Postby dolfan » June 13th, 2011, 11:44 am
Facebook has surely taken over, and Twitter to a lesser degree. I do Twitter, but do not personally do Facebook anymore (haven't in about 2 yrs or so to any extent).
What this forum gives, but not as many seem as interested in doing nowadays, is a way to discuss ideas in depth. Not saying that's all it has been good for, but certainly you don't get into deep discussions on FB and positively not on Twitter (without linking externally).
I still check in almost daily; I used to log in more than I do now, but I still peek.
Another feature of J2 that has -- IMO -- disappeared is that once upon a time there was a lot more venting about COGOP here. For a lot of very good reasons, that process petered out. Best I can tell, what's mostly left are people with no axe to grind on that or people who have grown a bit and moved on. Misery loves company, and when the misery level dropped, so did a fair amount of company.
One more: some people got fed up with a lot of the back and forth about COGOP and pet doctrinal debates. Some very fine people who were here when I arrived (as someone with no connection to the COGOP anymore) in 2004 left because of one of the aspects of J2 that I find appealing -- the discussion. We're all different, and their tolerance of the kind of discussions just left them wanting not to be here and so we've quit seeing them. I can't say they shouldn't have vanished since that's everyone's own decision and what have you, but I will say I really did enjoy their being here (I think I got long-winded on that here not too long ago).
I still like J2 very much. I do miss the frequency of participation. The opinions of people here matter to me a lot for a guy who's only met a few of you.
Human government bears the same relation to hell as the church bears to heaven. (David Lipscomb, On Civil Government, 72).