An Important Note to Our Valued Commenters from Bob

[TwinSwords]

Originally Posted by Ocean

Anyone who has ever used Disqus, and was familiar with the way our discussions here took shape could have foreseen that these two formats aren't interchangeable.

Right.

I seem to recall Bob having mentioned in a couple of diavlogs that he almost never came into the forum, that he only ever really kept up with the comments as they appeared in the linear view under the video. I suspect the same is true of the rest of the BhTV staff who were involved in the decision. (Which, I should say, I believe was driven mainly out of financial need; they simply didn't have the cash, I think, to pay for the work of wiring vBulletin up to the new design, so they had to go with something cheap and free. You know what they say about getting what you pay for.)

But, to your point: I think they're having trouble understanding the difficulty of the transition simply because they never were really that familiar with "the way our discussions here took shape."

Originally Posted by Ocean

People who mostly enjoyed watching the diavlogs and those who would only comment briefly on occasion will adjust to the new format without a problem. For that kind of use, the difference is minimal.

Yes. BhTV's comment threads will now reduced to the same kind of superficiality and lack of substance that abounds elsewhere on the internet. It will truly be painful to watch. Unless they change course.

Originally Posted by Ocean

But for those of us who saw the diavlogs as a point of departure for a far more interesting adventure, that of exchanging ideas with others, it's the end. It doesn't matter whether we used the forum to agree, disagree, expand, learn or "teach", the possibility of exchanging ideas was there. Not the case with Disqus.

Yes, that's exactly right.

I've told you my theory: they just didn't have the money they would have needed to keep vBulletin. That's the kind of problem that can be fixed with time, and if Bob is truly as open minded and considerate of his audience as I think he is, I think there's a good chance vBulletin might come back. Part of me worries, though, that they might have had other reasons for wanting to ditch the forum. Maybe there was too much free speech, here. Too much robust exchange of intellectual energy. Bob really made the commenters into stars with vBulletin, giving them a chance to show off their brilliance and inform us with their knowledge. We are all so much poorer, now, having lost it all.

Remember what Glenn Loury said in his last diavlog with John McWhorter? He raved about the intellectual caliber of the commenters here. I'll bet he won't be saying that after six months of Disqus.