I wonder why discord adopted a policy for political topics identical to the one I suggested , but the proponents of that system don't want the same thing to exist here?
Anyone participating in discord anywhere is frankly stupid. It never ceases to amaze me how willing people are to hand over every bit of metadata about themselves then turn around and cry about it when it inevitably comes back around to screw them over. People think running spyware on their computer and snitching on their own activities on a platform known to cooperate with law enforcement only effects them. But it doesn't. It effects all of us. You're helping train the system that allows the dystopia we're all living in to exert more control over everyone and everything. We do not have much longer until we're living in a society like China. Which is going to prevent things like BL from existing because the Government is sure to seize the domain and servers in the near future. They will more than likely troll through all the data on the server too just to see what you've willingly admitted about yourself over the years. Have to figure it into your social credit score. It will never stop following you around.
I for one am sick of the Codes of Conducts, the use policies, the long winded declarations from moderators and all the other bullshit that seems to have infected every last place I used to visit on the internet. Most places which implemented them either don't exist anymore of have become total ghost towns because anyone with half a brain got out of dodge while the getting was good. They are only always used for the same purpose; silencing people the people that have obtained some power over others do not like. Just a few days ago I was kicked out of yet another communication channel for saying and I quote;
Wow. I forgot how much the Firefox browser rapes an SSD
My use of the word "rape" was somehow offensive to someone that admitted they've never been raped. But they felt the need to flex some meager moderation powers for no reason because I had apparently violated some policy that was never stated anywhere and I wouldn't have read anyway because I have better things to do with my time. I seriously doubt any of the computer geeks sitting in that channel have ever been raped or that my proper use of the word would have cause them some irreversible harm. I for one can not keep up with the ever growing list of words in the English language I'm supposed to not use anymore because it might offend someone somewhere. If people are really that weak maybe they should work on growing a thicker skin instead of ruining everyone else's day. I'm not going around insulting people for no reason or insulting people even when I have reason. I
ignore them and if there are too many of them to ignore I go find another place that suits my sensibilities. These people are bullies hiding behind some warped sense of social justice. All they do is bully other people. As I'm not part of any so-called protected class I'm just expected to deal with it. They treat people like shit then act shocked when people lash out. It's madness.
All that mod accomplished was driving away yet another person that was actually doing the work for the greater good. I notice they had no problem continuing to use all the code I gave them for free over the years. Thanks to me the users of that software don't have a web browser artificially shortening the life of their solid state drives. Since I took the time to package the browser is such a way that it automatically created a RAM disk so all those writes go to RAM instead of the disk. Thus preventing the browser from "raping" their computer. Which was pretty "retarded".
Hence my original replay to this thread. Seen this mistake repeated over and over again over the last 20+ years and getting repeated more often in the last 5-8 years or so. All its done is make fun places less fun and make active places dead. A small group will seize power and hide behind all these policies and then they'll pat themselves on the back for running off anyone that contributes anything of value. Then when the place is dead they somehow manage to find even more things to get offended about. They will not stop until we aren't allowed to discuss anything that matters.
The world is big enough for everyone. If you are offended by something then don't look at it. Don't participate in it. There are plenty of threads and forums I do not like. I simply do not read them. The fact that they exist and people use them everyday has nothing to do with me. It does not affect my life in the slightest. I can always find some place with people that share my views. At least I used to be able to before this crusade against everything that isn't in the mainstream started sometime around 2015. I apply this attiude towards people I meet IRL as well. I do not like homosexuals. I do not go to homosexual gatherings or their clubs. I don't have buttsex with them. But if one of them hits on me I politely let them know I'm not into it and let it pass. I don't get rude with them unless they ignore my polite "no" and start pushing the issue. I don't care what they do with each other in private. But I will say something if they do it in public infront of children where I or anyone else can see it. I'm sure they dislike many things I do as well. Which is why I don't openly advertise those things in the street and do them in the privacy of my own home. This is called having good manners and getting along. Something every adult should have figured out by the time they're grown. Despite the fact that I personally find homosexuality (between men at least) as disgusting I get along fine with many people that live that lifestyle. My neighbors are lesbians. I have a couple of close fag friends. We even tell each other insulting jokes about it from time to time. Everyone laughs and gets along. No one gets offended. Again; It's called being an adult and not being a child.
