collapse

* Recent Posts

"Christ Is King" by Altair
[Today at 01:09:34 am]


Re: Cill Shift Schedule by SunflowerP
[Yesterday at 11:04:57 pm]


Re: Stellar Bling: The Good, the Bad, the OMG! by SunflowerP
[March 21, 2024, 11:21:37 pm]


Re: Spring Has Sprung! 2024 Edition by SunflowerP
[March 21, 2024, 10:24:10 pm]


Stellar Bling: The Good, the Bad, the OMG! by Altair
[March 21, 2024, 02:52:34 pm]

Author Topic: Status of eCauldron?  (Read 5058 times)

Ryu

  • Apprentice
  • ***
  • Join Date: Sep 2016
  • Posts: 24
  • Total likes: 0
    • View Profile
Status of eCauldron?
« on: September 12, 2016, 05:39:01 pm »
I would like to know what is the health status of this place.
I was here years ago and it was a thriving and buzzing community and now it looks like it is in its death throes.

Did something happen? Is this forum slated to be axed soon?
I realize people have their own lives and all but for most of the forum the last activity was last month.

So....what has heppend to this once thriving community?

Sefiru

  • Senior Staff
  • *
  • Join Date: Nov 2013
  • Location: In the walls
  • Posts: 2569
  • Country: ca
  • Total likes: 891
    • View Profile
Re: Status of eCauldron?
« Reply #1 on: September 12, 2016, 06:14:14 pm »
Quote from: Ryu;196166

So....what has heppend to this once thriving community?


Facebook, probably. (and assorted other social media sites too.)

There are so many more options for Pagans to communicate these days, that each one gets less traffic.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Me on AO3 & Deviantart

Ryu

  • Apprentice
  • ***
  • Join Date: Sep 2016
  • Posts: 24
  • Total likes: 0
    • View Profile
Re: Status of eCauldron?
« Reply #2 on: September 12, 2016, 06:29:32 pm »
Quote from: Sefiru;196169
Facebook, probably. (and assorted other social media sites too.)

There are so many more options for Pagans to communicate these days, that each one gets less traffic.


Not everyone uses media sites like Facebook. I don't and I am sure there are plenty who don't either.

However with so much snooping and stuff going on I think more people will be pulling away from media sites...personally I do not see what makes media sites like facebook, twitter, etc so special.

There were sites like Witch Vox that I used to go to but now they seem to have made many of their articles an exclusive item that can only be accessed through Facebook and I have no intentions of ever entering their site. Ever.

Anyway, thanks.

RandallS

  • Site Admin
  • *
  • Join Date: Jun 2011
  • Location: NE Ohio
  • Posts: 10311
  • Country: us
  • Total likes: 296
    • View Profile
  • Religion: Hellenic Pagan
Re: Status of eCauldron?
« Reply #3 on: September 12, 2016, 06:49:46 pm »
Quote from: Ryu;196166
I would like to know what is the health status of this place.
I was here years ago and it was a thriving and buzzing community and now it looks like it is in its death throes.


While not as active as it once was (due to many factors, chief among them being people moving to Facebook and other social media platforms from forums as Sefiru mentioned), TC is still one of the most active Pagan forum sites around. As long as we get enough donations every year to pay the server bill and have good volunteers to handle our staff positions, TC will remain around as long as people want it to do so.  Our donation drive would normally be going on now, but the hosts moving from Texas to Ohio delayed it this year.
Randall
RetroRoleplaying [Blog]: Microlite74/75/78/81, BX Advanced, and Other Old School Tabletop RPGs
Microlite20: Lots of Rules Lite Tabletop RPGs -- Many Free

RandallS

  • Site Admin
  • *
  • Join Date: Jun 2011
  • Location: NE Ohio
  • Posts: 10311
  • Country: us
  • Total likes: 296
    • View Profile
  • Religion: Hellenic Pagan
Re: Status of eCauldron?
« Reply #4 on: September 12, 2016, 06:50:53 pm »
Quote from: Ryu;196170
There were sites like Witch Vox that I used to go to but now they seem to have made many of their articles an exclusive item that can only be accessed through Facebook and I have no intentions of ever entering their site. Ever.


