Disappeared members and mods...

[Iguana]

What happenned to Raw Kyle, Wodgina, RyZi, RawZi, Inger, Hannibal, ForTheHunt, KD an many others who were regular contributors?

They suddenly stopped posting without saying goodbye or anything!

[ys]

I think everything about diet has been said and discussed.  People just moving on.  Look at last month posts.  Mostly political BS.

[sabertooth]

Some of my best discussions were with KD, and he dropped of the message board back in 2012.

Inger is great, but she believes that screen time is unhealthy, and prefers to spend her time in the outdoors worshiping the sun.

Many people move on after a while for their own reasons, and now with the explosion of FB groups I think most of the Raw dieters on the web prefer to use other social networks.

It would be nice to have some new luminous voices to join in the discussions and fill in for the lost tribe members. Ive become set in my stubborn ways and would benefit from interactions other inquisitive minds. I dont like the FB forums as much because it seems that post get lost in the endless news feeds, at least on the Raw forum these conversations are archived well.

[Projectile Vomit]

I know there's at least one raw paleo FB group. I was a member at one point and might still be (would have to check). If I'm still on it, there are few posts there. Much of what I remember seeing was largely pro-AV, and the administrator was very abrasive.

I'd be open to starting a new FB group, if folks thought it would be a worthwhile endeavor. I rarely come here anymore. Most of the new posts are either political ranting, which I'm not interested in, or random news stories. And Edwin's claims of trees on mars.

[TylerDurden]

I think everything about diet has been said and discussed.  People just moving on.  Look at last month posts.  Mostly political BS.

I agree. Most RVAFers are well-centred people who recognise that diet(or Internet) is only a small part of one's life so they move on once they feel they have learnt most of what they need to know or once they have healed. Most seem to continue to  stick to the RVAF diet, so they don't necessarily need a support-group - plus, as Inger has found out, viewing the Internet is not very Palaeo.In my own case, I stay because I like helping out the newbies, and because, every now and then, some other member comes up with a new interesting concept such as EMF sensitivity or whatever that makes me realise that I have not remotely covered all health-related issues nor  all palaeo-reenactment or whatever.

What I used to do when I first started the RVAF diet was to to scan the archives of all the Yahoo group RVAF diet forums or those with similiar leanings like Weston-Price  and I would inevitably come across answers to my then-current problems as well as answers to questions I had never considered, which speeded up my health-recovery greatly. Wouldn't be surprised if others did that too, but that often makes people less likely to post.

Some ruminations:-

1) Most internet forums have a very short lifespan.Googling online suggests that most forums die within the 1st year, more than 3 years is considered a miracle.Ours is, therefore, actually quite a resounding success in a way.

2) We could rejuvenate the RPF board by wiping out all(or most) previous posts and starting all over, thus forcing newbies to actually ask questions online in order to get answers etc.. I note that some other boards have done this, every few years.I am against for nostalgia reasons. There are many past useful posts on this board, even from members I may have not been particularly partial to, which have been most informative, so I would be reluctant.

3) Making more boards inaccessible for non-members might help, I don't know....

4) Get someone to  write a book and popularise it in the right medias. SB would be perfect re this.  If SB is no writer, perhaps someone else could ghostwrite the book? It is just that I read somewhere that diets get reguarly revitalised re interest whenever a new book comes out on the subject. The trouble is that the interest generated by any such book lasts usually only 7 years. What we need is another Aajonus, I guess, who writes a new book every  few years on RVAF diets.

[Iguana]

I think everything about diet has been said and discussed.  People just moving on.  Look at last month posts.  Mostly political BS.

A lot has been said, but we're far from knowing everything: even after several decades of raw vegetal and animal diet (RVAF) we discover new foods and new phenomenons or problems. Our world is changing rapidly, new methods of processing, preserving and producing food are constantly applied. For example more and more fish species are produced by aquaculture, water and land is more and more polluted, so we have to inform others about what we found.

On this topic I find it strange that people who were posting here almost every day, or at least very often, suddenly disappear: I wonder what happened to them. A few said they didn't do well with their own way of raw dieting and that the returned to cooked food, but what about the others?

Like SB, I don't like much Facebook. I'm totally against deleting old posts, it took a lot of time to write them and I still rather often search for what has been written before to refer to and give the link for a specific post to someone. The other forums I consult or participate to have lasted ever since I'm connected to Internet, that's since 2000, 17 years ago! 

[Projectile Vomit]

We could rejuvenate the RPF board by wiping out all(or most) previous posts and starting all over...

