Bluelight making money

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Artificial Emotion

Artificial Emotion

Bluelighter
Joined
Jan 19, 2009
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UK (Kent)
I understand Bluelight has been having some financial difficulties. I was wondering if they would think of more novel ways to raise funds rather than depending on the philanthropic generosity of individuals who want nothing in return for cash donations. On some other forus they implement systems such as:

* Paid membership. Everyone is free to join and use the forum but members can pay a nominal annual fee of £15 for example, and above their handle name, they are labelled as a subscriber to show their support. The issue with this is that it can shame those who don't pay, although I don't really see this happening in practice, or if it does I'm not aware of it. I understand why you might not want to have this system in place though.

* Charging for extra privelages. An example would be one's ability to close their own thread, but obviously this would be pointless on this site since there's the delete funcction. The one thing I would pay for myself, and I'm sure others would as well, is extra space for private messages. I hate having to delete messages and yes, there are ways around it, but for convenience's sake, extra PM space would be well worth the money. I'm sure there are other features you could offer in return for fixed donations.

* Raffles or competitions. For example someone has x quantity of cannabis and photos it on the plant. The person guessing the weight with the closest value to the actual weight wins a prize, and Bluelight raises money through profiting from the competition. It would be a lot of fun for everyone too!

* Outsourcing t-shirts to somewhere like India. It's so easy to arrange and so cheap it would be a good money maker since I bet you loads of people would love to buy them. Other accessories could be made too, and I even sure that since there are so many people so devoted to the site, you would have not a lot of difficulty getting them to even make them for free, as long as you supply the materials or something.

I understand the desire to shy away from turning the site into a commercial enterprise and that it's more about harm reduction than from profiting off of the users, but a few simple things might be able to improve the site and end up doing more good through condoning safer, more informed durg use that benefits everyone.

Any thoughts? Please don't flame me for this. I'm only trying to help so be gentle :)
 
Blue mine~Enki
Artificial Emotion said:
I understand Bluelight has been having some financial difficulties. I was wondering if they would think of more novel ways to raise funds rather than depending on the philanthropic generosity of individuals who want nothing in return for cash donations. On some other forus they implement systems such as:

* Paid membership. Everyone is free to join and use the forum but members can pay a nominal annual fee of £15 for example, and above their handle name, they are labelled as a subscriber to show their support. The issue with this is that it can shame those who don't pay, although I don't really see this happening in practice, or if it does I'm not aware of it. I understand why you might not want to have this system in place though.

Yes, this has been discussed a lot

* Charging for extra privelages. An example would be one's ability to close their own thread, but obviously this would be pointless on this site since there's the delete funcction. The one thing I would pay for myself, and I'm sure others would as well, is extra space for private messages. I hate having to delete messages and yes, there are ways around it, but for convenience's sake, extra PM space would be well worth the money. I'm sure there are other features you could offer in return for fixed donations.

Yes this has been considered also, many a search could have turned up such discussions

* Raffles or competitions. For example someone has x quantity of cannabis and photos it on the plant. The person guessing the weight with the closest value to the actual weight wins a prize, and Bluelight raises money through profiting from the competition. It would be a lot of fun for everyone too!
Guess the age, weight, or birth month of your cannabis will all be attributed to you when we open up a BL carnival.

* Outsourcing t-shirts to somewhere like India. It's so easy to arrange and so cheap it would be a good money maker since I bet you loads of people would love to buy them. Other accessories could be made too, and I even sure that since there are so many people so devoted to the site, you would have not a lot of difficulty getting them to even make them for free, as long as you supply the materials or something.

I'm trying to decide if you have a racist desire to enslave India or if you are trying to exclude other slave nations from their just deserts in this world. In any event you lost this this one when you said India.

I understand the desire to shy away from turning the site into a commercial enterprise and that it's more about harm reduction than from profiting off of the users, but a few simple things might be able to improve the site and end up doing more good through condoning safer, more informed durg use that benefits everyone.