Interesting. I did not know Witchvox had gone the Facebook route.
Randall
RetroRoleplaying [Blog]: Microlite74/75/78/81, BX Advanced, and Other Old School Tabletop RPGs
Microlite20: Lots of Rules Lite Tabletop RPGs -- Many Free

SunflowerP

  • Host
  • *
  • Join Date: Jun 2011
  • Location: Calgary AB
  • Posts: 9909
  • Country: ca
  • Total likes: 732
  • Don't teach your grandmother to suck eggs!
    • View Profile
    • If You Ain't Makin' Waves, You Ain't Kickin' Hard Enough
  • Religion: Eclectic religious Witchcraft
  • Preferred Pronouns: sie/hir/hirs/hirself
Re: Status of eCauldron?
« Reply #5 on: September 12, 2016, 06:56:49 pm »
Quote from: Ryu;196166
I would like to know what is the health status of this place.
I was here years ago and it was a thriving and buzzing community and now it looks like it is in its death throes.

Did something happen? Is this forum slated to be axed soon?
I realize people have their own lives and all but for most of the forum the last activity was last month.

So....what has heppend to this once thriving community?

 
As Sefiru said, Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, Google+, etc. Depending on just how long ago it was that you were here before, I can see that what's actually been a gradual decline (something that's happened to most BBS-style forums, not just pagan ones) might look like something catastrophic happened.

We're definitely far from 'in our death throes'; we're just thriving and buzzing at a more leisurely pace than we once were.

I'm not sure just what you mean by 'slated to be axed'; unlike television shows, we're not dependent on an uninvolved corporate body that makes decisions based on whether the ratings are high enough to attract advertisers. Our host, and owner, Randall, while not able to participate as much as he once did in forum threads, is still involved, and has no plans that I know of (and as Board Coordinator, I'd be likely to know!) to shut TC down.

Oh, look, and Randall's active enough to have posted before I did.

Sunflower
I'm the AntiFa genderqueer commie eclectic wiccan Mod your alt-right bros warned you about.
I do so have a life; I just live part of it online!
“Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live.” - Oscar Wilde
"Nobody's good at anything until they practice." - Brina (Yewberry)
My much-neglected blog "If You Ain't Makin' Waves, You Ain't Kickin' Hard Enough"

Jenett

  • Senior Staff
  • *
  • Join Date: Jun 2011
  • Location: Boston, MA
  • Posts: 3743
  • Country: us
  • Total likes: 1235
    • View Profile
    • Seeking: First steps on a path
  • Religion: Initiatory religious witchcraft
  • Preferred Pronouns: she/her
Re: Status of eCauldron?
« Reply #6 on: September 12, 2016, 07:04:47 pm »
Quote from: Ryu;196166

I realize people have their own lives and all but for most of the forum the last activity was last month.


That's really often been the case for more specific focused folders - I've actually noticed posting picking up this week and last, with 15-20 posts with new comments most times I check (which is 3-4 times on the average day, depending on various factors.)

End of summer / beginning of the school year is also one of the times that there tends to be somewhat less posting, too, or in more specific ways that don't always lead to larger discussions.

My experience of discussion space death spirals is when you start regularly getting under about 5 total new posts a day for more than a couple of weeks and/or those posts are so highly focused that a limited number of people can participate in them.

Also: I personally agree with you about Facebook, but there's no denying a lot of people have moved there, despite the privacy issues, which a lot of people still don't understand, or haven't been bitten by (or had it bite someone close to them) enough to care about. (Besides the privacy issues, I also think it's a lousy format - and deliberately engineered to be a lousy format - for discussion, but I'm an old-school net geek who started on Usenet, Yahoo lists, and LiveJournal, so.)

