Where did all the Open Minds Forum members go?

First topic message reminder :

With Open Minds Forum restored now for almost half a year at it's new location with forumotion.com we can now turn to look at reaching out to OMF's original members who have not yet returned home. OMF's original membership was over 6,000 members strong, prior to the proboards suspension, according to the rolls of the time. We can probably safely assume that some of those accounts were unidentified socks. If we were to assume a reasonable guess of maybe as many as 30% possible sock accounts then that would leave potentially somewhere between 4800 to 4900 possible real members to locate. That is still a substantial number of people.

Who were all these people? Some were average individuals with common interests in ufology, exopolitics, globalism, corruption, earthchanges, science and technology, and a variety of other interests. Some just enjoyed being part of a vibrant and unusually interesting community. Others were representative of various insider groups participating in observation and outreach projects, while still others were bonafide intelligence community personnel. All with stake in the hunt for truth in one fashion or another. Some in support of truth, and communication. Others seeking real disclosure and forms of proof. And others highly skeptical of anything or limited subjects. The smallest division of membership being wholly anti-disclosure oriented.

So where did these members vanish to? They had many options. There are almost innumerable other forums out there on the topics of UFO's or Exopolitics, the Unexplained, and Conspiracy Theory. Did they disappear into the world-wide network of forum inhabitants? Did some go find new homes on chatrooms or individual blogs? Did they participate in ufo conventions or other public events and gatherings? How about those who represented groups in special access? Or IC and military observers? Those with academic affiliations? Where did they all go and what would be the best way to reach out and extend an invitation to return?

And what constitutes a situation deserving of their time and participation? Is the archive enough? How exactly do people within the paradigm most desire to define a community? Is it amenities, humanity or simply population size for exposure? Most of the special guests have been emailed and have expressed that population size for exposure is what most motivates them. But not all. Long-time member Dan Smith has other priorities and values motivating his participation. Should this open opportunities for unattached junior guests who have experience and dialog to contribute to the world? How best to make use of OMF's time, experience and resources?

Many skeptics would like to see the historical guardian of discourse opportunity to just up and disappear; go into permanent stasis. They think that not everyone has a right to speak about their experiences and if there is no proof involved then there can philosophically be no value to discourse. I personally would respectfully disagree with them. Discourse has always been the prelude to meaningful relationships and meaningful mutual relationships have always been the prelude to exchanges of proof. In a contentious social environment with regards to communication vs disclosure how do we best re-establish a haven for those preludes? Is it only the "if we build it they will come" answer? Well considering OMF has been largely fully functional over the last four or five months this line of reasoning is not necessarily true. So what would be the best way re-establish this? Your suggestions are sought. Please comment.

I may be able to help fill in the gaps of some of those questions ScaRZ answered for you Shmush.  Greatwaller was still around as of a year ago via email with me.  He had started his own forum just before we finished setting this up two years ago.  His forum was mostly a general discussion forum for a circle of his close longtime friends and did not at least at the time of my last visit work on any of the paranormal or phenomena this one does.

I can dig around in my email and find his email address and a link to his forum if you like.  It might take me a day or so to do that, my apologies, my email materials are kinda massive.

Yes, ScaRZ is right, I've never seen GW at the outpost.  I don't drop in there anymore either as I'm busy with other things.  And when I was last there a good chunk of the headhunting socks who participated in the chaos of the OMFv1 takedown were roaming there under an unconditional welcome which for me after all the work we went through to get the archive secured and OMF back up was something of a turn off.  I have a dead account there or did (I don't know if they closed it because I haven't been there in 2 years).

Bren is Admin'ing the OMF Facebook page for OMF.  He has a standing invitation here to return and take over the Lead Admin position of this forum but he chose not to.  After what happened I guess that he might be thinking that staying away is the best he could do to protect this part of OMF and the Archive?  He speaks kindly of the OMFv2.  That's just guess work.  I've never been able to get him to say why via email or post.  He seems happy enough of what I've seen at Facebook.  And it is really nice for myself, as I happen to hate facebook and only use it, the page or my personal page, when I want to broadcast something widely.

