Should we drop the "freethinker" focus?

Chris OConnor

Should we drop the "freethinker" focus?

Lately I've been thinking about how we can make BookTalk a more appealing community to a broader audience. Most of our books have nothing to do with religion, so are we being foolish by calling ourselves "the freethinker's book discussion community?"

Perhaps we should simply have "Quality books, good people, and great conversations" as our slogan. 90% of the planet believes in a god of some sort, so aren't we eliminating a huge segment by being so selective?

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm an atheist and I'd be happy to have a community of nothing but nonbelievers. But it isn't working. We have too little activity and far too few members. People aren't joining fast enough. We need a change.

The other night I woke up and logged on to BookTalk. We had 20 visitors at that moment. Not a single one joined. This is ridiculous folks.

Are these people seeing the words "freethinker" and "atheist" and "secular" and running for the hills? If so we've got a serious problem, because atheists aren't joining in sufficient quantity to make up for the fact that we're such a niche market.

I am proposing we drop the freethinker aspect and aspire to be the best nonfiction book discussion community around. I'd appreciate quality feedback from as many of you as possible.

And consider things from my perspective too. You might personally be an atheist, but how often do you post? How often do you donate cash to support BookTalk? How many freethinker friends have you introduced to BookTalk that have joined and are now active?

We need a major change and I am asking for your help. Please take this poll AND make a detailed post explaining your opinion.

Should we drop the "freethinker" focus?

Results (total votes = 19):


Absolutely not.	7 / 36.8%

I'm undecided.	4 / 21.1%

Yes, go for it.	7 / 36.8%

Other	1 / 5.3%

MadArchitect

I voted other. It doesn't terribly matter to me one way or another whether you drop the freethinker slant. And honestly, I wonder if the "nonfiction book" aspect of the site isn't driving more people away than the "atheist" aspect. I'd hazard to say that, among people who frequent internet message boards, more are atheist than avid nonfiction readers.

pctacitus

Undecided, I see merit for and against taking it out.

Doug Larson: “The cat could very well be man's best friend but would never stoop to admitting it."

Chris OConnor

I've been thinking about this all day and night and am growing increasingly interested in changing our business model. We only have a dozen active posters after years and years of being online. This shows me that our current plan isn't working.

Mad, you have a good point. All day I've been milling this over and I am starting to think that we should incorporate fiction into the mix too. No, we would not "mix" it in with our nonfiction, but we would add it right into the site along with the nonfiction discussions.

What if we did a fiction book concurrently every quarter with our nonfiction selection? Look at our home page. See up top where there is a box for the "Past Book" and one for the "Current Book?" What if the left box was for "Fiction" and the right for "Nonfiction?"

We could then have a discussion every quarter for the fiction book happening right alongside the nonfiction book. And those of us not into the fiction aspect can stay away from that forum.

The benefits would be increased traffic, book sales and overall activity. Many fiction readers would drift over and participate in the nonfiction discussion, just as many nonfiction participants might give the fiction selection a shot.

Any opinions?

Chris OConnor

I'm exploring Oprah's Book Club right now and am not excited about the idea of fiction now. The crap they read would not fly with most of you.

Maybe sticking with nonfiction is the key - that way we are different from Oprah's and other book clubs. I don't know of a single nonfiction book club online other than us.

pctacitus · Posted: Sun Oct 23, 2005 10:43 pm Post subject: Re: fiction?

As I recall, many were willing and even desirous of adding fiction. Whereas we seem unsure of removing freethinker. It might be a better first step.

Doug Larson: “The cat could very well be man's best friend but would never stoop to admitting it."

Chris OConnor · Posted: Sun Oct 23, 2005 11:02 pm Post subject: Re: fiction?

It wouldn't make sense to add fiction, but remain a freethinker discussion community. To me the first step would be to eliminate the freethinker element, but we could do both at the same time.

I just can't get excited about fiction book discussions. Most people read crap and I am not interested in running a crappy book discussion community. Check out what they read on Oprah's club.

MadArchitect · Posted: Sun Oct 23, 2005 11:15 pm Post subject: Re: fiction?

I would be interested in contributing if a fiction component were added, but I think a quick scan of one particular poll in the "Additional Readings" forum would suggest that the majority of votes would likely go towards genre fiction. Not that I have anything against genre fiction per se, but I think our conversations would be more potentially interesting if we restricted ourselves to fairly serious literature. I don't think you could impose that as a rule, though.

