Site Feedback Psychedelic Discussion could use some refining...

S

Scunch

Bluelighter
Joined
Oct 28, 2011
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I've spent most of my time here so far in psychedelic discussion and though I enjoy it it strikes me as a little broad. By definition psychedelic can include anything that affects the consciousness, but traditional psychedelics (LSD, AMT, mushrooms, 2ce etc.), Dissociatives (DXM, PCP, ketamine, MXE, 3-meo-pcp etc.) and Deliriants (DPH, Datura, dramamine) are all very different drugs with extremely different headspaces, levels of danger and effects. On 420chan they separate each drug into their own board, and this works well for a chan. Perhaps subforums would be a good idea or if you think that's too messy at least a sticky. I feel that the distinction should be made aware of and it's certainly something that new users should understand.
 
My experience of sub-forums is that they tend to struggle to get traffic.

Having things in a single forum means that you're more likely to get a broader range of people reading/contributing to specific threads. If the threads are spread across multiple forums or tucked away in sub-forums, that breadth tends to be be diminished.

That's not to say that I know anything about how PD works... just that splitting forums usually comes down to two issues:
  • Is there the critical mass of topic-specific traffic to sustain a new forum?
  • How do the current posters of that forum feel about such a split
We'll see what everybody else has to say on the issue.
 
I think that it is something to consider. PD is definitely one of the busier forums, having new posts in all of the threads on the first page and some of the second every day.
 
This might benefit from prefixes like OD - the problem with separating this would be that many users might post in dissociative or deliriant threads if they are bored and happen to see them in a forum they frequent but if they had to go to a separate subforum they would not and you'd likely lose out on contributions from some of the most knowledgeable contributors on those subjects. As a result, the threads on DXM, diphenhydramine, etc. will be dominated by kiddies ;)

With prefixes, if someone wants to only view certain designations, they easily can do so without the substantial amount of work of creating new subforums, recruiting staff, moving threads from the forum and archives to where would then belong, etc.
 
I've sent a PM to the mods of PD, asking them to come and have a look at this thread.
 
Prefixes may work, but I think one of the issues is there is a lot of controversy over which drugs fit in which groups, and while I personally think it's a clear-cut as looking at the Wikipedia pages if you're not sure, a lot of people disagree about the classification. For example Salvia, a lot of people refer to it as a psychedelic, but it fits better in the dissociative group - where it's placed on Wikipedia and various other sites discussing it, then you get people who claim it's a deliriant.. See what I'm getting at? It'd suck having people labelling their Salvia threads completely differently each time.

I don't think sub-forums would be the best idea as many would miss them, but I'm almost beginning to think that Psychedelic Drugs might be worth splitting into "Psychedelic Drugs" and "Dissociative & Deliriant Drugs" since there are probably an equal number of Dissociative posts as there are Psychedelic posts, and of the two, Deliriants would fit better with Dissociatives.

Quite a big step to take though and it'd have to be well planned out.

At the moment though, our lovely Psychedelic Index does list separate Psychedelics, Dissociatives and Deliriants, so it's easy for people to find what they're looking for, as long as they use the Index. :)
 
Deliriants are so seldom discussed they're barely a blip in PD activity, dissociatives are often enjoyed by psychonaut types...splitting it up would be ridiculous. I mean, I've read the thread on people wanting to split OD into an uppers/downers subforums, but those both would get decent traffic, and still it's generally agreed a split would be a bad idea. PD is fine the way it is. I also think classification is a bit complicated, many drugs (even some not covered in pd) are psychedelic, but I'd only call the serotonergic psychs Psychedelics. Similary dissociatives is a broad broad phrase, but I like using the term Dissociative to refer exclusively to NMDA antagonists. A lot of people disagree...

PD might more generally (I think anyway) be considered a hallucinogen board, and we take anything of the sort (in addition to psychedelics cultural things). Which is why we have accepted discussion of GABAergics (amanitas, z-hypnotics, and even lyrica) in addition to the other things mentioned here. These drugs (and the people interested in them) have a lot of overlap, the alteration of consciousness is considered as intellectually interesting and desirable as emotionally (though dissociatives do have an opiate-like escapist quality, certainly), and is not necessarily pleasurable, but may in fact be quite terrifying. You get what I'm saying, entheogenic use of these drugs is pretty big among large segments of the core user base, who may be interested in these sorts of things exclusively (and maybe cannabinoids and empathogens as well).

