Do you think that this board needs more members?

[Mike DiCenso]

Ooookay. I can say that that's one thing that's never happened to me....

And considering the fact that a lot of weird stuff has happened to me, that says something.

I made the mistake of putting my actual age down in the personal profile, and that's what apparently attracts the gold diggers to you.
-Mike

[Mike DiCenso]

i didn't mean for that to come off as a bash at sfj. there are good reasons for the fact that sfj is not a 1,000 post per day board and it would not be sfj if it were. i also didn't mean to imply that my old board was somehow superior because it was busier. just the fact that this board continues to exist would kill that idea. i was just responding to your surprise at the idea that this is a quiet board.
.

My idea of busy is a bit different from yours. Look at the huge upsurge in activity that posters like Youngla, KirkSkywalker, and now StarWarsStarTrek have caused when they post here. That's what I think of when I think of "busy" for here. Quiet in terms of traffic, yes, though we do seem to attract an inordinately large amount of "lurker" type traffic, few people actually join up. Notice that SFJN gets referenced heavily elsewhere, especially on SDN, even if it's derogatory, it's still referenced. They feel they need to attack this place, so we must be doing something right.

The problem again is that we have a hard time recruiting pro-Wars people like General Donner or The Dude (aka Cpl. Kendall) who argue with intelligence, originallity, and facts.
-Mike

[Mike DiCenso]

here we have another case where it would be nice to know what the point of the board is, in that 'mojo has no freaking idea what jms wants for his board' sort of way. would an influx of members who might be a lot more interested in the 'other' section than the main sw/st section be something he'd actually see as a negative rather than a positive? because i think i could make that happen, probably, but i definitely wouldn't want to do something that he would see as harming the board or taking it in the wrong direction. otherwise we have the problems mike detailed as far as this being such a niche thing in the first place.

Truth is the purpose of this board. Really. This board may not have a huge amount of traffic/activity as such, but one very good thing that has come out of here over the five years it has existed is an in-depth look at what the real story is for potential Star Trek versus Star Wars scenarios are.

We are an archive now for real information on the actual Star Wars capabilities, and it is nothing like SDN or SWTC would have it. For example, we have cataloged the truth about the Base Delta Zero and as the lively discussions in the thread by the same name has shown as well as the ICS and EU contradiction threads are concerned, it was never anything on the power level claimed. Far from it.

And that, my friends, is what makes it all worthwhile.
-Mike

[Mike DiCenso]

I don't mind the board becoming larger and more active. I haven't been willing to put forth the effort to promote and recruit for some time. One of the best methods of recruiting in the VS debate has traditionally been to use links to here while arguing elsewhere - it's a technique that SDN's membership use constantly, and is one reason why SDN maintains a larger membership base.

ASVS actually has a facebook page. Wouldn't be too odd for us to follow suit.

I don't think the ASVS Facebook page has done a whole lot for their recruiting new members from what I've seen. As I pointed out to Mojo earlier, the reason SDN and SBC have such a massive membership is they tended to grab up anyone who was interested in the subject years ago when everything was still at it's peak. When they considered the debate done with as far as Trek and Wars were concerned, they'd already expanded out to include other things for the members to talk about. As we discussed a long while back, if you really look at the traffic numbers for those places, they really haven't grown very much since about around 2005. Which means they hit their real peak and are just kind of coasting on the hardcore active membership, and some newcomers who replace those who have retired, been permabanned, ect.

One thing that also certainly helped SDN and SBC in their early days was their appeal to the "Smash mouth" crowd. If you don't like someone who disagrees with you, poison the well and attack them. The mods will help you do it, especially if you are enforcing the groupthink. That kind of negative empowerment is a big intoxication for downtrodden geeks. That's one thing that we here at SFJN have so far managed to avoid overall is giving in to that kind of mentality.

But then, we've always had a different mission: to find truth, not enforce ridged dogma.
-Mike

[mojo]

here we have another case where it would be nice to know what the point of the board is, in that 'mojo has no freaking idea what jms wants for his board' sort of way. would an influx of members who might be a lot more interested in the 'other' section than the main sw/st section be something he'd actually see as a negative rather than a positive? because i think i could make that happen, probably, but i definitely wouldn't want to do something that he would see as harming the board or taking it in the wrong direction. otherwise we have the problems mike detailed as far as this being such a niche thing in the first place.

