• We have updated the guidelines regarding posting political content: please see the stickied thread on Website Issues.

Does the FT message board belong to THEM?

S

Stu73

Gone But Not Forgotten
(ACCOUNT RETIRED)
Joined
Feb 16, 2012
Messages
257
Hi, forgive the provocative title, but as an avid devotee of Forteana, and after several years of following this messageboard, i have a question. WHY do most of you bother?? I've seen the most ridiculous, self-serving, demented, harmful conspiracy shite discussed to death. On the other hand, reasonable queries have been met with patrony and downright abuse. There seems to be half a dozen magi on this site who dictate what is "dellusional fantasy" and what is "acceptable". I could give numerous examples, but, as all views are subject to analysis (something the magi on here seem oblivious to) what's the point?? . Oh well, just a thought, expect my log-in to stop working any time now lol
 
I'm glad you were brave enough to out them. The mods are all ALIEN LIZARDS! Stu Neville is a sentient Komodo Dragon! :roll:
 
You realize, of course, that your recent arrival and 'why bother' message are all too easily construed as something 'they' would try - right? :twisted:

But seriously ...

I believe I know what you mean ... Sometimes it seems the more serious (or at least reasonable) discussions of fortean phenomena get overwhelmed by rants and barbs on sensationalistic topics that have already been beaten to death.

The key to countering this trend is participation, and you've taken the first step ...

Unless, of course, you're actually working for 'them' ... :shock:
 
You can spot them you know.................they copy and paste articles from the devils bib.....i mean the Daily Mirror and the Guardian lol. Seriously people, wierd, random, inexplicable stuff happens. Dave Cameron being the love child of JFK and Joe Stalin covering up Alien anal probes ain't it.
 
Thanks Stu...you've had the balls to say what I have been wanting to say for the last 18 months.

I've read this board since the early days, and watched its decline from that of a semi serious discussion site for anomalous phenomena to a platform for those with more time on their hands than most to demolish such semi serious discussion with reams of links and unanswerable requests for proof. Such as trying to kill a discussion by asking for proof for (a fairly reasonable) assumption.

Here's hoping that you don't lose your log in....this board needs more people like you. :)
 
I'm only posting here, this not being my sort of area at all, because what's been said rings a bell with me. I don't mean I've noticed what's being discussed as a problem in others here because I haven't, just that personally I've recently realised how easy it is to change from a healthy sceptic to a habitual nay sayer. It creeps up on you.

I don't include Stalin's ape army in that, that's still a load of bollucks that gets right on my tits every time I hear about it.
 
Oh, I dunno, I think there's still a balance here, obviously you're not going to agree with every post but Forteana is somewhere between gullibility and outright dismissiveness which can be tricky at the best of times. I don't think there was ever a "golden age" here, I can remember heated discussions for as long as the board's been in existence. It ebbs and flows, really.
 
Stu73 said:
Hi, forgive the provocative title, but as an avid devotee of Forteana, and after several years of following this messageboard, i have a question. WHY do most of you bother??...
Click to expand...

Because, for example, on the Ghosts forum alone (my personal favourite) there are somewhere over a thousand separate threads (and Ghosts is by no means the most populated forum) - and if you browse through those threads you'll find that the ones that have collapsed under the weight of hurled teddy bears is proportionally tiny.

Surely it would be more constructive to get involved in one of the huge number of discussions there are to be had than it is just to tell us how rubbish it all is.
 
I think the main thing here is that more people need to participate, rather than lurking.
Post stuff - new threads and replies to other people.

As far as I know, there's no clique and no select circle of 'mages'. Just a few people trying to pass the time.

Sorry if that sounded like a debunking... :oops:
 
Mythopoeika said:
I think the main thing here is that more people need to participate, rather than lurking.
Post stuff - new threads and replies to other people.

As far as I know, there's no clique and no select circle of 'mages'. Just a few people trying to pass the time.

Sorry if that sounded like a debunking... :oops:
Click to expand...

There are a lot of non-members browsing the FTMB. At one stage yeterday, more than 40 guests.

I wish they would join up and join in. You won't be eaten by an Alien Lizard.

Honest ...
 
I don't include Stalin's ape army in that, that's still a load of bollucks that gets right on my tits every time I hear about it.
Click to expand...

Easy for you to say but when I was a Trot we lived in fear of them.
 
ramonmercado said:
Mythopoeika said:
I think the main thing here is that more people need to participate, rather than lurking.
Post stuff - new threads and replies to other people.

