Where have all the questions gone?

Shift happens. Maybe a lot of us are in observation mode right now. :-)

Maybe we all need to recruit some more people? And, maybe be nicer to newbies?

Maybe it also is a natural cycle of these types of websites? I don’t know. When I first found fluther some of the most interesting Q for me were politics, religion, and sociological discussions. Kind of secondary were cooking and travel questions. At the time I watched political programs daily and was a little bit of a fish out of water having moved to the bible belt a few years before. Now, I watch politics about 2 hours a week, compared to the 14–20 I used to watch. Simply less interested and tired of the hatred in politics.

Add in some interactions I have had with some jellies that leave me somewhat apathetic and needing a break. Plus, I have been doing this instead of focusing my energy on so ething that could be more productive. I should spend less time here I think. It was great for a while, very helpful, but now I need to do other things.

I mentioned this a month or so ago and Augustlan assured us fluther wasn’t going anywhere.

We do need more users. But I think that if there is to be a marketing campaign, it is going to be up to us to make it happen.

How could we market fluther? How could we generate more users? Blogs? Email campaigns? Links to certain relevant sites? I don’t know.

We’re not getting many questions from the new jellies. I was just looking back through some recent ones and they’re from veterans mostly.

@Adirondackwannabe Hmmm. Wonder why?

I like the recruitment thoughts but don’t want folk I know in real life to join.

@janbb I think it’s because most of the veterans have fairly thick skins and some of the nasty personal attacks don’t bother us as they do the newbies. I can’t believe how many jellies enjoy driving newbies away. They don’t seem to get new blood is necessary. I don’t know what the sloution is.

The law of diminishing returns?

Maybe since we have people who volunteer to mod and edit topics, we also should have a group of 2 or 3 jellies who welcome newbies?

I think we need a committee to generate new users.

@JLeslie Maybe mentor the newbies for a bit?

”... runs off to write a question…....”

@Adirondackwannabe Right. The mentor could be there if the newb has a question, a jelly who is online often. Someone to also give positive reinforcement. It can’t feel like a stalker of course.

Maybe it’s time for another T-shirt give-away

That livened things up, for awhile at least.

I’ve always liked the idea of welcoming/mentoring new users. I’d be all for that.

I think there should be a Fluther jackpot for Q.of the day.
If everyone sent in one dollar, to be divided into four .25 cent contributions to the pool, and given there are 80,000 members…well….what a promotion!
The winner of Q. of the day…or week, would “net” a lotta goldfish. lol

I second @thorninmud‘s idea.
And @Coloma, an underwater pyramid scheme??
When I joined I really appreciated that several veterans took the time to welcome me. I’ve tried to do that myself with new jellies. I’ve also seen a couple of new users be chased off in a pretty vicious manner. The worst case I saw was someone who was obviously not a native English speaker.

I’ve only been on fluther a few months and have told several friends about it, I think they think I’m saying ‘flutter’.

I also have to admit it can be a pretty intense site. I was really turned off during the political season by all the attacks on Republicans, myself included, so I took a break.

A lot of you are so cool, Adirondack, Wundayatta, Coloma, Shippy and JLeslie are a few of my faves. But then others are sometimes so critical, when this is an opinion think tank/ collective, so that doesn’t make sense.

Honestly, I’ve been called a liar at least 50 times since I joined. I’ve been called out for being a Christian, and also for being against abortion myself but Pro-Choice for others, for living in the US and voting for Bush. Sometimes I honestly skip questions that may include anything to do with controversial subjects because of the hateful replies.

I’m just human, I’m doing the best I can to be a good person, and I love to help others. I do this for fun and for knowledge, and for advice. Anything negative or hyper-critical is not sharing and not helpful to a ‘collective’ imo. Other than that, I’m thrilled with many of you and am getting more and more interested in your personal circumstances, sorry I’m nosy. :)

@KNOWITALL : I’m broadly speaking on the other side of the political spectrum in the U.S. and I usually avoid the political questions because I find them dispiriting and hateful too! I’m sorry to hear that you have been attacked on here :-/

Yes, well…I am apolitical, one of the most despised amongst the hardcore politically attached crowd. I rarely participate in any Q’s of a political nature.
@KNOWITALL It takes a little time to feel out the pod here, but… you will, soon enough, learn to identify the few really difficult personalities around here and will become discriminating in how you pick your poison. lol

Yes, I’m noticing for sure, and honestly learning a lot about many different things. I really like this site tbh. Although I would like to know how to change my password from about 15 letters and numbers to one of my choosing….lol (but seriously, I can’t figure it out ha!~)

It’s a well known fact that the world is suffering a wolf epidemic, and a lot of people are getting eaten. Whole families are being devoured by wolves everywhere, so that means little activity on the Internet.

