Cleaning up basic drug discussion

[Keif' Richards]

Greetings and Salutations fellow Bluelighters. I regrettably have a little bit of housekeeping to do. As a lot of you are probably aware, I've been relatively absent from the forums for the past month as I've been dealing with some things, but am now intending to get back on the ball. The other Moderators do a superb job, don't get me wrong, but there's only so much we can do by ourselves. When a member of the team is absent, it's hard for all of us to get the job done.

Anyway, I and other members have noticed a significant uptick in the number of threads that are completely irrelevant considering the overall goal of Basic Drug Discussion is the support and promotion of general Harm Reduction principles. What does this mean exactly? It means that our goal is to help those who use drugs to do so as safely and responsibly as conditions permit. Meaningful and intelligent discourse is what makes Bluelight so great and althoug forums like ours have been maligned by the mainstream media in the past, those with more open minds seem to believe that we are a genuinely positive influence and could very well be responsible for saving lives.

If we lose our credibility, Basic Drug Discussion and Bluelight as a whole could completely devolve into a Reddit or Drugs-Forum scenario. I got involved with Bluelight years ago because it was different. People cared, didn't espouse bullshit and generally had thoughful, helpful and intelligent ideas to offer. Some of the more extraneous threads that I have viewed recently are, in my belief, contrary to what make Bluelight so great as a community and as a resource. There are places to discuss other topics that don't fit in with the Harm Reduction narrative, for instance Drug Culture or your regions Discussion Forum.

Examples of Inappropriate Content

-How to deal with the Police
-What drug combinations are most fun/recreational
-Random anecdotes about past drug use with no point
-Acquiring/producing drugs, legal or otherwise
-How to get the most fucked up
-Matters of subjective opinion; example being a thread recently that simply stated "Benzodiazepines and Crack Cocaine go well together, don't you think?"

The list goes on and on guys. Let's just try to keep it together and keep our content in the appropriate places. No one is mad, angry or upset. This is just an observation I've made since getting back into the forums. Don't anyone go taking this personally.

 

[T. Calderone]

Well put, Keif! This is long overdue and needed to be addressed. We don't like to have to close so many threads but it becomes necessary when they blatantly violate the rules. If more people read our forum guidelines, this wouldn't happen. One thing I will add, if anyone reads a thread or post that is inappropriate please bring it to our attention by hitting the "report post" icon. Thanks!

 

[HeadHigh]

Im glad someone is working on this. 99% of the time that i spend on bluelight is within basic drug discussion and i have had to wade through a lot of random stuff, but hopefully with this type of work being done, it will get better in time.

 

[keeping]

yeah man tell me about it; there's a lot of stuff on here that would be more appropriate on the blog section and/or socials

 

[Keif' Richards]

Thanks for the support guys. I hate being the fascist and trying to regulate everyone. I just don't want to imply that these threads that don't belong in Basic Drug Discussion have no value. Everything is going to have some degree of value to a given person, hence, we have other areas to post things like stories, tips and tricks or what have you. I also received a message from a member just a little while ago who had a valid complaint. I've been closing threads pretty rapidly when I could work harder to find an appropriate place for the threads and in the process, keep them open and the discussion flowing.

The cold, emotionless facts and statistics concerning drug use are really important, but so is our sense of community. The fact that many of us care about other members unconditionally is part of what produces some of the great discourse we have here on Bluelight, so we want to keep that going obviously. On the flip side, I really encourage new and old members alike to peruse the forum guidelines before creating threads. Putting your thread in the proper place is important, as it will also get you your answers/conversation faster that way.

So, we're all human and have room to improve, myself definitely included. I'll try to work to keep more of the non-harm reduction threads open for the sake of the community and I and the other Moderators would certainly appreciate you guys working to keep your threads in the right place from the get go.

Thanks for understanding everybody!

 

[Kittycat5]

I think the subjective experience should be handled on a case by case basis and not be made a rule. It is basic drug discussion afterall so I take the stance that unless I know them, I assume they know nothing about drugs. Replace crack with alcohol in Keif's post. Not sure a mod saying its bad and immediately closing gets the point accross.

 

[Keif' Richards]

I think the subjective experience should be handled on a case by case basis and not be made a rule. It is basic drug discussion afterall so I take the stance that unless I know them, I assume they know nothing about drugs. Replace crack with alcohol in Keif's post. Not sure a mod saying its bad and immediately closing gets the point accross.

KC5, I'm totally in agreement with you. I definitely don't want you to think that I'm just going to close every thread containing a subjective experience like the one I described. We've just gotta use our discretion, which I kind of alluded to. I'm gonna work a little harder at that myself. I don't think we've devolved into a den of inequity here, I just noticed a little bit of a downturn in the content. Nothing extreme.