I'm also going to be very frank here. Nothing being discussed in the political forum here (and most other places) matters in the grand scheme of things. You're all just repeating stuff you heard from mainstream media. Which is only designed to keep people in-fighting with each other. I know the things I say from time to time matter because 9 times out of 10 both sides will unite to attack me. If you aren't getting the same kind of response out of the people that enjoy the daily rage bait you probably don't have much of value to say. I refuse to compromise on the free speech issue. I refuse to compromise on the freedom of data issue. There is no shortage of people that claim to believe in those things. But they're more than happy to start restricting shit when you talk about having open exchange of some types of data or speech. Once you bring up that kind of data or speech they're all for it and are quick to label you as being part of the
other side. Since apparently it's impossible to form an opinion of your own in 2025. Everyone must be part of the hive mind(s) and if you aren't part of mine then you must be part of the other one!
Let's call this what it is. You need to reign in the content to be more advertiser friendly. Because that's the only path you can see for getting the money you require to host the website. If it isn't that then it's some existing advertising partner making the demands. We have
an image to uphold. How else will we make drug use look socially acceptable to the suits of the world? You know the types of people that will never come here to participate in the first place. I've watched this attitude ruin just about every hobby and interest I've had since my childhood and I guess it isn't going to stop until we aren't allowed to talk about anything at all. The only way you'll ever get your "safe space" is moderating it to the point where only pre-approved content and people are allowed. Which will make it boring and a pain to contribute to. So every interesting person will just go somewhere else.
We gave you all the tools to deal with these problems decades ago. It was quickly discovered that people can't help enraging themselves by reading things they know will make them mad and that there were idiots that got off on making people mad. So you were given kill lists/ignore lists. When the web became popular and people started using them instead of mailing lists and networks like USENET we gave you ignore buttons and the ability to block certain websites at the firewall level. People refused to use them (or just scroll past things they didn't like) so then came the karma systems. Which were only abused and gamed to the point where actual content was driven out and ad ridden bullshit and propaganda was pushed to the top. Bots were created who's sole purpose was the censor people and promote propaganda. Ruined the entire internet in short order. Then came the trending lists and the shill squads and the Codes of Conduct and all the other BS people seem hell bent on wasting their time with day in and day out. Meanwhile nothing of value get discussed or created. We're still recyling 10-20 year old jokes and image macros because nothing original has been created in the last decade or so. Can't remember the last time I saw something original that spread organically. People these days won't even share a stick figure they drew in paint for free without slapping a link to a social media profile all over it and begging for money. Truly a race to the bottom.
You're all adults. Start acting like it. Who cares if someone called you a mean name or some other user likes something you don't. I'm sure you can find something that interests you without banning everything that doesn't. Think of all the dead people that shed blood to give you the freedom to say whatever the fuck you want. How do you think they'd feel about all this censorship? Do you truly believe we can clean up the image of drugs user to the point where society will see it as harmless? Do you really think it's harmless to people and society in the first place? At the end of the day you can't stop people from doing whatever the fuck they want anyway. It's like the gun ownership issue. Make all the laws you want it won't stop anyone from buying one, using one and maybe killing you with one. Every anti-gun person's solution to the problem is calling a bunch of men with guns. Perhaps you'd be better off learning how to use one yourself. Maybe you only think it's a problem because you've been tricked into thinking that way by a media that jumps at the chance to report on violence for ratings and attention. Maybe they really are playing you and faking such things from time to time. They lie about everything else why not that too.
