A lot of people don’t know about this forum. And however, I have done some personal efforts to let people know about it. Maybe we need to do something to make this forum as big as Facebook, Reddit, Instagram, Tumblr, Twitter, or LinkedIn. I have some suggestions to improve this website, if possible, add a downloadable folder of Buddhist books and a section for Buddhist suttas. I am not a programmer and I don’t know whether this is possible or not. Is there any way we can get a lot of internet traffic here? However, I checked various search engines about this site, and it already has a high domain authority.
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appreciated. 
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When we originally made this website, we decided to make it a root-level website forum. Normally with Discourse we would be discourseDOTclassicalTheravadaDOTorg but I wanted quick access similar to DhammaWheel.
It is okay that we are a small group. People “discover us” through their skillfulness and acquired taste for the Orthodox Theravāda. We do not need to be big. The only regret I have is not making it OrthodoxTheravadaDOTorg. We were created out of the frustration of getting tired with the current DhammaWheel members who would scan and attack specific subgroups specific to our mission and attack us. They had a classical Theravāda group there, and after I vowed never to post there again, I noticed that @RobertK had a subdomain Discourse website called classicaltheravadaDOTdiscoursehostingDOTcom. He was paying $20 per month for two years and had 4 users, basically himself and me being the only active users and the fourth user (me) being only a few days old.
I approached Robert with a deal he could not refuse. We’d migrate his website to a top-level domain and I would donate the costs which would be $5 per month + the domain (Discourse tells you how to host it yourself for that much). Robert later covered all costs. We thought, if 20 people join in 1 or 2 years, we would win. So we think it is a success. If you ask the AI about the different Theravāda discussion groups on the internet, you will see that there is a very nice description of classicaltheravadaDOTorg. The FAQ encourages people not to join.
We let things grow naturally slowly and organically. We have expanded our servers and we are still under $20 per month to operate which is a total win for Robert’s original costs. He has been offered cost sharing but wants to keep the merit to himself. Feel free to use the AI proofreader. It has only added three cents per month in costs.
We are not small at all. It just feels like that. See the stats page below:
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It wasn’t Abhidhamma…hosting..com?
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okay Bhante.
What if we introduce a Dark Mode?
I have dark mode already.
Click on your Profile Settings / “Preferences” / “Interface”
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Bhante, I would love to contribute to the website. Please let me know if there is any way I can help. I also saw the domain orthodoxtheravada and it is 10 pounds for the first year.
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I have an idea. We can make this website less restricted than other social media platforms. For example, saying “I think you are very stupid” in a comment may get you banned on a platform, because they categorize such a statement as harsh speech, hate speech, harassment, or hateful speech. We can use this to our advantage, we can make this site open minded and with less harsh policies than other social media platforms, such as Facebook, Tumblr, Instagram, Reddit, and LinkedIn. Then we can start a marketing campaign based on that. For example:
classical Theravada - Speak freely. Practice wisely!
Classical Theravada is an online forum for Buddhism built for honest, open discussion. Unlike mainstream platforms where conversations often end in bans, here you can comment freely and keep the dialogue moving. Ask questions, challenge ideas, and examine views with the spirit of the Dhamma -without the constant fear of losing your account. At Classical Theravada, people don’t get banned for commenting.
classical Theravada - Where Discussion Doesn’t Get You Punished!
(By doing so, we can make this the sole orthodox Buddhism hub on the internet..)
As there’s quite a lot of things this forum specifically does not want to discuss here I don’t think this is feasible. Any doctrine which contradicts Classical Theravada or sometimes even just casting doubt seems unwelcome here.
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If you want to reserve OrthodoxTheravada.org ,
we can make a simple resource page and it features a jump to Classical Theravada.
I think that would actually fulfill my wish and your wish too.
Namecheap is $7 for the first year… then bumps up to $12.98.
10L is 13.60 usd.
Since I’m on Namecheap, it can work better for me and seems cheaper… at least the first year. You can add me as a team member and I can do the technical dns settings.
10L is $13.60 so this is slightly cheaper over a few years and you can change hosts later on.
When that is done.. i can push a static website onto github and host it for free.
Americanmonk.org is hosted for free in a similar way using hugo. I’d probably do Jekyll framework this time though.
Or we can make a subdomain called web.classicaltheravada.org
as a webpage.
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- We don’t have a written policy for this and it would not be good to do so.
- We should always be polite and we should always follow right speech.
- We do allow bias towards classical Theravāda though. This is not allowed in SC which makes CT different.
- Our forum is small enough and so far, we have been doing okay. Sometimes, we just flag or ban people who post things not in line with our group’s FAQ
- We don’t need to be listed on social media. Spreading the group based on word of mouth is the best method.
I agree with Ven. Subhuti.
Theravada doesn’t suffer in comparison to other ideas, of course. In fact, for the one grounded in the Dhamma being challenged can be helpful, as it naturally causes reflection on whatever the topic is.
But still we are a small group and knowledgeable members can only put in so much time. So this site is for questions and discussion, as well as for curating useful replies and information, not for anyone to come and promote their ideas - which an open forum would allow.
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Indeed, too many users means the mods will have to work overtime. And there’s no pay.
I bought the domain. I think we can implement this and also eventually/gradually change the name of Classicaltheravada.org to OrthodoxTheravada.org
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At this stage, I think we cannot really change anything and just use OrthodoxTheravada.org as a main website. With that, we have a link .. jump to our forum. That will link to CT. (here).
It is nearly the same.. if we had a discourse subdomain
We would still have a “jump to our forum” button.
Here was the discussion with gemini pro.
https://gemini.google.com/share/efd66d41bf99
I made this website. It is hosted for free.
Perhaps we can make it into a landing. page for classical Theravada.
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