<p>The nature of this board is what I think kills the community. To be frank, the majority of people come in here for no other reason than their own personal gain; they want chancing, information on colleges, help on financial aid, etc. Once they’ve gotten what they wanted (or realized they wouldn’t), then they have no reason to stick around. You see a lot of threads around here where the person doesn’t even bother with a “thank you.”</p>
<p>Secondly, the board is impersonal and people are rude. Because this is a college site, people are constantly bickering and putting each other down. People here are competitive (therefore many have some sort of superiority complex); we’ve seen all the threads about how the community here is “unrealistic.” There’s no sense of community here. Either people just get their information and leave or people just go around fighting with each other.</p>
<p>Any forum is going to have it’s share of problems, but I think we may have some crippling ones here. Forums are meant to discuss and share ideas; this one is more like “ask a question, receive an answer, and leave.” We get a new wave of posters every year when incoming college students are in the middle of the application process; the problem with this is that the same things are then discussed with these students and the forum gets very repetitive. You generally see the same threads coming up over and over every year (and don’t even get me started about the people with social issues in the “College Life” forum).</p>
<p>I can’t even offer any suggestions either, because the last thing this forum needs is strictness and totalitarian-moderation.</p>