Truth is the purpose of this board. Really. This board may not have a huge amount of traffic/activity as such, but one very good thing that has come out of here over the five years it has existed is an in-depth look at what the real story is for potential Star Trek versus Star Wars scenarios are.

We are an archive now for real information on the actual Star Wars capabilities, and it is nothing like SDN or SWTC would have it. For example, we have cataloged the truth about the Base Delta Zero and as the lively discussions in the thread by the same name has shown as well as the ICS and EU contradiction threads are concerned, it was never anything on the power level claimed. Far from it.

And that, my friends, is what makes it all worthwhile.
-Mike

i like that idea. but it kind of reinforces the idea that the board has served it's purpose, if most of the major points have already been successfully argued. it seems a bit like you're arguing that the board is an archive of successful debates which can be referenced. or i'm missing what you're saying, which wouldn't be the first time.

[mojo]

from day one i've wondered if i was kind of waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay out of place here, and i guess that's why. i like the debates, i love lurking the sw/st threads and sometimes the other sci-fi debate threads, but mostly i just like the ambiance and the sometimes humorous reactions of the hardcore. this place is fun. the people here are fun. you're fun, even when you're taking me way too seriously. i would enjoy it just as much if it were based on pepsi vs. coke.
jms, i want to be perfectly clear here. was that a 'yes mojo bring on the people who might not be super into sw vs. st' or a 'no mojo, let's not have that'?
and regardless of whether or not a fb page would help, i can't see how it could hurt. if nobody else wants to mess with it, i'd be happy to make one. with permission, of course.

[Praeothmin]

i like that idea. but it kind of reinforces the idea that the board has served it's purpose, if most of the major points have already been successfully argued.

Actually, we sometimes act as IF the major points have been argued, but for all of SWST's evidence ignoring antics, KSW's cockamamie theories, tha fact is they both brought some fresh arguments, no matter how small, and sometimes even had me reconsider my position...
So I don't believe for an instant that the major points are mostly done with, as there are still aspects that need discussing...

[Mr. Oragahn]

does this board have a facebook presence? have you considered asking members to plug the board on their facebook accounts? facebook isn't the most hip thing at this point, but 99 percent of the people i know have one.

I'm the 1% I guess. I couldn't care less about Facebook.

i'm not the world's biggest facebook fan. i just recognize it for the temporarily huge worldwide thing it is in the end stages of being. like myspace before it.

I'm old fashioned. I still use wired telephone and have fun with real friends at the pub.
And if someone has to tell me something important that's related to the pro side of things, they get to leave a message on the wire as well. No way I'm letting a cellphone dictate my schedules.

[Mr. Oragahn]

Ooookay. I can say that that's one thing that's never happened to me....

And considering the fact that a lot of weird stuff has happened to me, that says something.

I made the mistake of putting my actual age down in the personal profile, and that's what apparently attracts the gold diggers to you.
-Mike

Private information is private.
That's another reason I hate those network things.
Why hundreds of millions of people think it's cool to give away their private information for free? This is beyond me, especially as in this day and age, private information is absolutely golden. Not to say that I absolutely can't fucking trust them either. People will just get what they deserve, in the end, if they don't get more cautious about the only thing they still have.

[Mr. Oragahn]

i didn't mean for that to come off as a bash at sfj. there are good reasons for the fact that sfj is not a 1,000 post per day board and it would not be sfj if it were. i also didn't mean to imply that my old board was somehow superior because it was busier. just the fact that this board continues to exist would kill that idea. i was just responding to your surprise at the idea that this is a quiet board.
.

My idea of busy is a bit different from yours. Look at the huge upsurge in activity that posters like Youngla, KirkSkywalker, and now StarWarsStarTrek have caused when they post here. That's what I think of when I think of "busy" for here. Quiet in terms of traffic, yes, though we do seem to attract an inordinately large amount of "lurker" type traffic, few people actually join up. Notice that SFJN gets referenced heavily elsewhere, especially on SDN, even if it's derogatory, it's still referenced. They feel they need to attack this place, so we must be doing something right.

The problem again is that we have a hard time recruiting pro-Wars people like General Donner or The Dude (aka Cpl. Kendall) who argue with intelligence, originallity, and facts.
-Mike

They don't really post here anymore. Mmm... is there a way to get a snippet about SFJN's stats? I've always been curious about how many lurkers read our pages and which ones are the most successful.