As far as I know, there's no clique and no select circle of 'mages'. Just a few people trying to pass the time.

Sorry if that sounded like a debunking... :oops:
Click to expand...

There are a lot of non-members browsing the FTMB. At one stage yeterday, more than 40 guests.

I wish they would join up and join in. You won't be eaten by an Alien Lizard.

Honest ...
Click to expand...
I personally joined after quite a number of years of on and off browsing, using the boards to help research various subjects for hobby projects. I was looking into the gold bricking stuff at the time I joined.
 
WHY do most of you bother??
Click to expand...

A better question would be why do you bother reading it if that's your opinion of it?

You won't be eaten by an Alien Lizard.

Honest ...
Click to expand...

Absolutely not... they lose interest when they're done with the savage beating and gangrape.
 
i've posted on here after lurking for a goodly while as it seemed that it was possibly THE best place to recount experiences that would have most people sidling away looking for the nearest exit.
Sometimes when i've posted and it fades away into some dark cobwebbed corner of the forum without a sniff of a reply i try to ignore even the idea of threadkiller striking again :roll: , but when i'm reading through some long forgotten post and the subject matches exactly some peculiar experience that happened to me years and years ago which leads to an exchange, or i put in a reply and get some poster telling me that this very thing has happened to them-there's the gold, thats why.
 
Yup, exactly. That's happened to me lots of times. I've put up an account of some weird thing that's happened, thinking it's just me, and then had loads of responses.

Sometimes though it IS just me! :lol:

I keep in mind that the weirdness can be in our own heads, convincing as it often seems. Some experiences I've read about on here suggest the onset of TLE or similar and I have occasionally pm'd people to ask them to consider seeing their doctor. There is often a rational explanation for what at first seems unnatural or even supernatural.

Nobody has all the answers. I certainly don't. I'm ready with the questions though. ;)
 
Stu73 said:
Oh well, just a thought, expect my log-in to stop working any time now lol
Click to expand...
No. The mods will leave you alone. We don't ban people for holding views that they can back up. You're thinking of other sites.
ramonmercado said:
I'm glad you were brave enough to out them. The mods are all ALIEN LIZARDS! Stu Neville is a sentient Komodo Dragon! :roll:
Click to expand...
Aww, and there was me thinking everyone had forgotten...
Mythopoeika said:
As far as I know, there's no clique and no select circle of 'mages'. Just a few people trying to pass the time.
Click to expand...
Correct. In all seriousness we've done our best to break up cliques when they've formed. And as other have said, overall this place is actually very balanced. There are those who are at the sceptical end of the Fortean spectrum, and those at the more credulous end, but most on here inhabit the middle ground.

There are no "mages" who dictate board opinion. I'd know about it if there were. There are posters who are quite prolific and have a strongly defined opinion-set, and they argue their cases persuasively, but there are usually equally articulate voices that can counter-argue. As said, there are some threads that virtually no-one finds in the least bit credible, but that's the nature of Forteana - each case on its own merit. If you think something's absurd, say so, but more importantly say why. gncxx's observation about ebb and flow is absolutely right, it's always happened and always will - and to expand on what Spookdaddy said, there are over half a million posts on this board. I've read the vast majority of them: and on average, this place doesn't plunge too far in either direction. Individual threads may do, especially as you say Conspiracy ones, but that's kind of a special case on the forums - enough in fact to generate entire threads discussing why it's so different (there's a particularly good one here.)

Finally, I think (hope) people spend time on here because they want to.

Thank you for your observations. Any further comments welcome :).
 
As a fairly recent joiner with a somewhat bizarre mix of views, I'd say I can see why the OP might think as he/she does. But I've found that even though there are many robust defenders of - lets say 'orthodox' - positions out there, they do respond rationally and politely when you try to reply sensibly back.

The thing to do is to stand up for yourself in a polite way, pick your battles, and accept you aren't going to 'win' every discussion even if you 'know' you are right!

And I'd like to slip in a thank you to those who do contribute to the discussions - like I suppose many people this board for me is a compensation for not having the opportunity for this kind of discussion in 'real life' and I value the various opinions greatly.
 
Stu73 said:
WHY do most of you bother??
Click to expand...

Probably for the same reason you posted a question asking us why we bother.

And how long would the site last if no-one posted?

A lot of FT stuff is a bit like the weather forecast. You don't really pay too much attention to it throughout the year as most of it is what you'd expect. Then one day, you'll get some extreme weather and the usual pattern doesn't work. So if I'm caught in a Fall of Frogs, I doubt the BBC weatherman would be my first point of contact. I'd probably go here.

