Why has the forum come to a snail's pace?

[may22]

Thanks, job. I know you give an enormous amount to so many through your volunteer work here.

Should I email Virginia? I almost did the other day but wasn't sure if she was the right one. I've been trying daily to log on through my phone and the same message pops up. I wonder if there is something wrong with the mobile version? I do remember this same thing happening last year and one of you in-the-know folks talked to the staff and it was fixed.

[AndrewP]

Thanks, job. I know you give an enormous amount to so many through your volunteer work here.

Should I email Virginia? I almost did the other day but wasn't sure if she was the right one. I've been trying daily to log on through my phone and the same message pops up. I wonder if there is something wrong with the mobile version? I do remember this same thing happening last year and one of you in-the-know folks talked to the staff and it was fixed.

The mobile version works fine with my Android devices using Chrome so it may be a Safari only issue. Or possibly an issue just on your own device. Difficult to tell. You could try other sites that use the same software such as the "Mount Whitney Zone"

Here's the kicker, the ones that stand out in my mind were not women. They were all new guys that showed up for advice. I always thought men could take it, but, go figure.

LOL - I like to think that many of the men who come here are fixers who are looking for the user manual to a wayward spouse that will get them the fix for their spouse that they want. I certainly was.

There is also a lot of competition for eyeballs in this market these days and the original community splintered and refocused on different nexuses. I've seen it happen in other online communities. It's amazing how passionate boating people can get I can think off the top of my head of at least 3 different online communities that have their roots here. Undoubtedly there are many more.

[SteveLW]

We don't seem to get the steady amount of newcomers as fast as we did in the past.........for whatever reason. My other concern or question is why some people who are in the thick of things in their sitch, go for days or weeks without posting anything on their thread. I'm not talking about the people who have been around here for a long time, and who want to help someone else. I mean actual newcomers who desperately need some guidance. I don't know how many times I've written a response on a newcomer's thread, and never hear another word back from them. I don't know if they even looked to see if anyone wrote to them, or if they checked and didn't like what was said. Also, and I won't call any by name, but we've stuck with certain people very diligently, while they were going through terrible times. Then, at what seems to be the most critical point .......they fell out of sight and we were left hanging. We never know what happens. Maybe I'm just silly, but when I invest time trying to help someone, I would like to know if they are okay, at the least. I mean, we're strangers but we share very private details of each other's lives and for the most part, I think we care what happens. That's why we stick around this place. I still worry about a few that I personally spent many days mentoring them as best I could, and suddenly at the most critical point.......they'd vanish.

Maybe they can't handle criticism, or they think we are too harsh. I've been shocked when reading a board member's post to a newcomer, and see nothing that stands out as "harsh"......but the newcomer will sometimes remark that it's rather strong or harsh. Here's the kicker, the ones that stand out in my mind were not women. They were all new guys that showed up for advice. I always thought men could take it, but, go figure.

I will confess that there have been periods where I would be getting very frustrated with certain ones, and I could see my tone was a bit sharp, so I would back off for a couple of days and try to soften up before tackling it again. (LOL)

BTW, I wanted to explain why I was not able to do as much posting for what seemed light a long stretch of time to me. Various health issues prevented me from keeping my normal pace on the board. I went nearly a year with serious neck problems where I couldn't sit, stand, bend over, or much of any position for over a few minutes, except lay flat on my back. Not fun! Then when the neck got better, something else fell apart (story of my life). Like, overnight my hands froze and my fingers wouldn't work. Here's the thing.....I'm sure I brought it all on myself by overdoing. Plus, you guys may laugh when I tell you that I learned to type on an old manual typewriter back in high school (not an electric typewriter, and not the keyboard we have today,....... and don't ask me how long ago it was). Fingers had to be very strong to type those old typewriters back in the day. The teacher of the typewriting class (yes, that was the name of the course) had us do finger exercises to strengthen them, else you couldn't press the keys hard enough. To this day, I strike the keyboard so hard.........and if I am somewhat passionate in what I'm typing, my poor fingers are stomping these keys as if my life depended on it!!! After all these years, you'd think I could retrain myself to be a soft touch on the keyboard. But as you might guess reading some of my posts in past times......it's just not my nature to be a softie. So, there you have it. (LOL) If you don't see me on the board, just assume I must be out of commission, but I will return as long as my old hands hold up.....such as they are.