That's part of why I'm pretty committed to continuing to post things, and participate in conversations of the kind I hope to keep having continue, in spaces where that isn't an issue, y'know? "Be the discussion you want to see" has been a pretty good rule of thumb for me since the Usenet days.
Seek Knowledge, Find Wisdom: Research help on esoteric and eclectic topics (consulting and other services)

Seeking: first steps on a Pagan path (advice for seekers and people new to Paganism)

Queen of Swords

  • Sr. Apprentice
  • ****
  • Join Date: Aug 2014
  • Posts: 50
  • Total likes: 0
    • View Profile
Re: Status of eCauldron?
« Reply #7 on: September 12, 2016, 07:58:59 pm »
Quote from: Ryu;196166
Did something happen? Is this forum slated to be axed soon?
I realize people have their own lives and all but for most of the forum the last activity was last month.

 
I don't know how much my own experience/habits could actually be representative of the group as a whole, but I thought I'd share. I check the cauldron every day, but I don't post very often because (a) I don't feel qualified to speak on a lot of the topics that I, nevertheless, enjoy reading and (b) I have some cognitive difficulties that can make discussion in this format difficult for me. But that's just me  :)

Ryu

  • Apprentice
  • ***
  • Join Date: Sep 2016
  • Posts: 24
  • Total likes: 0
    • View Profile
Re: Status of eCauldron?
« Reply #8 on: September 13, 2016, 07:43:40 am »
Quote from: RandallS;196173
Interesting. I did not know Witchvox had gone the Facebook route.


Yeah, the last time I was there, many articles including ones on updates were on FaceBook and I decided that if they are going to start acting like an exclusive club by posting many things on there rather than their own site then I wonder where their priorities are.

Oh when I say "axed" I meant if this site was slated to be taken down because of lack of activity.

See, I ask because I don't want to find out after a month or two after signing up that this place is going to be abandoned. I have seen this with many sites in just the past few years. Either they were abandoned due to pure willful neglect or the site was going to be abandoned anyhow and still were accepting new members. I don't know about you but I don't exactly like that.

I think I was a member here somewhere around 2005 or so and after some point I left for various reasons.
Back then there were more articles, chatting and discussions so when I looked up this place on a search engine I decided to rejoin especially after having attained new perspectives on things.

PerditaPickle

  • Staff
  • *
  • Join Date: Aug 2015
  • Location: UK
  • Posts: 2104
  • Country: england
  • Total likes: 641
  • It's all metta - at least, I believe it should be
    • View Profile
    • Portrait of Perpetual Perplexity
  • Religion: Druid-ish
  • Preferred Pronouns: She/her/hers
Re: Status of eCauldron?
« Reply #9 on: September 13, 2016, 08:39:31 am »
Quote from: Queen of Swords;196178
I don't know how much my own experience/habits could actually be representative of the group as a whole, but I thought I'd share. I check the cauldron every day, but I don't post very often because (a) I don't feel qualified to speak on a lot of the topics that I, nevertheless, enjoy reading and (b) I have some cognitive difficulties that can make discussion in this format difficult for me. But that's just me  :)

 
Actually, it's not just you, your comment above describes me pretty closely too (substitute concentration issues for cognitive ones as such).

I lurk most days and join in with discussions only where I feel sufficiently confident, or where it's neutral territory (such as the humour/leisure type threads).

I know that still doesn't constitute a trend, but wanted to add my input.
« Last Edit: September 13, 2016, 08:46:07 am by Pickle »
“Radiate boundless love towards the entire world — above, below, and across — unhindered, without ill will, without enmity.” – The Buddha
(From the Metta Sutta)

My Portrait of Perpetual Perplexity blog

SunflowerP

  • Host
  • *
  • Join Date: Jun 2011
  • Location: Calgary AB
  • Posts: 9909
  • Country: ca
  • Total likes: 732
  • Don't teach your grandmother to suck eggs!
    • View Profile
    • If You Ain't Makin' Waves, You Ain't Kickin' Hard Enough
  • Religion: Eclectic religious Witchcraft
  • Preferred Pronouns: sie/hir/hirs/hirself
Re: Status of eCauldron?
« Reply #10 on: September 14, 2016, 01:47:25 am »
Quote from: Ryu;196204
Yeah, the last time I was there, many articles including ones on updates were on FaceBook and I decided that if they are going to start acting like an exclusive club by posting many things on there rather than their own site then I wonder where their priorities are.