But I’ve wondered this myself, and I remember Wundy asking about this, and indeed, it was confirmed that so far, Fluther is here to stay. However I can’t begin to imagine why the activity has dropped down so drastically. When I first joined, I could sit here all evening and never have time to go through all the new questions. These days, I go through the little there is before I’m even done sitting down. At first I might have attributed this to work, seasons and school, but no. It’s always empty here and I don’t know what it is. A great many users have left for several reasons, and there aren’t that many new users coming in. We are a tight knit community, whether people want to admit it or not though, and I don’t think that we’re always all that welcoming to new people. I’ve seen pretty crazy stuff…cool new members that just couldn’t hack it. On the other hand, we can also be very kind and helpful to new members, I’m sure many newer jellies here could account for this.
But let me say that I’m not placing myself above anyone when it comes to conduct towards new people, and that I’m not entirely sure that this is even the problem. Because when it was really full and busy here, the same problems were still present; people slagging each other, futt bucking new users or fighting in big serious political threads. Yet we still had tons of activity.
But here I am dividing the question in between why there isn’t that much activity, or why there isn’t that bigger a new stream of new folk. People getting eaten by wolves, probably. They’re out there man.

It might have to do with where we are on Google too, and how easy we are to find? I remember there was an issue with this in the past, and that is when activity began to drop, but I don’t know what the situation with this is right now.

Plus I blame the mods. It’s all their fault. THEY’RE TO BLAME. Lol. XD

The only thing I can think of doing is maybe we can try to ask more stuff. Except Fluther is known for its quality, and asking questions just for the sake of kicking the activity a little might kind of ruin that idea? I’d love to ask three questions a day, but personally, I just can’t think of that many great questions to ask that wouldn’t be considered fluff or nonsense. :/ that’s just me And stuff I do wonder about, chances are, someone would tell me to Google and, after all, they’d be right.

As a relatively new, and obnoxious new person. I will add my two cent perspective.

A lot of people have been very kind and helpful but it is easy to see there is a war between the old and the new people, not in an all out sense but a general unhappiness, thinking about leaving, I’ve been lurking these days etc. I blow it off, I’m being over sensitive but when I see comments like that, I think hmm they would be much happier without new people here, perhaps they feel the standards have slid. Then maybe the new people aren’t being as friendly to those people.

Remarks on the quality of questions. A sense of the old boy crowd. Distinctive personality and an issue of repetitive questions. Not all of that is bad. And we shouldn’t censor it. But newbies have no context for this. So maybe keep that in mind.

I could certainly be a lot more friendly myself and getting to know people and their style of communication takes time. So I am not laying blame.

Also recruiting people I know is tempting at time but then again. Do I really want to? This is sometimes my resource for when I don’t want to ask my world about problems. An escape.

Side note: With few exceptions I have always been the one to reach out to people. I always get a positive warm response when I do, but as more of an introvert it isn’t my comfortable style.

I agree with rosehips, except for close friends I don’t mention this site because I need outside opinions on my marriage or something like that.

The password change was easy after I admitted to you all….lol

Maybe there needs to be an ‘this is what this site is about’ type blurb for newbies?
I still have no idea what ‘jellies’ means btw.

I think recruiting new members might be a bit difficult for many of us. I know I’m not the only person here who likes to keep Fluther a secret from people we know irl. I do have one friend (she’s my best friend going on 34 years now) that I wouldn’t mind sharing Fluther with. She’s smart, outgoing and just about the kindest person I know, but she’s Mormon and Republican. I’ve seen way too many rude comments here about Mormons and Republicans, so I wouldn’t subject her to that abuse.

