Open Discussion restructuring bluelight

blueberries

Bluelighter
Joined
Jan 13, 2011
Messages
339
Location
Shangri-La
I know dissociatives are hallucinogens and technically they're psychedelic due to their activity at 5HT2a but can we have another board for Arylcyclohexylamines and other dissociatives? Half the page is disso threads and as we are getting more and more ACH's there would be enough threads to warrant a new board.
 
Last edited:
Hehe I agree since I'm on MXE at the moment. Still most of the dissotalk happens in MXE thread =) I never would've guessed a few years ago I'd become a dissohead heh
 
Is that fair if many non-hallucinogenic drugs are bunched together in the OD forum? I sympathize with the tidy / neatness feeling an idea like this can produce, but creating a forum is probably not something to take lightly.

Gonna move this over to the Support forum, because while it pertains to PD... ultimately these are upper management / organisational decisions.
 
^ if it has value, then it's not a problem if it's a pita to set up. we've created new forums many times.

can somebody make the case for splitting this off. can i give you a little advice up front. if your argument is, basically, "it would be nice to..." then stop right there. we need a little more than that to consider a change. enumerate the benefits and we'll discuss.

alasdair
 
It's a bit more than "it would be nice to" to be honest. The amount of psychedelics out there are huge and still growing. In the early days there weren't many dissociatives so it was easier to pile them into the psychedelics boards but as we are moving into a new frontier of research chemicals, more and more dissociatives are cropping up.

MXE, the wonder drug it is, opened up a whole new framework for compounds and, being a disso kind of guy, I personally feel we should have our own space as the field is, in my eyes, completely different to psychedelics. We can use dissociatives every day and not have a problem, in contrast to psychedelics. They are also working on a completely different set of receptors (with some exceptions), some dissociatives could even be considered nootropics (as could micro-dosing psychedelics but that's a different story).

The fact of the matter is; dissociatives are becoming more and more prevalent in society. The broad spectrum of dissociatives at the moment and those that are soon to come will change the way drugs are taken and if we are to be a futurist society, with the goal of responsible and knowledgeable drug use, then this proposition is an absolute must.

Dissociatives are a way of life for me, I use them more than any other family of drug and there are multitudes more like me. If we have whole boards dedicated to regional drug use then the focus boards concerning categories of drugs must be widened. If it were me, I'd add a stimulant board, an opioid board and a nootropic board as well, as these fields are growing rapidly and away from the traditional fields. In this day and age, if we have a board solely dedicated to empathogens then the least we can have is one for dissociatives. We can't simply lump anything that isn't a psychedelic or MDMA into "Other" either, it's ridiculess.

I see Bluelight as the forefront of psychoactive knowledge on the internet and the vast majority of people do as well. If we are to be the leaders of this new frontier then the way the boards are set out must be radically changed.

If that's a "PITA" for you then honestly you shouldn't deserve to be overseers of the forum. A forum which is exploding in numbers, day by day, as our brave new world sets in.

PS: I didn't mean to be rude but it is quite an important issue!
 
It should be split off because the dissociatives are a very different class of drug from the psychedelics, in terms of subjective effects, mechanism of action and chemical structure.

Empathogens and amphetiamines are separated from the psychedelics on bluelight, yet they have more in common with psychedelics than dissociatives do (via the phenethylamine class, and perhaps the lysergamides).

Arguements in favor of keeping them together would be that there is a lot of overlap between dissociative users and psychedelic users, and some consider the subjective effects of dissociatives to resemble psychedlics. Subjective effects could be argued about endlessly I'm sure, but the user overlap is a fair point.

^I think the mod specifically said that if it's a PITA, that's not a good reason to not separate them. No need to get shirty :)
 
Last edited:
If that's a "PITA" for you then honestly you shouldn't deserve to be overseers of the forum.
nice attitude. seriously.

maybe you missed (or chose to ignore) where i wrote: "if it has value, then it's not a problem if it's a pita to set up. we've created new forums many times"?