I don't think I'd want to do this for the entire forum, but I can definitely see value in wiping some areas clean and consolidating others. I don't see much value in giving different diets their own sections anymore. The people who promoted most of those diets are either dead now, or at the very least they're not remotely as popular as they once were. There's certainly no reason to list people as moderators here who rarely visit. They can't exactly fulfill their duties if they don't spend time here.

[TylerDurden]

One gimmick that other Internet boards use is to send out an automated  e-mail to members on their particular birthday.How about that?  The more aggressive (paid) internet boards even target (as yet non-paying) quasi-members such as myself with  vague, random greetings from members  every couple of months or so. Perhaps switching to a paid annual membership, however tiny, might work in generating more interest/posts? It is just that  I recall various past info on primitive tribes which described various, nasty puberty initiation-rites and explained why they were useful/needed, in that human nature does not respect a free gift given for no reason, whereas far more respect/devotion/attention is given to something someone has actually earned.If we had unlimited wealth, a great idea would be to reward, with a gift,  any member for posting 10/100/1000 (meaningful) posts.

[Iguana]

I don't think I'd want to do this for the entire forum, but I can definitely see value in wiping some areas clean and consolidating others. I don't see much value in giving different diets their own sections anymore. The people who promoted most of those diets are either dead now, or at the very least they're not remotely as popular as they once were. There's certainly no reason to list people as moderators here who rarely visit. They can't exactly fulfill their duties if they don't spend time here.

Yes, I concur.

Tyler, I feel that asking a fee to be a member is not a good idea. Most people are completely allergic to pay even the smallest amount on Internet for some info. It involves taking a credit card and go trough a complex process with a lot of numbers to fill, receive a code on our mobile phone, introduce it to finally often find out it didn't work and the damned process has to be started all over again!

A good idea is to send birthday wishes. Even better, do what had been done for me after a posted a few message before eventually forgeting about this forum: I received an e-mail saying something like "We've been missing you on RPF". I was moved by this kind attention and came back!

Other point: assuming that assiduous posters who suddenly disappeared are fine and didn't go back to cooked food is, guess what... just an assumption! It is very difficult to stick to a 100% raw nutrition alone in this society without any competent advice and to successfully practice it during several years. We constantly need to share info — or best, meals — with others.

[TylerDurden]

I suspect that most RVAFers stick to their raw diet, even after leaving the forum. It's not that difficult - after all, most people who RVAF/rawpalaeo go rawpalaeo after incurring awful health-problems, so they are reluctant to go back to the very diets that caused all their past sicknesses.

As regards payment, it would need only 2$ a year(or a one-payment, perhaps?). And paying instantly  via paypal avoids lengthy insertion of credit-card details.

As regards deleting topics, it would have to be all or nothing.Making purely arbitrary, obviously-biased decisions as to which forums to delete would be against the 1st amendment. Of course, if all the forums got deleted and then renewed, there would be a genuine refreshing/new blood, without any obvious inbuilt biases being kept. We have had previous  past  attempts by various  members who advocated at various times, Stalinist-era  censorship of politically-incorrect posts  or the deletion of  the raw,zero-carb or the raw omnivore forums,  among others. There were all sorts of excuses made for  such deletions at the time  but these generally turned out to be bogus and invalid.

As regards facebook, I gather that there is a movement afoot to quit the site. A number of people have told me that they are either leaving the site or, at the very least, greatly minimising their time on Facebook. Unsurprising, since I have read that many people would spend as much as 4 hours a day on Facebook. Not healthy.

[Projectile Vomit]

As regards deleting topics, it would have to be all or nothing. Making purely arbitrary, obviously-biased decisions as to which forums to delete would be against the 1st amendment. Of course, if all the forums got deleted and then renewed, there would be a genuine refreshing/new blood, without any obvious inbuilt biases being kept.

I'm not clear why you're worried about the 1st Amendment. This is an international forum that isn't bound by US Constitutional Law.

Regarding deleting all forums and starting fresh, as I think about it more I have to admit that idea is growing on me. Especially if we change the topic areas. Maybe have sections for specific types of foods (fruit, vegetables, meat, etc.), sections on various health problems (heart disease, cancer, autoimmunity, etc.), a section for people's personal stories and/or testimonials, and another for food preparation tips. Get rid of the 'off topic' and 'hot topics' sections to cut down on posts that might reflect poorly on folks who post here. We could make some of the sections public and others private, making it clear that to see everything you need to sign up with a valid email address. Then we could do birthday emails, reach out when folks haven't posted in a while, and other such things.

