I've noticed quite a few people have asked for their account to be deleted. I'm just wondering if that is normal for a site at this point or are we having more than normal. It just seems an extreme step for people rather than just stopping contributing. Is it something we are doing that causes it?
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3I don't know about this site in particular; but in mmorpg, rage quitting is very common when people get upset that they can't have everything their own way. It's a strict format here. It's not going to appeal to all types IMHO.– Robin111Commented Jul 18, 2014 at 18:12
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3When this site got founded I anticipated a higher than average number of deletions in part because, if you maintain any sort of link to the rest of the stack exchange universe, you might not want a religious association to show up that you aren't actively participating in.– Hrafn ModCommented Jul 18, 2014 at 19:18
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We also had one person who was unsuccessfully deleted and needed to be deleted again.– Hrafn ModCommented Jul 18, 2014 at 19:18
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@Hrafn I wondered if it might be because of the religious nature of the site. Particularly as it is fairly fringe and a bit weird for a lot of people I guess. It can be a hard thing to talk about and to own– Crab BucketCommented Jul 18, 2014 at 19:23
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1@Crab: Well, you might have gotten a point. When I'm thinking to stop in math.se I very likely would simply stop contributing math questions and/or answers. But if/when I'm stopping buddhist.se I must be in anger or without hope for improvement - and then I'd wanted to have my account deleted. It's just more "important"/nearer at the "importance"...– Gottfried HelmsCommented Jul 22, 2014 at 20:29
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1 Answer
(D'oh just notice my answer isn't a direct answer-- the answer is: those people weren't going to be happy here-- an SE site is specialty site like the way wikipedia is)
You know who I want on Stack Exchange? Donald Lopez. The guy is a one man Buddhist research machine-- he doesn't preach (he's a scholar), but he knows who was preaching and what they said. As far as I know, he doesn't participate with the internet via twitter, blogs or forums.
Who we do have on the internet are lots and lots of people who are used to the social conventions of forums-- there are two huge buddhist forums on the internet that I know of we must be getting a lot the same audience--, so we are seeing people use buddhism.SE like a forum and getting stomped on, so they get upset. Some people have adapted wonderfully, some people post unanswerable questions, post multiple answers that are personal observations and tangents. The people who really just want a forum need to head over to the forums, they aren't going to be happy here, and they aren't going to be happy participating in the talk tab in wikipedia either! All sites can't be all things to all people.
So positively speaking again, we need to either attract the Donald Lopezes of the world, or coax the people already here to be more like that-- post questions that are answerable and aren't starting points for shooting the breeze.
