Philosophy Now Forum

Do you get answers to your inquiries?

PhilX

It's entertaining enough that I keep coming back, but I do have some complaints. Those would be:

(1) There just aren't enough different people regularly posting, Ideally I want a board where there are at least a couple hundred people regularly posting at any given time, and I'd like a regular influx of new people who stick around for a bit before sauntering off. There should be more threads than I could possibly keep up with, so that I have to choose the threads I'm most interested in.

(2) Given that this the board of a philosophy magazine--albeit a magazine that tends to give a popular take on academic phil--it's kind of surprising to me that there are a good number of regulars who don't seem to be philosophy fans.

(3) Sometimes it seems like a disproportionate number of folks have a religious focus, whether over or covert. Which is a complaint from my perspective because I'm an atheist who doesn't find religious-oriented discussions very interesting . . . but not only that--I find it rather frustrating when people seem to want to pull every discussion in that direction. Sometimes I wish I could find a board where people want to have conversations about philosophy but where most of the regulars are atheists. However, I don't want to just frequent an atheist board, because when they're explicitly that, they're often focused on discussing religion, and that's not what I'm looking for (because I just don't find it that interesting).

Philosophy Explorer wrote:Do you get answers to your inquiries?

PhilX

Nope. I've been in many forums, none of them was satisfying. I still prefer this more than talking to myself or throw bottles to the see.

In it's own weird way.

It's not what I ever would have expected. Nor would I have anticipated that I would stay and be as involved as I have. But I've enjoyed the freedom of letting loose, exploring wildly, and questioning craziness (which evidently there's more of in mankind than I ever imagined!).

I've not found any other sites that have held my interest or motivated me to participate as much as here. And admittedly, I often think of leaving this one too... but then someone says something profound or really stupid, and I have to comment. Despite the dysfunction, this site has been entertaining and informative simply in what it reveals about all of us.

This is a relatively quiet site but the numbers do not bother me personally. For I am more interested in quality than quantity. I also post over
at I Love Philosophy and although that is a significantly different forum in terms of tone and subject matter it is also relatively quiet number
wise. I actually prefer such intimacy for I think it beneficial rather than disadvantageous with regard to interesting and productive discourse

Terrapin Station wrote:(1) There just aren't enough different people regularly posting, Ideally I want a board where there are at least a couple hundred people regularly posting at any given time, and I'd like a regular influx of new people who stick around for a bit before sauntering off. There should be more threads than I could possibly keep up with, so that I have to choose the threads I'm most interested in.

Then have more than just 1 forum to visit.

HexHammer wrote:

Terrapin Station wrote:(1) There just aren't enough different people regularly posting, Ideally I want a board where there are at least a couple hundred people regularly posting at any given time, and I'd like a regular influx of new people who stick around for a bit before sauntering off. There should be more threads than I could possibly keep up with, so that I have to choose the threads I'm most interested in.

Then have more than just 1 forum to visit.

I visit a number of boards, actually, and many under this same nickname. They're all slow, unfortunately.

What I liked best re interacting with others online was IRC back when that was really active. I used to frequent a philosophy channel on IRC, on Undernet, where there were routinely 15-20 people regularly posting (not just lurking, not just signed on) at any given time. There was almost never a lull in the conversation, 24/7. That lasted for years. I started frequenting that channel around 1995 or 1996, and there was constant, relatively quick conversation there 24/7 for at least 10 years.

Terrapin Station wrote:
What I liked best re interacting with others online was IRC back when that was really active. I used to frequent a philosophy channel on IRC on Undernet where there were routinely 15-20 people regularly posting (not just lurking not just signed on) at any given time. There was almost
never a lull in the conversation 24/7. That lasted for years. I started frequenting that channel around 1995 or 1996 and there was constant relatively quick conversation there 24/7 for at least 10 years

Sometimes slow conversation with a few can lead to greater insight than fast conversation with many
I personally value quality over quantity but this may not be true for others like yourself for example

surreptitious57 wrote:Sometimes slow conversation with a few can lead to greater insight than fast conversation with many
I personally value quality over quantity

I do, too, but in my opinion there's never been a correlation between quantity/speed and quality on message boards, in chat rooms, etc.