First we are not shying away from anything. Are you trying to make us feel bad about our introversion. Neurotypical people have all the nerve:X

Any thoughts? Please don't flame me for this. I'm only trying to help so be gentle :)
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AE I wouldn't flame anyone who consistently posts in good faith, ever! Well maybe sometimes but it would be good natured.

 
Sorry you think I might be a racist enki. I guess my post was not welcome or appreciated, even though I was just trying to help after all.

You say at the end of the post that you wouldn't flame anyone posting in good faith so maybe you were joking, but if not I don't see why the India comment makes me a racist. Perhaps it's just a dry sense of humor, I'm not sure. Were you joking?

If you were being serious, perhaps you have an association of sweat shops in your mind and that's why you're judging me, but the reality of outsourcing in India is very different from that these days (due to outsourcing in general for the most part, GDP has increased 7.9% in the first quarter of 2011). Shanti towns exist but social mobility is improving at an astonishing rate. My father in fact has an outsourcing business over there and the workers benefit greatly from very good wages in return for photoshop retouching-type work. Enslaving a country is a bit difficult when the end result of their trade/export of goods an services means explosive economic growth at a rate that would make many other countries so envious. But that's besides the point because it was not really a serious recommendation that I was suggesting BL actually implements, it was just something I thought of from the top of my head as some sort of an example. Yes I know it was a poor example of how to make money, but the point I was just trying to make is that you could have the t-shirts made cheaply, that's all. Instead of t-shirts it could be any sort of accessory or something.

I'm not trying to make you feel bad about your introversion, as you put it, at all. I think I would have worded the post a lot differently if my aim were to shame you for not doing more to raise money. They in fact were just intended as helpful suggestions open for discussion.

Anyway, I guess I shouldn't have made the post in the first place.
 
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I was being light, not serious. The fundraising thread was continued as the State of BL 2011 (Ownership, Finances, Direction) That's the thread for serious suggestions about BL financing, promotion, governance, etc. Consider this a hint to at least look around at the other threads on the front page or do a bit of searching. How many years have you been here AE? How many threads have you started without looking around and thinking about the fact "there might already be a thread for that?"

If you post in the thread established for such things I will be completely serious and respectful.
 
^ If you hadn't noticed I virtually never post in any other thread other than the cannabis discussion growing thread so I don't think that is really true that I make threads all the time without thinking if there's a thread for that.
 
Well what I meant is that if say you took a list of all my posts, I'd say far more than 99% of them are responses to other people asking growing questions in the cannabis forum (not asking questions, I mean responding) rather than my making threads asking questions. I meant I very rarely venture out of that forum and therefore don't often get the chance to post in the wrong place in the first place. Seriously, I mean rarely make posts outside the grow thread. When I did like today, which isn't the norm, bar the odd post like the one about coffee today, because I made an honest mistake rather than you just saying post it in the appropriate thread you took the piss (which is how I took it) since you weren't being completely serious about me being a racist you say. Despite it being 'light', you then went on to say that if I posted in the right forum you would be respectful, which implies you yourself were being disrespectful in your original reply, despite my misguided attempt to create helpful discussion (albeit in the wrong place).

If that's how you feel about me - i.e. being a useless poster who posts questions all the time without thinking and offering useless advice that has been done to death, then fair enough, perhaps Bluelight is not for me. I'm not into conspiracy theories but I think you know as well as I do how some of the management must think about me. So maybe it's warranted - fair enough then, I'll use other discussion forums instead so you don't have to put up with my annoying posts.

I mean yes it was a mistake not posting it in the right section, that's fair enough.

I've made a lot of effort spending hours trying to help people with their grow questions and it's taken a lot out of my time. But if people think I'm just a useless waste posting space then perhaps I'll do you a favour and not post anymore.

Sorry I offended you.
 
Do I seem offended? It could well be you have been an outstanding member the last 6 months plus. You could prove me wrong about my impressions from my encounters with you which go back a couple years. In fact they precede either of the accounts we are both now using.

