Thanks @alh for your insight. Spot on as always . The political forum was already gone by time I started on CC or at least learned about it.
It seems to me that some of the changes/ reduced traffic in the Parents forums reflect the wider change in climate in our country. There were some heated discussion in the past, probably bordering on debate, when the sexual assault issues came to the forefront at colleges. For the most part, and perhaps due to heavy moderation, people vehemently disagreed but were not name-calling or referencing politics. The discussion started from the shared belief that this was a problem at colleges, but the disagreement was with how the problem should be defined and how it should be handled by the schools.
Today, there seems to be much more disagreement about basic facts and who to believe. It seems harder to have a discussion when everyone is in their corner and disagrees on whether the issue at hand is actually real. That even applies to Covid19 and mask wearing.
Perhaps we need to be more creative in topics and focus on what we are doing to address an issue - those that don’t believe that the issue is real don’t need to respond.
I also think that more parents understand the issues in ways they did not 10 years ago. There seem to be less parents forum threads on last minute panic about paying for college or whether private school X is worth the big price tag vs public or a school offering a discount.
I enjoy these forums and hope we can continue. I miss some of the former posters, but also appreciate the relative newbies.
I looked up the discussions the moderators had about the old Politics forum. They debated for YEARS about whether to keep that thread open - it was a constant battle to know if/how much to moderate when people were uncivil (which they were). There was also a thread IN the Politics forum about whether it should be closed, so the users knew it was a possibility (the Politics forum threads have been deleted so I can’t see what users wrote).
@MaineLonghorn , we were not privy to the moderators internal debates. The moderators did not show up on that forum, except for one who was a regular poster. There were no warnings, no notice. Just because someone had a thread in there asking about if it should be closed doesn’t mean that it was even on our radar.
I believe that anyone who is reading this who was a regular poster on E&P will agree that closing that forum was poorly done. No warning, no chances to tone down our posts. I sometimes wonder if they will do that to the Parent Cafe, and I really hope not. This is still the place I go to when I need advice from thoughtful, interesting people who have a wide range of experience.
@MaineLonghorn, have you guys considered doing what I do when I need help? I ask the parents on cc, who always rescue me from bad decisions (or indecision). I now have respectable eyebrows, I consider my kids career choices a little differently, I have an amazingly low mortgage rate, my investments choices are different, I have made money on recommended investments, and I have stopped nagging my kids about certain things (they are very thankful). And that’s just a beginning.
Why not start a thread about what cc can do to bolster the site (I’m assuming that means get more activity on here), and strongly consider what the parents say? Consider what people are saying with an open mind, and I am sure you will get spot on suggestions.
If life had to always abide by changes or decisions made years ago we would probably never get very far in our human lives.
The COVID thread while nasty or needing moderation sometimes should not be held as an example. COVID is unprecedented time - hopefully like no other we will ever experience - no wonder people were fuel charged sometimes - literal life depended on our knowledge and opinions.
We have seen our friends leave.
We have seen our friends banned.
We have weathered numerous forum format changes - not all for the better - as admitted by CC admin in the bast.
We are still here.
We can live without a lot of things in life. But do we need to? I would welcome some comments (no promises necessary!) from admin on what has been discussed here, blueprints for the future, etc.
You have the best focus group around right before your eyes.
The AMA with Jeff Selingo thread is (IMHO) EXACTLY what CC should be doing!! That’s a resource you can’t get elsewhere and is of great interest to this audience. I think that’s fertile ground. Frank Bruni comes to mind as another interesting guest, but perhaps experts in the ins and outs of athletic recruiting, or other specialized topic, would be popular.
For all my criticism, I must also praise – well done @CCadminJon @CCadminSorin !
If I remember correctly (always debatable) there were a handful of posters always vehemently objecting to the P&E cafe and they just couldn’t be convinced to leave it alone and not read it.
Sometimes it got ugly, but overall it was a positive, intellectually engaging place to spend time. Regular posters were attorneys, professors, a few writers (fiction and non-fiction) and at least one philosopher. There was on-going dialogue from very different points of view. More often than not, it was an elevated version of “best of” comments under a NYTimes article.
