A bit ago we discussed the option of a soft merger where we would play nice with each other for a bit and see how that goes before going forward with something more permanent and dangerous.
I'd love to hear a bit about what you guys would hope to get out of it and we can move on from there if there is indeed interest on your side still.
Speaking as somewhat of an outsider: this forum has 2 advantages over the other one.
1. Better moderation.
2. Faster.
As long as those two things are maintained, I suspect most people would be happy. Regarding the moderation issue: almost every thread at the other site seems to turn into a poo slinging contest, with even the "moderators" egging it on, and often starting it.
I do worry the "faster" bit is due largely to having significantly less traffic and less data. Our site happens to run as fast when we are a similar load - the solution on my side may just be upping our hosting plan again. Between the two teams we can get over that minor hurdle though.
Moderation - spot on.
My only concern is that if we combine the forums there will be way too many people asking me questions. I kind of like a small forum environment, because the conversations can get a little more in depth.
As a wish list I would want my own Ask Tom Bishop section on the main site or on the forums (or maybe "Ask a Believer" or "Ask the Zetetic Council"), where people may submit questions and I can publish answers without feeling like I would need to be on the forums 24/7 catering to dozens of threads filled with dozens of people asking endless questions.
A valid concern.
An Ask Tom Bishop section on the new site is a great idea and would take almost no work on my part. I'll try to add it this week.
I do believe there is a bit of confusion here. I am talking about not merging the forums at first and simply having you guys act as a chapter of the main society, maintaining your autonomy. The large majority of folks on our site really don't see any benefit to the merger at all. This includes our entire userbase, as far as I can tell. Really its just me, Wilmore and Pongo that are for this. This will give them a chance to see what benefit there is.
The idea here in part would be to take advantage of some friendly cooperation across things like social media outreach and links to each others sites while at the same time allowing both sides to get accustomed to each other again and hopefully working through old hard feelings. Also, we'd have some time to discuss as a whole issues like branding, who hosts what, what role each of us will have in general and so on.
However, I'm really happy to see that the negative opinions of the merger were mostly due to a minority that have since left the forums (or have yet to voice in?) Perhaps this will change the feelings on the other site as well.