@KNOWITALL @rosehips I hope you weren’t taking from my question a comment on the quality of questions or answers; it’s more the fact of the volume going down and less engagement. Although I understand where you are coming from in not understanding all the references, we really do want new members (just not our best friends always.)

If you look at the bottom of the screen there are a couple of links that explain Fluther and also offer some guidelines. A Fluther is the collective noun for jellyfish, by the way.

One thing you may not know is that the founders and developers of Fluther were recruited by Twitter some years ago so there is no-one actively putting time into developing the site any more. This is part of the reason for some of the problems at times.

Well I am new and I must say I have had nothing but kindness, and a few crazy remarks but take it as it comes. I had one remark that sent me mental and I deleted my account. As at the time, I felt I had bared my soul and had gotten a slap in the chops. But that’s just me, over sensitive, silly and impulsive at times. However, having said that, it has changed the questions I ask. I am a lot more guarded. (Yes, even though you wouldn’t think so!!).

I have no idea why there are so few questions, since there are so many members? Perhaps like I do and the person I invited over here, we need to create questions to keep the flow going. I will sometimes if I see it is slow, ponder one and post it. I still learn a lot from the question but didn’t necessarily need to ask it. So to nutshell it perhaps there are more people answering and less people asking. But daily I see people join Fluther, why are they not asking any questions?

I get so desperate for questions I will give most a bash, and probably am not the best source for that question.

and P.S.

I think personally there is a lot of “religion” bashing here. Which at times, I could call “Flaming”.

I ended up on Fluther, because there was an option on a food site (which I can’t remember the name of) at the top of the page to answer questions about food topics. It wasn’t really a part of the original food site, it actually sent me to Fluther, where I signed up. I thought I was only, ever going to talk about food subjects, but then I realized it was a Q and A site for all different kinds of topics.

Maybe Auggie knows how that option got put on another website. I think it was a great idea. Maybe that option can be attached to other websites, especially sites that deal with a lot of the topics that we talk about here.

I too would prefer _not to have people that I know in IRL on here. I simply could not be honest and candid, if they were here. This is kind of a private little refuge for me._

@janbb I did not infer that from your question. Thank you for considering it though.
@KNOWITALL I am sorry I haven’t been the kindest on the topic of religion myself I will try to remedy and be mindful of that in the future. It is my own personal issue.
@Symbeline made a good point, if I hadn’t gotten a referral to this site I would have never found it.
Maybe we do need to have a sort of greeter people. Some people have picked up that role naturally.
Since we do seem to get new people quite often.
@Kardamom a refuge from the storms and eddies of life…

@Coloma why in your opinion are so many people in observation mode? I noticed certain other people making that reference.. I never thought to ask.

My answer to this will be pretty typical for me: long-term jellies have bailed because of the “I am a fluther god and can say whatever I want to everybody” attitude, and not a lot of new users stick around and participate after they get tired of that douchebaggery.

I think we’re down on questions because we’ve lost a lot of good members and don’t keep enough new members.

@rosehips why in your opinion are so many people in observation mode? Speaking for myself, I’ve been here 4 years now and answering the same questions over and over again gets tiresome. I do a lot more lurking than answering these days, and I only ask questions when I really need help with something (or if it’s the weekend and I’ve had a couple beers). I do like to help new users if I have an answer that will help them, but there just doesn’t seem to be that many new users anymore.

Someone get @jonsblond another beer!

@WillWorkForChocolate I think we have tons of good members. They just are all quirky. And that is fine. I think it’s fun. It makes this site more human the trick is sticking around along enough to understand the quirks.
And to be able to disagree without shutting down the conversation completely or being rude. So many of the questions and answers deal with one belief or the other. Whether religious or political. Most people won’t move on those issues. But I think understanding other points of view even if I have no intention of changing mine is important. I have learned a lot about religion discrimination of all sorts here and I have found myself rethinking or reaching out to people I haven’t previously.

@jonsblond thank you for shedding light on that topic. What sort of questions would you be interested in seeing more of? And lol @glacial.

@glacial I can’t! I’m taking Z-Pak at the moment. :/

@rosehips That’s kind of hard for me to answer. For me, the type of questions I like to answer depends on my mood at the moment or if I have the time to spend to give a proper answer.

