I just saw a comment at Amira’s that made me wonder just how much crossover there is between T & S readers and Message Board readers. I know that some regular participants here, like Grasshopper and Clark, also participate on different forums like FAIR Boards or Nauvoo.com.
I suspect that there may be quite a bit of crossover. Blogs are like message boards in many ways. Also, we get frequent links from many boards. We regularly get linked by comments at FAIR or Nauvoo.com, and less frequently by other sites like ZLMB, New Order Mormons, Exmormon.org (yep, they link us sometimes).
So I thought that we could open a comments thread to see how much crossover there is. If you want to be part of this little experiment, and you regularly read or participate in any of the major LDS message boards — FAIR, Nauvoo, ZLMB, LDS-Women, Deseret Book, New Order, Exmos, am I leaving any out? — please indicate in the comments.
Also, to forestall any flame wars, please do not criticize any other message boards here. If people start saying things like “I used to post at [board], but I left because everyone there is stupid” this could turn into a flame war really fast.
Nauvoo is the only major one (as defined here) that I’m a part of.
I used to read the FAIR board, Deseret Book board, and Nauvoo board daily, posting occasionally, but I no longer have the time and the DB board has been closed. I also lurk occasionally on the Exmo board and ZLMB.
Total-Nathan (and everyone), it’s entirely possible that I forgot or simply don’t know about another major one, so feel free to add to my list of majors if it’s lacking.
I used to post at [metaphysical elders], but I left because everyone there is stupid.
Nauvoo.
I used to lurk at Beliefnet — I don’t remember if I ever posted or not.
And if you really want to do this experiment, Kaimi, you should also include e-mail lists. I’m part of the AML-List, but have never been a subscriber of any of the other ones.
I regularly participate at Nauvoo.
I rarely, rarely go to any forum.
I used to be part of a list–done by email but pretty much the same as this otherwise. There was a big ol’ flamewar. People who had been abused as children started posting graphic (VERY GRAPHIC) accounts of their abuse. Some of us were not comfortable with that and asked for that conversation to go private, please please please–it distressed us very much to have to read stuff that read like illegal porn, however much from the point of view of the victim. We were accused of being insensitive and supporting child molestation, perpetuating the silencing of victims, and so on. Unfortunately, the list owner was one of those who had turned what was a Mormon womens group into group therapy for incest survivors. Anyway…sometimes it’s better to move on. I don’t like contention. It was a neat list before that started. It was like the devil moved in and took over all at once.
I’ve started occasionally visiting FAIR and Nauvoo, mostly as a result of following links from the M* referrer logs.
My only two posts at Nauvoo so far have been links back to posts I made here during my guest blogging stint. TOTAL Nathan thinks I’m stalking him now (BTW, Nathan, you might want to think about recaulking your windows).
I guess I am out of the loop, I haven’t heard of any of the boards other than LDS Women. I do post over there, and the one thing that I like more than on blogs is that it is much easier to have more of a “conversation” without getting lost, or forgeting what blogs you were posting on.
I hope nobody thinks I was criticizing the list I deliberately didn’t name. Anyone who was there then knows what list I was talking about. It just split because out of the conversations of recipes and children and how to manage contradictory callings, we suddenly had two populations with two very different and immediate needs, because a topic came up that was just too important for everyone concerned. The people who had been molested NEEDED to talk about it and be validated. The people who hadn’t been or didn’t want to talk about it (yet?) weren’t prepared to be ad hoc counselors at an impromptu and emotional group therapy session that went on for days at least. I’m sure that it all settled down after the people who needed to vent got it out of their system. I just couldn’t deal with the graphic stuff. It brings out feelings in me that I do not want to feel, and it will always hurt a little that my not wanting to listen to it was interpreted by so many as telling them that their pain was invalid.
If we include mailing lists then I’m still on quite a few. AML, LDS-Phil, FAIR, LDS-Grads, Eyring-L and then a bunch of basically defunct ones like LDS-Hist. I mention them since occasionally an email will pop up and surprise me.
Blogs are like message boards in many ways.
One thing about Blogs is that you can’t subscribe to a comment thread, and that there are so many of them it is so easy to lose track of threads.
It has been interesting, especially since group blogs are like message boards with restrictions on who can start threads, and are essay driven.
LDS-GEMS is a good list but not interactive. This may or may not be considered fair use by their copyright policy; if I err in posting this, intended for the individuals who would subscribe, please delete this post, but I think it will be beneficial to some people here as well as to LDS-GEMS itself. Here’s one sample email–I get about two a day like this, never long:
———————————————————————————————————————————
Gems from the Teachings of Church Leaders
This week’s topic:
Elder M. Russell Ballard on The Lord’s Concern for Us
—————————————————
“We are children of God. Each one of us is precious to the point of
bringing the Lord God Almighty to a fulness of joy if we are faithful, or
to tears if we are not.”
(M. Russell Ballard, “The Atonement and the Value of One Soul,” Ensign, May 2004, 87 )
—————————————————–
TO SUBSCRIBE OR UNSUBSCRIBE
Send an e-mail to [email protected] with “subscribe lds-gems”
or “unsubscribe lds-gems” (without quotes) in the message body.
TO CHANGE A SUBSCRIPTION
Unsubscribe the old e-mail address, then
subscribe under the new e-mail address.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
To read more information about LDS Gems, please go to
http://www.lds.org/gems
Copyright (c) 2005 Intellectual Reserve, Inc. Messages may be forwarded
to individuals or used in official church materials (for example, church
talks and lessons, ward newsletters and bulletins) but may not be reposted
publicly or reprinted in any other form without explicit permission.
IRI reserves the right to deny, revoke or limit use.
I regularly read Nauvoo, and have for quite some time, with occasional postings.
Interesting — so far it looks like Nauvoo is quite a bit more popular than others, at least with our readers who have posted.
Somewhat regular reader/poster at NOM, View from the Foyer
Irregular lurker at Nauvoo, ZLMB, RfM, Folk of the Fringe
Bryce — That comment’s just too close to home to be a joke.
The bloggernacle has completely replaced message boards for me. I used to lurk daily at Nauvoo, but I think blogs provide more food for thought because I can focus on the well-written articles and mostly just skim the comments.
I used to post over at Counterparts, a message board for fans of the rock band Rush, but I find the Bloggernacle contributors more insightful, articulate, and spiritually uplifting.
As for LDS message boards, I know there are also some that are less serious in nature- there are teen-age boards, I think most of the lds singles types sites have boards. There are also message boards at the LDS version of friendster- ldslinkup.com
I doubt there is a whole lot of cross-over with any of these. On the whole they tend to have a different focus and serve a different audience.
Bloggernacle contributors are more insightful, articulate, and spiritually uplifting than posters on a Rush message board?!
i regularly read and post at New Order Mormons and The View from the Foyer. occasionally lurk at FAIR and Nauvoo and post there rarely.
cougarboard is a popular message board for byu sports fans that turns into other things. I rarely go to lds talk anymore used too. I used to do deseret before it shut down. Am on Nauvoo and lds digital. Sometimes go to fair as well.
I rarely, rarely go to forums. Typically only when I notice someone made a link that points to my blog. So I go in then and add my two cents.
The problem with forums is that the debate tends to be very rhetorically oriented rather than “fact” oriented. That is there seems more of an incentive to score easy rhetorical points rather than get down to what is under debate and see why each group feels the way they do. i.e. their justification for their views.
Perhaps others disagree. But by and large there’s far more noise than communication (IMO).