Heads Up and Member Feedback - Your opinions on the future of the site :)
- Thread starter TheLoveBandit
- Start date
Keep Harm Reduction in mind
I don't post much here, but I read bluelight a lot, and have for many years. After wading through about eleven of the jillions of pages of feedback on this topic, I think we need to refocus. The basic purpose of bluelight is harm reduction. On that point, I completely agree with nabollocks.
Charging fees would change the nature of the community in the conversation. The gain in intimacy would be offset by a loss in diversity. But the original purpose (harm reduction) would definitely be reduced. If people new to the topics discussed here were deterred, they would just find misinformation elsewhere on the web.
We don't need more overdosing, misbehaving, newbies crowding the news, or the obituaries. (From bad pills, which they could have learned to spot if they had had access to proper information about testing, thus: bluelight).
There are lots of other good reasons to value a larger, not a tighter, community here. This already is a global community, united around a small behavioral niche that people enjoy. It is big, but everywhere we are in real life, we are small in numbers compared to a majority around us who don't behave like we do, or approve of the things we do. To sustain the community, sometimes things learned in one place need to be shared with people in another, especially since a lot of us won't be bumping into each other.
Membership fees also would make the quiet more silent. They'd not be here at all. Something of value could be lost. Some readers here (like me, for example) elect to rarely join the conversation because a lot of what gets said doesn't benefit from their commenting. Here are I am speaking (without any authority to do so) for the three to five percent of bluelight visitors who are twenty to 40 years older than the typical bluelighter (median age: 20). We old fogeys are here to hear the latest about a culture we once were part of, and which to varying degrees we still are part of, only with older people as the players. To some daily posters here, we may seem as lurkers or noobies, and if those labels help simplify those peoples' lives: fine. But if harm reduction is the purpose, or one of the purposes, then closing the site off to input from very different visitors, who may have quite extensive experience with drugs, may be a mistake.
I hope the moderators and whoever else makes the decisions choose to keep the site as open as possible, free of fees, memberships, and other features of a club. If money is the issue, Google ads sounds like a good idea. People often are posting links anyway, so why not make some money from google's skillful way of putting interests and vendors together?
Finally, if I can change topics and make labor-intensive suggestion for the moderators (or whoever), it would be to somehow link together related topics when they surface anew, e.g. "sex and ecstasy" or "pre-loading." So often we just spin our wheels again and again. It would be useful to piggy back all that spinning so maybe people would read the answer before they asked the question. Or even during the answering of the question.
Keep up the good work, and good site.
nabollocks said:
I don't post much here, but I read bluelight a lot, and have for many years. After wading through about eleven of the jillions of pages of feedback on this topic, I think we need to refocus. The basic purpose of bluelight is harm reduction. On that point, I completely agree with nabollocks.
Charging fees would change the nature of the community in the conversation. The gain in intimacy would be offset by a loss in diversity. But the original purpose (harm reduction) would definitely be reduced. If people new to the topics discussed here were deterred, they would just find misinformation elsewhere on the web.
We don't need more overdosing, misbehaving, newbies crowding the news, or the obituaries. (From bad pills, which they could have learned to spot if they had had access to proper information about testing, thus: bluelight).
There are lots of other good reasons to value a larger, not a tighter, community here. This already is a global community, united around a small behavioral niche that people enjoy. It is big, but everywhere we are in real life, we are small in numbers compared to a majority around us who don't behave like we do, or approve of the things we do. To sustain the community, sometimes things learned in one place need to be shared with people in another, especially since a lot of us won't be bumping into each other.
Membership fees also would make the quiet more silent. They'd not be here at all. Something of value could be lost. Some readers here (like me, for example) elect to rarely join the conversation because a lot of what gets said doesn't benefit from their commenting. Here are I am speaking (without any authority to do so) for the three to five percent of bluelight visitors who are twenty to 40 years older than the typical bluelighter (median age: 20). We old fogeys are here to hear the latest about a culture we once were part of, and which to varying degrees we still are part of, only with older people as the players. To some daily posters here, we may seem as lurkers or noobies, and if those labels help simplify those peoples' lives: fine. But if harm reduction is the purpose, or one of the purposes, then closing the site off to input from very different visitors, who may have quite extensive experience with drugs, may be a mistake.