John Lear left OMFv1 before the takedown because he was being unmercifully attacked by the headhunters using sock accounts - those operating out of Amkon and RealityUncovered.  It drove him off.  MD02 continues to follow his work I believe.  Check with him and he can hook you up with how to find him.  John is more than welcome to return if he ever wishes to.  But like ScaRZ said he seems to prefer places he can develop a large following quickly.

As I mentioned before there is lots of room to grow and build your own situation here.  If you wish to do research or public writing, build a group, or just chat, whatever.  Let me know if you need anything special set up and I can do that for you.  

If you like to mod we can set it up too, although this is a pretty easy going place.  (not much happening in that way lately).   I think we only ever had one spammer come in here in the last two years and that person was kindly asked to cease.  I think at this time, all of our regulars are set up with mod powers which might have something to do with the current peaceful state of the forum.  

MD02 is our chief of mods.  I trust his firm level-headedness.  And he's always been great to work with.

@Shmush Serpo you say here is a link to the archived serpo material http://theopenmind.hostingsiteforfree.com/index0678.html-board=projectserpo&action=display&thread=7213.htm

I would also like to say welcome back

Jake Reason wrote:Admin,
With regards to your desire to notify all the members....

I used to (every six months) prepare and post an analysis of the members.  We found that slightly more than half of all members never post at all.  And regardless of how many more members signed on over the years, this ">half not posting" remained consistent.

And approx a 1/3rd of members who did post, never exceeded 10 posts.  And only approx 10 percent (of posters) made more than 30 posts.

So doing the math, it works out to approx only 5 percent who where at one time or another, regular contributing members. = 325. (greater than 30 posts each)

I'm doing this by recall btw, but it's close to reality, based on my tracking the stats for years.

Of the approx 325 regular contributors (30+ posts) some came, became active for a brief time, then reverted to lurking over the years.  At the peek 6500 members when all the "Special Guests" were at OMF.  There were probably no more than approx 250 regular posters = defined as making 2 or more posts per week.

However there were some very prolific posters of course.  I personally made 5 percent of all the posts on the forum.  And Dan Smith made approx the same.  And there were a approx a dozen others who made 2-4 percent of all posts.  There were approx 50 members who made 1000 or more posts.

It was these prolific posters that attracted the readership.  And at its peek, the readership averaged 1,100 per day (unique hits) Fluctuating between 5,000 and 10,000 unique visitors per week.

---------------------

Concerning informing them.... The vast majority of the members already know about this forum.  It's been streamed on Victor's lists, AND every other UFO type forum became aware of the meltdown while it was happening, and watched with interest.  So those on the other forums are also aware this forum is here.

More publicity will make little difference at this point.

Take "TheOutPostForum" as a reference.  Victor Martinez has plugged that forum to 2000 ufologists at least a couple dozen times over the past year.  Yet, they too are very small, with perhaps 25-50 regular contributing members, and a dozen or two who post 2 or more times per week.  They have only 103 "active members" (members who have posted) as of today's date.

Jake, I became an Admin at Alienscientist Forum before Jeremy took it down. One of the things we began to do was anyone over a year we began clearing the rolls. If they had not been posting at all anytime during the past year, they were removed/banned. We also found several sockpuppets and they were removed / banned permanently. We were cleaning up and then an issue arose which literally knocked out the forum because someone broke through and grabbed control. We still don't know who it was but that was a guideline for us. Unfortunately we were down to 2 people trying to clean up a forum that had risen to 3000 members. We maybe had about 300 members that posted. I think a solution could be that anyone that has not posted in a year is really not interested and should be removed. This can keep a forum lean and functional. Guests could have access only to read. If you want to see and participate, then you must ask forum staff so your IP can be checked to see if you are a spammer. Just an opinion...

spacemaverick wrote:

Jake Reason wrote:Admin,
With regards to your desire to notify all the members....

I used to (every six months) prepare and post an analysis of the members.  We found that slightly more than half of all members never post at all.  And regardless of how many more members signed on over the years, this ">half not posting" remained consistent.

And approx a 1/3rd of members who did post, never exceeded 10 posts.  And only approx 10 percent (of posters) made more than 30 posts.

