff in there.

[Miriam_M]

Daniel, I think the purpose of originally requesting the Non-Catholic forum (I wasn't the one who requested it) was to direct many such discussions into a single area, because they were taking over the Catholic discussion areas.  Unfortunately, not everyone has been so disciplined as to restrict themselves to that new section.

There's no reason why your idea also cannot be incorporated into it, however.  (Someone posts something about the supposed glories of X religion, and a practicing, believing Catholic comes along and argues against any equivalency or superiority of X religion with Catholicism.)  I think such a section invites apologetics.

I do think some people think that Suscipe Domine is simply a forum for equal consideration of all religions and beliefs.