I hope the moderators and whoever else makes the decisions choose to keep the site as open as possible, free of fees, memberships, and other features of a club. If money is the issue, Google ads sounds like a good idea. People often are posting links anyway, so why not make some money from google's skillful way of putting interests and vendors together?
Finally, if I can change topics and make labor-intensive suggestion for the moderators (or whoever), it would be to somehow link together related topics when they surface anew, e.g. "sex and ecstasy" or "pre-loading." So often we just spin our wheels again and again. It would be useful to piggy back all that spinning so maybe people would read the answer before they asked the question. Or even during the answering of the question.
Keep up the good work, and good site.
felix
Bluelight Crew
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- Apr 30, 2005
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- 38,249
related reading: a poll for 'How old are you?'
i might run the numbers through excel later to figger out the mean age.
i might run the numbers through excel later to figger out the mean age.
TheLoveBandit
Indefinite break from BL - contact other admin
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- Feb 22, 2000
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- 39,045
Another area for member feedback:
Just spewing forth anything that comes to mind, I'll throw the following out for your consideration, and let you refute...or better yet, propose your OWN ... ideas.
Just spewing forth anything that comes to mind, I'll throw the following out for your consideration, and let you refute...or better yet, propose your OWN ... ideas.
- Split the 'Art' content out of SO and either merge it into WORDS or set it up separately.
- Turn WORDS into an Archive and point further such work towards JOURNAL
- Take a look at the content of CEP and P&S to evaluate where the line is drawn (and enforced?), and include the consideration of re-merging them.
- Review M&DJ and NEMD as they stand today. Given we started with M&DJ, then NEMD spun out as a sub-forum, generated enough traffic to be an independent forum, and now kind of looks over it's older sister....time to merge again? Or consider outlandish ideas like redefining ourselves into 'Music Review' and 'Music Making'?
- *IF* the art gets pulled from SO, would anyone object or encourage consideration of merging HL back into it?
- Pushing S&G over to Arts & Entertainment? Or moving any forums from one category to the other...or simply merging them all under one big forum grouping (window dressing, I know, but an option nonetheless).
- Reordering any of the forums...since the site has laid out the groupings and some of the other forums within groups into some semblance of reason.
- The concept of restricting the LOUNGE so GLers can read, but not post. This would reduce the chances of n00bs getting trampled in the PLUR, as well as discourage troll accounts for that forum. BUT, would it mean such troll accounts simply spill to other forums ... ?
- Now is your chance to shout out ideas for other forums! but give justification and reason beyond "I want it"
Rogue Robot
Bluelight Crew
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My vote is for GLers to not be able to go to the lounge. Like you said TLB, it would spill over into other forums, but that happens. The likelihood of them trolling a forum that isn't the lounge for the sake of trolling, i'd say is less likely overall.
TheLoveBandit
Indefinite break from BL - contact other admin
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There are parallel discussions ongoing amongst staff. Some of the ideas generated there ought to be done out here in an effort to get some member feedback as well. Just a quick highlight of some concepts I've seen bandied about:
....more for you to give your input on, and you are ALL still encouraged to offer up suggestions or ideas
- Revert P&S back to being named T&A
- Move TDS to a more prominent position (maybe among the PD-OD-CD family of FOCUS FORUMS)
- Music and DJ's---Electronic Music Discussion
NEMD---- NEMD
(the simple, elegant solution, but there is also discussion of a big merge or whatever)
- Quotes of articles (looking at CEP initially, but extending to all forums) without proper links and citing sources - isn't consistently being enforced
![:\](https://bluelight.org/xf/BL_Images/Orig_Emoji/wrygrin.gif "wry grin :\")
We've several 'rules' that are not enforced evenly across the site, a consistency we need to address as general practice; but the citing of sources for quoted material is something we really need to adhere to (and enforce) from a legal standpoint. It hasn't bit us yet, but it isn't that hard to follow thru - and this extends to the members who make the original quotation
- End C&U and split that content back to the regional social forums
- plurMONSTER gave some mindless gibberings where we tried to answer, but eventually nobody knew what he was on about
- Recent talks also consider moving BDD into some sort of 'New Members Starting Point' or moving it somewhere to improve the direction of new members to that content before asking beginner questions in more advanced forums (and getting flamed back to lurking ).