So doing the math, it works out to approx only 5 percent who where at one time or another, regular contributing members. = 325. (greater than 30 posts each)

I'm doing this by recall btw, but it's close to reality, based on my tracking the stats for years.

Of the approx 325 regular contributors (30+ posts) some came, became active for a brief time, then reverted to lurking over the years.  At the peek 6500 members when all the "Special Guests" were at OMF.  There were probably no more than approx 250 regular posters = defined as making 2 or more posts per week.

However there were some very prolific posters of course.  I personally made 5 percent of all the posts on the forum.  And Dan Smith made approx the same.  And there were a approx a dozen others who made 2-4 percent of all posts.  There were approx 50 members who made 1000 or more posts.

It was these prolific posters that attracted the readership.  And at its peek, the readership averaged 1,100 per day (unique hits) Fluctuating between 5,000 and 10,000 unique visitors per week.

---------------------

Concerning informing them.... The vast majority of the members already know about this forum.  It's been streamed on Victor's lists, AND every other UFO type forum became aware of the meltdown while it was happening, and watched with interest.  So those on the other forums are also aware this forum is here.

More publicity will make little difference at this point.

Take "TheOutPostForum" as a reference.  Victor Martinez has plugged that forum to 2000 ufologists at least a couple dozen times over the past year.  Yet, they too are very small, with perhaps 25-50 regular contributing members, and a dozen or two who post 2 or more times per week.  They have only 103 "active members" (members who have posted) as of today's date.

Jake, I became an Admin at Alienscientist Forum before Jeremy took it down.  One of the things we began to do was anyone over a year we began clearing the rolls.  If they had not been posting at all anytime during the past year, they were removed/banned.  We also found several sockpuppets and they were removed / banned permanently.  We were cleaning up and then an issue arose which literally knocked out the forum because someone broke through and grabbed control.  We still don't know who it was but that was a guideline for us.  Unfortunately we were down to 2 people trying to clean up a forum that had risen to 3000 members.  We maybe had about 300 members that posted.  I think a solution could be that anyone that has not posted in a year is really not interested and should be removed.  This can keep a forum lean and functional.  Guests could have access only to read.  If you want to see and participate, then you must ask forum staff so your IP can be checked to see if you are a spammer.  Just an opinion...

That is something to think about Spacemaverick.  But I think we'd find that in doing that we'd nix something that has always been a huge part of OMF's viewership and appeal as a forum.  And that is the traffic of anonymous players out there.  There are two types of anonymity in use.  The first are those who use established well known monikers like my own.  And then there are those who must use or rotate monikers for certain circumstances for security purpose.  We are still in a situational landscape which is hostile to both communication and disclosure when it comes to system or prior system inhabitants speaking.  Because we don't track and expose those participating in the forum or set any limits upon the access or participation, someone who does work or communication here in one year may return two or three years later and still use that moniker and be recognized as that individual if they so choose.

I've chosen to ignore the limited use of some monikers in order to accommodate those who need to be sparse for their personal security or selective in when and for how long they may operate in the open.

The fundamental focus of Open Minds Forum has always been as a platform for communication and information sharing.  Sometimes Identity is a huge part of that process and there are those who need identity in a recognizable fashion without giving the world access to their personal lives.

For example when the headhunters in 2010 chased down the communicator in the ScA affair.  The man was receiving harrassing phone calls at home.  His family members were hunted down and cornered to make statements.  His employers were harassed.  He was driven from participation in communities that were meaningful to him as an individual.  Regardless of the what anyone believes is truthful or not, the fact is that Identity misused by someone else resulted in a catastrophic meltdown of someone's life and had permanent consequences, to the point the man found it impossible to feed himself in the aftermath. This is not an end result which reflects well on OMFv.1 or any of its members either present or prior.  It is not conduct I EVER wish to see repeated in any sense.  And I will ban any member, mod, or Admin I catch behaving in that fashion.  I am a firm believer in that it is high time the ufology/exopolitics/paranormal/conspiracy community start policing its own conduct and keeping its people practicing by a higher standard.  Truth and falsehood are staples in this realm...but it is our conduct and how we treat those who participate, reside, or visit this deep end of the pool, by which we are ultimately judged.  