I admittedly did not read the Covid thread(s)…was there more than one?.. closely enough to know what any controversy was about. It’s too bad. It’s the number one thing in our lives right now and we can’t discuss it. Just seems strange. JMO.
I totally agree with @alh – second time today! There generally are a couple of people who can’t seem to stop themselves from trying to police everyone. And I’m sure it’s a PITA to the mods, but i think mods think there is nonstop chaos when really it’s just a couple of people who don’t like something being said and try to get it all shut down.
Hey, wait! Did cc invent cancel culture??? Is that was cc stands for?
I do feel like CC is actively trying to get me to quit sometimes.
Obviously since moderators take down the offending posts, it is hard to know why some posters end up banned. I’m assuming they crossed a line, hopefully after several warnings. But I do know that a lot of collective wisdom has been lost. I am one who makes extensive use of reading through old threads instead of (or in addition to) creating new ones. You don’t have to look that far to find very helpful and insightful posts with the “banned” avatar.
I see zero use of the Kai bot, other than so someone can sit in a board meeting and say “see what I did”. IIRC on the thread discussing the addition that there is a new design group in charge. I guess they are making their mark. History of changes here has been poor, frankly. Like many people, I still find navigation difficult, and I am on here several times a day. I came really close to just leaving permanently a couple years ago when the navigation was changed.
I posted what I thought was a serious question then that was never answered. Does CC even want the message boards? If not, please give us the chance to take them somewhere else. I was on an industry forum where a few posters volunteered to take over the boards that the company was neglecting. I honestly won’t be shocked to check in someday and find that they are just gone, including all of the existing posts.
Having said all of that, I do really appreciate these boards. S19 is in the perfect place for him, and i don’t think that would have happened without help I received here. I am currently getting a ton of good advice for D21 in her college search. D25 is looking into boarding schools, which I know nothing about. Without this group to ask questions, it would be a hard no from me. Instead we are actively looking into that for her. Plus the community and “off topic” conversations in the Cafe and especially in PM’s really make this a place that I value.
Right now I am here because I need to be. I am still in the actively “seeking help” phase. I have already been able to transition to the “providing help” phase in a couple areas. Many here have long since transitioned 100% into the giving phase instead of the receiving phase. We need to have a healthy number of those people want to stay. If all of the experienced posters decide that the boards aren’t worth the hassle anymore, then the only ones left will be those of us seeking answers without any experience to share. The whole board will be reduced to one of the “chance me” threads, where clueless HS kids take turns deciding who has a strong enough application for Harvard.
TLDR: These boards are extremely valuable. Please think twice before making changes, because the history of most changes here is that they fix non-existent problems and create real ones that lead to lost posters.
For sure, you nailed that one exactly! It has to be an excessive amount of work for the mods when they have a few people constantly complaining, and they feel that they need to respond. Is it really necessary to have to do so much work when things get off topic, deal with a minor transgression or someone who just wants to get the thread closed or a poster banned? Why not just deal with the big things and tell the reporters to knock it off? I had one mod tell me that he spent most of his time wiping incredibly inappropriate content that all of us would agree we don’t want to see here. Or anywhere!
Yes! Why can’t people just leave things alone if they don’t like them? You have the freedom to just not read it! It’s like people were compelled to complain about things they should have avoided. I stay in my lane, and stay away from the things that bore/irritate me, and the few times I’ve mentioned that on a thread, people have told me to move along if I didn’t like the subject of the thread, and they were right!
I love the mix of people that you mentioned, the different points of view. Whether the topic was political or completely non-political, some of the things that I’ve learned here have made a huge impact upon my life. I recall a thread that someone started years ago that asked how cc posters had impacted people’s lives (or something like that) and it was truly amazing.
^^^ That. I remember a post from many years back that made me cry it was so hurtful. But there was truth, and I acted on it and am glad 10+ years later that I did.
Is that was cc stands for?