Can anyone think of a good reason TO split them? (I am not opposed to the idea of prefixes, but am not too enamored with the idea either).
 
think i'm kinda prefix ambivalent as well... wouldn't hurt i suppose, but i think most people posting in dissociative threads are aware of the classification. some newbs certainly aren't but they would be if they used the index. Getting them to use the index would probably be the simplest thing to do, but lots of people never look at the index.

There's so much experiential overlay in psychedelics, dissociatives & non-MDMA empathogens that splitting them seems like it might be counter-productive, IMO.
 
any major dude said:
There's so much experiential overlay in psychedelics, dissociatives & non-MDMA empathogens that splitting them seems like it might be counter-productive, IMO.
Click to expand...
that pretty much sums up how I feel about it too. and it's the same reason that OD never got split into uppers & downers - the use of prefixes was a compromise.

I added prefixes to the Support forum a while back, thinking it would tidy things up or makes things easier to deal with, but realistically... I'm not convinced it does much beyond displaying some pretty colours. ;)
 
perhaps threads that aren't too good could be given a brown-coloured prefix.
 
If it is to be divided, I highly doubt that separating the dissociatives and deliriants will remedy the issue. Look at 420chan, which split their /hal/lucinogens into /psy/chedelics, /dis/sociatives, and /del/iriants. /psy/ has 527k posts, /dis/ has 179k, and /del/ has just 75k. That is, the vast majority of discussion regards traditional psychedelic drugs, and separating the dissociatives and deliriants doesn't actually clean up the psychedelic board. From my reading, Psychedelic Drugs is in the same sort of situation.

I mean, sure, it's an important pharmacological distinction. If you take too much LSD, you might attain enlightenment. If you take too much methoxetamine, you'll get very sick and won't feel right for a few days. If you take too much datura, you'll drop dead.

In principle, for our purposes, a psychedelic could just be any drug someone takes with the intention of learning something about themself. Whether that actually works is dependent on a number of things, but the intention is the defining element.

The only debacle I've noticed in Psychedelic Drugs lately is the methoxetamine craze, which we seem to be at the epicenter of. It's a wonder this one hasn't hit the papers, but then, it seems to be an American thing, and, for some (astounding) reason, the American media, unlike the Brits, aren't interested in hyping RCs.
 
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Just wanted to thank the PD mods for responding so positively.

<3
felix said:
perhaps threads that aren't too good could be given a brown-coloured prefix.
Click to expand...
Formally requesting new thread icon:

icon_turd.gif
 
well I'm back from christmas and I do have to say that this thread was made on somewhat of a whim. I am used to 420chan obviously, and seeing an LSD thread next to an old thread about combining dph and DXM kind of shocked me. What shocked me more was the lack of practical knowledge in the thread. Of course, bluelight is not an imageboard and thinking on it, it surely it doesn't need to be split. The psychedelic/dissociative/deleriant split seems very clear to me, NMDA, serotonin, and delerium, with atypical psychedelic/dissociative being a convenient label for salvia. The prefixes seem like a good idea, but some of you sound disenchanted with them.

My concern is that users primarily research the effects of their particular class of drugs. The current system throws deleriant threads out to the masses of PD (the most misunderstood and dangerous of hallucinogens) , as well as dissociatives. There are advantages and disadvantages to separating the boards.

Advantages are that those that explore their "home" boards become extremely knowleadgeable about their subject. This is both practical and theoretical knowledge that can be passed on (mostly practical), researched and spread. We have this to some degree. There is also the sense of community with in-jokes forming along with threads supporting those who have difficulties and incorrect information being crushed quickly. A community of regular users of certain substances may develop coping strategies for the downsides of a drug. When I used google information about new drugs I would often ignore bluelight as a resource. many of the threads are messy, full of misconceptions (some of them obvious, and not all criticized) or flat out assumptions. When one starts a thread they may get 4 or so posts from people who know nothing about the subject but need to chime in about "how a friend's friend went crazy doing that" in regards to deleriants or what have you. And those posts are there FOREVER. Googlers may stumble across bad threads that just fall by the wayside with a few bad posts and since every thread doesn't get the attention it might deserve it reflects badly on bluelight

