Administation Thread-An Idea needing your input....

[Tishri1]

Hi everyone

We seem to have alot of folks in the life stages area changing forums.... because.... well......they are going thru life stages!

From the teens thru the marrieds thru empty nesters, many are moving on from groups they have been apart of as they reach a new stage in life, and here is the dilemma we see:



no one wants to leave friends behind

Each of these subforums have time and age limits from teens who grow up to marrieds who start families to folks who reach another decade older and have friends who havent passed those milestones yet......Folks have to say good bye to old forums friends and forge new friendships in new forums


For those who are not ready for these changes in forum groups and want to continue relationships with buddies they have in the former groups we would like to make a general fellowship area and have it open to all like a social hall or a friends hang out room


We are wondering if you all would like to open up this forum for such a place?

We would change the name to something cool(any ideas?), and it will be the hang out for all life stages group members

What do you think?

 

[Tishri1]

bumping

 

[Tishri1]

bumping for final input

 

[Speculative]

I think it's a great idea.

I think the perfect name for the forum would be "Speculative Rocks Like Young Elvis".

Can't wait to post in the new forum!

 

[FaithPrevails]

I think it's a great idea.

I think the perfect name for the forum would be "Speculative Rocks Like Young Elvis".

Can't wait to post in the new forum!

I can't believe they didn't use your name suggestion.

 

[penNpaper]

Interesting

God Bless,
Drew

 

[Inkachu]

I don't think it all has to do with "old friends" and "new friends" and "life stages". People go where things are active. Nobody wants to try and start a conversation in an area where no one else has posted for 6 months. I don't really agree with the inclusive/exclusive attitude of this site, but it is what it is. People are going to congregate where there are other people. I hope this new forum works.

 

[Tamara224]

The problem with this idea is that those of us who are NOT moving through a different life stage are now forced to go to a new forum, too.

Most of us aren't going to do that.

So those who are moving through a new life stage are now being forced to make that move (whether or not they are actually ready to do that; whether or not they want to do that) and they're going to find that few people actually hang out in the hangout forum. The people in their former "life stage" are still going to hang out in that former life stage forum.

The thing is... if people really are moving on to a new stage of life and really do need to make new friends then they are, by and large, going to do that on their own when they're ready.

People who get married will find that they want to post less and less in the Singles forum, for example. We don't have to artificially manufacture this process by making rules forcing people to move from one pigeon hole to another.



Another problem is the elitism here. Correct me if I'm wrong, but this "Administration Thread" appears to me to have been 'discussed' by the mods and admins without any of them taking even a few minutes to ask the members of the Life Stages forums their thoughts and opinions. Only after the forum has been created and rules of other forums amended are we even shown this "discussion" thread.

 

[FaithPrevails]

Actually, this sub-forum has been re-purposed to a general fellowship area b/c Admins are trying to create a place that ditches the restrictions that are imposed on Singles, Marrieds, Teens, etc. here in Life Stages and allows all of us to socialize together.

If you don't want to use the new sub-forum, then don't. But, dismissing it isn't helpful, IMO. Personally, most of my CF friends are still in the Singles section and while I don't have much to contribue there (I stick mostly to the IJWTS thread and give my input here and there randomly), I still enjoy getting to interact with those friends. The presence of married members makes some of the Singles uncomfortable, so this is a positive alternative to having to give up those friendships.

Likewise, someone who has posted consistently in the Teens area would now be able to continue fellowship with the other members of that sub-forum here once they age out of the Teens area. And so on...

Trust me, I was one of the biggest protestors behind the scenes . But, if I'm willing to let go of my stubbornness and give this a try, then it is my prayer that others will do the same.

 

[Wren]

I think this forum would be better if it didn't have a bunch of threads that were for a specific group. It seems weird to me. Or maybe I'm just weird.

 

[Amber.ly]

Wow, what a change from Singles. This thread was up for days and no response!!!

Sweet. A chilled out sub-forum.

Faith: I would have like to see what went on behind the scenes for this little discussion LOL

 

[FaithPrevails]

I think this forum would be better if it didn't have a bunch of threads that were for a specific group. It seems weird to me. Or maybe I'm just weird.