As with all of your posts, this is very well said (or should I say, typed with a very hard struck keying!). I can think of one women that whose husband was very wayward, openly cheating on her, and was getting good guidance from the board. She was going to a wedding that he was going to be at, and we never heard from her again. I believe it was in the fall of 2018 time-frame. I should point out it was especially disconcerting because her WH had shown the ability to be aggressive with her. I think of her often.

I know I was hard-headed at the beginning of my sitch, and didn't want to listen to the advice. The 2x4s woke me up! If strangers on the internet could be that passionate about my sitch, enough to take me to task for doing things counter to helping my sitch, then I realized that I could be just as passionate in trying to DB as well as I could. Coming back, telling on myself for making mistakes, getting more 2x4s and encouragement to push ahead were all key to my journey! I remember one poster telling me I was treating my W like a child. Something that came out in IC was that I had a father-daugther relationship with my W! That a stranger on the internet could see that relatively quickly was impressive!

I think some of the newcomers come here, as Andrew pointed out, wanting to hear: DO THIS...SAY THAT...SAVE YOUR MARRIAGE! And when they realize that DB isn't 1) a guarantee and 2) is more about fixing yourself than your MR, they get discouraged and move on looking for another resource that will give them the SAY AND DO this approach. As Andrew said, I was there too. And what I finally got through my thick head was there was NOTHING I could do to fix my MR and get my WAW/WW to come back.

The thing that bothers me like you sandi is the newcomers that refuse to come here before taking action to get feedback before doing something that will set them back. Even when you tell a particular poster they need to do that, and they repeatedly come back saying "Well I did this...said that....." after not posting for days. You could see that if they would just have come here then the posters here could have talked them down off the ledge. But coming here and telling us afterwards is too late.

I think the board has gone through other lulls in my 3+ years here. I think it kind of ebbs and flows.

[job]

may,

You can post to Virginia about your concerns if think this would help figure out what is going on. I have used my phone to connect and it works quite well. In fact, when I can't get through on my desk top, I will go to my phone and I am able to get on line. Others have complained of not being able to use their phones and when they switch to Chrome or another "platform", they are able to get in. I would suggest trying other ways to get in, i.e., as Andrew suggested.

[ovrrnbw]

I think there is something wrong with the website. For the last week or so, if I type "divorcebusting.com" into the browser on my iPhone, the site won't open and it says "Safari cannot open the page because it could not connect to the server." I can access it from my computer without issue and I can actually directly access the forums if I go straight to the forum page, but the home page doesn't open. However, I know a lot of people only come to this site via their phone... I think that might be the problem. I believe this happened last year too but was fixed more quickly? IDK who can help--cadet, job?

Duckduckgo has worked on my iphone. YMMV

[Cadet]

I'm going to piggyback on May's comment. I have noticed that since Friday (when I tried to post an update to my sitch) the site does not function properly. I myself tried posting 3 times and none of the times my post showed up until Monday morning. In the past my posts would show up immediately. I also noticed that other users' posts would be published during the weekend, but mine would not.

I hope things get fixed as quickly as possible. This forum really does provide an invaluable help and support to all that frequent it.

Part of the problem for you was that you are on moderation and I was away for the weekend and that slowed you down.

Sorry you should be off that status soon.

