Bluelight's "no prices" rule.

carl

carl

Bluelighter
Joined
Apr 5, 2005
Messages
10,180
Bluelight has long had a rule against posting prices, which is, imo, the right thing for the site. http://www.bluelight.ru/vb/showthread.php?t=505555 This post, however, presents us wih a situation where posting prices would not be of potential for illegal activities, and in fact may help someone get into recovery. While I have no issue with pricing illegal drugs, I see this application of the rule as counter productive to bluelight's goal of harm reduction.
By allowing pharmacy prices for MMT, suboxone, and similar treatments for addiction, in threads that address specifically that, some may find that they are able to afford recovery, or even learn from a local BLer where they can save some money on their treatment. Censoring this information doesn't really benefit harm reduction, it only makes recovery that much more of a mystery for those wanting to quit.

So, could a sr.mod with focus forum duties, or an admin, chime in and share the reasoning behind the ban, and if anything in the future can be done to change that?

(again, I do not support public pricing for illegal or street drugs.)
 
Theres actually a discussion going on right now in staff about what extent we want to allow prices to be discussed :) We'll let everyone know what the ultimate decision comes to.
 
Has there been any further discussion, and can you share the issues being discussed with the community? This is a serious issue, one of the guiding principals of the site, and it's revision should at least be out in the open if you're not going to invite discussion from the wider community...
 
hey, no-one's disallowing discussion from the wider community, far from it. feel free to discuss it here. :)
 
carl said:
Bluelight has long had a rule against posting prices, which is, imo, the right thing for the site. http://www.bluelight.ru/vb/showthread.php?t=505555 This post, however, presents us wih a situation where posting prices would not be of potential for illegal activities, and in fact may help someone get into recovery. While I have no issue with pricing illegal drugs, I see this application of the rule as counter productive to bluelight's goal of harm reduction.
By allowing pharmacy prices for MMT, suboxone, and similar treatments for addiction, in threads that address specifically that, some may find that they are able to afford recovery, or even learn from a local BLer where they can save some money on their treatment. Censoring this information doesn't really benefit harm reduction, it only makes recovery that much more of a mystery for those wanting to quit.

So, could a sr.mod with focus forum duties, or an admin, chime in and share the reasoning behind the ban, and if anything in the future can be done to change that?

(again, I do not support public pricing for illegal or street drugs.)
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Maybe you could further the discussion felix? Tell us what's stopping Bluelight from changing the policy, since it hasn't been done yet?
 
what's stopping the policy from changing right this second is the fact that the debate is still ongoing. :\

for the record, i agree with your post and i think the issue is either an anachronism or a casualty of the blanket ban on price discussion in most forums. but i'm one admin out of 6 and one staff member of 100, and i don't always get my way. *kicks something* ;)
 
felix said:
what's stopping the policy from changing right this second is the fact that the debate is still ongoing. :\

for the record, i agree with your post and i think the issue is either an anachronism or a casualty of the blanket ban on price discussion in most forums. but i'm one admin out of 6 and one staff member of 100, and i don't always get my way. *kicks something* ;)
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Thanks for that tidbit of information; aside from your disagreement with the rule as it stands, would you fill us in on the "debate" that's happening and whatever process there is to change the rule. Is every member of staff going to have to vote, are you just requiring a quorum and a time-frame.... is there just going to be debate and a final edict from the admins? I understand Bluelight is not democratic, but with an issue such as this, I hope it would at least be transparent.
 
At the moment, from what I can tell staff seems pretty evenly split on the issue. It wont go to a vote like a poll or anything, but most likely people will be able to argue their sides and then it will go to sr staff to make the final decision from there... thats how these things usually work anyway, who knows, maybe they will decide for this one to be a poll :D
 
Banning EADD or whatever other forums are allowed to discuss prices from mentioning them for small quantities is stupid and ineffective.

Every single reason against discussing small amounts is pretty much a crock of shit, aside from the dicksizing argument, which people will do (and should be tackled as a separate issue) whether they're allowed to talk money or not.

The idea that discussing prices will "clue up" L.E. or something is probably the most stupid and laughable reason. Oh noes, like the police don't know how much drugs cost...?

Just my 2 cents... heh.
 
Riklet said:
The idea that discussing prices will "clue up" L.E. or something is probably the most stupid and laughable reason. Oh noes, like the police don't know how much drugs cost...?

Just my 2 cents... heh.
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I had always thought it to be an issue of provoking sourcing. If somebody says that they got something for X amount, and another person sees that they live in the same location, they may then go and ask for their source.

It doesn't matter what I think, but it seems stupid to edit posts when a person is just saying "I had X amount of dollars on me, so I got 2 bags of this and 1 bag of that" when their post has so much more to it. But that then raises the issue of where to draw the line on price discussion, because you also don't want to see posts saying "man, you got ripped off, I pay X for the same thing".
I usually just post a link to the price thread when somebody asks if they got ripped off, as that is currently the only thread that allows such discussion, and the only way that I can try to answer the question within the BLUA guidelines.
 
No price thing is funny because they have a 2010 price thread where they allow it.... so its pretty contraindication imo
Same thing with the no dope Stamp thread... i understand a couple fools, but we have admins to delete these fools and their posts....
Harm reduction. huh
 
Tommyboy723 said:
I had always thought it to be an issue of provoking sourcing. If somebody says that they got something for X amount, and another person sees that they live in the same location, they may then go and ask for their source.
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Correct. This is the main reason pricing is not permitted.
 
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