@jonsblond Harrumph!

@rosehips Yes, but that’s the problem I’m talking about. Being able to disagree without being an asshat about it. Ask a political or religious question here, and it’s nothing but rudeness.

I have seen new members post a question, seriously asking about something regarding religion, only to be called delusional, stupid, childish, living in a fantasy land, retarded, insane, and so on. The same thing happens on political questions.

That sort of crap drives people away. And the same handful of members are responsible for that behavior. Every. Time. Without. Fail. I know, because I’ve watched it happen over, and over, and over again, for two years.

@WillWorkForChocolate maybe we should have a fluther sensitivity training class. : ) You have undoubtedly seen more then I have, I have seen a little, but if it is countered with another person’s reason or humor or if they get called on it then it stops. Or tons of people join in to second or back another up. That is the way I see fluther working.

People are entitled to be the asshats they are, they just have to defend it in open forum, and sure there is nothing wrong with sticking up for an individual who might approach the matter rather hamhandedly, as well.

I guess I have always been a peace maker slash, pot stirrerr I prefer a questioner. It is a fine balance and if I have a bad day or don’t take time to reflect I can easily slip. I don’t mind if people call me on it. I appreciate it.

We need the mods but sometimes the mods aren’t as necessary when we can use it to help others and further penetrate people’s comfort zones.

I can agree with most of that except “If they get called on it then it stops.” From what I see here, frequently, if they get called on it, it just gets worse. And it gets personal. And very ugly. And it makes people leave.

For the record, I’m not implying that most jellies behave this way, just a small group who appear to get off on being total dicks.

Hmm I see your point.
However my fixer mode comes into play.
For example if you expect that behavior and speak negatively about it as prophetic how much of it perpetuates because the accepted attitude is that it won’t change, or nothing can be done to change the behavior.
I have difficult people that I work with. I try to approach them kindly at all times. Professionally but polite. I don’t really reach out to these people as I don’t necessarily want to befriend them. But they are so used to being treated rudely that it takes them off their guard to be treated kindly. That doesn’t make them my best friend, in there or my eyes.

What it does is allow communication and expression. It let’s us overcome the abrasiveness that some of us have chosen to embrace as topics come up that are painful or personal for them or cross boundaries they don’t feel comfortable about. It kind of sets the bar for behavior. Positive behavior is often just as strong or stronger then negative behavior. No one really wants to see themselves as the bad person. So by treating them in a firm positive matter. Or redirecting them to other negative examples or using humor to turn this trigger off or disarm it can be much more effective then can be imagined.

I baked cookies.

As for the question, Fluther was recommended to me by a friend. I’m learning my way around and enjoying it. I’ve been on some other similar sites, so I keep my head low in order not to get blown to bits by a direct hit or shrapnel.

It’s a shame that I have that concern.

Civil discourse seems to have died in the last 30 years. There’s the rise of “I’m right and you’re wrong” attitude and never shall they meet.

@WillWorkForChocolate I don’t know what the answer is. We respect and like each other. And I slammed you bad on a political question without intending to do it.. A new jelly probably would have fled after that and never returned. Maybe we all need to be more tolerant.

@Adirondackwannabe I don’t actually have the perfect answer either. I only know what one temporary solution would be, regarding the situation I’m referring to, but I’m sure quite a few complaints would be voiced about it.

@FreshBaked Yum thanks for the cookies.

It is pretentious and wrong to say I have the answer. I just dearly want to. Sorry if I jumped on you @WillWorkForChocolate

@rosehips No no, it didn’t come across like that, at all! I wasn’t trying to accuse you of that, I promise, haha!

Part of it is the holiday slump…activity is always slow around the holidays. That said, we NEED new members, for sure. Our survival pretty much depends on it. Without google sending them our way, new memberships have declined significantly. We’ve got to find a way to get the word out, without compromising anonymity for those who treasure it. I’ll ask a meta Q about it, and we can brainstorm!

@Kardamom That link on the food site was part of our “Federated Fluther” program, which got started shortly before the Twitter acquisition and was promptly abandoned afterward, unfortunately.

Here’s the question. Let’s put our thinking caps on!

