A thought occurred to me today: what if some/many/most CathInfo members continue to enjoy this forum but only as a guilty pleasure they wouldn't dare tell their friends, family, or priest about?
How often do any of you send links of important articles, news, or discussions to your e-mail list? How often do you mention CathInfo in person to your family and friends? How often do you post links to CathInfo material on social media (Facebook, etc.)?
Perhaps some of you don't have (m)any friends, maybe all your friends are on CathInfo, or maybe you're the only Catholic or Traditional Catholic in your family or circle of friends. So there are valid excuses for some. But what about the rest of the membership?
On a related topic, I often get criticism from members and non-members about CathInfo content. Of course, we discuss just about everything here -- it's hard for a forum of this size and breadth to have NOTHING you are bored/annoyed/offended by. Please keep that in mind. It's the price of free speech. Isn't that what we tell the leftist liberal SJWs all the time? Free speech means you're going to offend someone.
I hold that there is nothing on CathInfo opposed to a Catholic version of free speech. And yes, liberty is compatible with the Catholic Faith. It's license (freedom to do evil) that is not. Think about it: Do Catholic monarchies really operate like fascist regimes? Do they really tell you what subjects you can and can't talk about? What terms you can and can't use? Would an ideal Catholic empire or monarchy employ and maintain a Thought Police? I really don't think they would. I thought Catholic monarchies and empires merely enforced the rights of the Church and Catholic morality, including the First Commandment which forbids heresy, the Second which forbids blasphemy, the Fourth which forbids ѕєdιтισn and treason, the Fifth which forbids incitement to violence, the Sixth which forbids impurity, etc.
Perhaps most members here have no problem with the content, they just think that 1% of it is too controversial to share with their friends. They are afraid what their friends might dig up if they searched on CathInfo long enough.
It reminds me of the hand-wringing about up/downvotes. If more people participated in the system, they would dilute the influence of "bad" upvotes and "bad" downvotes into complete obscurity. Imagine if all the good people on CI today decided they would vote on 1/2 the posts they read. Anything good would have 25 upvotes, and anything remotely bad would start at 25 downvotes (or more!) Then the 1 or 2 idiots that upvote bad stuff, or downvote good stuff, would become barely noticeable noise. The system would work.
The same goes for content. People complain about CathInfo, but do you send any of YOUR friends or YOUR family here to make CathInfo into a better place? CathInfo is nothing more or less than the sum of the people on the board (plus the leadership/rules of the Moderator, of course). But when you have a large forum with tons of posts and traffic, can you really get all upset if one or two bad posts get posted once in a while? You might as well write off your whole city, your whole state, or your whole country. Tell me where you live, and let me see if I can dig up any dirt on that place so I can write it off as "a cesspool" or "to be avoided". I guarantee I can do this. I am confident based on my knowledge of human nature.
But looking at CathInfo's charter and rules objectively, can anyone honestly say I do a bad job? The leader sets the tone for the organization he leads. Well let's look at CathInfo under that aspect: I'm a cradle Trad living a 7-day-a-week Trad Catholic lifestyle, with some seminary training, well read in Catholic literature, and a desire to bring the warring clans together in the world of Tradition. What's to criticize there?
Or perhaps a Trad Catholic forum is inherently problematic, due to the nature of Trads? In other words, it's not CathInfo, it's the fact that the forum targets Trad Catholics, who are flawed human beings. And this particular sub-set of human beings are maverick, contrary, usually stubborn, and don't get along well with each other. And they have wildly different interests. Some only want to talk about homeschooling or lifestyle topics. Others can't get enough of theological topics. Some obsess over Rome and the Crisis in the Church.
So here are my questions:
If CathInfo were offering $100 referral fees, would you start referring more people to CathInfo, and why? Why not just spread the word about the best Catholic forum right now, for free?
and
If you somehow inherited CathInfo, what would stop you from instantly sending out an e-mail to your list about the best Catholic forum that they should all join? Would you have to delete a sub-forum or two first, purge some topics, delete certain members, or what?