StayLDS lifcycle

There aren’t many regular posters anymore. DJ, roy, Minyan Man, every so often SD will spin up a half dozen threads on prayer all at once. :angel:

Minyan Man recently created a thread but deleted it after a day or so when it didn’t get any replies.

True. We’ve experiences dearths before but this one seems to be more pronounced than past ones. But, I do partly blame COVID for that. Less church, less aggravation. On the other hand, it might seem COVID could have had the opposite effect – more free time, more time to post. I spent my free time binge watching and being less aggravated by less church.

I like SD, but he doesn’t actually post questions, only what seem like questions. In truth his mind is already made up on any question he asks and he’s generally seeking validation. His other MO is to try to convert others to his way of thinking. If he fails to get the validation he seeks or convert anyone he goes away for a while and tries again later. I admit those are my own observations and others may have a different point of view.

MM I think sort of falls into the more free time, more time to post category. But he’s retired and has lots of time anyway. A friend of mine who is retired has a saying – “every day is Saturday.” I think MM is probably saddened by a perception of potential demise of the forum, and I think he worries about those who might not return to church post-pandemic. I appreciate that he tries to keep things going. I intended to respond to his deleted post but didn’t get to it before he deleted it. I also often delay responding to posts because a)I like to have time to formulate a coherent response and b) I don’t usually like seeing my name on the list as the most recent poster in all threads. However, I don’t think the latter has been uncommon for any of the mods of late because so few seem to be posting.

[*] StayLDS may have tapered off more than others, but I think many message boards are seeing less traffic these days. Anecdotal, but even a few secular community message boards I used to visit have also experienced a drop off.

I don’t do a lot of forums, I drop by Mormon Dialogue maybe a couple times a week and once in a while NOM. I haven’t noticed a significant drop at MD, but now that I think about it there may be fewer posts there of late than say a year ago. While on the topic of NOM, they went through a transition a couple years back and it turned out mostly to be for the better. It’s still a negative place but not as negative and as antagonistic as it once was and I think that’s due to leader influence, mostly new blood (or more correctly out with some old blood). Perhaps when we do an open discussion on the topic some of those who have been more lackadaisical might step up. I honestly don’t think we have an old blood problem like NOM did, but I think we might have some tired blood (me included).

[*] I’ve beat this horse before, but as it relates to LDS specific boards…

I think anonymity is less important to people now. That and/or there are closed facebook groups where people can connect with others face to face and still not be completely public with their thoughts.

Maybe. I’m more “out” than I was when I came here, but I still don’t want members of my ward/stake to know who I am here and I’m by no means totally out – I still have many secrets about the depth of my doubts/unbelief in public (and even with my wife/family).

[*] Nothing is permanent, including a faith crisis. Some take more time than others but I think we all eventually move on. It’s meant to be a stop on a journey, not the destination.

True, I haven’t been in crisis mode for some time, and transition mode has also progressed. I kind of see our mission more as helping with the transition than the crisis. The transition also isn’t necessarily a years long project, and for many the transition consists of saying so long to the church. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing nor that it means that we failed in the mission of helping people StayLDS. Not staying LDS is a very appropriate outcome for some, and those who have transitioned to the middle way and found their peace no longer need us. I mostly stay out of a sense of paying it forward, but I understand not everyone is so motivated or even should be.

Maybe there was a glut of people experiencing a faith crisis, that movement peaked, those people moved on, and now we’re in steady trickle mode and the steady tricklers have a large pool of people they know that they can go to as a resource, reducing the need for message boards.

Possible. I think many church members have become more tolerant of those in crisis and outright doubters, and I think that’s similar to general societal tolerance of LGBTQ+. Lots of us have gay family members/friends and have recognized they’re still the good people we’ve always loved. Likewise, I think more of us have experienced family members and friends who have experienced FC and/or doubts/questions/unbeliefs. Some Boomers have a tough time dealing with that, but Gen X and beyond are much less dogmatic and all in and it’s not going to be long before Boomers are the minority and we see some Gen X apostles. (disclaimer: by birth year I qualify as a Boomer – as does my mother 😯 – but I identify much more closely with Gen X and probably would have made a decent Millennial.)

People are finding the support they need in other ways. Fine by me as long as people are getting the support they need. I don’t view it as a contest to gain followers.

Agreed.

I’m not saying close up shop. My own opinion is that the site should stick around for as long as people are willing to maintain it and for as long as securing funding is still an easy process. In fact, creating a thread similar to this crossed my mind when we struggled a bit to get funded for hosting for this year. “Well… how many people visit StayLDS anyway? Maybe it’s time.”

But like I said, I’d stick it out for a while even if it were a ghost town, which it isn’t. It’s more like a rural town where all the kids move out as soon as they graduate from high school and now the only people left in town are crotchety old coots watching the town slowly evaporate. :angel:

I think many users have made connections with other users and I’d hate for them to lose their ability to contact one another.

I’m sorry I’m not better prepared with things like stats for unique visitors, daily traffic, etc. Work has been a complete disaster lately so I haven’t had the time or mental energy to do much exploring on the host end of the site.

