So do you think Christian forums are good or bad? I've thought about this a bit lately. Do they provide a good enough benefit in general? On a personal level, do they provide a good enough benefit for me (or you)?
I think they are a medium. Not good, not bad, but medium. They can be good and they can be bad. They can be good because they can provide a means for people to get together and thrash stuff out. If "iron sharpens iron" it doesn't hurt to rub against other bits of iron once in a while. Maybe I'll do the sharpening, maybe I'll be sharpened, but either way someone benefits. They can be bad because so often you get the kooks and nutjobs pushing silly theology. Thankfully that doesn't seem to have happened on this particular forum, but if we try and grow it I'd give us a near 100% chance of attracting some extreme WOF types sooner or later. You know, the ones who declare themselves wealthy and insist that God is blessing them even though they still can't pay their bills.
I think one can look at various Christian forums much like denominations. Most are pretty OK, but there are always going to be the outliers that can be pretty bad. As for the good in particular, it's how I got to meet you and most of the others and I deeply value that, as much as it would be nice to also know you in meatspace. So it was a vehicle for developong friendships with people I would never have met otherwise. I've also been personally challenged in my faith and gained a lot of knowledge from others. I hope that I have been able to return some in kind. I've been able to have conversations about things that probably would never happen in my church, past or present. I'm a member of several of course, but most time has been here, OCF, and of course BF. Another one is just such a huge forum that it's like walking into a city and hard to find a spot.
For me personally it's been for the better. Even in the case of getting banned elsewhere, I was able to connect to many people that I've learned from throughout the years. And thankfully most of those people are right here as well.
Starts and ends with the leadership. The Parsons strength is in being humble. May that never change. Followed by the rest of the admin team. And a special thanks to members like Aaron who brings out the best in everyone.
Old friend and long-time member of BF tells me in an email that she was banned during the PP admin, and was subsequently reinstated after the change in leadership due to a "reset." She spends a lot of time, apparently, in C2M, though her doctrinal stance seems pretty sound - nothing radical. I gather she likes to type, but she also relishes the debate and seems to thrive on the argument, though she does point out and mourn the unnecessary posturing in the usual back-and-forth. I think it's good to have that ongoing personal contact, as much as the anonymous Internet can provide, and kind of a home away from home base always in the background. But I have long determined to spend 3 hours studying or reading to every 1 hour spent in forums and at least try to expend the bulk of my concentration on the home or local assembly and outreach, especially outreach, which can demand a lot of attention and prayer. One can so easily waste one's precious time on an anonymous poster, who, having his/her own unique agenda, actually lives under a bridge, awaiting unwary travelers. There is a definite limit in my experience.
I see forums as a mix. I've thought at times of dropping them completely. However, I do have some good friends throughout the country due to them. I text with Seeking often and occasionally chat on the phone. The Parson and I have chatted on the phone here and there. Forums are good for when you meet mature believers it gives you people to bounce church stuff off of who aren't part of the circus if you have a situation at church with some clowns. But there are some really bad things about forums. The maturity level of the member has a lot to do with it. And it's not infrequent for an immature person to drag a more mature person into a dumb squirmish. I see it happen with others. I see it sometimes happen to me.
I hope you don't give up completely, at least not here. You are like the walking encyclopedia on Bible translations. I do get the last point though (and I suspect I understand the motivation for that comment).
Overall, I see value in them. Like it was mentioned, "iron sharpens iron." Some days I do wonder why I go on them, though, especially if I feel like people are dumping on me unfairly. Admittedly, I sometimes bring some negativity on myself from others by how I'm treating them. However, honestly, there's also times I believe people are just being jerks to me. In the bigger picture, I must get something out of coming here because I've been coming to various forums for almost 10 years now.
It's not on my to-do list to give up right now. I have no objective measurements. I wish they were less public. PCIM has been pretty good so far. We as a group agree more than we disagree and when we disagree it's more reasonable than unreasonable in the exchange. For that I am thankful.
One thing I like about this forum is that people tend to address the issues rather than the people, and tend to address the issues rather than trying to pigeonhole the issue alongside other unrelated issues. For a time I used christianforums.com and gave up on it because, among other things, there were so many people who just wrote sweeping posts about groups of people (in political discussions it was "right wingers" or "left wingers", in theological discussions it was one denomination or another), as if all members of some loosely defined group were identical in every way. A thread can only take so much of that before it becomes a few ears of wheat among piles and piles of chaff, and when it becomes more trouble than it's worth looking for the wheat among the growing piles of chaff it's time to move on.
As others have said in this thread, there's both good and bad. My personal experience overall, from BF to OCF to here has been positive. Met some good people and made some good friends along the way. The fact that most of us here have traveled the same forum road (Bf to here) has made us quite a tight knitted group. While I don't follow or participate a lot in the "meat and potato" threads, the ones I have followed have, at the very least, made me examine certain aspects of my faith (in a good way), of Christianity, what I believe, etc. Whenever any "Christian" forum grows, you get members with odd doctrines, even some that are way out in left field. Comes with the territory. But again, IMPE, better.
With everything that's been said, I would like to add one can get too obsessed with being on the forums. I'm trying to make an effort to cut back some on the amount of time I come here. I typically visit a lot, even if I don't actually end up posting or responding to anything. I think I might tone that down some.
Interestingly, even through all the silliness at BF (specifically when multiple staffers, myself included, were just told in fairly brutal terms that we weren't wanted any more and pushed out without so much as a thankyou) I learned a lot. I never did quite figure out how I got away with so much more than others seemed to manage. More than one person commented that I routinely got away with stuff that would have seen other people slapped or worse, even if that was only when I didn't want to provide my full address in the moderators section because I didn't see any point.
Frankly, Tango, it was always my opinion that the board would have faired very well and even would have greatly flourished under your Admin skills and leadership. It appears that you, among other conscientious, dedicated staffers, including admins, were unceremoniously swept away to make way for the up and coming admin who had been around much longer, and in my opinion, had a specific agenda. BF just about convinced me that forums are generally a waste of time, but I have reconsidered since then. (My own career as a Mod was cut short by the fact that I am too tightly wound to be a moderator) 8)
Thanks for the vote of confidence It was rather odd that I was trusted enough to be acting lead admin for three weeks and then within three months my performance as an admin was so far below what was expected that I had to lose the red suit and lose it now. As I said before a certain other admin was - ahem - slightly puzzled as to why. Sadly my back door was closed before I had chance to find out if he ever got an answer. Very true, so much made so sense that it didn't take a big leap of faith to look for a hidden agenda. Honestly I suspect a certain up and coming admin figured he needed me out of the way so he could take over because he'd figured out I wasn't going to be as pliable as he first thought. I can't help wondering if part of the reason I "rose through the ranks" so fast was because he thought I was pliable enough to become an admin that he could heavily influence. The ironic part there is that a large part of the reason I came to distrust him was because of a certain individual who he once explicitly told me to trust (I won't name that person because I still respect him and don't want him dragged into it, but suffice to say when he told me to trust them and later told me I couldn't trust them I figured either he or the other person was untrustworthy so tested both of them. The unnamed person passed testing, and the admin failed.)