The Beeb PoV Board closed on Monday - not totally because for budget reasons, I suspect, but also because of of changes in its use by posters; an excluding close coterie of both friends and opponents.  Would I be right in thinking this might be happening here? A sad thing if that is so. Can anyone stir themselves enough to make remark on this?  Not often I use one of these thing but it seems right for the topic.

I am not aware of any "excluding close coteries of friends and opponents" here, or even how small a coterie can be before it requires a more singular descriptor. In a site where the weekly number of contributors has never risen above 15 it would seem rather ambitious, to put it mildly, to attempt to form a coterie anyway. Best of luck to you.

Stop hitting that horse and start encouraging him instead - they are capable of marvellous things when given just a tad less mean-minded condemnation and a tad more magnanimous carrot ...

I don't think we have a coterie here, either  but perhaps it could be perceived as one. I gleaned that from reading PoV posts soon after news of its closing down was given. I wonder if MB's have a sort of life cycle? 

This thread was not intended as a mean minded observation but one of curiosity about Boards, really. Several of our members do look in here but rarely post - I hope some might give their observations. I used to read the PoV boards but did not post - it would have seemed an intrusion. Other MB's have started, flourished  for a while and then faded. There must be reason for this. I dothink you  misunderstand my motive. Your own input is considerable in keeping this site running. On that we are surely all agreed - and grateful. I'm not sure what that magnaminous bit is all about - or the horses.

Previous message deleted - sent in a rash and unguarded moment of extreme irritation.

Sorry to come up with a mundane (possible) explanation, Priscilla, but is it feasible that some of the posters are on holiday?  Then, there have been some commenters who have been unwell.  I sometimes "lurk" but I don't want to post just for the sake of posting - I like to have something (to me at least - it may not always seem thus to other people) worth saying.

Why some posts flourish and others don't will always be a mystery I guess.  If somebody comes up with proof that the body under the car park actually WAS a nun I suppose the Richard III thread will spring into life again.

Perhaps we are all just sick to death of one another. All historied out, as someone once said. Hope not.

I blame the everlasting football.

Croatia has just scored again. Do I care?

Isn't it almost inevitable that any social organisation such as a message board, a 'club' if you like, will tend to coalesce into a form that most reflects both the style of its members' input, and also what they get out of their participation? Accordingly this site has a style or "flavour" all of its own, compared to, say the Historum site.

Historum has a great many more members, both in total and just those that are regularly active. I am a member and quite often dip in to read posts in subjects that interest me, but I very rarely post anything. The last time I posted was after I read something that I actually knew quite a lot about (someone had posted a fairly simple yet specific question about 18th/19th century iron and steel making). I posted an informed (well I think it was) reply, but it immediately got lost amongst a barrage of other responses, most of which were:

a) simple cut-and-pastes of huge, mostly irrelevant, chunks of wiki;
b) comments along the lines of, "I have no idea but I guess, maybe ...", followed by completely erroneous speculation;
c) comments that tried to shoe-horn the OP's question into whatever subject was the particular current bee in the responder's bonnet.

As I say a message board probably attracts and prompts active participation amongst those who like it's "flavour". Compared to the somewhat aggressive cut-and-thrust style of Historum, I much prefer this site. It would be nice if there were more members and so more active posters, but I like the style and quality of postings here. I tend to view our discussions as being conducted in a slow thoughtful manner, a bit like how matters used to be discussed amongst academics when they were forced to use letters and the postal service ... rather than quick, snappy, off-the-cuff, responses, made just to score points. (Although I freely admit to making the occasional knee-jerk, simplistic and ignorant response myself).

Oh dear, I do apologise for all my bonnet bees, MM.

My Chaucer bee is buzzing rather loudly at the moment over on Courtly Love - will direct it back to its hive at once.

Seriously, I agree with what you say above. I can't cope with Historium at all - lots of very young, aggressive know-it-alls there.

We are becoming a rather sedate, donnish lot in our old age, aren't we - we'll be making Latin puns next and chortling into our claret...  