....more for you to give your input on, and you are ALL still encouraged to offer up suggestions or ideas
zephyr
Ex-Bluelighter
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Rogue Robot said:
I doubt restricting the lounge access will have any affect at all on the amount of trollage that crops up from time to time.
If you notice- the trolls come and go because of a grudge against some moderator or other members, an if they are that bitter or bored/ whatever to bother making themselves look like a dickhead for "revenge",they will troll the lounge regardless of what it takes.
The lounge brings more interest and actual participation than the other social forums. As much as it is ragged on as being "useless and full of idiots", its more useful than other more uptight forums for the simple reason that it is what it is.
The lounge shouldnt be seen as a filter to keep the riff raff out of the other forums. If you are not able to point the new members in the right direction of what they want to get out of BL in NMI, then what is that forum for apart from a glorified "welcome wagon" pm?
Its probably a lot easier and less work for you mods to discourage or prevent new members from posting in areas they will probably be assraped in at first. I remember going to the lounge specifically to get the virtual popcorn out and watch the fur fly years ago, and its gotten a lot nicer in the lounge since then.
Trolls will always be around, just face it. Its a pattern of behaviour that just keeps repeating, and you have no chance of making the trolling go away if the mods don't take a long look at why it really happens. If you get someone who is pretty much guaranteed to be drug affected, pissed off at being "singled out and treated unfairly"- real or imagined, and publically torn a new arsehole over and over- then banned- you'll have yourself a troll.
Maybe a better way of dealing with people like that is to put them on a universal ignore, or somehow bar their posts from being viewed so that they think they are still being heard but are not.
Dunno if you can do thet, but multiple accounts is just a former bluelighter trying to have some kind of voice where they once did.
If they receive no attention- liek NONE (and banning/ warning is ultimate attention to someone who hates you guys) they will eventually wander off and not bother with it.
Im a little tired of mods who post in the lounge themselves (or lurk, which is kinda ghey in itself) taking a shit on the social forum that is getting more atention than any other. If it were gone, the rest of BL would not be too far behind, so appreciate it while you have it.
Rogue Robot
Bluelight Crew
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zephyr said:
I am fully aware that trolls will do what trolls with to do. However, with GLers running to the lounge as soon as their accounts are activated, it can give staff more time to keep an eye on said trolls prior to them reaching the lounge. It's easier to spot pointless drivel in a more specific forum than it is the Lounge for the fact that those people most likely will not make posts to reach BLer status that fit into what said forum's guidelines and purpose are here on BL.
zephyr said:
The guidelines are different in the Lounge than in other forums, and some of the regulars in the Lounge tend to forget that when they are posting in other forums.
This is fact, and it is dealt with accordingly, at least in the forums that I help to moderate.
I'm sorry that you think that NMI is responsible for sending GLers to the Lounge, but if you actually participated in NMI, you would know it is the complete opposite. Not one of us (NMI staff) ever suggest for new users to go to the lounge, and when other users suggest for the noobs to go to the lounge, the posts are edited.
NMI as a whole is to help new users feel welcome and to help point them in the RIGHT direction based on their needs. Not everyone is internet savvy and not everyone is forum savvy, so that's why NMI is there. Have you forgotten about the adoption program that NMI and the Lounge have set up to HELP new users to deal with the lounge?
zephyr said:
You can't tell someone not to do something and expect them to actually listen. In which case, that is their problem, but the issue still stands with blocking GLers from going to the Lounge as most likely a trial. This isn't set in stone, and it was only brought up as a possible suggestion.
zephyr said:
We all know that it is that person's duty to contact staff if they have an issue, but most cases, like you said, it's just revenge on staff or BLers as a whole who have to deal with it.
Trolls aren't going away, and we all know that.
zephyr said:
You'd be surprised. I mean, look at the people who have been banned and continue coming back. Simply ignoring a person could potentially make the issue worse, you know? I'm not saying it will always happen, but sometimes it's just easier to deal with the issue(s) accordingly.
zephyr said:Im a little tired of mods who post in the lounge themselves (or lurk, which is kinda ghey in itself) taking a shit on the social forum that is getting more atention than any other. If it were gone, the rest of BL would not be too far behind, so appreciate it while you have it.