It was originally a second sub-forum for the 30's crowd, but it was 30+ instead of restricted to just the 30s. It was actually my idea to re-purpose it b/c it didn't seem to get much traffic and it eliminated the need of creating yet another sub-forum in Life Stages.

But, all of that aside...you are pretty weird. j/k

 

[Tamara224]

Trust me, I was one of the biggest protestors behind the scenes . But, if I'm willing to let go of my stubbornness and give this a try, then it is my prayer that others will do the same.

Okay. I don't think I'm being stubborn. I just don't think CF is going to have much success with this. I've seen several new subforums opened up with the same idea in mind. And those subforums are all dead or dying.

People just don't go to them.

I know I'm most likely going to be checking in to the same forums here that I always have. I'm willing to bet that most everyone else will do the same.

 

[FaithPrevails]

Wow, what a change from Singles. This thread was up for days and no response!!!

Sweet. A chilled out sub-forum.

Faith: I would have like to see what went on behind the scenes for this little discussion LOL

It mostly looked like me doing a lot of this:

 

[Wren]

I'll state it here, too. Since my married friends can't post in Singles anymore, I may post in here. But I ask that married icons be mandatory for married members...visible to all CFers and not just mods. Offline you have wedding rings to show if someone talking to you is married. I would like that here as well. It provides of bit of protection. And I want to also repeat that I think relationship icons would be helpful.

 

[FaithPrevails]

I'll state it here, too. Since my married friends can't post in Singles anymore, I may post in here. But I ask that married icons be mandatory for married members...visible to all CFers and not just mods. Offline you have wedding rings to show if someone talking to you is married. I would like that here as well. It provides of bit of protection. And I want to also repeat that I think relationship icons would be helpful.

I want to share with you the reason why my married symbol is hidden. Someone I care about very much here on CF struggles a lot with being single and childless - to the point that just seeing someone talk about marriage wounds her deeply. It breaks my heart that she desires marriage and children that strongly and has not yet realized that dream in her life. So, out of respect for her and our friendship, I hide the symbol and I refrain as much as possible from talking about my marriage in the areas where I know she would see my posts.

Other than that, I have no issue with people knowing I am married and share that detail proudly. It has not been an issue in the Singles area b/c most of the guys I interact with there know I'm married and if they didn't and it came out somehow that they didn't - I would tell them right away. But, my interactions with guys there are benign enough that it's honestly never been an issue with any of the newer guys who don't know who I am.

More than you needed/wanted to know? Probably.

 

[Speculative]

I can't believe they didn't use your name suggestion.

Yeah, I know. I'm kinda disappointed. I really thought they were going to go for that--but "The Life Stages Hangout" is pretty cool, too. That was going to be my next suggestion

 

[Philothei]

I am married and indeed have single friends that we can come and socialize I had few asking me to join them....but could not in the single forums

Hey Tamara Nice to see ya here I think it does not hurt to try to make this a hang out to get some fellowship among us I am used to post in Society but it was a bit difficult to get to know y'all


Well posting something for the brand new forum:

 

[Wren]

I want to share with you the reason why my married symbol is hidden. Someone I care about very much here on CF struggles a lot with being single and childless - to the point that just seeing someone talk about marriage wounds her deeply. It breaks my heart that she desires marriage and children that strongly and has not yet realized that dream in her life. So, out of respect for her and our friendship, I hide the symbol and I refrain as much as possible from talking about my marriage in the areas where I know she would see my posts.

Other than that, I have no issue with people knowing I am married and share that detail proudly. It has not been an issue in the Singles area b/c most of the guys I interact with there know I'm married and if they didn't and it came out somehow that they didn't - I would tell them right away. But, my interactions with guys there are benign enough that it's honestly never been an issue with any of the newer guys who don't know who I am.

More than you needed/wanted to know? Probably.

I appreciate you sharing. I was curious why you didn't show as married.

 

[FaithPrevails]

Glad I could satisfy your curiosity. You should have just asked me, silly woman.