On the otherhand, splitting them up would have negatives. The more you separate them the more the truly knowledgeable might miss. The more insular and annoying the communities can become. And of course, you risk undermining your purpose of harm reduction by creating a destructive community that builds a "DO MORE WHY NOT" kind of message that might drive an entire group of people into madness unsupervised (*cough* 420chan's /del/*cough*). And then there is the risk of downright dangerous or at least untrue rumors/myths starting based on bad research and without the aforementioned knowledgeable people it might begin to be spread as fact, not only on bluelight but on other sites and in real life

And I've only covered a portion of the pros/cons. I like the prefix idea personally, it would highlight the interest of those knowledgeable in subjects in theory and PD does kind of have it's own unique thing going on, I think it might be a boon rather than a minor annoyance. It may cause some argument but I think most could agree that serotonergic based hallucinogens can be called "psychedelics", NMDA antagonism can be called "dissociatives", atypical psychedelics/hallucinogens (including salvia) can be classified among "other", straightup delirium can be catagorized by effect (I'd put amanitas under "other" from descriptions), and of course, "combinations". Oh and categorizing empathogens might be a bit of trouble. If you do do it, arbitrary lines may have to be drawn, but as long as they are well known and clearly defined (as well as being acknowledged as arbitrary so as to avoid vehement discussion) then I think it could help. I dunno, maybe give it a week or two and see?
 
I'd forget about it, while I do agree that PD can be a turmoil of a broad range of topics it is hard to chop up. Discussion about dissociatives and psychedelics feed off one another and there is far too much cross-chatter about combinations between them, similarities between them, etc. Deliriants are negligible in terms of traffic.

One thing I would consider shaving off and that is all RC stimulants for example. Talk about methylone and 2-FA and whatever is not psychedelic by a long shot but you know, it's just quite hard otherwise. They could get a separate forum but it would be a baby. And people often do like to talk about all these things in PD because the PD folks are browsing around there and tend to have interesting things to say about them. Same thing about these compounds in a research stadium where effects are mostly speculation and the pharmacology is shone a light upon, that goes to ADD. You can try surgically reorganizing but I am afraid we'd be doing more harm than good.

In general the sentiment is appreciated though because yes PD does host stuff that maybe isn't technically that psychedelic. But don't forget that we also take care of that stuff that could otherwise go homeless and I think we do a nice job at it. If we don't then I'd like to hear your argument.
Not to shit over OD but if we would try to host discussions about exotic RC chemicals there, it's a big mainstream audience that typically isn't really bothered with that stuff. I don't have good experiences with that. And it's fine, they have their own thingy like CD has their own thingy etc etc. And no one even said anything about reorganizing in a moving way, but rather splitting.

Sorry. I think it's asking for sectioned shit bleeding to death.

^ edit @ your extra post:

By the way I appreciate the way you thought it over about the pro's and cons. I agree about a lot of things but I have my doubts that separating something like Deliriants would really give it that more attention or generate a significant amount of extra traffic, maybe for a very short while but I don't see that as a lasting help. Deliriants are just quite unpopular and for good reason. Categorizing would only make it 'slightly' less misunderstood but a label alone will not kill someone's myths about hallucinogens being pretty much all the same thing. They would have to explicitly read about that difference and something that would help is big info parts in the OPs of Deliriant threads for example.

Yeah perhaps categorizing dissociatives is a good example of putting in extra order but it can also create more confusion. In the end people will just have to research each single compound. I don't want to create a culture where we lower thresholds like that on exotic drugs, I'd rather invite people to research more about them themselves.
Small wiki fragments in OPs of compounds would be cool, especially because they would be compound specific. A lot of these exotic drugs are so multi-facetted in effect. If you'd classify MXE a dissociative you might go past the fact that it also has a stimulant side to it.
I'd welcome more elaborate OPs and everyone is welcome to contribute such things. But in reality, not many people do, so if you feel like there can be improvements why should we not come together to think in a direction more like that?
 
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I see RC stims are discussed in OD (such as 4-FA). In my experience, it's just the ones like 5-IAI and 6-APB which are more MDMA-like that get lumped into PD,
 
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