Hi all
Just thought it would be easier to make a new thread and answer a few queries that I've been receiving in PMs and in other threads.
1. Why did you follow the results of the poll to remove "Christian" from the domain name when there were so few members voting?
This poll:
http://foru.ms/t5757523-should-chri...itleshould-cf-be-renamed-with-new-vision.html
Okay, I was getting private PMs telling me to remove "Christian" from the domain name prior to this poll, from more than 1 member, and from people who I respect and whose advice I do listen to. At that stage I did not think it was a good idea for various reason - doing so would disenfranchise some Christian members and would definitely lose us traffic as it would mean that our rankings would drop in the search engines. I had also paid thousands of dollars actually to buy the christianforums.com domain from another company, so again, that would be a loss of investment.
Then I was PMed the link to the above poll. I know that only 94 members voted in that poll. But that poll and the discussion within it got me thinking about this issue further. After further consideration, I came to believe that having a more generic domain name without an overt "Christian" label would make the site more attractive to non-Christians. So I went around looking for a suitable replacement domain name for the site, and thought I found a good one in foru.ms.
2. Why did you choose Option 1 instead of Option 2 even though the majority of people voted for Option 2?
This poll:
http://foru.ms/t5787680-at-crossroads-cfs-vision-poll-vote-only-here.html
Okay, I had discussed this issue with a select few SuperAdministrators, who agreed in principle to the change of name, but then cautioned me that a lot of members may disagree.
Therefore I started the above poll. (Note that any other further polls that appear to be started by me were actually split posts from that one thread made by a staff member.) The above poll was created and when I posted in it that I would defer to the majority decision, I meant it.
However, the results came back to be
45.66% for Option 1:
1. A safe social community site with a heavy and strong Christian influence (with the vision being to offer a safe online community, and a secondary vision being to allow Christians to outreach to non-Christians) - which will allow for a name change;
and
54.34% for Option 2:
2. Return to a more restricted Christians-only site with a heavy emphasis on uniting mainstream Christians only with a less emphasis on outreach, in which case we keep the name.
A 54% to 46% difference is to me not a clear majority, and I believed that the community itself was divided on this issue.
Therefore, the above result, coupled with the first poll about the name change, and the fact that my previous 070707 reforms were heading in this direction, made me go the way of Option1.
In relation to the accusation that I "lied", I hope the above explains that further - the intention was not to deceive members and I apologise if they feel that I had misled them.
3. What about Option 3? Having 2 separate sites, one for Christians and one for non-Christians?
The Option 3 thread was not created by me even though I was the first poster - it was split out of the above poll thread actually. I posted about a possible Option 3, which was to have both the above.
In the end, on principle, I do not support a need to physically separate Christians from non-believers - yes, there should be spiritual separation, but I do not believe that Christians should have to physically separate themselves from the rest of the world. We should be out there in the world with the good news.
Also, having 2 separate sites would be resource-intensive, and adminstratively make things difficult. In my mind, the Christians on this site can still, if they choose, separate themselves from non-Christians through using forum-specific rules. If they choose.
4. Are you going to sell the domain christianforums.com, or this site for that matter?
No, there are no plans to do so.
5. How would non-Christians find the site if it's going to fall in the search engine rankings?
One of my posts was misunderstood. Before, the site was ranked number 1 in most search engines for the keywords "christian forums". This was how we got most of our traffic - lots of Christians joining up.
The non-Christians who found us through search engines tended to be those who were looking for online Christian forums to find Christians to debate with - usually not seekers. This is why some non-Christian members on this site seem, to some Christians, to be argumentative.
Now that the domain name is changed, this site will no longer be found using the same keywords of "christian forums". However, all threads and posts will still be in the search engines, and they can still be found. Our pagerank will drop, but I anticipate that over a long time it will improve.
So how else will Christians and non-Christians find this site? The hope is that the current members will invite their Christian and non-Christian friends to join. The Christian friends because this site is still Christian, just not overtly so for outreach purposes.
The thing is that it will now be a lot easier to invite your non-Christian friends to come - and these will be your everyday work colleagues, acquaintances, neighbours - they will be more likely to sign up to a site that is not overtly Christian and threatening like that. This is why I have a generic domain name, and a slogan that is not obviously Christian (I know it needs work - it's temporary) - it is hoped that Christians will feel that it is easier to invite non-Christians to join the site here. Through friendship and fellowship, it is hoped that these non-Christians, who will not be people who are joining up specifically with an agenda to argue with Christians, would be more receptive to the good news.
At least that is my vision.
6. Are you doing all this to make more money?
No. If I wanted to make more money, I would have kept the site for Christians, as the site was growing exponentially as a Christian-focussed site, with advertisers emailing me twice a week to put ads up (which I have never accepted over the many years - we only have Google Adsense, as without it we won't be able to pay the hosting fees which are significant).
