The Future of BoL

[AndAy]

Fellow members of BoL.
You have a decision to make about the future of BoL itself. Corey and I have purchased a server for one year and decided to put BoL onto it. HOWEVER, it is up to you on how BoL will go on.

Option 1: We open BoL to be posted on freely just like in the days of old.
Option 2: We close BoL to everyone and can only be viewed as an archive never to be touched again.

The choice is yours and yours alone. Choose Wisely

[lcg101]

How is this even a question?

[Friendo'Legolas]

This is so sad... I haven't been on in ages, and even though I LOVE BOL, and would hate to see it go, are the youngsters these days even posting?

[AndAy]

I don't know if the youngsters these days even know what a 'forum' is, only their beloved Facebook...

[Tyler]

Which is sad because a forum like this fosters meaningful discussion and actually getting to meet and know new people.. unlike Facebook.

[AndAy]

Exactly. On facebook the most meaningful conversations start and end with 'like'

[Draper]

I am trying to find where I can "like" Tyler's post. It took me a minute to realize where I was.

[Draper]

Part of me would love to see an active BOL again, but it would have to be used by the audience it was originally intended for in order to truly be BOL. Barring the kind of re-birth I was proposing with segragating the membership (arguably of one the least popular ideas in the decade-long history of BOL), I don't see the point in re-opening to posting or new membership. What would be the point of new membership? It wouldn't make any sense. So, if BOL is just going to carry on as a ghost of its former self, I would rather see it an archive than an embarrassment.

[Draper]

Perhaps I should clarify that if it were reborn to accommodate the current homeschooling audience, I would be happy to be actively involved again. I have more homeschooling connections than ever.

[cak1-11]

[CelticKnott]

Word needs to be spread that there are even options to be had. Most people have grieved deeply and moved on ;)

[David]

Sure, I'd use it again. My computer and I are pretty much one and the same nowadays.

[Sarah]

Hey, I never stopped using it. Even when I was in Europe having you know, a life, I still used BOL. :P However, I don't see us getting many (if any) new members. Because of this, maybe we do need to redefine what BOL actually is and acknowledge that it's a hangout for old, crusty, graduated home schoolers.

I would even go so far as to say that BOL's recent "death" may give cause for a separate board for new, younger members. In a word, that maybe Draper's suggestion from way back when would actually be appropriate now. Let's not kid ourselves here-- some of us are nearly 30. Several of us are married and a few have kids of our own. We're not going to have any thing in common with 15 year old new members, if we get new members at all. It does seems a bit silly now to expect that a resurrection of BOL will mean anything but a place for grown up graduates to chat.

My proposal(s) would be to either

a) We redefine what BOL is... We stop spreading the word to new, young members and change the definition from "Uniting Catholic Home schoolers Worldwide" to "Uniting a Couple Dozen People Who Were Home schooled 5-10 Years Ago Worldwide." but otherwise leave as is.
b) We redefine BOL for ourselves as above, but create a new forum for new, younger members. This way, we get to keep our old topics and jokes and the youngsters also have a chance to create their own "culture." I don't know if we'd even get new members at all... I just think it would be a shame that this generation of home schooled kids won't have BOL.

But look, if we're going to bring it back, [b]I'm going to be slightly peeved if those of you who have just voted to bring it back post like crazy for a couple weeks and then disappear[/b], leaving BOL a ghost town like before. I know we're all busy-- I'm busy. I literally LIVE at my job, I have real life friends, I am learning another language... but for as much time as we spend on facebook, twitter and reading Catholic mommy blogs, you can spare a couple minutes to check in on BOL.

Honestly, I think redefining what BOL might make that easier. Our topics can be a little more "adult," giving us room to write topics that might interest us more than "Who has had gelato?"

[Tyler]

Yeah, I'm really liking the idea of splitting the Bored. I think the reason everyone hated it when it was proposed was because it was perceived as "As soon as you turn 18 (or whatever the dividing line was), you have to be placed in a separate group of people." What if some of your good friends were still 17? You couldn't talk to them anymore? I don't know the specific details of the idea.. but that's what it seemed like to me.

However, if we just have a space for us old fogeys to converse, and then open up a New World for all younger and newer members to thrive organically, I think it would work out quite well. I think the fact that we still had some older members on the Bored was what was turning away lots of youngsters near BOL's recent end.

