What do you like the most about RF?
What do you dislike the most about RF?
Overall, which outweighs which, and by how much?
What do you dislike the most about RF?
Overall, which outweighs which, and by how much?
-
Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.
Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:- Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
- Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
- Access to private conversations with other members.
We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!
Pros, Cons, and Overall Assessment of RF
- Thread starter Debater Slayer
- Start date
Twilight Hue
Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
Well, I like the responsiveness of member posting.
Where in other forums, responses can come in days or even months.
The dislike is the intrusive ads, the excessive lag times to post and view, and the way the forum is, imo, intentionally being designed for people to click on the ads when the loading and skipping occurs. It's well on the way to becoming a literal cesspool of plugging and pitching advertising like Beliefnet is now. It's just how it comes across to me.
I'm also not a big fan of the algorithms here. Like YT has albiet not as bad, as part of the moderation process, which ai has become quite a trend now. I prefer a more hands on human approach rather than ai automation.
I think accessibility of the forum outweighs the drawbacks for the time being, but that can change if yet more 'plugs' and 'features' are subsequently added in on top of what is already there making the experience worse.
Where in other forums, responses can come in days or even months.
The dislike is the intrusive ads, the excessive lag times to post and view, and the way the forum is, imo, intentionally being designed for people to click on the ads when the loading and skipping occurs. It's well on the way to becoming a literal cesspool of plugging and pitching advertising like Beliefnet is now. It's just how it comes across to me.
I'm also not a big fan of the algorithms here. Like YT has albiet not as bad, as part of the moderation process, which ai has become quite a trend now. I prefer a more hands on human approach rather than ai automation.
I think accessibility of the forum outweighs the drawbacks for the time being, but that can change if yet more 'plugs' and 'features' are subsequently added in on top of what is already there making the experience worse.
Likes...
Friendly (though there are a few who spoil that)
It's not all about religion
There is a good mix of users.
Dislikes...
I'm not keen on the new SW but I'm hoping that it's being worked on to bring it closer to the old SW. I know, sounds crazy but the old had features not available on the new.
The time lag when posting is becoming unbearable, luckily a click of refresh cures that.
Which outweighs which, if the dislikes outweighed the likes i wouldn't be here posting this.
Friendly (though there are a few who spoil that)
It's not all about religion
There is a good mix of users.
Dislikes...
I'm not keen on the new SW but I'm hoping that it's being worked on to bring it closer to the old SW. I know, sounds crazy but the old had features not available on the new.
The time lag when posting is becoming unbearable, luckily a click of refresh cures that.
Which outweighs which, if the dislikes outweighed the likes i wouldn't be here posting this.
Likes
Dislikes
Net
I value some of the members.
Participation is occasionally educational and/or cathartic.
Dislikes
After a while, many of the posts have the quality of reruns.
I find the thought processes, and the resulting views, of a number of members to be depressing.
Net
RF is a surprisingly well moderated forum.
Shadow Wolf
Certified People sTabber & Business Owner
I do not like the new software. It's slow, fewer features than ever, the text editor is uncooperative, it often fails to get me alerts, and it's really slow.
But on the good side it is pretty active, even if a lot of it political.
But on the good side it is pretty active, even if a lot of it political.
Shadow Wolf
Certified People sTabber & Business Owner
Ad blocker. It the Tylenol of the internet.
YmirGF
Bodhisattva in Recovery
As someone who took an extended break from RF, I have indeed noticed changes.
I do genuinely enjoy the interaction with others - for the most part.
I still miss Sunstone, Michael, Scarlett Wampus and Katspur and a few others. I miss frubals too. They made RF unique.
Dislike? Hmm. Dealing with what is clearly an echo chamber. Likewise, I've seen extreme comments regarding how to deal with the current political climate that left me with my jaw hanging down. I never saw things like this four years ago, so politically things have gone down the crapper. Another explained how public shaming and bullying is actually a good way to deal with haters (I think). I breathlessly wondered if they had actually thought the idea out to its logical conclusion. (Clearly not.)
Overall, I'm using the negative aspects to stimulate my thinking. What I have to guard against is OVER-stimulation.