If I wanted to make more money, I would have sold the site prior to the 070707 changes - I've had a couple of significant offers. Making all these changes actually devalues the site for these buyers who are looking to buy a Christian-focussed site.
Also, the new domain name, which I know many don't like, did cost me a significant amount of money upfront. Since the change, the Google Adsense daily income has dropped by 80% as well due to decreased traffic. We have lost a lot of members.
Therefore, all these changes have cost money. So the aim is not to make money. The aim of the changes is explained above.
7. Will you provide a refund to Site Supporters who are unhappy with the changes?
No. As stated on the Support page, subscriptions are donations which are non-refundable.
8. Is the site still Christian?
I don't believe that a website intrinsically can be "Christian" - only people can be Christian - but a website can be based on Christian principles, and this is what this website will be based on. Also, the staff of the site is predominantly Christian, and as they are voted on by members who are predominantly Christian the staff will remain predominantly Christian.
As different Christians take Christian principles to mean different things, coming up with the specifics of what these are will require some collaborative work between Christians from different backgrounds and churches.
At some stage, a document will outline what these Christian principles are, which our rules can then be based on.
9. Will there be any further changes coming soon?
No. There are no plans to roll-back any of the current changes, and no plans to make any new changes. I think we all have had enough changes.
I definitely need the rest.
I do plan to add more features to the site over the next few days and weeks.
10. What are the future plans?
I will reiterate the new vision for the site:
1. To establish and grow a self-governing community that is open to everyone guided by rules driven by Christian principles which are collaboratively agreed upon by all members, keeping in mind:
Gal 5:22-23 GNT But the Spirit produces love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, humility, and self-control. There is no law against such things as these.
2. To provide a meeting place for Christians to fellowship with one another and outreach to non-Christians, keeping in mind:
2 Cor 5:17-18 GNT Anyone who is joined to Christ is a new being; the old is gone, the new has come. All this is done by God, who through Christ changed us from enemies into his friends and gave us the task of making others his friends also.
I hope to see that over time, members here will invite their friends to join the site, and that the good news of the gospel can be shared with as many people who need to hear it as possible.
I hope the above explains things better.
Thank you to all members who have sent me encouraging PMs - I needed them and they have helped me through a difficult time.
I will keep this thread closed but will add further posts to it as necessary.
Just thought it would be easier to make a new thread and answer a few queries that I've been receiving in PMs and in other threads.
1. Why did you follow the results of the poll to remove "Christian" from the domain name when there were so few members voting?
This poll:
http://foru.ms/t5757523-should-chri...itleshould-cf-be-renamed-with-new-vision.html
Okay, I was getting private PMs telling me to remove "Christian" from the domain name prior to this poll, from more than 1 member, and from people who I respect and whose advice I do listen to. At that stage I did not think it was a good idea for various reason - doing so would disenfranchise some Christian members and would definitely lose us traffic as it would mean that our rankings would drop in the search engines. I had also paid thousands of dollars actually to buy the christianforums.com domain from another company, so again, that would be a loss of investment.
Then I was PMed the link to the above poll. I know that only 94 members voted in that poll. But that poll and the discussion within it got me thinking about this issue further. After further consideration, I came to believe that having a more generic domain name without an overt "Christian" label would make the site more attractive to non-Christians. So I went around looking for a suitable replacement domain name for the site, and thought I found a good one in foru.ms.
2. Why did you choose Option 1 instead of Option 2 even though the majority of people voted for Option 2?
This poll:
http://foru.ms/t5787680-at-crossroads-cfs-vision-poll-vote-only-here.html
Okay, I had discussed this issue with a select few SuperAdministrators, who agreed in principle to the change of name, but then cautioned me that a lot of members may disagree.
Therefore I started the above poll. (Note that any other further polls that appear to be started by me were actually split posts from that one thread made by a staff member.) The above poll was created and when I posted in it that I would defer to the majority decision, I meant it.
However, the results came back to be
45.66% for Option 1:
1. A safe social community site with a heavy and strong Christian influence (with the vision being to offer a safe online community, and a secondary vision being to allow Christians to outreach to non-Christians) - which will allow for a name change;
and
54.34% for Option 2:
2. Return to a more restricted Christians-only site with a heavy emphasis on uniting mainstream Christians only with a less emphasis on outreach, in which case we keep the name.
A 54% to 46% difference is to me not a clear majority, and I believed that the community itself was divided on this issue.
Therefore, the above result, coupled with the first poll about the name change, and the fact that my previous 070707 reforms were heading in this direction, made me go the way of Option1.
In relation to the accusation that I "lied", I hope the above explains that further - the intention was not to deceive members and I apologise if they feel that I had misled them.
