Guests on line

[Paul Cowan]

Hello Matthew,

Is there a way to engage with guests who are viewing threads as seen on the "Who's on line" tab? I know there are numerous lurkers on Monachos, I wish there was a way to engage them to be posters. Whether they are registered or not.

We have several outstanding consistent posters, but it seems if more people could be encouraged to post, we might have more "catachumen?" dialog to help them learn or engage in the more learned aspects of the faith.

The site has tons of information, but if I don't ask questions, I will have Paul's understanding only of a text. Not a good source of reliability I assure you. I know we cannot make people post, I just wish we could engage with the guest/ lurkers more.

Thanks for listening
Paul

[M.C. Steenberg]

Dear Paul and others,

As unregistered guests are (shockingly) unregistered, there is no way to contact them directly - e.g. by PM or e-mail. They are anonymous readers (of which there are several hundred each day). The system itself gives them prompts to register and join in; but the best way of 'recruiting' is to engage in good and productive conversations. That tends to attract people as much as any other method. 'See and participate.'

As to resources for learning: the forum is, as always, meant to be a secondary aid to the main resource of the Monachos.net web site: its large Patristic Texts Library (http://www.monachos.net/library/Patristics_Master_List), which is among the largest collections of patristic source texts in English on the internet. It is there that the 'answers' are to be found. The forum exists to discuss these things. So don't rely too much on the word of others. 'Taste and see', and then, if you will, talk. :)

INXC, Matthew