That seems to me to be a very fair summation, MM. it's about where one feels comfortable. A bit like a favourite pub even.

I will miss browsing the POV board though, despite the interminable sniping that went on between a few of the participants it was mostly a civilised place to discus TV programmes, the next best thing to having someone else in the room to whom one could splutter, "What a load of rubbish" There has been a little flurry of boards open up since its demise but having perused them, i can only conclude that either very few people who use them watch the same programmes as I do or else they are keeping quiet about it.

I did post a link to here before it shut and a couple of postesr admitted to coming in to read the posts but not contributing, why not they unfortunately did not say. We're not that scary, are we? I mean, I don't think I've ever made a Latin pun.

Neither have I, ferval - but there is a first time for everything.

I think nordmann did make one ages ago and nobody got it, not even Cattygern who really was an Oxford don or at least an Oxford something.

He was scary.

I've "lurked" on Historum but never posted there - I am not a member.  There's a lady who posts about Shakespeare being a "hack" because - I think - she feels he was mean about Richard III.  As if he could write that Richard was a lovely man when Henry VII's granddaughter was on the throne! Though some time ago Temperance did explain that the Richard III play is quite likely actually about one of Shakespeare's contemporaries whom it would have been unwise to name directly.  I wouldn't mind being a "hack" who could produce work of the quality produced by Shakespeare.

LadyinRetirement wrote:

I've "lurked" on Historum but never posted there - I am not a member.  There's a lady who posts about Shakespeare being a "hack" because - I think - she feels he was mean about Richard III.  As if he could write that Richard was a lovely man when Henry VII's granddaughter was on the throne! Though some time ago Temperance did explain that the Richard III play is quite likely actually about one of Shakespeare's contemporaries whom it would have been unwise to name directly.  I wouldn't mind being a "hack" who could produce work of the quality produced by Shakespeare.

I wonder if that's Minette still fighting her private war in the jungle? Sounds like one of her anti-Wobbleweapon fulminations.

Yes, Robert Cecil had a physical disability like the Nun of Leicester's. But Richard's super-cool, sardonic, very funny (and seductive) character was possibly based on Kit Marlowe. You end up cheering Richard on in his villainy, which is actually rather horrifying - bit like finding you are rooting for Milton's Satan in Paradise Lost. The Archangel Gabriel is such a bore. Satan, on the other hand, like WW's Richard III, is actually great fun, whizzing around Eden stirring everything up. But perhaps that's just me - the consequence of having watched hammy old Laurence Olivier at too early an age. Cumberbatch's recent interpretation of the role in The Hollow Crown did not have the same effect. He was simply evil.

But mustn't start letting the Richard bee start buzzing here on the MB thread.

Isn't Andy Hamilton's Satan in "Old Harry's Game" a logical descendant of Milton's? With a touch of the old Sci-Fi trick of actually commenting on the present added for good measure?

Perhaps I should open a thread on the rise and fallof threads......

Some interesting thoughts here tho. Mm's thread reply elsewhere being drowned in a flurry of dross, and ferv's not finding threads  on the PoV board that she could relate to. I guess people who look in here do not see immediate threads that that relate to their interests. I like our informative ones - and the interesting pics that our posters find  time to search for and post. Discussion is not my scene, is it! Like disagreeing with taxi drivers; it costs.

I have read that Twitter which is opinion based is losing it's appeal. I have no idea if that is a truth but there is report of misuse. I guess it is useful for those who feel impelled to be part of a happening. Or it's somewhat like graffiti in its usefulness.  
There was a Book MB after the closure of the Beeb Big Read one that was most interesting for a while but then that seems faded down to a regular few now, I believe. Too many sections, there, I think. Ours at least has its accessible  shortcuts list of current stuff......a glance at earlier material might revive old interests and fresh posts.( Just a suggestio.)
But exploring several old websites it seems that most do have a life span - much as any interest group does eventually..... oh dear, will that evoke  a busy screen of Grand National proportions?