I know this;
In all my time dealing with this kind of bullshit I've never seen these type of policies do anything positive in the long run. They only end up destorying what they claim they care about. I am speaking from personal expereince too. Made the same mistake myself a long time ago. Took me a long time to learn the lesson that you're never going to make all the people happy all of the time. Just let people have their flame wars and petty arguments. They will eventually run out of fuel and grow tired of it. Just like a toddler having a tantrum. The only thing you can do is contain it and wait for it to burn itself out. The less involved moderation is in the day-to-day goings on of content being posted the better. If you're going to defer to the law then there are only 3 things moderation is required to delete on sight. Only one of which requires reporting it to law enforcement. All three are things that shouldn't be law in the first place as far as speech is concerned. Now if you're going to say "well we don't want it to be a free-for-all that makes decent people take one look and turn around" then yes you have a point. But that's why you have the ability to make forums and sub-forums. So you can sub-divide discussion into areas of interest. If the users are still displeased then point them to the ignore buttons. That's why they exist after all.
Which just proves the point that you can't work society or any community with a pipe dream. Seperation is the answer. Some people just simply refuse to get along. That's why society has always divided itself into small like-minded communities. That's just how people are. All you've done here is point out the differences between your various sub-communities and cause people to come out of the wood work to rant about how the others aren't like whatever one they feel they belong to. Leave people alone. 9 times out of 10 they will return the favor. That 10th person is easy enough to deal with under the existing rules of decorum everyone is following anyway.
In summary: You have so many tools to ignore what you dislike. Let's count what's at my desktop and in my home right now shall we? I am using my main workstation to post this. I navigate around it with a trackball mouse and an expensive keyboard. The mouse have both a scroll wheel and the ball doubles as one too if I press a button. The keyboard has a page down/up keys. The browser is set-up like VIM so the hjkl keys double as arrow keys in addition to the actual arrow keys. I can left click on anything on this page and nuke it from my view. I can press TAB to scroll too. Probably more options I've forgotten. Then the forum itself has an ignore button under anyone's name/profile I can take advantage of. Then there is my firewall where I can block invidual pages if I so desire. That's over 10 options to not view something I dislike already. I'd keep going but I'm sure you've gotten the point by now. In all my time here I've never cried to moderation to have something removed or someone banned. I think I might have suggested splitting a forum out once years ago. But only because the topic was getting lost within a more popular topic within the forum it used to exist in. Which is fine. The topic wasn't as popular as I expected anyway. But I'm happy they took my suggestion and followed it at least. Additions are different from subtractions.
Don't hide behind things like "harm reduction". We all know it's a flimsy excuse for a drug forum to exist in the first place. We do some good things as a community to reduce harm yes. But I'm willing to bet everyone ITT came here originally to discuss drugs and not harm reduction. Some are here for the more technical discussion of chemistry and drugs. Refugees from places like The Hive. Others are here because they want to learn how to get high on whatever they might have on hand. Others might be concerned about some damage they've done to themselves with a missed shot or whatever. Others might just be curious about a substance. Others only want to share a trip report. Others just come to hang out in the Lounge all day and that's fine too. Some are only here looking for information about things they plan to do IRL or people to do those things with. There is room for everyone. I could make a case that a bunch of things here aren't being posted in the name of harm reduction. I bet 90% of the stuff in the lounge doesn't qualify. I responded to a thread a few days ago about a drug that doesn't qualify either. But I certainly won't report it and send off an angry email about how it shouldn't be allowed and the user should be punished. They're going to do something stupid and probably won't listen to my advice. Which is fine. I tried. It's up to them to make decisions about what they're doing with their own life. No one else can stop them anyway.
To me all of this just sounds like a great way to piss off your volunteers and invite a bunch of concern trolls here to do what they do best; Kill existing communities. The vast majority of the web communities from 20+ years ago are already dead. Please don't join them. There is barely any place left with actual people on it. You're all very lucky that you managed to survive the great forum purges of the 2010s and still managed to thrive. Don't throw it all away.
Oh thank you thank you thank you. Your post is Godliness to me. Or Goodliness if you would rather.
