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[pyromania]

After seeing some recent posts by an established formite, it became very clear that this person was not, nor ever has been, an academic.

What do you think about those who post here who are not academics? 

[sciencephd]

You'll have to start by defining an academic.  My definition is probably narrower than most.

[secretweapon]

I can't decide what percentage of me is non-academic.

[pyromania]

Let's go with the following definition:

An academic is employed by a university to teach and/or publish.

[sciencephd]

That definition excudes graduate students and administration.

[neutralname]

There is no essence to being an academic, and people are academics in a wide variety of ways.  So I'm suspicious of positing some massive divide between academics and nonacademics.

I think better distinctions are between the wise and the foolish, the quick-witted and the slow-witted, the scholarly and the unscholarly, and many others.  Being an academic is no guarantee of being wise, quick-witted or scholarly.

So it's best to just take people as they come.

[pyromania]

I agree, but am also a bit curious.  Why would those employed in business, for example, hang out on a forum for academics?  That too seems a bit odd.

[sciencephd]

I do suspect that many of the one-issue / fanatical people here are not academics.  

[bacardiandlime]

After seeing some recent posts by an established formite, it became very clear that this person was not, nor ever has been, an academic.

Was it LarryC?

[infopri]

I agree, but am also a bit curious.  Why would those employed in business, for example, hang out on a forum for academics?  That too seems a bit odd.

There are lots of reasons.  They may be former academics (or folks who have obtained a graduate degree, at least) who maintain an interest in academic issues.  They may be people who are contemplating a career in academia.  They may have an SO, sibling, or offspring who is an academic and want to understand that part of the loved one's world.  They may actually even qualify as academics themselves, such as practitioners who also teach as adjuncts.

The culture here on the fora has always, to my knowledge, defined "academic" (as it refers to a person) rather widely.  By some of the definitions offered above, I wouldn't qualify, even though I've spent the past 30 years in academia (as staff, then grad student, then TT faculty, and now adjunct) and I'm married to a tenured full-professor who's been teaching full-time for 30 years himself.  I do hope the forafolk aren't suddenly going to get all exclusive in their definitions.

[ecoprofnh]

To answer the OP's original question, maybe some people find comfort and connection in this community of people just as they would in any other chatroom, particularly in the less professionally-oriented fora. And, our more personal fora are not as rife with snarky, back-stabbing profanity such as I've seen in other chatrooms about relationships and the like, so maybe people in industry like the conversation and can count on relative psychological safety.

[stitch]

I'll bite.  

I found these forums at a time when I was finishing my MA and debating going on for a PhD.  I ended up deciding against the PhD.  I don't want to relocate, and the advice about how that would likely work out was pretty clear.

While I was figuring that out, I found I identified with and liked a lot of the posters here.  So I stuck around, even after I left my job as a University staffer.

[crazybatlady]

So, who's the "established forumite" who's never been an academic?

The curiosity is killing me.

cbl

[leighleigh]

That definition excudes graduate students and administration.

And Ph.D.s who haven't found a job teaching or doing research at a college/university.

[malcha]

I may be on my way out as a narrowly defined academic, but you will have to pry my fora membership out of my cold, dead, virtual hands.