Nobody's taking a shit on the Lounge.
The suggestions that have been made by staff are simply to improve it. I doubt that if the lounge were ever removed that BL would go down like a sinking ship. Maybe, just maybe, users will actually participate in the Social forums that were put in place from the get-go.
I kind of look at the Lounge as a universal social where everyone from every region can get together and talk and clown around, but that can still happen within the region specific social forums, too.
SA
Bluelight Crew
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This is the only part we agree on, zephyr. It's a start, I guess.zephyr said:
Casual, off-topic chat subforums serve a purpose on most boards, but to claim that they are more useful than the on-topic core forums is inaccurate.
I lied; we agree on two points. It's a better start.
Yet it is not as "nice" as it was, say, five or six years ago. It has quite a ways to go to being considered an approachable casual chat forum for some one just happening onto the site for the first time and coming from the normal parts of the internet.
Here is where our opinions begin to differ in earnest, zephyr.
Let us examine the birth of a troll. By this, I mean the transformation of a bluelighter into a troll, not some dysfunctional personality who trolls the web indiscriminately and exhibits the unsavoury behaviour right from the start.
The history in the Lounge has been as follows, give or take. A bluelighter who posts in the Lounge, be it for a day or for a year, suddenly stumbles on a certain posting manner or posting content which captures the attention, appreciation and even admiration of others. People appreciate positive attention, so our bluelighter continues with the manner or the content. Attention being like a drug, either our bluelighter or their audience soon develop a bit of a tolerance for the level of positive attention thrown their way, so they escalate the intensity of the manner or the frequency of their content which was first responsible for that positive attention. The cycle perpetuates itself.
Somewhere along the way, our now popular bluelighter is approached (first privately, then publicly) and requested to tone down what is by now obnoxious and often insulting behaviour. There are some who respond favourably and some who do not. Those who choose to tone down their "fun times" come to realise that their popularity, appreciation, admiration, whatever you want to call it, now that it has been established, does not die with a decrease in the intensity of their posting manner or content. Those who choose to disregard the requests... a troll is born.
From that point on, the cycle is always the same. The requests from staff increase in frequency; warnings follow; then temporary bans; finally, a permanent ban. The troll then has several options - there are at least two ways out of every "no way out" situation. The troll can return, incognito, as a new identity and take the opportunity to start their Bluelight existence anew, interacting with people in a normal fashion and taking advantage of the resources the site has to offer (the latter they can do without registering, of course - simply browse). Or they could return under a new identity, with a chip on their shoulder, vengeance on the mind and embark on a campain of juvenile stupidity, i.e. trolling. They could also choose to go away entirely.
Those who return to troll, prove only one thing - that they have a malicious mindset. If they can embark on such malicious campaigns in the virtual world, then you can bet that they possess the same malicious traits in real life. The more they perpetuate this behaviour, the more solid a case they make against their person.
An argument which often crops up is that our rules don't specify certain behaviours for which some have been edited, warned or banned. To that, I say let's use our common sense, please. We're not six years old and neither are you (I hope not). Do you cover your mouth when you cough at the dinner table? Why? It's not written anywhere. Do you give up your seat to the elderly or pregnant in a crowded hall or bus or subway? Why? Yes, it is sometimes written above some seats, but not always and it is certainly not law. You know who bases their behaviour strictly on sets of written, explicit rules? Machines! We, as an intelligent species, live our lives according to not only the defined explicit rules, but also the underlying, implicit rule subsets. Some of these subsets we have come to call common courtesy, some political correctness and some, a huge set - common sense.