I have a DailyMaul link for that somewhere........
 
Stu73 said:
Seriously people, wierd, random, inexplicable stuff happens. Dave Cameron being the love child of JFK and Joe Stalin covering up Alien anal probes ain't it.
Click to expand...

But the point of a discussion board such as this is to mull over whether such 'random, inexplicable stuff' does actually happen. ;)
 
To be honest, I'm not sure who these Magi are supposed to be. I've been on this site for ages and while there's some who appear quite sceptical and argue their viewpoint eloquently and intelligently, some also may have reported personal accounts they're at a loss to explain.

But in the end, I suppose it comes down to your own expectations of the subject of Forteana and what this site is and what it has to offer. escargot1 puts it beautifully when she says she's ready with the questions and looking around other sites this seems like a fairly civilised place by comparison. Not prone to too many hysterics - which makes it a pretty good forum for getting an er-um-er sort of balanced opinion.

Besides all that - there's alot of old heads here. Which is handy when you're pondering 'new' phenomena like which Pyramid Scheme to buy into and why your friend of a friend had to run away from the maniac bloodstained hookhanded man in Lovers Lane.
 
i stopped bothering, becouse its a waste of everyones time, my time, the board admins time, its not interactive enough, it needs realtime chat, instead of post and run tactics, no one ever changes their mind what ever the arguement/discussion,,,

it becomes personal eventually as well



i don't know who THEM are , but if THEY are here !, then THEY are winning, having said that i might be one of THEM now , which means THEY won, becouse i dont post anymore !

have a nice week folks
 
Having read the site for years, I agree with the OP that the threads are generally dominated by a group of people who are often dull & over-prolific. I've also felt that there was a group mentality that can lead to seemingly concerted sarcastic attacks over petty issues. Maybe some of the more high profile contributors could ask themselves why they feel so compelled to dominate?
 
I have to disagree with the OP. I have been here for years [even before my 2nd log in] and never strayed forums because I am not a very sociable person. A couple of month ago I tried some other forums and MAN are they bad.

FTMB is definitively the most sane forum around when it comes to anything paranormal. Thanks to the people on here I have to say. They [we] are keeping it real. I believe that almost everyone the OP is referring to would love to see a ghost or a UFO but they also want something more tangible than you can get on the 'other' forums. There is nothing wrong with that at all, it isn't scepticism but being fed up with crap evidence or basic trolling. They [we] soon weed out the weak links from decent posts and I am grateful for that.

Having been on other [bigger] forums feels like walking into a loony bin. Its full of complete nutters. And they all whinge and moan that others are nasty to them. Coming back here is like coming home. Most people on here want to believe but not blindly, and that seems to be the OPs problem. [Edited to add: I mean here that the OP has problems with people not believing and probing. What I don't mean is that the OP is one of those that are naive or gullible].

I am so getting fed up with the other forums and the gullability and naivite of their posters. Even when things are explained with evidence they just rattle on about god and nibiru [whatever that is] and how they are indigo children :roll: or completely believe everything that is posted on youtube. It drives me bonkers and I come to the OP's conclusion "why bother?" so I have stopped bothering a lot and just read and shake my head.

However here is different. We want to know and not just believe. I love this forum... :grouphug: sniff
 
BlackRiverFalls said:
I'm sorry, but I can;t keep a straight face anymore.

This is really shite trolling.
Click to expand...

Who me? :shock:
 
I'm trying to figure out who 'The Mages' are. Can't say I've ever read a post here at the FTMB and thought 'Wow, that poster must be a mage of some kind to think like that'.

The FTMB (and the now sadly defunct Wunderkabinett) have always seemed the most sane and interesting places to discuss oddities. Other forums just seem too much on one side of any given particular fence.
 
BlackRiverFalls said:
Who me? Shocked
Click to expand...

F*ck no.

I'm talking about the footwear infestation.
Click to expand...

Sorry I don't get you...at all. Is this supposed to be sarcasm?
Every word I wrote above I meant, if you knew the story behind it, you would feel stupid doubting me, so how was I trolling?
More importantly, how is it NOT trolling when you call my post sh*te and then answer with very weak sarcasm?
Do not ever call me a troll again, because I never have and never will be one. I love playing Devil's advocate and I do speak my mind, what I don't do is deliberately start... unlike some. :roll:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top