A couple of us looked into this after you mentioned it - it looks like those articles (or anyway, some articles that can't be accessed directly from their site) also show up on their RSS feed, so those aren't quite 'FB only', but it is, in effect, a 'subscribers only' model. And WV News seems to have moved completely over to FB.

Moving their news section makes a certain amount of sense to me, but what's happening with articles baffles me; I can't see what good it does for WV, and it seems to me outright detrimental to writers of articles.

I can assure you that TC won't be following their lead on that. TC is what one finds on the ecauldron.com and ecauldron.net domains; anything else is subsidiary, supporting what's on our domains, not replacing it.

Quote
Oh when I say "axed" I meant if this site was slated to be taken down because of lack of activity.

See, I ask because I don't want to find out after a month or two after signing up that this place is going to be abandoned. I have seen this with many sites in just the past few years. Either they were abandoned due to pure willful neglect or the site was going to be abandoned anyhow and still were accepting new members. I don't know about you but I don't exactly like that.


Nope! We do have a software move planned, at some undetermined point (it was originally planned for last spring, but that didn't pan out; there are several threads in Cauldron Announcements that give full details about the move and its postponement), but the only thing being abandoned in that process is the VBulletin software we currently run.

I do (mostly secondhand) know about that 'pure wilful neglect' thing; people running the forum lose interest and stop bothering to actually run it. Seems pretty unprofessional to me (not the ideal word for something that's not a paid profession but a volunteer gig, but the English language doesn't have another word to describe the integrity, sense of responsibility, and dedication to quality I mean by 'professionalism').

I don't have quite the same disdain for continuing to accept new members even after a decision to close the doors is made (I can think of a number of reasons why the forumrunners might decide it's preferable to do so), but I do think that a forum doing that should make sure there's something posted somewhere fairly obvious that lets people know about the impending closure (I've no doubt there would still be people caught by surprise by it, because some folks just will. not. read. rules, announcements, and the like). I'm not sure what purpose it would serve, once a decision to shut down is made, to not announce it.

There's always the possibility of unexpected catastrophe and/or 'acts of the gods', that could lead to a forum having to close down, so I can't guarantee anything - but if we did go dark a month or two from now, I'll be at least as surprised by it as you, quite likely more so.

Quote
I think I was a member here somewhere around 2005 or so and after some point I left for various reasons.
Back then there were more articles, chatting and discussions so when I looked up this place on a search engine I decided to rejoin especially after having attained new perspectives on things.

 
Yeah, forums in general tended to be a lot busier back then. Along with the alternative venues already cited, I'd add The Wild Hunt, Patheos' Pagan Portal, and PaganSquare, and blogs in general, to the list of 'Why are TC and other forum-based pagan venues less active than they used to be?'; eleven years is a looong time in Internet years.

While discussions will (mostly - sometimes we still get threads that sprout half a dozen pages or more overnight) be less rapid than you recall, we still have lots of articles; they're just a bit harder to find - we've wound up with more than one 'articles library' (I think it's something like five, counting the Wiki!), confusingly, and some of them have to be accessed from the front page or the archive forum. (I have a long-term project in the works for addressing that.)

And, of course, accumulated old discussions going back to March '07 (alas, we were unable to retain, in Internet-viable form, our forum archives from when we were on Beehive software before that date; those from before Jun/Jul '11 can be found on the old message board archive).