And we were judged by a chunk of observers during that event, to the detriment of the reflectional standing of the ENTIRE Exo/ufo community.  I am being exceedingly careful in rebuilding, in that we avoid any repeats and demonstrate at least this forum's capacity to re-earn a positive reputation.

If I have to put up with the presence of some dust-bunnies in the corner as part of operating in a manner that enables ALL parties to come and go freely at any day or hour then so be it.

I therefore choose to leave accounts which are not causing any disturbance alone.  Members may come and go without fear of reprisal or time limits to participation.  The eye is a bead on the goal which is equitable relations and communication.

Cy
Admin


Edit to add:

I think I have already demonstrated this when Mur (aka murnut) was allowed to come through here back in this last year, without being banned for his part in the "takedown" of OMFv1.

If I make a rule for open equitable relations and communication across all barriers to enable all parties to participate in the "round" table, then it must apply to all. I will not have one set of rules for one group and another for a different group. This does not fit the definition of justice.

So let us begin anew--remembering on both sides that civility is not a sign of weakness. ~ John F Kennedy.

Which quote is also found in the final frame/scene of the video "Compass Morainn presents The Return of the Black Swan" which statement was ensured by the declaration of identity controlling the revised OMF through the song Ballad of the Green Mountain Boys. Last third of the video.

Very well stated and I think you are correct. I most definitely have not had the experience and the passion you have for the forum as a whole. Your vision and those who support you will keep this forum going to once again become what we had before minus the issues. Open Minds...open information. Thanks for the reply. I hope to contribute what I can to the positive direction. Rod

spacemaverick wrote:Very well stated and I think you are correct.  I most definitely have not had the experience and the passion you have for the forum as a whole.  Your vision and those who support you will keep this forum going to once again become what we had before minus the issues.  Open Minds...open information.  Thanks for the reply.  I hope to contribute what I can to the positive direction.  Rod

You're welcome Rod. Its is our participating members like yourself which help me to stay motivated. I love your work on the Fukashima issue by the way. I'm including a link to your thread in my personal emails in my networks.

Cy

shmush wrote:
Yeah I believe it was '07-'08 time period.  It was during the time when I was a MOD and we were putting together the pertinent info regarding SERPO.  I don't know if anyone knows this, but I asked to have access to the background info that the "SuperMODs" had and although I was tasked with putting together all of the background info on all the key figures, they denied me access.  Needless to say, I didn't really take kindly to the censorship on their part...apparently there were some high level people that they wanted to keep secret.  I thought I was part of the team, but when that happened it soured me to the whole forum experience so I left.  

My passion for this subject has never waned.  I've been passionate since I was 7 years old about this subject.  On a whim I decided to search for the forum recently, and found that it was back in business, so I decided to rejoin and see if I can't get involved again.  

Whatever happened to Greatwaller, or whatever his avatar was?  Is he still alive?  I know he was older.

Is Bren still on here?  

To be honest, I miss SERPO.  That was one of the best things that I liked about being part of a community.  That and talking to the likes of John Lear, whom I like to think I got to come to OM in the first place, also Gary Bekkum, whom I've tried to have let me be his helper, but to no avail, and Kit Green, who was more than willing to talk about anything, which was surprising, considering his security clearance.  He also sent me is CV, which had his SS number on it, which surprised all of us MODs.  

To be honest, I don't really care about the "politics" of the forums, I was just curious why it all went down.  I'm glad that someone was able to back it all up, and I'm glad to be back and to see what's going to happen next.

My Gosh '07-'08!?  That was a million years ago!  WOW time sure flew by.

Our Forum grew twice as large as those Serpo days.  Then it grew twice THAT size.  Then it grew again twice as large as that size.  We had approx 20-25 staff.

There is so much that has flowed under the bridge since.

Now I understand your query in a different light.  I'll answer you more pertinent to your experience from where you left off, shmush.  But it's late at night, so I'll have to come back to it later.

Stay tuned.  

