I don't know what my perception means for myself. I had certain interests when I started here, they have changed. I reacted in certain ways when I started, I have changed.
What you look for as a helpful discussion probably is in motion over time. What do you wish to see more of?

Things changed for me when @TimeLine left. She added a lot of energy to the forum. I told her she was pugnacious and she took it as a complement, which was how I meant it. No one has called @Hanover a lesbian for years. She was a Patrick Stewart denier. That bald guy was Jean Luc Picard and only Jean Luc Picard.

Because her leaving was so ugly, the moderators moved the Shoutbox out of the mainline discussions and into the Lounge. That took a lot of energy out too. It was the place where everyone got together to gossip and complain and it showed up on the front page. Now, most people don't even look at it. It goes for days without a comment. I understand why the moderators moved it. They thought there was too much disruption, and they were right. Still, it took some of the life out of the forum.

Whatever the reason, some people have backed off a lot. They still comment from time to time, but less often. @StreetlightX and @fdrake don't comment nearly as much as they used to. I think @apokrisis is still around somewhere, but he hardly ever comments. They, along with TimeLine were strong voices for science from astrophysics to genetics to statistics. Now we're left with a bunch of half-assed, dipshit, pitiful pseudo-science. Yes, I'm talking about you.

There are other voices that have slipped into the background more. @ArguingWAristotleTiff is still around but sticks mostly to the Lounge. @Bitter Crank still comments but less. He has always been our Marxist rabble rouser with the credentials and experience to stand behind it. @Noble Dust is still around, but he only comes out when I say something bad about @Phillip K. Dick. And yes, I miss @S.

I'm not sure, but I think a lot of the moderators have stopped commenting as much. Comments about moderation have dropped off. In general, some of the spirit has gone out of the forum. I think some of the quality of the discussions has gone down too. I still love the forum.

For a while I felt like I'd said everything I had to say, but I've found some new things to be interested in.

Philosophy Forums hasn't been as good since the original shut down around 2016/17 (as I recall) and a majority of users didn't transition over. This is a general internet trend, as forum based communication (particularly niche topics) was gradually replaced by scaled social media communication (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram) that could contain their own niche topic groups. Also need to take into account newly popularized ideological currents, and cultural wars that sprung from the internet around this time and hasn't faded.

I'd made 12 posts way back in 2015, then life kept me away until fall 2019. I'd been a very active member on the previous site since 2003 and burnt out by 2013/14. The break did my mind & spirit some good. Suddenly, by chance, @Swan lured me back here and then the pandemic hit in an US election year and the GOP bet on a high body count rather than getting more votes to win at the polls. Quarantine lockdown in a tRumpy GOP state and then the rat-a-tat-tat of public executions of citizens of color that culminated in the broad daylight lynching of George Floyd which went viral globally as the "9:26" video became a trailer for the 'BLM protest movement' drove me to use TPF as a rageful outlet for moral, legal, historical debates on American racism, classicism, and the imperialist legacy of it's paramilitarized police-state. I can't speak to what's changed on the site, but I'm sure I've changed – and not always for the better – which has little to do with this site itself or the other members with whom I've had vehement disagreements. It's all a work-in-progress these days, just dialectics and rants.

Is The Philosophy Forum getting worse? I've never been a high-level participant, so from my POV it's doing fine. On the other hand, many things are always getting worse on one end but are constantly renewed and repaired on the other end. Life in general may be going to hell in a hand basket, what with global warming and all. There never were and never will be that many people who yearn to rehash philosophical material. One should be... philosophical? about the philosophy forum's condition.

It's still a good thing.

I do like a heated discussion every now and then. Haven't had one for a while. The last one was when I told a hard core marxist that I didn't think Marx had much to offer about how to solve the problem of global warming, The door was slammed and the welcome mat was snatched away.

quote="T Clark;536857"]He has always been our Marxist rabble rouser with the credentials and experience to stand behind it[/quote]

I lately haven't been as interested in rousing the rabble on behalf of Uncle Karl as I used to be. Old age, I suppose. I haven't felt the desire to participate in discussions as much as I used to. Old age, I suppose. Hey -- now that I have it, old age is a good excuse for doing and not doing all sorts of things.

I have been reading a lot; old age has not interfered with that, thanks be. Two books: The Secular Enlightenment, is pretty good but is fairy demanding, The other, The Metaphysical Club, is about late 19th Century American thinkers like Pierce and James, et al. That's good too, and requires careful reading. Finished a couple more books on WWII. The current book I am reading on WWII is Sheer Misery. It's about the awful physical experiences of war --horrendous sound, stench, terror, fatigue, hideous food, filth, pain, heat, cold, dysentery, etc. Quite interesting. For relief I read the Hail Mary Project by Andy Weir [The Martian] Excellent alien encounter out around Tau Ceti. Definitely a good read.

I really should do something about the yard -- it looks terrible, but deep down I don't give much more than a rat's ass about it. I should get more exercise, eat more dark leafy green vegetables, spend money more carefully, and all that.

Hail Mary Project by Andy Weir [The Martian] Excellent alien encounter out around Tau Ceti. Definitely a good read. — Bitter Crank

:cool: Looking forward to reading it.

He has always been our Marxist rabble rouser with the credentials and experience to stand behind it — T Clark

I lately haven't been as interested in rousing the rabble on behalf of Uncle Karl as I used to be. Old age, I suppose. I haven't felt the desire to participate in discussions as much as I used to. Old age, I suppose. Hey -- now that I have it, old age is a good excuse for doing and not doing all sorts of things. — Bitter Crank

I hope you know I wrote what I wrote with affection and respect.