Sunflower
I'm the AntiFa genderqueer commie eclectic wiccan Mod your alt-right bros warned you about.
I do so have a life; I just live part of it online!
“Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live.” - Oscar Wilde
"Nobody's good at anything until they practice." - Brina (Yewberry)
My much-neglected blog "If You Ain't Makin' Waves, You Ain't Kickin' Hard Enough"

Kylara

  • Staff
  • *
  • Join Date: Feb 2012
  • Posts: 1433
  • Country: us
  • Total likes: 319
    • View Profile
    • https://www.patreon.com/kyndryana
  • Religion: Norse Fusion Witchcraft
  • Preferred Pronouns: she/her/hers
Re: Status of eCauldron?
« Reply #11 on: September 14, 2016, 08:28:44 am »
Quote from: Queen of Swords;196178
I don't know how much my own experience/habits could actually be representative of the group as a whole, but I thought I'd share. I check the cauldron every day, but I don't post very often because (a) I don't feel qualified to speak on a lot of the topics that I, nevertheless, enjoy reading and (b) I have some cognitive difficulties that can make discussion in this format difficult for me. But that's just me  :)

 
I'm also someone who checks the site everyday, but doesn't always post.  I try to post when I have something to say, but if I can't contribute to a conversation then I don't post.

I am a member of quite a few Pagan facebook groups, but I really don't like them for much more than socializing.  The bigger they are (the more members) the worse it is imo, especially when the discussion you were participating in gets drowned in dozens of memes or other little posts.
Check out my Patreon for more writing and other goodies!

Emma Eldritch

  • Staff
  • *
  • Join Date: May 2012
  • Posts: 1265
  • Country: 00
  • Total likes: 68
    • View Profile
    • https://rocknrollwitch.blogspot.ca/
Re: Status of eCauldron?
« Reply #12 on: September 17, 2016, 01:48:49 pm »
Quote from: Kylara;196255
I'm also someone who checks the site everyday, but doesn't always post.  I try to post when I have something to say, but if I can't contribute to a conversation then I don't post.

 
Ditto. I've been on the cauldron in some form for a long time now. Back in the day I didn't post much because I was scared of being seen as stupid or ill informed. These days I don't post much because either someone else will have articulated my feelings better, or I'll simply have no opinion/interest in the topic. That said, I do still check in during the week to read about what's going on.

Tags:
 

Related Topics

  Subject / Started by Replies Last post
0 Replies
4000 Views
Last post July 05, 2011, 05:13:29 pm
by RandallS
3 Replies
2630 Views
Last post September 07, 2011, 09:01:49 pm
by RandallS
11 Replies
4343 Views
Last post October 18, 2011, 01:25:55 am
by ZombyFrogg
2 Replies
1623 Views
Last post July 04, 2012, 04:06:21 pm
by fjfritz
49 Replies
8155 Views
Last post December 31, 2018, 08:22:57 pm
by EmberHearth

* Who's Online

  • Dot Guests: 188
  • Dot Hidden: 0
  • Dot Users: 1
  • Dot Users Online:

* Please Donate!

The Cauldron's server is expensive and requires monthly payments. Please become a Bronze, Silver or Gold Donor if you can. Donations are needed every month. Without member support, we can't afford the server.

* Shop & Support TC

The links below are affiliate links. When you click on one of these links you will go to the listed shopping site with The Cauldron's affiliate code. Any purchases you make during your visit will earn TC a tiny percentage of your purchase price at no extra cost to you.

* In Memoriam

Chavi (2006)
Elspeth (2010)
Marilyn (2013)

* Cauldron Staff

Host:
Sunflower

Message Board Staff
Board Coordinator:
Darkhawk

Assistant Board Coordinator:
Aster Breo

Senior Staff:
Aisling, Allaya, Jenett, Sefiru

Staff:
Ashmire, EclecticWheel, HarpingHawke, Kylara, PerditaPickle, rocquelaire

Discord Chat Staff
Chat Coordinator:
Morag

'Up All Night' Coordinator:
Altair

Cauldron Council:
Bob, Catja, Chatelaine, Emma-Eldritch, Fausta, Jubes, Kelly, LyricFox, Phouka, Sperran, Star, Steve, Tana

Site Administrator:
Randall

SimplePortal 2.3.6 © 2008-2014, SimplePortal