If you do decide to add a fiction component, Chris, what I would suggest is that you stagger the votes by a month or so, and have as a requirement that nominations for fiction tie the fiction reading to the non-fiction reading. That way, the topics will have at least something in common. No one will be required to read or discuss both, or to discuss them in terms of one another, but it will make it easier to choose fiction books -- some sort of criteria is going to be necessary with so broad a range of titles -- and give us the possibility of discussing them in terms of one another.

0Lion0Eyes0 · Posted: Mon Oct 24, 2005 12:38 am Post subject: Re: fiction?

All I have to say is give it a try and see if it works. Really makes no difference to me. If it isn't alienating the current members, trying some different things doesn't hurt.

Chris OConnor · Posted: Mon Oct 24, 2005 1:46 am Post subject: Re: fiction?

What is genre fiction?

IndigoWords · Posted: Mon Oct 24, 2005 2:38 am Post subject: Re: fiction?

Genre fiction is a specific type of fiction writing as opposed to literature. It's the romance novels, the westerns, the science fiction or, my category, erotica. The books are written to appeal to a specific audience and are written in a fairly predictible fashion.

I am not opposed to adding fiction to the mix as long as it's stuff that gets people thinking.

I opposed the name change only because it is what attracted me to this community in the first place. I really wanted to be in place where the majority were non-believers. My only concern is that the board would get more people who were believers and who would attempt to thump their bibles here instead of trying to have any type of meaningful conversation. I encounter this in almost every forum I've ever visited and after awhile it just gets really tiring.

I'm not an avid poster, only because I don't feel I know enough to contribute in any meaningful way but I like to read what others post and that's how I learn. The only thing I can think of concerning a large number of visitors but no posting action is that others may feel the same way.

Anyway to wrap up this rambling thought, Chris this is your board and if you feel a name change might attract new blood, go for it. The only thing I would suggest is to continue with the focus on logical thinking and avoid having the forum becoming inudated with faith based debating.

Edited by: IndigoWords at: 10/24/05 3:40 am

Chris OConnor

Maybe we need some recruiters. And I'm not even remotely kidding. We need members that care about BookTalk posting in other forums and dragging people back here. There is a book forum over there and we ought to have our members posting, with BookTalk's URL in their signature, in an attempt to entice some of the book lovers back to our community. I know you have done this for us Nick, but we're obviously in need of more help.

Jeremy1952

Chris OConnor

Quote:
If we were to add democratically selected fiction there is no way to avoid this place turning into an Oprah-like book club. We'd have people we really don't want as members.

Nonsense. The books aren’t democratically selected now; the list is arbitrarily made up from the suggestions submitted, and sometimes not even that. And owner and or moderators can always say “not appropriate”, just as we do with non fiction

Quote:
This isn't a book just for freethinkers.

nobody nowhwere ain’t never said “just”. As your list makes very clear, very few books are just for freethinkers… in fact, Jacoby would have been wasting her time if only freethinkers were willing to read her book. That doesn’t change the usefulness of having a stated perspective.

An example of perspective: Suppose we decided to read the Bhadava Gita. Freethinker discussion: Look at this assertion, similar to those made in Christianity, that causes people to attach to these ideas. Open discussion: Wow, this is really convincing, maybe we should all be (whatever religion the Gita is, I forget)

If you make yourself really small, you can externalize virtually everything. Daniel Dennett, 1984

Chris OConnor

Here is a thread about Guns, Germs and Steel. There is a handful of people that obviously read good books, but don't even know we exist. Anyone wanna help get these people to join? We cannot simply spam other forums, but a few posts each month would help tremendously.

Jeremy, good points.

Mr. Pessimistic

Yes...I have done just that Chris...

www.skepticforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=250

I was posting excerpts of my posts at booktalk...and the last post was an invite...no-body took it up.

Mr. P.

The one thing of which I am positive is that there is much of which to be negative - Mr. P.

The pain in hell has two sides. The kind you can touch with your hand; the kind you can feel in your heart...Scorsese's "Mean Streets"

I came to kick ass and chew Bubble Gum...and I am all out of Bubble Gum - They Live, Roddy Piper


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