Cleaning up our archives

I would like to separate MWallace out from this, because I think we need to make a decision about her. I posted more in the thread about her:

http://forum.staylds.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=1096&p=13980#p13980

We haven’t talked about the direction of content on the site in a few months. I confess that when we started this two years ago, I was more in line with Ray’s desire to compact topics and use the forums to build a library of thought on reconciliation strategy. That is an economic and efficient use of forum space, especially if we are focused on building an easy library of thought on reconciliation strategy.

Here is where I have drifted away from that. A part of the service we provide in the forums is also a personal connection to some people. The ideas are great. The material is fantastic. But a lot of people out there are helped when someone connects with them as an individual — to say “hey, you aren’t crazy. I understand YOU in particular, and YOU are going to be OK.” There are people in their crisis of faith that feel nobody wants to touch them with a 10ft pole because of their toxic doubts, or their alternative thoughts. Part learning to integrate back into the Church and participate is on an emotional level, that someone out there understands them.

To do that in an online forum seems to require that we allow those people to post their particular situation and feelings and get a response from one (many) of us in the community. We may have addressed a similar topic many times, but the magic in helping some people is their knowing that someone out there cares about them, enough to hear them and give a thoughtful response — a gift of time and emotional energy to them. That makes the forums more cluttered and harder to search. That is a “cost” in balancing the overall equation.

I have been thinking about this a lot actually. What I would like to propose is a constant and ongoing process of distilling wisdom from our forum “think tank” to create documents (or multimedia presentations) to host in our “Additional Resources” library. This would include adding updates and new insights to the material as we discover new gems in our conversations. An example is the “What is Official Doctrine?” essay that is almost ready to publish. We have that conversation over and over in the forums. Once it is published, we can promote it and “market” the material all over the internet as content to help those in the struggle.

I don’t want to lose the important mission goal of producing quality thought on reconciliation. I would also like to keep the forums with the feel of participation and as a welcoming community for those in their crisis, a place where people will listen to them and care.

What do you all think? Everyone here volunteers their time to make the site happen.

This site is a work that I feel proud of, like I am serving Heavenly Father with the talents He gave me, to be a real part of a solution instead of just sitting on the sidelines whining about how crappy the world is, or being an armchair quarterback. To be honest, it is also a form of religious therapy that helps ME stay in the Church with my own problems and doubts.

I agree completely with the idea of taking concepts from the forum and writing a presentation of it for the library. I’ve been thinking about writing my own personal process of reconciliation (but we know how all my best intentions fit into my schedule).

As far as lurkers, they may be more interested in the “library” section anyway …??

People need to be validated on what they are thinking at the time – that’s what the forum is for and we know it may seem like a broken record for us at times.

Again, today I’m a yes man. Yes, Yes, Yes… I agree, I think the same, you got it ! 😆 😆