[Kor_Dahar_Master]

Ooookay. I can say that that's one thing that's never happened to me....

And considering the fact that a lot of weird stuff has happened to me, that says something.

I made the mistake of putting my actual age down in the personal profile, and that's what apparently attracts the gold diggers to you.
-Mike

Gold diggers are ok as long as you remember to fuck them and bail before they fuck you and bail...:).

[Mike DiCenso]

i like that idea. but it kind of reinforces the idea that the board has served it's purpose, if most of the major points have already been successfully argued.

Actually, we sometimes act as IF the major points have been argued, but for all of SWST's evidence ignoring antics, KSW's cockamamie theories, tha fact is they both brought some fresh arguments, no matter how small, and sometimes even had me reconsider my position...
So I don't believe for an instant that the major points are mostly done with, as there are still aspects that need discussing...

I have to respectfully disagree there, Praeo. KSW did come up with interesting theories on Trek technology, but again, that failure to back them up with real references, and his bizarre outbursts of anger at anyone who asked for such is what ruined any further productive discourse. The only really great thing we got from KSW to my immediate recollection is the Midichlorian as oppressive parasites fanfic. That is sheer brilliance, and I wish he'd been more productive that way and stayed calm and reasonable when asked for evidence.

What a shame. What a waste.

SWST I very much disagree on as all that person did was to parrot almost verbatim the SDN mantras, and almost nothing new was brought forward in those discussion of a useful nature. That is why Mr. Oragahn quickly lost patience with SWST, on issues like Dankayo and Base Delta Zero in general, we really had that pretty much lock, stock, and barrell all taken care of. SWST pretty much went into denial mode, and kept resetting the debate multiple times, which is in turn why he ultimately got canned. He became so obviously dishonest that you couldn't ignore it anymore.

Is there more that can be added to the debate? Sure. There's lots of material out there and the real thing that's emerged from places like the old Strek-vs-Swars forum and this one is that Star Wars is nowhere near as powerful as Saxton and Wong claim, and Trek is much more powerful than most Warsies or anyone else would admit to, though it's not the end all and be all of sci fi powers.
-Mike

[Mike DiCenso]

Ooookay. I can say that that's one thing that's never happened to me....

And considering the fact that a lot of weird stuff has happened to me, that says something.

I made the mistake of putting my actual age down in the personal profile, and that's what apparently attracts the gold diggers to you.
-Mike

Gold diggers are ok as long as you remember to fuck them and bail before they fuck you and bail...:).

I don't think so. Online GDs are likely the result of some scam group trying to get more personal information from you so they can steal your identity.
-Mike

[Mike DiCenso]

i didn't mean for that to come off as a bash at sfj. there are good reasons for the fact that sfj is not a 1,000 post per day board and it would not be sfj if it were. i also didn't mean to imply that my old board was somehow superior because it was busier. just the fact that this board continues to exist would kill that idea. i was just responding to your surprise at the idea that this is a quiet board.
.

My idea of busy is a bit different from yours. Look at the huge upsurge in activity that posters like Youngla, KirkSkywalker, and now StarWarsStarTrek have caused when they post here. That's what I think of when I think of "busy" for here. Quiet in terms of traffic, yes, though we do seem to attract an inordinately large amount of "lurker" type traffic, few people actually join up. Notice that SFJN gets referenced heavily elsewhere, especially on SDN, even if it's derogatory, it's still referenced. They feel they need to attack this place, so we must be doing something right.

The problem again is that we have a hard time recruiting pro-Wars people like General Donner or The Dude (aka Cpl. Kendall) who argue with intelligence, originallity, and facts.
-Mike

They don't really post here anymore. Mmm... is there a way to get a snippet about SFJN's stats? I've always been curious about how many lurkers read our pages and which ones are the most successful.

We had some anonymous Warsie bring up the stats a couple years ago, so you might want to look it up.
-Mike

[Kor_Dahar_Master]

Gold diggers are ok as long as you remember to fuck them and bail before they fuck you and bail...:).

I don't think so. Online GDs are likely the result of some scam group trying to get more personal information from you so they can steal your identity.
-Mike

Oh ok i was thinking of the more usual female type, but yes i agree as far as the sort you were referring to.