[ovrrnbw]

I think some of the newcomers come here, as Andrew pointed out, wanting to hear: DO THIS...SAY THAT...SAVE YOUR MARRIAGE! And when they realize that DB isn't 1) a guarantee and 2) is more about fixing yourself than your MR, they get discouraged and move on looking for another resource that will give them the SAY AND DO this approach. As Andrew said, I was there too. And what I finally got through my thick head was there was NOTHING I could do to fix my MR and get my WAW/WW to come back.

I had to be reminded of that all the time when I got here. It took months to set in. I swear, emotional attachment makes fools of us all.

Like someone else said, things will probably pick up this spring and summer with sunshine and long days, especially coming off of last year where people didn't do as much activities.

[job]

Newbies,

Be sure to read the thread entitled Board Policies and General Infor for Newcomers. It is one of the threads that has a sticky. In that thread, Cadet explains what "moderation" means. All newbies are on moderation until we are certain that you are legitimate and not a troll or someone trying to sell something to the posters. Also, there are times when we have to recommend that a poster be put on moderation when they do not follow the rules, etc. The final determination as to who is put on moderation and/or released from moderation is determined by the Administrator.

Here is the link to that thread:

Board Policies and General Info for Newcomers.

Cadet and I usually attempt to approve newbies' postings after 5 -7 postings. We generally do not stay on the forums 24/7, but we do come along periodically throughout the day to check to see who is posting, etc. We ask that posters please be patient as we will come along and take care of things for you. However, the best way to get quick responses from the moderators is to hit reply and tell us what needs to be done. Cadet and I both get the notification and one of us will take care of your needs as soon as we can.

[SaltyDog]

I wonder if the technology is too old, but then again I am old and things pass me by so quickly.

Maybe people don't use online forums anymore.

As far as getting new people to post - I do think UBB forums appear dated these days - they've been around since the 90s and the look/layout hasn't really changed a ton with the times. Someone browsing thru could likely see the layout of the board, and to be honest the look of divorcebusting.com, and move on elsewhere.

My other concern or question is why some people who are in the thick of things in their sitch, go for days or weeks without posting anything on their thread...
Maybe they can't handle criticism, or they think we are too harsh.

I fit in that category of going for days or weeks without posting, and it is just because I don't feel like I have much in the way of "updates" in my current situation. In the beginning it felt like I was suffocating with anxiety and needed all the help I could find, whereas now I am just trying to put into practice all that I've learned here and elsewhere and continuing to grow. While I can say things are probably the best they've been since BD, I also know they are precarious and could change at any given moment, so it isn't like there is much to share.

[wayfarer]

Honestly I think it's slow because of a convergence of things. The tech is old. And isn't the most intuitive or user friendly. The anonymity is probably it's best selling point but it also makes it difficult for people who've really connected to connect in the real world. This place has all the makings of a great support group, minus the fact that the friendships built are nearly impossible to evolve. There is a lot of competition out there. Just these concepts alone there are handful of places that promote similar concepts with different lingo but they have an enormous online presence. There's one in particular I can think of that is literally everywhere, social media, YouTube, podcasts, etc. Finding this forum takes some work if you aren't already tipped off by DR. I only found this place because our discernment counselor told me to get and read DR. But if you look up some pretty common phrases people would've looked up in this kind of crisis the DB website isn't even on the first page in most cases or at all.

I also think there are some factors with the pandemic. People are on top of each other. When I came here over a year ago I could post multiple times a day without worry or concern anyone would be over my shoulder. That is not the case for me and I'm sure a lot of other users. Also for some people I think it's slowing down some of the incidents that are going on. Job losses, kids home all the time. Things like that make it difficult. The flip side of that is a lot of us who got here over a year ago our situations have calmed most are entering D proceedings or reconciling. And I noticed just in general, even when I first got here, that as people move beyond crisis either entering into divorce proceedings or reconciling they post less and less and eventually fall of the face of the planet.

I will say though I have been noticing the same thing Sandi has where there are a newbies who post constantly and then all of a sudden just drop off. I don't know what that's about.