People don't think anything. A person here with a long memory has an opinion or two. I've told you that if you post in the right thread I'll treat you with seriousness and respect.

Do you know the word causistry? Its arguments by cases but if you hang out in certain groups that work with a lot of argument by cases it takes on another meaning. Trying to make people make hair splitting distinctions about things. Your other support thread seeks a a binding precedent about poppy seeds and vegetables and such in CD. Binding precedents is a way of trying to push us into making more and more rules when I think we have quite enough already. We aren't moral theologians or constitutional lawyers which makes mod calls tend towards the arbitrary a little bit, the other way is to be a slave to the law.

So there you have some ideas about my ideas about things which are not that you are worthless.
 
I was under the impression that you were perhaps offended (perhaps the wrong word to use) by your flippant post which seemed unecessary. I've said it was a mistake and you obviously realize it was just casual laziness, forgetfulness or ignorance to the fact that there was that thread you referred to. It was not malicious so I don't see why you needed to say what you did when a response such as, 'post it in this thread or use the search engine' would have sufficed. Either you were offended or, because of our 'encounters over a couple of years' you perhaps unconsciously have some sort of animosity towards me.

I did make it clear that I was not seeking a binding precedent or pushing you into making more and more rules at all. I made it very clear in the PM I send which you are no doubt aware of. I think you aware of the fact that the post was in good faith. And lets just look at my motive for asking the question in the first place - I've said quite clearly that I do not wish to seek any information about poppy growing. It was another member that asked me a question about poppy cultivation. Because moderators had said it the discussion was allowed but then vadar said it wasn't, I was not aware whether that was a site-wide rule, or a recent thing. I wanted clarification. Again, clarification, not a demand to establish a rule. I've made that clear so I can only assume you either just don't believe me or missed what I said because you skimmed over it (or whatever, I don't know). The bottom line is that the moderator in question, from how I interpreted his words at the time, had himself made the precident as you call it. In his own words he said it was not allowed, so asking whether or not it was a mistake or if there was a rule in the first place is not a demand. If I had wanted to make a demand I would have said discussion in the past wrt poppy cultivation had taken place and therefore this is unfair that the mod is taking this decision. I would have protested his mistake whether by accident or not. However if you read through my post I said nothing of the sorts.

Mods are always referring people to the rules, so I think there is no problem with me trying to establish what the rule exactly was in this case. I also do not believe you need to be 'moral theologians or constitutional lawyers' to decide whether or not that sort of discussion should be allowed on an internet forum. I might be wrong of course, but to me that seems a common sense sort of thing, as it's not as if the mods are sitting on some ethics committee or are sitting for jury duty (sorry I don't mean to sound like I'm belittling your statement).

I don't think it's unreasonable to ask if there is a rule that prohibits the discussion of poppy cultivation, and if there is, an explanation for why this is the case **edit: especially with it being incongruent with the allowing of cannabis cultivation discussion at the same time. It was a request, so there was no obligation to give an explanation, so I think you're making more of an issue out of it than need be. I was interested in why this was the rule.

Anyway I think the discussion has gone off on a tangent.

When people start to make me feel like I'm just an annoyance and there are needless jibes against me, despite making possibly thousands of posts just devoted to helping others grow, it makes me wonder what's the point in being here?
 
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If we make detailed distinctions about what is allowed or not for one tenth of of the moderator actions in a given forum for a few months we would could expect on onset of some paralysis through distinction making.

Did this incident strike you as arbitrary? Do you think the moderator in question would not have acted the same way with another poster? Was there a logic to the moderator action? Did you PM the moderator and get a satisfactory answer? How much more time do you want spent on a rule or distinction based discussion about poppy plants?

If you allow cultivation you need to allow synthesis! If you allow cannabis you need to allow poppy! If someone got away with mentioning Walgreens I can talk about an RC vendor! YES, you are being more meek and humble about it than a lot of folks. Forum mods do have extended discussions about making things fair and practical sometimes publicly sometimes privately. Many moderators will engage you in extended conversation about it. Some will give you short answers like "it is beyond the scope of this forum."