On payment, there are benefits and drawbacks. If this were a thriving forum that members clearly valued, charging a nominal fee could raise enough revenue to offset the costs of the hosting service, and perhaps provide moderators with a stipend. This forum is far from thriving. Indeed it's just about dead. If you instituted a fee now I suspect you'd get a handful of people who paid the fee, and post frequency would decline accordingly.

I'm part of a Meetup group that, two years ago, had over 500 members. The group's owner instituted an annual fee of $5 so he didn't have to pay the cost of the group (about $150 per year) out of pocket. Membership quickly fell to about 25 people, and has hovered there ever since.

[Iguana]

I'm neither going to re-write what I already wrote, nor to re-post the photos I posted. So, if relevant posts including mine are deleted, I'll be out for good. 

I ain't gonna pay, either. I've never seen a forum where you have to pay to read the contents or write something.

[Projectile Vomit]

Perhaps it's possible to archive the current version of this site so people can search it and read its posts? That would let us start over with a new version without losing the old content.

[TylerDurden]

I'm not clear why you're worried about the 1st Amendment. This is an international forum that isn't bound by US Constitutional Law.

. Technically, you make a very good point. This board of forums is based in the Phillipines re domain afaik, and  most of the various RPF members who have asked for censorship of RPF since its inception in 2008 have anyway been US citizens.GS, no doubt due to having endured the Marcos reign, has generally been against censorship.Whatever the case, the Internet has always had a generally friendly attitude, overall, to the US Constitution,what with Edward Snowden/Wikileaks /vpn proxies used in oppressive countries around the world etc., so I was referring to the Internet spirit, if not the letter of the law.

 The point about off-topic posts is to avoid orthorexia as talking endlessly about diet makes people too fanatical.Plus, realistically-speaking,most people come to RPF diets looking to recover from ill-health, and diet is only one aspect of health-recovery.Hot topics allows views contrary to strict dietary doctrines to be made without fear of being attacked, and so on.

Perhaps a solution could be made in which  2 or more forums and related topics were merged into 1 bigger forum? Making forums too specific would create lower interest - unless there happens to be, for example,  a specific, sizeable  RVAF-eating community for a particular  range of conditions such as auto-immune diseases like MS.Plus, more rearrangement of RPF just creates more work and bother for GS.

Perhaps a 1-time-only payment of 2$  to become a member, for all future members, with people in general only occasionally being asked in future  to provide funding for a book or interview online or some such? And with only the welcoming committee forum or similiar fluff being available to newbies until  they donate?

[TylerDurden]

Or one could allow viewership of the various forums to increase from the one(ie the welcoming committee) to many more, based on the number of posts(ie 10 or more allows access to the culinary creations forum, 100 or more allows access to the raw zero carb forum etc.?)

Iguana, would you be OK with the old posts being archived but being accessible only to people who have previously posted more than a certain number of times?

[Iguana]

Ok for archiving, but access should be free of any condition. Sometimes we want to give the link for a post or for a topic to someone who has nothing to do with this forum or even with raw paleo and it should be possible. Generally, what we wrote should be accessible to anyone: we have no secret to hide, on the contrary we are pleased to share our thought and findings with everyone interested.

[sabertooth]

I believe all the on topic threads should under no circumstances be censored, edited, or deleted. While generally I am opposed to creating a secret society...... perhaps much of the questionable off topic threads could be bilged onto a shadow sub forum available only to the fully initiated members. This way the casual browser that happens to stumble across the site, who may be easily offended by our opinionated side banter, wouldn't be scared away before they could learn the basics of the Raw Paleo way of life. Perhaps for those acolytes who have the interest and devotion to reach a certain number of post, will also be capable of the kind of compassion to maturely suffer the more all too human side of participating in a forum which includes a large number of damaged and flawed human beings.

Its difficult to entirely separate dietary discussions from the political circumstances surrounding all of us, with so much overlap in the realm of government and corporate forces that lord over so many aspects of our personal lives...issues such as the global impact of corporately controlled big agra conglomerates GMOing the Paleo food sources out of existence...need an out let for people concerned to discuss openly...and sometimes these topics veer off course in unsavory manors..... but in discussing the total human ecology in relation to living an integrated neo paleo lifestyle within the modern world...its damn near impossible to know where to draw the line.... 

On a personal note, Im far from finished in this quest, and need a place to relate and chronicle my own experiences, with others who understand this way of life...in a format that isn't controlled by the Zuckerbergs or the Schmidts. The raw unfiltered platform of these kinds of forums are empowering, (lost trolls, misanthropes, along with all genuine seekers should be welcome here to engage in a free for all dialectic) there is no way of knowing how the ideas being shared here will change the minds of many of the visitors who browse these boards. The for profit social networks have algorithms which filter and limit the access of information in insidious ways, and in some parts of the world there is outright censorship of free thought going on....but here and now we can be totally free and unchained by the constraints of the Partisan-PC-SJW ethos which is dominating other social media platforms.