I’m not advocating for closing up either and I agree it’s more like the town where the kids go away to college and never come back – which is the reality of the town where I live. I think the question isn’t necessarily should we try to maintain as much as can we maintain? Even the lurkers are going to go away after checking every day for a week or two and not finding anything new or of value. I am certainly not unwilling to continue to check in multiple times per day (most days) and do may part, whatever that may be.

Sort of related, I think we should take Wayfarer’s offer of financing. I think the offer is generous and genuine in the concern we’re discussing here – I don’t think he’d like us to sink into oblivion.

Perhaps when we more fully return to church/aggravation we’ll see an uptick? Is our current situation affected by COVID or is it more of a climate change? I don’t think we’ll know unless we stick around for a while.

Yes, I had Wayfarer on the brain for some reason…. We Boomers are like that 😳 .

Our ward just recently started and every other week thing and this Sunday will be the second week of. BUT, it’s still 30 minute SM only so not much aggravation yet. And I don’t do the Zoom stuff (monthly PH, RS, SS and testimony). DW does RS, I’ve learned to find other places to be so I can’t hear it. My only aggravation has been with those who can’t seem to or won’t do my level of COVID protocols which are admittedly high – like stay away from me, the farther the better, high. And keep your virus spewing mouth shut too, mask or no mask. Maybe you shouldn’t even look at me. Pretend I’m not here.

I do anticipate a perhaps higher than before aggravation as we return to more fuller meetings because a) I’ve enjoyed the peace without the meetings/aggravation and b) other people have not enjoyed it and have plenty of pent up dogma to spew and aggravate me with. If MM is right, and he may be, there will be fewer of the aggravated types there when things get back to normal. I don’t think there will be fewer aggravators though (think Bednar’s GC talk – aggravated me to no end, but that’s easy for him and me). Anyway, if those who would have been aggravated aren’t at church they won’t be here either.

About a month ago we started back to weekly SM. The sacrament meetings are streamed, all except the ordinance itself. People are still authorized to do the ordinance at home. From what I hear attendance is good. There’s some pressure being applied to get people to show.

Our meetings are not streamed although I am aware we do have the capability (including installed camera in the chapel). We are still authorized to do sacrament at home and I am aware of people who stay away out of concern for their own safety. Attendance is generally good – about half each week of what we’d get pre-pandemic

Just this week the AA authorized people to do virtual auxiliary meetings again. No idea why the ban in the first place. No idea what’s so different now that makes it okay. It makes me have a lower opinion of the AA. It’s okay. I don’t even know who it is.

The stuff (mostly) filters through the AA and “coordinating council” but the decisions are made a bit higher – area presidencies (GA Seventies). In my area that’s everything from Virginia north and Michigan/Indiana east (including eastern Canada). What’s so different is an announcement by church HQ that video meetings are not just OK, but encouraged (see here: https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/safely-increasing-activity-during-covid-19” class=”bbcode_url”>https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/safely-increasing-activity-during-covid-19). Auxiliary meetings, except video, are still not authorized in our area.

Covid is as bad in my area as it’s ever been. We just hit an all time high on active hospitalizations. IMO we shouldn’t be going back to in-person meetings. Frankly it was safer to do in-person meetings back in the summer than it is now, yet we choose now to go back.

Not just church people, I think the prevailing attitude in general is that people are exhausted with all the alterations they’ve had to make to their lives so they’ve waved the white flag, said “whatever” and are returning to business as usual. Meh, it’s a part of the process. Can’t put life on hold forever.

We’re in the midst of the biggest surge we’ve had, including early on when it was mostly nursing homes. The main culprits are bars/restaurants but there have been several church related clusters as well. Interestingly although schools have resumed they do not seem to be a factor. I’m sure it’s just coincidence since I’m not aware of any church members here testing positive, but the surge coincided with our beginning every other week meetings. Each county in our stake has more active cases now than ever at one time previously. I don’t get the surge and I don’t get the push for us to “get back to normal” church either – but that could relate to the last part of your comment above.

Some time ago our family decided that we wouldn’t be going back to church this year and that we’d reevaluate what we’re going to do in December. It looks like we won’t be going back for a very long time. No one in my family needs church, so it’s all risk, little reward.

Unfortunately (for me) my wife is part of the “We’re so happy to back, oh how we’ve missed you, isn’t this wonderful” group (which seems to comprise of most of those who attend).

Thanks for the stats,they are helpful (despite the “lies, damn lies, and statistics” ideology). I think what surprised me most was August. I don’t recall it being all that busy.

I don’t know how much traction the thread in the public forum will get, I think we’ve always had more lurkers than posters.

Me either and I agree that much of our traffic is lurkers and I’m fine with that – we never have to moderate them. I thought I’d just throw it out there and see what the regulars say.

Keeping in mind that some percentage of traffic is generated by people scanning for exploits to hack and search engine bots

I wish we could tell how much of a percentage that is. But I don’t see how.

Apart from the numbers, how do you feel the thread contents are? I haven’t read much in a while, so you would all have a better feel. Is it the “same old same old” topics, or anything new, or even same old topics but new posters needing to rehash again?

I have no feel for the quality of the discussion.

I scan posts, and lurk more than I post, but not much draws me in to add to any discussions.

I will reach out to MH, ask him if he is still interested, and ask him how he might want to proceed. Thanks. Roy