Private Forums

Hello to the Powers-to-Be <g>.

Has anyone ever considered offering private forums that a member would run and invite others to at his or her discretion? I suppose the central idea behind such a forum would be to invite other members who are substantially and essentially like-minded to the member running the forum. This would promote peace, goodwill and civility on a forum that is often lacking on the open forums where many members can disagree with a particular theology or Christian tradition. And it would also promote discipleship and serious bible study. And another big advantage is all the participants in such a forum could invite newbie Christians or genuine truth seekers, and such people would be free from all the bickering and ad hominem attacks that are so prone to occur on the open theology forums. Such a forum would be a genuinely peaceful place to learn.

Another advantage to such a forum is that it could be a nice revenue stream to the proprietor of this forum. You could charge a decent (but hopefully fair <g>) fee to the "administrator" of such a forum. This "administrator" could foot the entire bill or get members (s)he invites to donate to the powers to be or send a payment to the "admin" to help offset his/her expenses.

Anyhoo...I'm just floating this idea by you basically because I think it would be a win-win for both the owner of this forum in terms of additional revenue and for all the theologically like-minded for the reasons stated above.

Thanks for listening.

Hello to the Powers-to-Be <g>.

Has anyone ever considered offering private forums that a member would run and invite others to at his or her discretion? I suppose the central idea behind such a forum would be to invite other members who are substantially and essentially like-minded to the member running the forum. This would promote peace, goodwill and civility on a forum that is often lacking on the open forums where many members can disagree with a particular theology or Christian tradition. And it would also promote discipleship and serious bible study. And another big advantage is all the participants in such a forum could invite newbie Christians or genuine truth seekers, and such people would be free from all the bickering and ad hominem attacks that are so prone to occur on the open theology forums. Such a forum would be a genuinely peaceful place to learn.

Another advantage to such a forum is that it could be a nice revenue stream to the proprietor of this forum. You could charge a decent (but hopefully fair <g>) fee to the "administrator" of such a forum. This "administrator" could foot the entire bill or get members (s)he invites to donate to the powers to be or send a payment to the "admin" to help offset his/her expenses.

Anyhoo...I'm just floating this idea by you basically because I think it would be a win-win for both the owner of this forum in terms of additional revenue and for all the theologically like-minded for the reasons stated above.

Thanks for listening.

I guess I'll just have to wait for such heavenly ideal conversations when I die or I'm raptured...whichever comes first <g>.

Or start a PM .. PMs can be a great place to share resources also. Although in a PM you
cannot search out things as you can in the regular threads, you could keep a document
and save the page url to pertinent information you may wish to access again...

One other thing you should perhaps be aware of concerning PMs is that if someone
becomes a guest without departing the PM first, their name still counts as a member
of the PM, so if you have already reached the maximum number allowed, you cannot
simply replace the person who has left with someone else. It would seem a good
practice to request any who wish to leave the site to leave the PM first...

Interesting idea, but I've never been fond of PMs because I never cared for how they are structured. But your idea just gave me one: a mailing list that has nothing to do with this forum! That way, every list participant can set up his own topical files and easily manage them in their email client or web mailer. What do you think about that idea? Lots of flexibility with mailing lists.

Interesting idea, but I've never been fond of PMs because I never cared for how they are structured. But your idea just gave me one: a mailing list that has nothing to do with this forum! That way, every list participant can set up his own topical files and easily manage them in their email client or web mailer. What do you think about that idea? Lots of flexibility with mailing lists.

A mailing list? I do not really understand what you mean...

Well see, the problem is now you're doing the equivalent of sitting in a restaurant, talking loudly about how good a different restaurant is. Or a closer analogy would be, sitting in church discussing the idea of all of us meeting at the church across the street.

I think a private by invitation only board would lead to less activity occuring on the primary forum and respective public boards.

Also, to make an invite one would have to PM those they choose to invite. We cannot PM unless we are $contributors.

I think conflict helps us to build and grow in the word.

While false teachings can be aggravating at times I think errant understanding or even outright purposed promotion of heresies challenge us to find a way to overcome that agenda. Leaning into the word and there witnessing how deeply true righteous teachings are can reiterate our personal security as God's Elect.

The first example of that fact is knowing what God means by identifying His children as His Elect.

And that then guarantees we are not threatened nor made unsure of our identity and eternal security in Christ if we encounter those who misappropriate the doctrine of God's Election.

Just a few thoughts.

Not really. Why would my idea preclude anyone on my mailing list to also participate in various threads in this forum? The two modes of communication are not mutually exclusive to one another. I'm simply looking for a banter-free, ad hominem attacks-free, hate-free method of communicating with theologically like-minded people.

For that matter, I'm not even complaining about the policies or rules that have been established for this forum. In fact, just the opposite. I like the fact that there is no heavy censorship here as there are on other Christian forums. But at the same time, it's wearisome to have to wade through so many emotionally-charged posts that are filled with anger, bitterness, falsehoods, innuendoes, straw men or red herrings, etc.

I also find it wearisome, which is the reason I stay out of the Bible discussion forum. Also the conspiracy forum and the Christian news forum. All three of those are just chock-full of people who enjoy the feeling of winning an argument and pursue that feeling at all cost.

But it really is unethical to do what you propose. It would be taking traffic away from here, to a different platform. You would be using this forum to organize a mailing list that would take business away from this forum.

That is unfortunate.