I'm glad the board, or better yet using it for research on a compound you were going to take, was helpful to you. It seems like a difference of day and night whether someone just goes and eyeballs a drug they know virtually nothing about or do their homework to take the necessary precautions. That has mostly to do with someone's personality and little to the information available here. There are bound to be people who just have too little patience (and common sense?) to research enough or who are too ignorant and arrogant not to disregard the warnings of others.
However, I think that is an important topic but a different one than discussed here.
And secondly, benefits of this forum such as you describe - weadazoid - however commendable, do not justify irresponsible online behavior.
Glamorization is something I have seen around here but I am pleased that it has been limited. One thing is that new compounds can get a lot of positive attention sometimes where much is expected and people are encouraged to be among the first to pioneer exploration of these compounds. Even if that is well-meant, and even though I personally sometimes cannot wait to hear early reports on certain compounds... we ought to remind each other that we are taking a leap in the dark. The enthousiasm as if receiving a christmas present should not make us impulsive and the potential dangers should receive the attention they are due.
But, there are logical explanations for such developments.
Wild and elaborate combinations can also get a lot of praise, for understandable reasons. But sometimes the downsides get neglected or disregarded and reports on it can be a signal to others of a norm: that this is okay to attempt.
Things like this and other irresponsible behavior, are IMO an unavoidable part of a forum like this and we should not expect this to stop... but it should be regulated internally, and I am happy to say I think people tend to be corrected when overenthousiasm escalates. Sometimes there is lag or delay because it is a trend that first needs to be spotted.
To return to the matter of NBOMe's in short: we discuss the subject openly here but not without restrictions. Some people who should never get involved with such compounds, read about it here and handle it completely wrong. A number of people blame sites like Bluelight for that. By a form of advertisement we at least catalyze this, if only because of bigger exposure of knowledge, they would say. You can imagine where libertarianists think responsibility lies.
I think in all honesty we do increase exposure of knowledge (so does Erowid), it increases the number of people to take these compounds, it increases the number of lives we help saving, and it also increases the number of accidents. It is not like a conscious decision to sacrifice some people... this is just something that happens as part of a larger process.
The cat is out of the bag. Repression by censorship does not work. I even have doubts that in early stages of such a compound escaping the lab, that would have worked... but by now it would do more harm than good. It just seems much to late to try such a remedy and we should now invest in harm reduction for reality, not the what-ifs of fantasy. People who would rather see these compounds vanish from history protest from a dreamworld IMO.
Our open discussion here of such compounds could in itself be considered 'advertisement' or glamorization, following the logic that glamorization is making something appear exceedingly okay, normal or interesting when that is unrealistic. I think that is a misunderstanding because we don't consider NBOMe's normal or safe only because we discuss them. It may appear that way to people who are biased and/or don't actually read the forum. That is a mistake and an overreaction.
