The main page of this site mentions that there are 1000 posts to this forum on a daily basis. For you long-timers, how does this compare to 1 year ago? 5 years ago? 10 years ago? Have you noticed a material increase in board activity over the last few years or has it remained fairly consistent?

As a relatively new exmo, I am curious about the impact of sites like this on overall TSCC membership. If there has been a noticeable increase in board activity over the last few years, it should be a good indicator that active church membership really is in decline as more people discover the Church's historical fraud.

Well, admin may be able to tell you that. I can only look at it in an anecdotal way, and I could only say that people come and people go, but it would appear that we get waves of new people coming every so often, where a couple dozen new monikers appear all at once.

Since this board allows a lot of raw feelings and irreverent tones, not everybody likes it. Some move on to "nicer" and less argumentative ("stodgy" seems like a good word) ex-Mo boards like "postmormon.org."

Just checked out postmormon.org. Yes, it is nicer and less irreverant that this site.

Has a requirement to register, less overall participation. And me-no-like the way the members are ranked from one to four bars. Why must people be classified, ranked, and sorted, new people being made to feel inferior?

I like the option for anonymity here. I like the way the forum is set up. Very intuitive, easy to participate in, action keeps flowing, most current topic up top.

I kind of like the bars and in some places you get number of posts like NOM. People usually say welcome to you because they know you're new. They sometimes encourage you to introduce yourself or let people know your story.

I can see how it might make some people feel inferior. I don't know if there is even a reason beyond that how their forum software works and they haven't thought to take it off. I kind of liked being new on there.

The ability to be anonymous on this site is a huge plus, but also enable more TBM's and trolls in general.

I like the simpleness of this site, it typically load extremely fast. I don't like the limit on the threads because you can quickly run out of steam on a topic once you hit the limit. Also your thread can fall off the first page fast. I do think it allows for several ideas increases the flow too.

I participate here, NOM & Postmo.

Sometimes there are better questions to ask on NOM because more of them are in mixed faith marriages, and can give criticism in a more sensitive way. Which is an important perspective when I talk to my wife.

Postmo is a better place to ask about philosophy since it's atheist ratio is a little more moderate then RfM.

Also Rick is great on Postmo, he posts a lot of well thought out comments.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/10/2013 01:27PM by David Jason.

I've been here 11 or 12 years, and haven't noticed a dramatic change in number of posts or posters. I think it is sort of at a saturation point. A person can only read so much in a day, and if posts get beyond that, responses start declining for individual posts, even if they increase for the overall number of posts.

Did that make an sense? I think RfM is at an equilibrium of sorts. I think total bandwidth of the list has been ratcheting up, so maybe we have more lurkers.

I have noticed an uptick in number of people resigning, and stories of other ward families leaving. That is really where the rubber meets the road.

I found the board in 2004 and have posted off and on since. Lots of people come and go with a handful who have stayed for the duration. It ebs and flows...

What has changed is the number of other sites that have popped up, the number of podcasts, and generally the over all discussion that is going on. The John Dhellin's, John Larsen's, the Mormon feminist Housewives, Mormon discussions, etc. There is so much discussion going on over the Internet and other venues.

Can you imagine being a potential convert in 2013? The Internet is killing the field that is ready to harvest. The converts are the down trodden, the poor, the converts that don't build up the church.

Maybe it's a side effect of Romney and the Mormon moment. Maybe not it's hard to quantify.

What makes me happy is knowing that the church is forced to respond and acknowledge at a minimum There is a discussion going on that they can't control. The Swedish rescue is evidence of this. The "we made mistakes" talk from Dusseldorf is evidence of this. The Oaks train wreck talk is evidence they are still pandering to the hardliners. The desperate plea for tithing by Bednar is evidence that the natives are getting restless.

The church is getting narrower and narrower. The world sees them as a strange and ultra conservative desperate group. The next 10 years will be fun to watch as the hardliners pass away, the youth of today will be 26- 34 which seems the prime age for disaffection.

The charade can only continue for so long before they are forced to change withthe times as they have in the past!

I obviously don't have the exact figures, but on Google Trends you can see how often the terms "exmormon" and "exmormon.org" have been Googled since 2004: http://www.google.co.uk/trends/explore?q=exmormon.org#q=exmormon.org%2C%20exmormon&cmpt=q

There is no way to measure an "increase" because, just like church membership, as people are leaving others are coming on board.

Even if you could view the numbers of visits on a daily basis and saw it going up, there is no correlation between visits here and members exiting the church.

You have to remember that we experience a spike of trolls whenever BYU goes on vacation. A lot of our numbers are curious Mormons--and we like that.

People who are more comfortable on other boards come here to ask anonymously the questions they absolutely do not want to chance asking on their "home" board.

They know they will get an honest answer--and from a diverse crowd of ages and stages of Mormonism.

Priceless. Sometimes we need to hear the truth without the lacey trim.


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