the lounge discussion v. september 2016

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Can the actual members who call the lounge home have any contribution as to how it is run?

Can we please see actual numbers of this "small clique" cross referenced with all the other forums? For instance how many members contribute to the vape forums?

How the fuck is a nicotine product in anyway harm reduction?
 
why does an off topic section that supposedly nobody goes on piss off your donors so much because this is what this is really about
 
^ not really. please reread the announcement. this has nothing to do with donors. you've been away a while rico so i'd expect you to be a little out of touch.

if it's not clear, the lounge is not being closed permanently. as the announcement says, it's closed for posting "for a day or two" only.

alasdair
 
History suggests the chances the admins have of even being able to open the lounge again is pretty slim. I'm surprised the servers weren't wiped
 
This really doesn't make much sense to me, on almost any level.

And now I have nothing to do with my time but fill my arm w/ a mixture of air bubbles / semen / and heroin. Nice HR!
 
MASH_Goodbye.jpg
 
I'll save the trouble : agree to disagree.

My understanding is that there are no metrics, such as donation money or site traffic, that is clearly affected by the current/past state of TL.

I bolded current/past, because there is no difference in "offensive" material posted today and offensive material posted 10 years ago. Hell, it's probably more sanitized now than it was back then. If you don't believe me, search for currently banned words and see what you get.


The major difference between TL back then, and now, is that now there isn't much besides "offensive" material. For whatever reason, be it poor staff decisions in the past, the past non-offensive material contributors moving on with their life, competition from other social networks, etc. TL turned into what it is today. The only people that have remained, and post everyday, have their needs met by TL. Those needs tend to be shit posting at other people's expense, for the most part, who by the way are fine with being insulted and joked about, and they wouldn't come back if they weren't.

And what TL is today is seen as unacceptable to the current staff at the top. Unacceptable because they're not in on it (when's the last time a senior staffer was a well liked regular?) and unacceptable because the current national zeitgeist is to avoid offensive material. And that's fine, it's a private discussion forum that can be run however they see fit.

Whether TL is what it is/was or if it's a social forum akin to EADD... someone will not like it. It just so happens that the people at the top who have power happen to not like it as it is right now.
As (former) drug users we should be used to what we like not being accepted. Whether that something is the decision to use drugs or to make fun of somebody, choices are being made for us and we're not allowed to make that choice for ourselves. That to me makes this decision kinda ironic. Harm reduction is essentially a movement about freedom of information. That information we believe should be out there, even if the majority of people disagree with us and that information's availability, those people being law enforcement or even the family of people who were killed by drugs such as heroin. We want that information to stand by itself and to let people make their own choices about its use. So here we are, us making that choice for other people and not letting them do it themselves.

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I talked to lysis, and everyone is more than welcome to post at https://www.reddit.com/r/bluelight/ while TL situation is being sorted.
 
Thankyou for taking action.

I have a suggestion.

I suggest the moderators of the lounge and -maybe extend to all social forums-

be a fixed term contract position. Like 3 or 6 months.

I think phr has let the team down. He has done a lot of good things in the past but allowing himself and a couple of his mates harass and rub in bardeaux death to kyt and others was below the belt and he needs to be fired .

Having a fixed term position means that persons modship can be renewed and rebiewed by us and staff.

It means no one moderator can be complacent and feel they are above anyone else as they are not.

It means we can have less bullshit when its time to change direction and be fun!

The other mods are great and.some are relatively new so this will be good for them to work together and with us to have more fun times and stuff.

Thankyou.
 
Bardo handed out as good as he received in the lounge when he was alive. I doubt my eventual death would be met with any more or less respect than his.

It seems pretty poor form to parade a suicide as being noble when this whole site is built upon keeping people alive.

If you can't help your friends what hope of saving a stranger?
 
I'll just paste here my quote of a quote at the tail-end of my post in the mod discussion:

The challenge of leadership, and the content of community members is “...to be strong, but not rude; be kind, but not weak; be bold, but not bully; be thoughtful, but not lazy; be humble, but not timid; be proud, but not arrogant; have humor, but without folly.” -Jim Rohn

High school essay writing aside, the admins (primarily ali) knows my stance on TL. Regardless of the (un)anticipated changes, everyone should have a sense of respect for themselves and others.
 
I posted this elsewhere but it belongs here as well:

While I understand where Ali is coming from here, I'm concerned that the outcome of this will cause more lounge regulars to leave the lounge.

A few concerns/comments I'd like to voice:

- making the lounge private was a decision made entirely by senior staff, and was actively fought against by most lounge regulars.

- having senior staff that oversee the lounge but have never been lounge regulars causes more issues than it fixes.

- not regularly or semi-regularly asking for the input of community members about how to improve the forum does nothing but further the agenda of those currently in power without improving the forum overall.


I also dont think the lounge is really homophobic at all. That concern should really be left up to the LGBT members of the forum and not its "allies".
 
BL is a private forum that people choose to join. Its owners are free to set policies as they wish, and people are free to articipate (or not). If the goal of the site, ultimately, is longevity, and longevity is achieved through donations and PR, then it makes sense that site policies will reflect this accordingly.

Yes, it does have a bit of a regressive feel to it, akin to what goes on these days at universities and such. If people are less fee to speak their minds and behave as they wish, then the bad apples are less likely to be exposed. If people are not allowed to make jokes about deaths or minorities or whatever it may be, then it will be more difficult for the observer to actually know who is an asshole. As well, rules tend to make people rebellious, whereas social pressure makes them adapt, so there is an argument that even if someone initially acts like a fool, he or she can be positively influenced into better practices. But this is essentially the Lounge debate that has been going on for a decade, so no need to type any more.

It's a difficult issue and it is easy enough to identify with both sides.
 
Also, and maybe this little detail is not remembered by all (especially the numerous posters who are relavtively new), but the rule stipulating that the lounge would not be visible to greenlighters was created for the benefit of moderators who were sick and tired of cleaning up the mess that greenlighters tend to leave in the lounge. This mess is often the result of not reading the guidelines, not taking enough time to get familiar with the regulars and the flow of the forum, and not reading what forum they were attempting to contribute to. Additionally, the rule was created to hinder lounge trolls from posting with numerous alt's and fake accounts, which was a huge issue for a while.
 
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