I pretty much agree, but FE people will need to make a bit more effort.
Over my time at TFES if you add up all the accounts I have ever had, I've likely dropped more than 20,000 posts onto this forum. I had one account with over 13,000 on its own. How many responses do you think I should give? What's my quota?
The fact I've responded to every question you could possible ask before, had every debate and know what your response to my reply will be before I post it ... as Tom says, makes it very boring for me. I reply as a matter of community service because I realise if no one does ... TFES will die as there is no debate.
People don't come here to chat in AR or CN. They come here to chat to flat earthers and tell them that they are stupid. And that's fine. But what you'll find is that the 'old guard' as Tom puts it eventually gravitate to the other forums and enjoy debate there more.
In the sense Tom is talking about a debate society ... lets remove beliefs and look at that in cold hard terms.
You meet me, swords drawn for a debate in the upper forums for a debate on earth's shape. I have one hand tied behind my back. I have an 18th century text as a reference, a deliberately vague FAQ that provokes debate, a woolly wiki written by us, the odd youtube video made by Lord knows which lunatic, and interesting anomalies I can find online. You have the entire weight of the scientific world behind you. Pretty much anything you google will give you the answer to your side of the debate. Any scientific journal, any news report, any accredited organisation ... it isn't a debate you should lose. Its the sandbox.
Now after a while, you'd think you'd realise this and think, mmmm. Maybe I should take Baby Thork or Tom on in one of the other forums? Convince Parsifal that BSD is useless. Force Hollicron to admit star citizen scammed him. Where it is about an opinion and there is no right or wrong. Religion. Technology. Politics. we have these forums for a reason. I know the rules of engagement now. I know they are slippery buggers. I know they will try to win at all costs and bring in all kinds of obfuscation, trickery, word play and occasionally astound me with something I didn't know. And this is a fair fight.
Then once you ace that, have a go at fighting with one arm behind your back. Prove the improvable.
Level ForumSandbox Being a round earther
Normal Debate in any other forum.
God mode Win as a flat earther.
I have always thought ... The flat Earth Society. Come for the flat earth, stay for the society. You think I come here after 10 years because I want to tell people how flat earth is? That isn't the reason. I couldn't care less what some stranger on the internet thinks. I like keeping up with what all the other people on this site I have known for years are up to. Their new jobs, the new computer they bought, their marriage plans, their lives. It is a community ... a society.
We've always had a 'graduation' problem. Weaning round earthers off the flat earth forums after they made 2000+ posts about how round earth is. Yes, we get it, you think earth is round. Now, come prove to me Islam is not as good as Judaism. Debate the merits of sanctions on N Korea with me. Tell me why I bought the wrong computer. Teach me something for a change. There isn't anything you can tell me about earth science ... really 10 years, someone mentioned your point to me before. But they don't. They don't want to be a part of the community. They instead think they are performing a public service by shouting "the earth is round, don't listen to them" on the forums. Our attempts at humour are lost on them. They don't see when they get their chains yanked. They blindly go on trying to prove a moon near Jupiter somehow proves earth to be round.
For years I tried to get Markjo to just settle down and stop shouting the answers to everything in the upper forums. But he just wasn't smart enough to understand why if he makes the response to me, it deters others from doing the same. Let them use their brains, let them cut their teeth.
Lord Dave was another example. For years and years and years he was in the upper forums championing globularism. Why? He finally got it. He moved up a level. You'll not see him in the upper forum much now ... he's debating and conversing with everyone else.
But getting people to back the FE side ... its a hard sell. They seem to think it dishonest. A compromise of morals. I don't think they realise the public service the flat earth society provides. It brings young people interested in science to a place where they can EXPLAIN why something works the way it does. Under the most rigorous testing. It does the thing schools don't ... it teaches thorough understanding, not parrot fashion learning. It teaches problem solving, encourages you to research answers for yourself and get to the point where you can articulate the science to someone else. Its the standard "describe to an alien" format. Describe to a flat earther why earth is round. It encompasses all kinds of topics. Geology, physics, maths, history, art, politics ... and you do it in the safety that if you make a mistake, you are both anonymous AND you aren't the idiot claiming earth to be flat. I've shown so many aspects of science and nature to people over the years and debated it with them, and I haven't convinced a single person the earth is flat no matter how hard I tried. But they do leave knowing the difference between a full moon and a lunar eclipse, or the difference between centripetal or centrifugal force, or how far the sun is or how hot, or the composition of the atmosphere or whatever they had to learn thoroughly so they could explain it to the alien. And it is why I have so much time for Tom Bishop. He's reached more kids and adults that want to broaden their knowledge and taught more science than any teacher you could think of. He has a huge reach, engages everyone who ventures here, gives people individual one on one lessons ... the guy is a bloody saint. There is nothing ignoble about being a flat earther. Its 21st century digital education that reaches kids that might otherwise show no interest at school. It engages the unengageable. Provokes learning from those who may sit quiet in class. And apart from which, if I'm to gain real conversations in the normal forums, we know we have to run through the sandbox with you first.
But I'm not as prolific as once I was. I'm tired. I like to see more FErs in the upper forums carrying on where some of the old guard left off. I just can't face the Bedford Level experiment one more time.