:\

alasdair
 
Creating a novel discussion forum is of course defensible semantically, but the ultimate success of such a paring is dependent on the frequency and quality of replies from the community. The social dynamics on display in the Other Drugs forum are typically not conducive to constructive discussion in the realm of psychedelia, which warrants maintaining the sub-forum level association with 5HT psychedelics. If our community was simply more matured it might be different. By all means, lets make that difference if we can, but I'm skeptical of the practical merits of further division at this point.
 
nice attitude. seriously.

maybe you missed (or chose to ignore) where i wrote: "if it has value, then it's not a problem if it's a pita to set up. we've created new forums many times"?

:\

alasdair

Honestly, I misjudged your statement (and recently found out the meaning of PITA)! Also I was on a roll with the whole the rest of the argument (pro new board) and figured that'd be a nice way to tie the bow on it. You know, with a bit of emphasis, finale and a on an 'aggressively standing my ground' position (as the rest of the post was all 'Great Dictator' style). Actually I'm in some (far-off) way related to Churchill, so I have that bulldog-ish, grandiose way of orating. Anyway sorry for that again, but I won't delete it as you have to admit, if you were being aggressive, it'd have been a great end!

Anyway if this hinders you're thought against making a new board then please, please disregard it and listen to the positive points within in as I (obviously) feel strongly on this point.
 
I'm in love with disso's but I think opiates and stimulants get way more conversation on bluelight and in all fairness, they should have their own place first.
 
^^^I also think this is true. As I was looking through the boards (I usually just stick to ADD (Or NPD now?!)), I was surprised to see the lack of such areas. In fact I had to rewrite whole paragraphs due to the realisation that these boards weren't there!

By the end if it, I had to make a statement to restructure the entire focus forums. My passion lies is dissociatives but there has to be some stimulant and opioid boards. I know there's Opiophile and there's some interesting dialogue on stimulants in 'Other' but the boards deserve to be made much more than dissociatives (for the vast majority of people). I went on and on about dissos but the real problem is with the opioids and stimulants (in fact GABA-ergic drugs could be included too). In all honesty it's disgraceful from a forum with a reputation such as Bluelight's.

I still hold great respect for Bluelight and mostly come for the Big & Dandy's and ADD but I think that for Bluelight to show it's true potential and be a beacon for those in distress/hunting for knowledge then these boards must be sorted first as they are far wider than dissociatives, even though 'dissociatives' is a pretty wide bracket itself!

I'm sorry if this would be a lot of work for you but I'd be glad to put a hand in (say in deciphering which threads go where, as I know not much about website design/management) for the future of Bluelight, as it's, what I consider to be, the finest psychoactive discussion forum on the internet at the moment.



EDIT: I went through the first five pages of "other" and compiled the threads into sub-boards: http://pastebin.com/0BJLwxi7

The results were astonishing:

STATISTICS:

TOTAL THREADS ON FIRST 5 PAGES: 200 (- STICKIES): 193

STIMULANT RELATED THREADS: 36 -> 18.6%

OPIOID RELATED THREADS: 107 -> 55.4%

BENZODIAZEPINE RELATED THREADS: 31 -> 16%

DISSOCIATIVE RELATED THREADS: 2 -> 1%

OTHER RELATED THREADS: 17 -> 8.8%


I hope this helps in your decision of what to do with Other. I'll do the same with "Psychedelics" (For dissociatives) and "Empathogens" (for stimulants), but only the first 2 pages to give a brief survey on how they need to be divided.


For PD & Dissociatives: http://pastebin.com/1MqP3L6B

TOTAL THREADS ON FIRST 2 PAGES: 80 (- STICKIES): 74

DISSOCIATIVE THREADS: 13 -> 17.5%


MDMA and Empathogens was absolutely clear of stimulants (on the first 2 pages) so well in!

After this data, would this constitute separations of boards?

PS: Dividing these threads into a text file took just under 45 minutes, so I reckon the total time to redo it all (with help) could be maybe a week tops and it would radically change how Bluelight operates.