And yes my flippant post was unnecessary. Sending a PM to another staff member to forward to me struck me as unnecessary. How do I know that the PM was to be frwded to me instead of sent directly to me? Because you apologized to me in it in the second person then alluded to the fact you are certain I've seen it by now.

I have more free time than about any person on staff. I sometimes enjoy legalisms and reconciling rules and even a wee bit of rule generation. I'm sorry if this matter was really important to you and I have been overly flippant about it. You are getting the brunt of my built up feelings about some rule clarification being about people passing time or gaming the system.

What's the question and why was it important to you one more time. I'll give you my best sincere answer.
 
^ I'd have to check, but I'm not even sure it was my post vadar edited (might be wrong though). No, I don't think I was singled out if that's what you're suggesting. I was curious if it was a mistake since he said 'it had not come up before tbh'. Was there a logic? I don't know, I can't read his mind. This is why I was asking.

Look, you obviously think I'm aggrieved by his decision to disallow the discussion, which is an unfair assumption. No, I most certainly did not PM the mod in question, because, as I said, I had no issue with the moderator, as I said. below you'll even see my comments to that effect (have you actually read any of it?). I was trying to get clarification of what the rule was, but I've said all this. But obviously there was no rule set in stone going by what you're saying.


I had these facts -

Once moderators and members openly discussed it without being challenged.
Cannabis cultivation is allowed, so I would assume (if say I were in the position of making the rules and trying to exercise common sense) that poppy cultivation would also be allowed.
The moderator said 'this has not come up before', suggesting he has had no experience in dealing with it and perhaps wasn't up to speed on the rule which may or may not have existed.

So given the above evidence I decided to ask, if there was actually a forum wide ban against the discussion, or just for that forum, or not at all because a simple mistake had been made.

How much more time do I want to spend on a rule or distinction? You yourself closed the other thread and then brought up the issue from the dead in this thread, not me. After that PM I was happy to let it rest. End of story. I don't care since it's not in my self interest to be able to discuss it.

Sending a PM to another staff member to forward to me struck me as unnecessary.

So do you have some sort of conspiracy theory about me being surreptitious in sending him the post first? enki please, read the post below that I sent. I send it to a mod (any mod would do, I didn't care, especially since I was stoned at the time) that would insert it into the closed post. If I had sent it to you you would have still read the same thing, so what difference does it make? I've had more dealings with purple cloud anyway and naturally since he took part in the discussion I asked him to paste it into the thread. I don't think your theory about my alterior motives really holds up well. Anyway, why not just take my word for it?

**************************************************************

Once again, for the umpeenth time, the rule clarification, not demand is not important to me. Yes I asked for clarification but that does not mean that it's important to me since I have nothing to gain from it. You obviously don't frequent the cannabis forum often, or it at least appears you don't. To be honest I think the whole issue is more important to you than I since when I started this thread I had no intention of discussing that, but you veered the discussion into that topic, not me.
 
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Sorry about all the edits, I've been having problems with error messages coming back. At any rate, please lets not go round in circles anymore. I've said what I wanted to say.
 
Enki said:
My copy contains "***********************" Does yours not?
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Sorry you missed the edit. I could only post a bit at a time because if I posted it all at once, for some reason it kept coming back with an error message. You'll need to read it all again because there are large chunks copied and pasted which I couldn't get in all at once.

edit: sorry I just want to retract the bit about my assuming you thought I had alterior motives since I don't think you meant that.
 
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I responded to member feedback in a crabby and unacceptable manner this last weekend.:!:o I won't do any fucked up versions of UTFSE or be such a crab ass for quite a while from now. It is safe to start threads in support, unless perhaps it is about when do I become a Bluelighter when your 50th post was 2 minutes ago. Even then I'll likely be nice. Sorry
 
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