How about if we let more jellies have input into wether a question or answer is modded. Like if ten jellies hit a bad answer key, the response disappears. Just a thought that’s not fully thought out. But you only get 3 responses per day?

I don’t think it should be a vote. We already have mob rule here. To formalize it would make this place even more unfriendly. We really need to go in the opposite direction and become more tolerant.

A bad answer key will only lead to bad feelings. I agree with @wundayatta.

I’ve been swimming around this place for about 4½ years. I feel like I have answered every question in the world, twice. I don’t get that good feeling I used to get when I helped someone, made someone laugh or got snarky with people.

Most of the Jellies I follow aren’t even around anymore. I guess I just don’t ask many questions anymore, because the people I want help from probably won’t answer. Most of the Jellies around now I don’t even know; users with 10,000+ lurve even.

Nothing lasts forever.

… in the cold November rain.

People complained about how things weren’t like the good old days even during the Roman Empire…

I have noticed the drop in questions recently but I do not feel it is any worse than other lulls the site has had since I joined in 2009. It seems to come in waves and so I wasn’t worried although, I am a little worried now.

@rosehips I can only speak for myself. I am sick this week and not feeling my usual,super zippy self. Also the holiday scene is upon us so maybe some peeps are busy with other things.
I’d like to say that I love seeing new members and have zero attachment to being a “veteran” and assigning a bunch of egoic importance to that.
When I was new almost 3 years ago now, I had several encounters with other “senior” members that seriously felt they had some sort of preferential “status” based on their lurve points and length of membership.

Really?
How narcissistic can you be!
I was actually TOLD on a few occasions that I should defer to anothers status.
You’ve got to be kidding me.

I’m here for the fun of it and could care less about some sort of erroneous “status“markers.
It’s amazing to me how many people do though.

@Coloma Indeed, I am beginning to see where all the questions went.

I’ve been here over 5 years, and on a few other sites, as well. I find that there are ebbs and flows with these things, and there is that newness factor (someone asked a question about that recently, about why we get bored with things, I never found time to read it).

I’ve stayed under the radar for the most part, because I never got into the social aspect and offsite chat since I’m not a very sociable person. I’ve seen waves on newbies when other Q&A sites closed, and there was an old vs. new attitude war happening; and accusations of cliques, etc. I never understood any of that.

It’s a place to ask and answer questions, to learn and see other perspectives on a variety of issues, to share from our knowledge and experience. I don’t grasp why people take it all so personally.

I do find it tiresome when people seem very closed minded on certain topics – like religion or politics – and especially when they resort to badgering and name-calling. I find that those behaviors diminish the experience.

Sure, it would be fun to have more activity; but after 5 years, most topics have been addressed in some form… so yeah – sometimes I don’t answer because I’ve typed the same thing a dozen or more times before.

I haven’t helped much, I know. But there it is.

After writing that, the thought occurred to me that it is also challenging to attract new users because this site has standards. Don’t get me wrong… standards are a good thing, but the higher they are set, the narrower the population for potential matches becomes. So it takes a particular personality set to not only be able to express ourselves up to the site standards, but also to keep coming back for more. No babbys being formed round these parts!

Good point, @hearkat. Fluther has always been a pretty self-selecting environment, and one thing we don’t want to do is lower the standards.

@hearkat Yeah, sometimes it feels like the only people with brains in their heads who can handle criticism and a challenge to their ideas are here on fluther. I have people all around me who wouldn’t last a day on this site. LOL.

@hearkat and ^^Confusion as to the self selection. I never went through a process where I was vetted. How does the standard come into play, how do we become the chosen?

Hmm @Coloma. I can see them being proud of their achievement, sticking around long enough to have answers and see everyone’s q&a’s is a type of achievement.

But it does seem over the top. Good thing you are so adept at sticking up for yourself.

By the way has anyone noticed? We have boosted questions and answers considerably since the beginning of this thread!! Temporary though it may be. Here here!

@rosehips There’s no official vetting process, of course. But people who use txtspk, engage in personal attacks, or otherwise don’t want to follow our guidelines tend not to stick around. Either they decide the site isn’t for them, or the site decides they aren’t for us.

