I think part of the problem here is that there is very little self sufficiency posting going on.
There are alot of personal posts being made that have nothing at all to do with being self sufficient.
It has turned into more of a friendship, coffee talk type of forum, or a place for someone to chat about their personal lives etc. I don't know, can't put my finger on it.
I mean its one thing to share bits and pieces of personal stuff that is important to someone, but sometimes its a bit much.
If you go back to the first month or so of this forum and read the threads it was great, it was focused and informative.
Go back and look at the topics posted now, what the threads have been about the last month or so.
I can see how she would feel like an outsider if she doesn't want to get involved with everyone's personal business.
If you look at alot of the threads posted today, how much of them have anything to do what the premise of this forum is?
If someone comes on here today and wants to get involved but everything is about politics, someone else's experience with their family or friends , personal issues etc.
where does that leave them to be involved?
I found that I have not been checking this site much myself . I don't mean to be offensive, its just that I couldn't find any good pertinent info that I wanted.
I only have so much time in the day to be on here and I don't have the time to read everyone's journals.
I have been looking forward to info that I thought would be posted about people preparing for winter, winter recipes, storing food for the winter etc.
There has been nothing like that. Its pages of personal stuff.
I shoot over here and scan the new threads and maybe one or two is about self sufficiency.
Not to be mean or anything, I just can't find anything about self sufficency so I don't bother coming here as much. I like everyone here and its nothing personal, just that I want to be more self sufficient and need info to help me do that so I found I was losing interest.
If a new person comes on here and checks out some of these threads and all these journals its going to appear clique.Its been a natural progression for us, but picture what it would feel like to just join this forum.
This is where someone is going to feel left out.
The reason why this site was developed was for people who are interested in self sufficency to come here and learn from each other, so for the most part that is why people joined, its the kind of people this site is going to attract.
Then people that are self sufficient minded join and I would assume feel like an outsider because 95 percent of the threads and conversations are about other things.
Maybe they can't get involved in the kind of stuff that is being brought up and being made to feel like an outsider.
I am always dumbfounded when I check out this site and someone is posting about politics or what is going on with this or that in the news.
Why start a thread like that? Its divisive and irrelvant to the sufficency topics.
That has nothing to do with the premise of this group and is sure to cause problems.
I have been trying to look at this from the poster's point of view,
She said:
just feel like if someone doesn't step up and point out that there are others who are interested in self-suffiency and may possibly like to be more involved in this forum, but may stand back, and not get involved because they feel initially put off. People we could all learn a lot from, then it's a loss to this growing community.
and I think what she is saying is what I have been trying to explain in my post, people are put off by the personal conversations that go on here because they don't know the members and its hard to jump in, especially if its some kind of heated political debate or something like that.
I do believe there are not enough topics that relate to self sufficiency that would be open to all, like if someone just joined today and wanted to get in on a thread.
There should be more generic type topics they can get in on that have nothing to do with politics, religion or someone's personal problems or their journals.
I think its great that there are so many friendships formed on here and people should be able to share bits and pieces of their lives, maybe we just need to be more balanced in our posts so people do not feel shut out.
P.S. (RANT while im here) these dang journals are driving me crazy to much reading for a dyslexic fella to go through.
