Ahem Hostess ahem
I completely forgot about you Fephisto. You never know Student, Donny with an A, Len Budney, Inquisitor or even Nathyn might return!
I can not believe that the Mises Institute is making this decision. Is there anybody managing the institute? Is there no money to fix/create a barely functioning forum? How much could this possibly cost? Is there no one understanding the significance of a forum for spreading ideas? Where is my donation money going to?
This is ridiculous.
Conza I thought you of all people would be happy with the new forum…or at least the structure…
I’d say it’s a lot less to do with cost and a lot more to do with apathy…or have you forgotten..
See above.
There’s this, but ultimately I’d say that’s a great question to ask the Institute.
True, but it could be much worse. Thank Blake for largely single-handedly keeping a Mises Community online at all.
Well live chat will still be up, and I need an admin to tell me if the groups will remain
I’ll not be joining the Austrianforums. I think we need to create a de novo community. The name is poor, as pointed out. The forum software is nothing better than can be found with any of these free sites. Autolykos has a viable alternative.
JJ, you seem to know Blake but I’ve never seen him around until he pops up to inform us that the forums are closing and we’re all moving back to his site which is otherwise dead. I don’t want to seem sour, but I don’t see any reason that he should be the “heir” of this forum.
Seems to me that those who have been participating and active - including some who have left out of sheer frustration - should be the core. To that end, I would like to see a migration to forum run by somebody that cares. Someone who is passionate about being THE Mises discussion forum on the Internet.
Clayton -
Given the expected user attrition and all the logistical difficulties, plus no longer enjoying the network effect of being hosted on mises.org, I’d rather just see these forums continue as is - with all their flaws - instead of seeing them “transitioned” elsewhere. It would not be terribly surprising if this move, however well-intentioned, effectively killed off most of this community, and because of the off-site hosting it is almost guaranteed to slow new membership to a trickle.
I’ll be joining whichever forum has the most members. If the community splits off into several forums, I might join several, but such a “balkanization” would probably decimate the community.
AJ: true. It’s a deathknell.
Perhaps the Voluntaryism forums have the best chance, being setup and run by the most active of us:
I aggree with AJ. Even if everyone makes the transition, and the new forum turns out to be excellent from the technical point of view, with off-site hosting the rate at which current posters retire is likely to exceed the rate at which new ones replace them. If they no longer want us here I am not one for begging them to, but let’s be realistic about what is it they’re doing to us here. This could easily devastate the community they’ve helped bring together. (Albeit we could thereafter potentially rebuild in the very long term under more competent (ie interested) leadership.)
Also realistically, without the connection to mises.org Blake’s forum is just another would-be successor out there, albeit possibly one with an archive from this old forum.
The way I see it, Blake has the advantage of sanction from the Institute which gives him acess to this forum’s database. Autolykos on the other hand has the advantage of being someone we know, and can trust is committed. I agree with Clayton, that if I’m going to make this jump it helps to know I’m moving someplace that is ran by people who are just as desperate for this forum to continue (in some form) as I am. I understand Blake ran the predecessor forum so he is kinda one of us, but I’m sorry, I don’t know him. Perhaps the first thing Blake can do is invite someone I do know to work with him, or to monitor what he is doing from the inside.
Also I see us splintering into several successor forums as the biggest threat to what (little) may be salvaged from this situation. Imagine JJ and Autolykos each leading their own exodus of posters to two seperate destinations? Something like that could be a deathknell. Maybe the two should do a Molotov-Ribbentrop and see if they can’t endorse one and the same project?
see if they can’t endorse one and the same project?
You mean like LibertyHQ?
-
I agree wholly with all the positive stuff said about these forums. I don’t know what it was about this place but by and large the quality of discussion here was absolutely OUT OF THIS WORLD.
-
Well we’re going to see the effect of a breakup of an effective monopoly and the advent of competition. What’ll it be folks? Wheylous’ site, the voluntaryism forums, or Austrian forums? You’ve gotta make up your minds. VR and its boards are also in the mix in a way.
-
I myself will be doing everything that I can to make the Austrian Forums as good as they possibly can be. I heavily encourage all of you to join me there. I think that it’s good software, I quite like the chat, it will hopefully have the old material here, and it will be linked from mises.org (presumably)
-
I’m extremely glad that VR got off the ground before this happened. I think that will be the most lasting thing to come out of the forums as they are now.
5. To John James: Please try to find a way to back up your materials lists. Those are important.
AJ and Clayton have given me an idea. Why not start a new forum called “Misesforum” or something like that. That way though you won’t have the network effect from being linked to this site but at least with the word association could be SEO ranked well enough to draw in interested new users just via the word association (hopefully). Secondly, there is no such forum, so you could use whatever seems best and not be stuck with opportunity costs distorted by past, inherited infrastructure. Finally, a few of us who are dedicated to this community could start this.
I say this though I do realise I am comparatively infrequent in my posting here to many of you guys…
Agreed!
I’m going to try and participate in as many of them as possible. Not only do I enjoy talking with many of the well established members here, but there will be newbies at all of these sites, and I don’t think we should cut ourselves off from them just for the sake of having one “home”.
VR is awesome. Period.
Well i hope we dont lose anyone..
Dammit guys, I thought we had made sure Kelvin couldn’t see this thread.
Related?
Yes. View Lew’s video on the Mises front page.
Clayton -
OK, after getting some info from a helpful person, I will tone down my view on austrianforums. Fortunately, this move will preserve the threads as they exist on mises.org.
Here’s my recommendation to folks:
-
Everyone, just create an account on Austrianforums. If you don’t like it, you don’t have to use it. But you won’t know if you like it if you never try it.
-
I recommend the Voluntaryism forums to all those interested in the VR blog - we really want to create a “buzz” center based on Voluntaryism + AE-centric ideas
-
I also recommend the LibertyHQ forums to your attention. Wheylous is a promising upstart (spoken lovingly), and I foresee a great future for LibertyHQ, I think it hits a real niche between the Econ-nerd mises.org and the drab capital-L libertarian establishment (Cato types). Keep up the work, Wheylous!
By using the same username/password, you can have access to all three forums with no additional effort. If one turns out to be your favorite, why post there, and lurk on the others. Or whatever.
The Internet is a big place and there’s room for all!
Clayton -
*Nielsio’s V for Voluntary I think also deserves an honorable mention here… he’s really developed thriving reddits and his forums have their own dedicated followers
I hope that the new CTO builds an API for the content on mises.org. You may ask, “why?” Overall, the API would serve content in order to help distribute the content hosted on mises.org. But that question is for developers to answer by building products that use the API. (No, RSS is not good enough.)
P.S. Please, please, please, add the Circle Bastiat to list of content that can be emailed to my emailed account. I have stopped reading the blog because I now have how to remember to go to the web address. I just eant it sent to my email inbox.
Well now that I’ve had a few more beers, I’m feeling optimistic: maybe we’ll get enough new users that all three forums will be overflowing and they’ll have to specialize. Now to the matter of how to pull this off…
Perhaps the forum admins and posters will compete to create the best communities with the most usable interfaces and highest quality of argument, best signal-to-noise ratio, most welcoming to newbies and opponents, most all-round pleasure to debate in, greatest learning experience, etc. Perhaps through competition we can create an even better product, even as we individually simply strive to make ourselves understood in the most effective manner possible.