If a person gives the impression that they are 20-30-40 years old, have been around the block a few times, have life experience and even extensive computer and internet experience, then it is a given that this person should be well familiar with how the world runs and certainly familiar with many, if not most, of the implicit rule subsets, especially the most common and obvious ones, i.e. common sense. If, when that person is approached about toning down certain content or behaviour, they challenge the request by pointing at the explicit rule set here (BLUA) and cry out that there is nothing there which states that they are in the wrong, well... we have a slight problem then. Either that person is full of shit and is in reality six years old and is therefore not fully familiar with implicit rules and/or common sense, or that person is being knowingly and maliciously manipulative. Since the person's history - profile data, real life intro, display of life, computer and internet know-how - indicates that they are not six or twelve, but rather 20-30-40 as they had previously stated, the resulting conclusion is that they have no intention of following common courtesy, common sense implicit rule sets and are only intent on taking advantage of the good will originally offered to them and manipulating us and the system. Once again, if they can be this maliciously manipulative in the virtual world, then you can bet that they possess the same malicious traits in real life. Their manipulations will not be tolerated here, just as they will not be tolerated in the real world.
Exactly the opposite is true. The people who are repeatedly warned and eventually banned are precisely the ones who will not go away or tone down on their own, as they simply crave the attention of their disruptive behaviour too much to give it up. Warnings and especially bans are last resort measures.
A casual, off-topic chat forum is a valuable one on any board, but to imply that BL would cease to exist if the Lounge were to disappear is a grave fallacy. Rather than try to strike fear into people with these sorts of absolutist statements based on your own distorted version of reality, I would suggest that you take a stroll through the world wide web, visit some other focus forums and see how much nonsense is tolerated there. The message is almost without exception universal out there - no flaming, baiting, trolling, or spamming. Even forums which originally allowed the nonsense to get out of hand a bit have since pulled in the reins, since they realised that it is simply unrealistic to be taken seriously by the world when they themselves do not take themselves seriously. Fun and games are all good... to an extent. What dictates that extent? You guessed it - common sense. Even in my position as an admin here, above all I am a Bluelighter. A such, I am a part of this institution. If the institution has lost touch with its common sense in some small corner of its otherwise excellent universe, you better believe it that I cannot help but try and think of a way to recapture that common sense and bring it in line with that of the rest of the world. You are wrong, zephyr, when you imply that no Lounge would mean no more Bluelight. Although my only intent is to make the Lounge more approachable by general web standards, I'll counter your statement by saying that Bluelight would be more in danger of disappearing not if the Lounge departs, but if the common sense does not return.
zephyr
Ex-Bluelighter
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SA said:
It depends on your definition of on-topic core forums. I was referring to the lounge being more useful to bringing interest (from a wider group of people) than other off topic chat forums- the regional ones. Not, the other non drug related on topic forums- which are really good for worldwide discussion about certain topics. They're fine- but maybe a return to the original social forum without splitting it into regions would be a good idea.
If you got little local forums which all basically talk about the same things as each other, it discourages people mixing it up a little IMO. I forget about some of the forums like the sports one and the CEP, dont give two shit about either subject so tend to not go in them. :D
At the end of the day, its up to you mob what goes on, and I hope you keep the board going, and dont think its a big ask to pay for the use of the social forums if it makes the harm reduction still freely available to thos who need it.
As for the trolling thing, banning and warning and stuff like that lost its impact when the warnings were not so visible, and temp bans are pretty soft. Neither one will stop multiple trolling accounts. Knowing fuck all about software, I have no other suggestions than whet Ive posted already, except if you're going to take the hard line approach, make warnings visible so the post in question is pointed out in front of everyone.
Back when RC was modding with GL and Finger, maybe the rules were more lax with what a mod could do- and funny editing of trolls posts worked a treat. Well, it stopped that dickhead flyr flai from ever being as much of a dick as he once was. Public embarassment would suck more than banning, but Im going to leave it at that as I am not fussed about trolls anyway. Some past trolls are now mods- so it depends on the individual as to how to deal with them eh?
Junglistic1
Bluelighter
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Merging fourms, and more picture access, or the equivalent therof. I would enjoy voice blogs too, I can host, or provide an extra server for the west coast if you want one.
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Perhaps a Health Q&A forum (yes, like before), for questions more urgent or technical than those that are generally posted in Healthy Living.
lostpunk5545
Bluelighter
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- May 20, 2003
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- 10,324
Making it easier to change one's user name would be pretty sweet
plinkobarnes
Greenlighter
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- Aug 6, 2008
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- 17
could it perhaps be encouraged for users to post more physiological effects and whether or not it is harmful, and how it is in drug threads?