This is my first foray into the realm of social media in a tumultuous four years so it's a bit of a rude awakening.
exchemist
Veteran Member
I like the broad range of topics and of members and the liveliness of the forum.
I am a bit frustrated by the new format, which somehow seems to cause me to miss many potentially interesting threads when they are created, so that I only discover them days later when the discussion is largely over. I can't work out what has changed in this respect but I do miss more than I used to before.
As for compariing the two, if the likes did not outweigh the dislikes, I would not be posting here.
I see a significant number of disagreements among members, especially in political threads. There are very active liberal, centrist, and conservative posters here.
What do you mean by "echo chamber," and in what way do you think that manifests?
Do you think such things are a product of RF itself or merely the political climate of the US?
@Twilight Hue @ChristineM @Jayhawker Soule @Shadow Wolf @YmirGF @exchemist
Thank you so much for the feedback! There's a reason I made this thread, and your input is quite helpful.
Thank you so much for the feedback! There's a reason I made this thread, and your input is quite helpful.
The members! You folks really add a boost to my life some days.
Sometimes politics(especially US politics)become over emphasized. I understand sometimes politics and religion overlap, and sometimes those discussions can be interesting, but I find it discouraging when I find few active religious discussions because all the focus at the time is being laid on this or that party/politician in the US government.
The community is much more important to me than the political rants; I generally just avoid partaking in those threads.
Orbit
I'm a planet
I like observing the debates. I'm more of a lurker than a poster.
I removed my subscription to the site because I object to what I consider ridiculous moderation in several instances. I realize that can't be discussed, but it is my feedback nevertheless.
Ads don't bother me because I use an ad blocker. If I had to see the ads, I would probably just not visit the site any more.
Overall, I think RF is a place that has people with diverse opinions that I enjoy reading about.
YmirGF
Bodhisattva in Recovery
This forum is about communication. I don't see communication happening. I see lecturing, often given with such smug confidence that it is unnerving. I see very little give and take.
Definitely a product of our times. If the polarization in the real world is anything like on RF, we, as a society, are doomed. We are not talking to each other anymore, we are talking past each other.
Shadow Wolf
Certified People sTabber & Business Owner
I also can't load multiple threads in different tabs. That never takes me to the post it's alerting me to, but usually to the bottom of ghe page or sometimes what is, as far as I can tell, a random post on that page.
Father Heathen
Veteran Member
Critical thinking and objective analysis doesn't leave much room for variation.
I stopped using Facebook around 2020, never used Twitter, and briefly used Reddit in 2019 before leaving that too.
I have definitely noticed an uptick in polarization online since 2016, mainly in discussions about American politics. Discussions about other subjects can be much more pleasant and fruitful to participate in.
I have seen that happen from a subset of members from all sorts of political and religious persuasions in my 12 years here. Is it indicative of an echo chamber if the people who do it are not remotely confined to one political or religious camp?
Ella S.
Well-Known Member
I like the diversity of posters. In particular, I like that we allow users that would be banned or shunned on other forums for having extremely idiosyncratic worldviews. It's fascinating to hear the perspectives of people that make their own new religions, for example, or those who find their own unique patterns to affirm among existing ones.
I also like that there's a non-religious section where posters from different worldviews are able to find common ground in more ordinary topics, which seems to help lower the heat of discourse.
The idea of having designated sections where discussion is encouraged but debate is not allowed is also one that I think is quite efficient. For people who are conflict-averse, such sections could allow them to learn about other perspectives without making themselves feel too vulnerable. They could be a safe space for dipping one's toes into the unfamiliar, maybe even a prelude to debate.
I also like that the forum hasn't descended into being an alt-right cesspool, like the majority of other religious forums that I've tried posting in. Those who advocate against social prejudices have more of a voice here.
I like that the forum, generally speaking, lets me post at my own pace, too. There are forums that ban you if you're inactive, or if you don't respond to a reply in a timely manner, and might even mandate posting in certain threads. Here, I can choose a discussion that's at the level I'm willing to engage in at that moment and completely ignore threads I'm active in once they start boring me. It's nice to be able to have the freedom to engage on my own terms. I wish real life socialization was like that.