EDIT2: This thread title should now be changed to restructuring bluelight. I'm willing to help if you could give me a temporary moderator status to organise everything. Also I think you should know, I may have a slight touch of OCD!!
 
Last edited:
DISSOCIATIVE RELATED THREADS: 2 -> 1%
thanks for taking the time to do this but i think you've answered your own question.

there's demonstrably no need for a separate disassociative forum for that amount of traffic.

that said, there can be an "if you build it they will come" effect but i think we'd need to see more traffic than that as a starting point to consider a new (sub)forum.

alasdair
 
i think you've answered your own question.

there's demonstrably no need for a separate dissociative forum for that amount of traffic.

That was just in "Others", usually dissociatives are put into the PD forum of which 17.5% are dissociative related.

This has become a non-issue now however due to the amount of threads that are about stimulants and opioids. There needs to be separate boards for at the very least opioids, which just over half of the posts in the "other" board are related to.

So then if opioids were sub-sectioned, then you would be left with roughly half sedative and half stimulant threads in "other". This would need to be further sub-sectioned so everyone has an appropriate place to post.

Basically all that needs to be done is create; 'Stimulant', 'Opioid', 'Dissociative' and 'Sedative (or GABA-ergic)' boards. Then move all threads relating to their own respective families from Other and PD. It's a fairly simple job but it could take quite some time so if threads were moved by the moderators in the respective boards to these other focus forums then it could be cleared up in under a week, perhaps even under a day if everyone lends a hand.

It could be my OCD here talking but I think that if other boards were available then more helpful assistance would be applied in the various areas, with moderators that are trained in a specific field of drug, rather than a few tackling all problems that come from a huge variety of compounds.

If MDMA can get it's own board, why can't benzo's for christ's sakes. There are far more people using benzos on the planet than MDMA but they are bunched up with stims and opioids alike. With the emerging market of pharmaceuticals and research chemicals there needs to be a specific place where people can gain knowledge for their own drug of choice.
 
Basically all that needs to be done is create; 'Stimulant', 'Opioid', 'Dissociative' and 'Sedative (or GABA-ergic)' boards. Then move all threads relating to their own respective families from Other and PD. It's a fairly simple job but it could take quite some time so if threads were moved by the moderators in the respective boards to these other focus forums then it could be cleared up in under a week, perhaps even under a day if everyone lends a hand.
this isn't about the amount of work required to execute your suggestion. it's about a fundamental change to the nature of the board.
If MDMA can get it's own board, why can't benzo's for christ's sakes.
bluelight.org has evolved organically and, in the early days was focused pretty much 100% on mdma harm reduction. it's natural that mdma will have a higher profile in the forum mix for historical reasons. you've only been here 10 minutes so it's inevitable you might not see the whole picture or understand - or agree with - the decisions which got us here.

related reading:

Lack of dedicated focus forum for stimulants and opiates?
Opinions Needed - Splitting Opiate Discussion Off From OD Into A New Forum
Why isn't there an Opium/Opiate/Opioid Forum?
Alcohol Forum? - Split from Heads Up thread
Has bluelight ever considered an Alcohol Forum?

alasdair
 
Whenever people propose a change like this, I always pose the question of 'what about combo threads?'

Simply put, are the drugs from the two different classes that you wish to separate used in combination enough where it would cause a dilemma to those who wish to post about such a combination?
 
Ok, sorry I didn't realise. Thanks for the info anyway. I understand why now and to be honest, I do think it's better this way, the non-conformity thing kinda relates to me as well! Sorry for causing trouble and all, I just felt that the change was necessitated at the time.

Also just for sanctity's sake, I've been here 5 years but just lurking, I'm now posting as everywhere else has gone to shit (but I never went to drugs-forum!) and to be honest I think that the lack of change to bluelight is keeping it from this change in direction which the other forums have succumbed to.

Anyway, so long...for now! I'll probably have another (pacified) rant sometime soon which you'll explain why it can't happen and I'll leave feeling embarrassed with my tail between my legs again, so don't hold it against me!

Keep up the good work :)
 
Last edited:
Top