"The Metaphysical Club" sounds interesting. If I keep calling myself a pragmatist, I should read more pragmatists.

I hope you know I wrote what I wrote with affection and respect. — T Clark

That's exactly how I took it. And the same for you.

Yes, pragmatism; good thing.

Yes, pragmatism; good thing. — Bitter Crank

Turns out I can read "The Metaphysical Club" free on Kindle Unlimited. Yay.

I think a lot of the moderators have stopped commenting as much. Comments about moderation have dropped off. — T Clark

Where some see coincidence others see consequence. Seriously though, they probably helped to simulate interesting and good quality topics.

Where some see coincidence others see consequence. Seriously though, they probably helped to simulate interesting and good quality topics. — praxis

I've generally tried to be supportive of moderator's decisions, with a couple of exceptions. All and all, I think they do a pretty good job. Also, as I noted, the moderators often have interesting things to say in their own right. It seems like they've backed off from that some.

I use it fairly sporadically, but will say that it was better when Wallows and Terrapin Station were still here. Having contributed to its decline, I will say that it will just get better now, more or less necessarily.

Terrapin Station brought me up to speed about many different kinds of arguments that I was not aware of before he made them.
On the other hand, there was little I wondered about that he wondered about.
People are interested in different things.

I just found for him to be fairly amicable. I could never really wrap my head around what he was on about, though.

Maybe he will come back and tell us.

Wallows is still here as @Shawn.

When I joined PF--the now-expired site from which this one sprouted--around 2010, long-time members talked with fondness about the good old days, but for me as a new member it seemed great. Maybe there are newer members here who are having a great time. And just from a quick look at the topic titles on the main page, things look pretty healthy.

Because her leaving was so ugly, the moderators moved the Shoutbox out of the mainline discussions and into the Lounge. That took a lot of energy out too. It was the place where everyone got together to gossip and complain and it showed up on the front page. Now, most people don't even look at it. It goes for days without a comment. I understand why the moderators moved it. They thought there was too much disruption, and they were right. Still, it took some of the life out of the forum. — T Clark

Yep. What we really need is a real, separate shoutbox in a little box at the side, as in the old forum and a few alternative forum platforms. We can't implement that here and my feeling is we just wait till the time comes to make the move to Discourse or whatever.

Yep. What we really need is a real, separate shoutbox in a little box at the side, as in the old forum and a few alternative forum platforms. We can't implement that here and my feeling is we just wait till the time comes to make the move to Discourse or whatever. — jamalrob

As I said, I understand why you did it, but it hurt. It would be great if you could figure out a way to bring it back.

Hail Mary Project by Andy Weir — Bitter Crank

Haven't been able to find a good sci-fi book lately. Thanks for mentioning.

There are many titles out there that are just not very satisfactory. I've read several by Brandon Q. Morris, and those have been quite good. I'd except Amphitrite (and sequel) I didn't like those two as well, and I didn't read The End of the Universe. Morris writes "hard science fiction" and is a German physicist. (Brandon Q. Morris is his pen name).

His dramatis personae are interesting; two of them are quite novel. One of the most interesting is a vacuum cleaner (a little robot taken over by an AI). The AI needed a disguise to get into places he wasn't supposed to be, the better to spy on his masters. Never mind how an AI would fit into the small circuits of a robot vacuum cleaner. It is fiction, after all. The little robot ends up on board a space ship and makes himself useful (above and beyond vacuuming). The other very interesting character is a Russian space explorer whose mind ends up being uploaded and used for various purposes.

Morris's fiction avoids ghastly monsters. I like to keep really ghastly imagery out of my head, because it can fester. I could stand Cormak McCarthy's book The Road, just barely, but not the movie. It took me years to get over Alien and it's sequels.

I understand why you did it, but it hurt. It would be great if you could figure out a way to bring it back. — T Clark

It did hurt and I didn't give up without a fight to get it back on the main page.
The threads were held together with the glue of a community and that is not present as of late.
I wish for the day when the shout box is given a chance. It's very difficult to talk on an intimate level with members you have only debated.
I too miss @S and have said as much.
Maybe I have said too much but that's the thing, I never had to worry about it before but now?
It's rather easy to feel dismissed.
That's my two cents so take it for what it is worth
Tiff

I could stand Cormak McCarthy's book The Road, just barely, but not the movie. — Bitter Crank

I know, was surprised they made a movie of it. I don't mind a good monster story as long as it's not too monstery. Didn't recently make it far into To Sleep in a Sea of Stars, for instance. Morris looks good.

The threads were held together with the glue of a community and that is not present as of late. — ArguingWAristotleTiff

I agree. I miss it.

Missing the sticky community that banished S, Timeline and others. :chin:

Anyways, I propose a solution. Temporarily put the shout-box back on the front side. Maybe some of the glue and vigor will return, and if it does they can then hide the shout-box again.

Yes, it's no longer a special place.

It is not the forum that is special. I am. The forum is just a medium that enabled me to use it advantageously, but to imagine some special place it holds is entirely subjective, a fantasy-narrative that imagines meaning more than this subjectivity. — TimeLine

Yes, me-ism died. It's now rugged individualism with a shotgun under your bed.

I've put the Shoutbox back on the main page, in a new category (currently closed to new discussions) called "Symposium", and pinned at the top.

I would say the Internet in general has declined. I blame education.