PS: Help me recall, shmush....
Were you here when we interviewed Earl Fulford, the '47 Roswell Air Base witness?

Were you here for the Stevensville Sighting event?

Did you follow the Drones case?

Was Jeddyhi still a Mod when you were on the Team?

.

ping...keeping the convo from getting lost in the recent activity....

I have been retired now for about 1 year. I am going to try and jump back in here. I already peruse another forum but my mentor is here. I have a blog and have only picked up subjects I wanted to comment upon in the last year. I also have a local Facebook page here where I live dealing with local issues. I would like to get started again right here.

Hi space! Good to see you here again as I've always enjoyed your posts here and its previous incarnation.

99 wrote:Hi space! Good to see you here again as I've always enjoyed your posts here and its previous incarnation.

Hopefully, I can stay here a while. Thanks!

Welcome back Space!  You're spot is always warm here.  Let me know if anything you need.  Cy

Well, I guess I need to get back in here and stir up the pot, so to speak.  I have been involved with my blog and some Facebook notes I have written. I am researching the radical Muslim movement and the political scene right now and just informing, educating and trying to guide some of my local followers. I have also been part-time on Pegasus Research Consortium making some comments. Most of my time is helping people locally in my area.

Wowsers.  I'd love to compare notes.  When you have time.

Cyrellys wrote:Wowsers.  I'd love to compare notes.  When you have time.

I can do that since I'm retired. Sometimes I get so far down the rabbit hole, that I have to listen to some upbeat music just to get me back up and running.

It's not "Where did the Membetrs go" as much as it is "Why don't they return?"

They see a forum run by Moderators (dan) that delete posts, lie about it and substantially contriol the narrative as (he) they desire. It's an obviously, closed community of singular thinking and you wonder why hundrreds of free thinking Members don't return? Seriously?

P.S. @dan I keep screenshots of all of my posts so fuck you if you think that you can delete your delusional history...with a few keystrokes.

And if you'all don't mind, I'll check myself out of this dull asylum and create that website that contains all of the bullshit regularly associated with (t)his shithole.

/thread

You lurking moron.

You have nothing to offer, go away.

Better yet, go delete yourself, best thing for you really.

So tense AC, you're worse than I am!

What's got you riled up buddy?

If you want I can put in a good word to the reptilians for U.

Alchemical Coincidence wrote:It's not "Where did the Membetrs go" as much as it is "Why don't they return?"

They see a forum run by Moderators (dan) that delete posts, lie about it and substantially contriol the narrative as (he) they desire. It's an obviously, closed community of singular thinking and you wonder why hundrreds of free thinking Members don't return? Seriously?

P.S. @dan I keep screenshots of all of my posts so fuck you if you think that you can delete your delusional history...with a few keystrokes.    

And if you'all don't mind, I'll check myself out of this dull asylum and create that website that contains all of the bullshit regularly associated with (t)his shithole.

/thread

AC, Dan's board is Dan's.  Those threads are his to dictate.  He does not dictate content outside of those threads other than under the standing TOS.  

Dan is one of the few remaining original members.  He stayed when everyone else wandered off.  Thus I gave him his own board within the forum where he is free to design his concept.  That board is not strictly about discourse.  He's working through his concept with the help of those interested in it.  This has been clearly understood up until your complaint.  

You are welcome to set up in a thread of your own on the Blog Board if you like.  If you want your own blog board (meaning you intend to have multiple topic threads) I can set up a specific board for that purpose.  You would have moderator powers within reason on that specific board.  You have only to ask.  

Look folks if you have a concern about the design of OMF as it stands, you have only to ask.  The current layout is set up for the current users with some of the original formatting for random topics of interest still retained.  Where a board or a specific thread (blog style) is dedicated to a specific individual as their own...they are the standing moderator.

When I am not here, Dan and 99 are the global moderators.  I have a great deal of work that has me elsewhere.  The doors here stay open and the lights stay on...I pay the electric bill.  

Now stop taking pot shots at each other and adapt.  It's not as hard as you're making it out to be AC.  If you need assistance, communicate with me.  I'm available to assist.

Cy