I’m picking up on the thread below, Very Sad to See the Board Fading Away.
Hello. Steve Bowman here, with Carol looking over my shoulder. Very interesting thread—especially the conjecture at the top about what’s happening to the Forum and why it’s slowing down. Carol and I are trying to decide what to do with the Forum. Tinkerman tells us that, for health reasons, he may not be able to continue as Executive Director. We don’t have a plan yet, but we're looking into possibilities. We’re getting older too. Carol ceased her private regression practice a few years ago, and isn’t doing any new writing. We believe in the Forum and have always been thrilled to have created it and to support it all these years. We’re impressed and grateful for the incredible work all the moderators and admins have done over the years. We know how valuable this has been to both the regulars and the parents who stumble on it to ask questions and get compassionate answers.
Some of the options we see.
1) Shut it down.
2) Make it read-only. (This would still cost us monthly hosting fees)
3) Shut it down, but extract all the threads in a format that could be researched by AI tools. I can imagine making it available to researchers—it’s such a treasure trove of first-person accounts spanning almost 30 years. I believe it’s unique and could be a game-changer in past-life research. Setting it up, though, would be expensive. And we’d have to put the database somewhere to make it available to researchers.
4) Hand it all over to a new owner. Perhaps somebody not as tired and worn out as us would have the energy to promote it correctly, raise funds, and attract lots of new members. A savvy owner and (young) moderator team would know how to use Facebook and other social media to advertise and promote the Forum and get it back to critical mass of members and activity.
5) A combination of 3 and 4 — if we can find new owners.
I don’t believe the forum format is dead, even though social media siphons off a lot of potential members. I have a couple of specialized forums I frequent for other topics (not reincarnation). And Reddit, one of the most successful online sites, is a forum format. Forums encouage deep, detailed continuous discussions. And everything is preserved and searchable.
We also don’t believe the topic is passé. Carol is constantly running into people who have past life stories to tell, many about young children. If anything, there’s more acceptance, it’s less weird than 30 years ago. And we’re seeing young people just as open, if not more so, to reincarnation.
Please reply with your comments, reactions, and ideas.
Steve
Hello. Steve Bowman here, with Carol looking over my shoulder. Very interesting thread—especially the conjecture at the top about what’s happening to the Forum and why it’s slowing down. Carol and I are trying to decide what to do with the Forum. Tinkerman tells us that, for health reasons, he may not be able to continue as Executive Director. We don’t have a plan yet, but we're looking into possibilities. We’re getting older too. Carol ceased her private regression practice a few years ago, and isn’t doing any new writing. We believe in the Forum and have always been thrilled to have created it and to support it all these years. We’re impressed and grateful for the incredible work all the moderators and admins have done over the years. We know how valuable this has been to both the regulars and the parents who stumble on it to ask questions and get compassionate answers.
Some of the options we see.
1) Shut it down.
2) Make it read-only. (This would still cost us monthly hosting fees)
3) Shut it down, but extract all the threads in a format that could be researched by AI tools. I can imagine making it available to researchers—it’s such a treasure trove of first-person accounts spanning almost 30 years. I believe it’s unique and could be a game-changer in past-life research. Setting it up, though, would be expensive. And we’d have to put the database somewhere to make it available to researchers.
4) Hand it all over to a new owner. Perhaps somebody not as tired and worn out as us would have the energy to promote it correctly, raise funds, and attract lots of new members. A savvy owner and (young) moderator team would know how to use Facebook and other social media to advertise and promote the Forum and get it back to critical mass of members and activity.
5) A combination of 3 and 4 — if we can find new owners.
I don’t believe the forum format is dead, even though social media siphons off a lot of potential members. I have a couple of specialized forums I frequent for other topics (not reincarnation). And Reddit, one of the most successful online sites, is a forum format. Forums encouage deep, detailed continuous discussions. And everything is preserved and searchable.
We also don’t believe the topic is passé. Carol is constantly running into people who have past life stories to tell, many about young children. If anything, there’s more acceptance, it’s less weird than 30 years ago. And we’re seeing young people just as open, if not more so, to reincarnation.
Please reply with your comments, reactions, and ideas.
Steve
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