3. What about Option 3? Having 2 separate sites, one for Christians and one for non-Christians?
The Option 3 thread was not created by me even though I was the first poster - it was split out of the above poll thread actually. I posted about a possible Option 3, which was to have both the above.
In the end, on principle, I do not support a need to physically separate Christians from non-believers - yes, there should be spiritual separation, but I do not believe that Christians should have to physically separate themselves from the rest of the world. We should be out there in the world with the good news.
Also, having 2 separate sites would be resource-intensive, and adminstratively make things difficult. In my mind, the Christians on this site can still, if they choose, separate themselves from non-Christians through using forum-specific rules. If they choose.
4. Are you going to sell the domain christianforums.com, or this site for that matter?
No, there are no plans to do so.
5. How would non-Christians find the site if it's going to fall in the search engine rankings?
One of my posts was misunderstood. Before, the site was ranked number 1 in most search engines for the keywords "christian forums". This was how we got most of our traffic - lots of Christians joining up.
The non-Christians who found us through search engines tended to be those who were looking for online Christian forums to find Christians to debate with - usually not seekers. This is why some non-Christian members on this site seem, to some Christians, to be argumentative.
Now that the domain name is changed, this site will no longer be found using the same keywords of "christian forums". However, all threads and posts will still be in the search engines, and they can still be found. Our pagerank will drop, but I anticipate that over a long time it will improve.
So how else will Christians and non-Christians find this site? The hope is that the current members will invite their Christian and non-Christian friends to join. The Christian friends because this site is still Christian, just not overtly so for outreach purposes.
The thing is that it will now be a lot easier to invite your non-Christian friends to come - and these will be your everyday work colleagues, acquaintances, neighbours - they will be more likely to sign up to a site that is not overtly Christian and threatening like that. This is why I have a generic domain name, and a slogan that is not obviously Christian (I know it needs work - it's temporary) - it is hoped that Christians will feel that it is easier to invite non-Christians to join the site here. Through friendship and fellowship, it is hoped that these non-Christians, who will not be people who are joining up specifically with an agenda to argue with Christians, would be more receptive to the good news.
At least that is my vision.
6. Are you doing all this to make more money?
No. If I wanted to make more money, I would have kept the site for Christians, as the site was growing exponentially as a Christian-focussed site, with advertisers emailing me twice a week to put ads up (which I have never accepted over the many years - we only have Google Adsense, as without it we won't be able to pay the hosting fees which are significant).
If I wanted to make more money, I would have sold the site prior to the 070707 changes - I've had a couple of significant offers. Making all these changes actually devalues the site for these buyers who are looking to buy a Christian-focussed site.
Also, the new domain name, which I know many don't like, did cost me a significant amount of money upfront. Since the change, the Google Adsense daily income has dropped by 80% as well due to decreased traffic. We have lost a lot of members.
Therefore, all these changes have cost money. So the aim is not to make money. The aim of the changes is explained above.
7. Will you provide a refund to Site Supporters who are unhappy with the changes?
No. As stated on the Support page, subscriptions are donations which are non-refundable.
8. Is the site still Christian?
I don't believe that a website intrinsically can be "Christian" - only people can be Christian - but a website can be based on Christian principles, and this is what this website will be based on. Also, the staff of the site is predominantly Christian, and as they are voted on by members who are predominantly Christian the staff will remain predominantly Christian.
As different Christians take Christian principles to mean different things, coming up with the specifics of what these are will require some collaborative work between Christians from different backgrounds and churches.
At some stage, a document will outline what these Christian principles are, which our rules can then be based on.
9. Will there be any further changes coming soon?
No. There are no plans to roll-back any of the current changes, and no plans to make any new changes. I think we all have had enough changes.
I definitely need the rest.I do plan to add more features to the site over the next few days and weeks.
10. What are the future plans?
I will reiterate the new vision for the site:
1. To establish and grow a self-governing community that is open to everyone guided by rules driven by Christian principles which are collaboratively agreed upon by all members, keeping in mind:
Gal 5:22-23 GNT But the Spirit produces love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, humility, and self-control. There is no law against such things as these.
2. To provide a meeting place for Christians to fellowship with one another and outreach to non-Christians, keeping in mind:
2 Cor 5:17-18 GNT Anyone who is joined to Christ is a new being; the old is gone, the new has come. All this is done by God, who through Christ changed us from enemies into his friends and gave us the task of making others his friends also.
I hope to see that over time, members here will invite their friends to join the site, and that the good news of the gospel can be shared with as many people who need to hear it as possible.
I hope the above explains things better.
Thank you to all members who have sent me encouraging PMs - I needed them and they have helped me through a difficult time.
I will keep this thread closed but will add further posts to it as necessary.
