Should we support login via social media (Facebook, Google, Yahoo, etc)?

At this current juncture this is probably one of the few places where proponents [who aren't dedicated to isolated groupings like the Tom Cambpell forums, and also who don't/can't go to Esalen and other such places] don't have to endlessly debate pseudo-skeptic talking points and [can thus] discuss subjects at the "next level".

You're right, this forum is a kind of haven where people can get to have interesting discussions, exploring all sorts of "what if" scenarios without having to first do battle with those who try to claim it is all nonsense. I like to see this with a sense of optimism, even having the ability to have these conversations is a positive thing.

I'm sure technically it could be reversed easily. (I'm guessing). However there are human-beings involved, what would we do with people? It could end up causing bad feeling among those caught up in it. If we were intending to ban a particular member that would just be par for the course, but if we'd like them to stay, it might be more stressful all round. Just my opinion, I can't know in advance of course.

I meant more like ‘could we get back to where we were’ sort of thing. Or will it be like taking the nasty genie out of the bottle? Will it our ‘The Great Reset’? 

Just stepping back for a moment from the technicalities of the suggested idea, I'd like to consider the size of our active membership here. This is a relatively small group, there may be a higher number of registered members, but those who take part regularly are not so many. In that sense we're more like a family. I think we should also acknowledge that we've lost a few significant members over the past year or so. I don't think we can easily replace any of those members, so for me the priority needs to be to care for our existing membership and not take any steps which might lead to further departures.

I do think there is room for more members, for a number of reasons. One is Stan's comment above, that some of the existing discussions are too detailed or complex for those of us who may want a more everyday sort of conversation about various topics. Another is that somewhere out there I'm sure there are people with interesting stories to tell, I'm interested in people's personal experiences of psi or survival-related occurences. These things turn up sometimes as intriguing one or two line comments underneath newspaper articles, and I'm left wanting to hear more. So we know there are people out there who could contribute and enrich our forum. However, simply tweaking the mechanism around the doorway may not be sufficient to bring on board such new members. Would it do any harm? That I don't know.

I meant more like ‘could we get back to where we were’ sort of thing. Or will it be like taking the nasty genie out of the bottle? Will it our ‘The Great Reset’? 

I'm not quite sure what you are getting at, if my previous reply missed the mark. Would you care to elaborate a little. (Also I've no idea what ‘The Great Reset’ is).

I'm not quite sure what you are getting at, if my previous reply missed the mark. Would you care to elaborate a little. (Also I've no idea what  ‘The Great Reset’ is).

In the first sentence in your previous reply to me you said “I'm sure technically it could be reversed easily. (I'm guessing)”, I was just attempting to clarify that it wasn’t the technical aspect that bothered me so much as the possibility of it bringing irreversible changes to the forum. 

The Great Reset is something that has been banded about in recent times, sometimes called a conspiracy theory. However as Russell Brand points out in a video I added yesterday in the ‘hidden forums’ it can’t really be called a conspiracy theory if it’s talked openly about in powerful circles, as it is apparently a theme in Davos this year. World Economic Forum (WEF) related stuff. 

Edit: In fact I used the video to open a new thread about ‘The Great Reset’, hoping people will discuss it. It’s in the ‘non-psi related Scientific controversies’ bit, if you’re interested. 
https://psiencequest.net/forums/thread-t...or-fiction

somewhere out there I'm sure there are people with interesting stories to tell, I'm interested in people's personal experiences of psi or survival-related occurences.

Coming from mainstream social media, this would worry me a lot.  For an extreme example, imagine Tik Tok video makers coming here and talking about their made up experiences as if they were real.  I expect it will be down to me to call them out and become PQs pariah like I was with Psst.  Either that or I would just not bother coming back here because it would be pointless trying to discuss a topic that has become so muddied by sensation seekers.

Coming from mainstream social media, this would worry me a lot.  For an extreme example, imagine Tik Tok video makers coming here and talking about their made up experiences as if they were real.  I expect it will be down to me to call them out and become PQs pariah like I was with Psst.  Either that or I would just not bother coming back here because it would be pointless trying to discuss a topic that has become so muddied by sensation seekers.

Fair comment, though I don't think that represents what I had in mind. I was just acknowledging that somewhere out there, there are people with something interesting to share. Likewise, though I value everyone here, I'm not assuming we are the entirety, we are just a sampling of something. But having said that, I'm not suggesting we should rock the boat or do anything about it.

I don't really know what to say about such a change. The forum is quiet but is that a bad thing ? What exactly do we want; hundreds of conversations going on all the time. Conversations about what ? We've done most things to death, haven't we. I know I'm guilty of that, anyway. Oh not another one of tim's fucking NDE's, jeez. 

It might work, it might be a disaster and it might be neither.

If we want to attempt getting new quality members we should do new interviews.

The interviewee will likely mention the interview in their social media, drawing those who are already interested in our topics.

Admittedly this is much easier said than done, but I suspect it might be the best way to get people who are most akin to our current group.

[Laird]

A little update:

Although shortly after this discussion, I did install and enable the Isango social media login plugin, and set things up on Facebook so new members could log in to our board using their Facebook credentials, nobody ever did sign up, and Facebook has just disabled this possibility because we don't have a privacy policy with a prominent link to it, which was too much of a hoop for me to want to jump through for something nobody uses anyway - so I've disabled Isango.

I'd been meaning to set it up for Google logins too, but I doubt that that mechanism would have been used any more than the Facebook one was, so it's probably not worth the effort - not to mention that the enthusiasm from our community for this feature, if the posts in this thread are anything to go by, was lukewarm at best.