[Projectile Vomit]

...lost trolls, misanthropes, along with all genuine seekers should be welcome here to engage in a free for all dialectic...

I guess that's one arena where you and I differ, Derek. I've had my fill of the lost trolls and misanthropes. Genuine seekers are great to interact with though.

[goodsamaritan]

Back to membership... Facebook happened.
Facebook and other social media has been consuming people's time.

I have seen other forums get replaced by Facebook.  Such as that one with radio controlled helicopters and planes my friend used to admin.  http://rcphilippines.com

I have another friend where his forum remains strong... that of talk of much sex, sex talk that requires anonymity... so his forum generates an income. http://manilatonight.com

Our forte as Raw Paleo Diet Forum is that our talk is specialized and some require anonymity, and we have freedom to talk about controversial topics and are not censorship freeks like Facebook.   So we have an angle to remain existing because we have info and discussions that are not Facebook friendly.

[sabertooth]

I guess that's one arena where you and I differ, Derek. I've had my fill of the lost trolls and misanthropes. Genuine seekers are great to interact with though.

We will have to agree to disagree in part regarding the stance that there is no room for the acceptance of trollish discord. For me it is the price we pay for the free exchange of ideas..... though I agree there is often an imbalance of rational humility in the attempts to moderate these negative elements.....Personally I feel strongly that there must be a balance between "the good, the bad, the ugly" elements, with an "it takes all kinds to make a world" sentiment...for these forums to truly represent the free minds of a free world... There is a lot of sickness and insanity in the world that cant be swept away, even in a well edited and responsibly moderated message board. 

My own personal eccentricity leads me to to feel there is just as much to be learned from trolls, and disingenuous people as there is from the regal scholar, in these realms. This may be unwarranted self deluded  optimism, but I always feel like there is a higher power witnessing these interactions, and in the course of these discourses a greater knowledge is accumulated and integrated into the ever evolving logos ..... call it the" fair witness" "Holy Spirit" "Cyber Christ Consciousness"or the "ghost in the machine".....What ever this thing is , we are a part of...it may not have a clear meaning or label.... as such definitions differ from person to person....For me  there is a feeling of some ineffable force at work and there is an ever evolving synchronicity within the collective unconscious, how this manifest isn't always pretty, sometimes its down right ugly...but if the truth is to be found one must deal with all the elements of untruth in stride, and let the light of your own experience out shine the dimmer bulbs, and lead the way by exemplary example.

[goodsamaritan]

Additionally, we used to have a very combative moderator where I think that lost us a lot of members.

[TylerDurden]

Yes, he had a specific aim of frightening  off  the newbies.I forgot to mention the other point made often when I googled the average lifespan of internet forums - the main theme was that a forum lasted as long as the admin/owner was interested in the forum      . I have also noticed something else:- most other RVAFish diet forums I checked here and there died out after 5 years max.,  because the owner/admin became increasingly authoritarian and decided to ban and/or censor people who did not comply with ever-increasing  rules and warnings re politics/religion or dietary orthorexia etc.. GS, thankfully, has been quite the opposite.

I am also seeing a gradual decline in people wanting to  socialise online(eg:-
http://tech.firstpost.com/news-analysis/everyones-talking-about-facebook-engagement-decline-heres-why-314418.html

http://etfdailynews.com/2016/07/25/potential-facebook-bombshell-users-spending-less-time-on-social-media-around-the-globe/


). Perhaps people are slowly recognising that the real world has more opportunities than online. After all, it has been pointed out that, even in the heydays of the Internet, on average only c.3% of forum-members ever posted regularly, with c.37% posting only rarely, and the other 60% never posting at all.

[goodsamaritan]

We need pretty girls...

Giggling...

[sabertooth]

I think there are fundamental differences regarding how men and women use these message boards....Perhaps there would be ways to encourage greater participation by the women folk, though im not sure where to start.....I could see more unscrupulous administrators of the forums of the future bringing in AI Fem bots to draw more interest.

[goodsamaritan]

I think there are fundamental differences regarding how men and women use these message boards....Perhaps there would be ways to encourage greater participation by the women folk, though im not sure where to start.....I could see more unscrupulous administrators of the forums of the future bringing in AI Fem bots to draw more interest.

I miss my Scandinavian crush Inger!