Maybe we could even open up our section to new members, too.. but what would our gimmick be? Former home schoolers? Traditional Catholic Adults? (or at least Pretty Conservative Catholic Adults) Hmmm...

[Sarah]

Also, if we resurrect the board, we should put the Easter banner up.

Get it?

Cause BOL was betrayed by AndAy/Corey/William/Eric/Joe, abandoned by all its members and left to be sacrificed under AndAy/Corey/William/Eric/Joe... and then it will have risen... kind of like Jesus...

I kill me. XD

[David]

[Sarah]

YOU NEVER TALK TO ME. OH EM GEE.

[David]

Or you never talk to me, Aha!

[Salogel]

Being back on here... it's like return to Neverland. Getting back in touch with my past. Happy day!

[Tyler]

@Salogel: My thoughts exactly!

@Sarah: Communication is a two-way street, Sarah!!

But seriously David.. I haven't heard from you in ages! What's up with that? :P

[David]

[ninjacowgirl]

I think there's a market on the Internet for a community of Catholic homeschool grads. Like what the Seton Alumni Board was trying to be (but I think failed. Especially since it just turned into another highschool board. Is that place even active?). Regardless, it's name is far less cool. I mean, there's phatmass, and then there's stuff like the Catholic Answers board, but those are all ginormously huge. Highschool boards, Secular boards, and overly massive boards all have their own particular brands of immaturity, and it's refreshing to have a place that's immature in the right sort of way.

Not that I came on BOL outrageously often when it was up, and I'm certainly a new[er] generation than most of y'all, but it was like there was a void on the Internet when BOL was gone.

As for

[quote]I'm going to be slightly peeved if those of you who have just voted to bring it back post like crazy for a couple weeks and then disappear[/quote]

If we're being realistic here, I'm not even gonna post like crazy for a couple weeks. :P

[CiCi]

Salogel wrote:
> Being back on here... it's like return to Neverland. Getting back in touch with my
> past. Happy day!


I miss y'all!! I'd definitely get back on if it came back. Maybe I can get my little brothers to join too. =-o

[Tyler]

@David: To be honest, probably just because you aren't very active on Facebook. :P

[Tyler]

I know Adam opened up this poll just asking if we wanted BOL to be awakened again, so I may be asking for too much here, but I'm going to go off of what Draper suggested about rebirthing BOL and work through some ideas.

So since we all would like to see BOL alive again, let's completely assess the situation:

BOL has a problem, and that is inactivity.

Why is this? Because its core group - its regulars - have all graduated, therefore their friends and connections have all graduated also, therefore they are unable to keep bringing in new members, due to the fact that it's a high school board. Because it seems that part of the attraction of the Bored for people to keep coming back is the ability to meet new people, the Bored fizzles out. The graduated members have tried to restore activity to the Bored, but their very presence has deterred new members, due to the fact that it's a high school board.

A solution to this, for BOL to grow again, would be to get rid of the older members. But BOL, and the friends we have made here, are very dear to us. So this might not be optimal.

The only other solution, I think, is to segregate the Bored. We could open up a brand new region, with no old threads, but a mirror of our BOL in structure, for the younger members. This would probably have to be closed to older members for a better sense of security (because older-member-access was scaring away new members in the past). We would need young leadership (probably high school upperclassmen or maaaybe college kids) to moderate said region, but I don't think that would be too hard to find.

The region for older members would just be the BOL as we know it, with all the former old threads and everything. Younger members could gain access to this at a certain age, 18 or so, but would not lose access to the young members Bored. (Maybe it would be best to shut them out of the young member Bored later on.. but I'm not sure at what point.)

We could advertise the older member section as "Catholic Homeschool Grads", or if we think that might not attract many new people, perhaps widen the base to somehow still encompass the um... "type of people" that we are (typically fairly conservative Catholics, basically). :P Like Madeline said, there is a void that needs filled in the online message board world. Catholic Answers is fairly orthodox, but it's huge, and doesn't really foster much non-religious discussion. And many of its members are really old. Not many college students or young adults. Phatmass is a bit better about having young adults and college students, but it's still not as collectively young as BOL is, and it has a lot of crazy liberals. ;)

To the admins: would you want to do something like this? Would it even be possible, technologically/logistically?