I think I wouldn't be the only one to feel like the discussion sections can still be a bit too opposing sometimes. I think it makes sense to allow for a running dialogue of opposing views, but my problem is more when a top-level post (ie, a direct reply to the OP's first post in the thread) is aggressive. I'm not really sure how to coherently implement tone-policing and I get that there are practical limitations to doing that, but I think it causes us to miss out on a lot of potential conversations.
I say that partially because I've seen new users leave fairly consistently even after only posting in discussion forums. Some of them start out posting in the debate section, then after complaining about the verbal abuse they receive there they're told that it's because they're in the debate section, so they move to the discussion area only to still get pointed and passive-aggressive responses that make them leave. I don't think their perspective is made up or over-reactive, I just think a lot of regulars here have become used to this sort of aggression.
I don't think tone policing can be feasibly done in the debate sections, though, because I think it would undermine the point of them. I just think the discussion forums in particular could be done better.
I also think, in the DIR forums (while I don't use them too much myself) I've seen posters engage in sub-directories that don't really involve them, and I think that's not as policed as it could be. I don't know how users feel about that, but I have seen one or two complain about it, and I'd like them to get the experience they came here for. Maybe that's some toxic people-pleasing on my part.
My biggest complaint is that RF's current security measures require me to enable proprietary JavaScript in order to solve captchas. I'm a proponent of the free software movement and digital privacy, and I take cybersecurity rather seriously. Proprietary software is not only something that I consider to be unethical, but it's something that I consider to be an outright security risk. This was not a problem when the site was using AWS, but it is a problem with CloudFlare and it's one that's well-known to free software advocates.
Fixing that would be a considerably greater hassle, but I honestly struggle to force myself to be sympathetic on the topic. To me, it's pretty straightforward; executing code on someone's system that you don't let them vet first is a serious breach of their digital autonomy. I don't see it as excusable.
My second largest complaint is that I'm not very fond of the culture on RF, although I'm not fond of the culture anywhere. I think this is mostly just because I'm a rather socially averse person, so communities in general make me uncomfortable and I don't really like people. I try to make an extra effort to be respectful, because I think that's the right thing to do and it makes interactions go smoother, but I feel a bit weighed down by the social aspects of the site. I'd ideally prefer to just focus on written long-form debates among academics, but I get that this isn't really what this forum is meant to be designed for and I'm not an academic myself, so. There's probably just no satisfying me here; it's very much a personal issue and not something I expect the site to take into account.
For now, the positives. Not by much, though. That security issue is constantly haunting me as I use this site. My "push-pull attachment style" (as an associate of mine once affectionately called it) makes me constantly switch between wanting to use the site as intended and seeing its mere existence as a wasteful affront to humanity due to its social aspects.
I can see why my therapist recommended online spaces as a social outlet for me, due to my dismissive-avoidant nature, because this forum is just on the edge of what I'm willing to tolerate. It's a balancing act, though.
Last edited:
Ella S.
Well-Known Member
RF is an ideological battleground. What were you expecting?
ETA: As in, how was it different? What other way is there to exist among those you are in active conflict with? I realize this came across a bit judgmental
I feel a sense of belonging, like I have carved out a niche in my shape.
I dislike all of the times when I cannot remember or find something. Sometimes there is a post that I want to remember, but it gets lost. For a long time I do not care about it, however much later I wish to return to it and cannot remember how. One thing I do is I'll sometimes create a false conversation to contain links to threads; however even this is not good enough. I'll also look at my activity and my posts list.
I think that this is partly because we have so many similar or identical threads. There are topics which are frequently restarted or which exist in very long threads.
An example of a lost post: one day a friend here gave me a formula to approximate the atomic mass of atoms. You could put in their atomic number, and the formula would approximate their mass. Now I cannot find it anywhere, and I don't remember which person posted it, either!
A sense of belonging is very attractive and is of course good enough. Everyone has problems remembering things. Its why we make photos and wish we could revisit old times.