@rosehips I did notice that! Causation or merely correlation? :-)

The problem takes care of itself. Good deal.

@janbb I give you credit for this flow.

@rosehips To be honest, @janbb should get credit for many, many things. Like being an amazing human, and an adorable penguin! Just sayin’. :)

@WillWorkForChocolate Thanks; I really needed to hear that this week.

^^^ Yes, but…..does @janbb‘s Penguin look as good as my Marwyn in sexy striped socks?
http://i1211.photobucket.com/albums/cc435/GooseCorral/P1060161.jpg

You’re quite welcome, sweet penguin.

@Coloma The Penguin does not lower itself to compete with lesser birds.

^Um, your welcome to call me fickle, though I still think you penguin is darling but marwyn the goose with the candy strip socks is darn cute.

@janbb Haha.. well…since Penguins have stubby legs you will need ankle socks instead of knee highs. I’ll have Marwyn go sock shopping for you. ;-P
@rosehips He’s the gooses pajamas.:-)

That goose would look awesome with garlic and rosemary in a white wine sauce a cute little hat.

MIlo here; Marwyn; I raise your socks and trump you with my tutu and slippers.

Maybe @janbb would care to try these on.

@Coloma, how in blazes do you dress up a goose and make it pose for a photo??

@bookish1 Love ‘em!

@cookieman Hang your head in shame my good man! ;-)
@gailcalled Haha..love it, well, we all know Milo & Marwyn are the fluther celebrity pets. I bet they could do the limbo together easily. ;-)
@bookish1 Shhhh….Marwyn doesn’t know he’s a goose, he thinks he’s a dog.
He does, however, only have a 30 minute window indoors before he poops, not fully house trained but a damn fine watch dog and buddy. :-)

I have experienced this personally, and this thread is long enough it could bear being mentioned again:

@Willworkforchocolate said, “Yes, but that’s the problem I’m talking about. Being able to disagree without being an asshat about it. Ask a political or religious question here, and it’s nothing but rudeness.
I have seen new members post a question, seriously asking about something regarding religion, only to be called delusional, stupid, childish, living in a fantasy land, retarded, insane, and so on. The same thing happens on political questions.
That sort of crap drives people away. And the same handful of members are responsible for that behavior. Every. Time. Without. Fail. I know, because I’ve watched it happen over, and over, and over again, for two years.” @KNOWITALL also made excellent points, and that’s been my experience as well.

I want to be inspired by what I do, and by the people I hang with. I’m not inspired by the way you guys treat folks you don’t agree with. I know better than to post any questions here because I don’t want to be treated that way. So I lurk.

It’s also why I rarely respond to questions here anymore…

I do hang around to support newbies who get attacked though. They don’t deserve the way you treat them if you don’t agree with them.

It just isn’t much fun here anymore. This isn’t a holiday thing, it has been like this for a while. /when I first joined there were tons of questions, and every night I could find things I wanted to answer. Now I can read through a day’s questions much more quickly. I feel like fluther will never be what it was. No one’s to blame really, it’s just fluther has been stagnating for a long time, and when that happens to any internet community they tend to fizzle out, even if they never die out completely.

Here are over fifty questions from two hours to titillate you…

http://www.fluther.com/153048/can-you-think-fast-and-make-quick-decisions/#quip2604690

This may not be what you have in mind, but, still…

I always find a question or 3 that I want to answer. And as always there are plenty of fights if one chooses to engage. It might slow a little at Christmas but I don’t notice a big difference. Whatcha all talkin about???

Some people tend to hold certain users, or should I say the less popular ones, to higher standards than they do for their buddies on here. Certain people could ask a very simple question like “what is your favorite color” and they’ll complain that they don’t like the way the question was worded. On the other hand I’ve seen many poorly worded, and even ‘stupid’ questions myself, and they’ll recieve massive amounts of GQ votes and praise for asking such a great question. A great deal of the userbase on here does things that scare people off from asking questions on fluther.

@Paradox what you describe happens in every corner of the world.
Best idea to shrug it off and shoulder your way through.

I am, but I just want to hope that I’m contributing in some way to make fluther more interesting. I’m sure others want to hope that they’re contributing as well.

Today is the busiest day I have seen in a long time. This is nice. =)