Skydancer -- A Democratic Bluelight *see first post for link to Skydancer's response*

xtcxtc, first off I want to thank you for comming out and giving us a channel in which we have an opportunity to voice what we think about what's happened to BL. I know that there have been quite a few people who have felt that they haven't been able to speak up because of the positions that they have been lucky enough to keep, or because of unnecessary banning.

What I've personally viewed has been someone taking over, making hostile moves with the board, with very little community input. I've stated in numerous posts how much BL does mean to me and the relationships that I've built with people makes me grateful that I stumbled over this site one day and didn't just pass through, and unfortunately I've also watched it minorly spiral in the past, well, for a while.

There is a need for change. BL is ever evolving, but I don't want to watch it continue down the bad path. More than anything I want the best for BL, and I'm with whoever really has BL's best in mind. Unfortunately, I don't believe that C-22 is included in that group.

But again, thank you xtcxtc for giving us an outlet and hearing what we, the community has to say.
 
just a quick note-

Now that this thread is in Second Opinion, try to keep the thread on topic and don't make any attacks. They will be removed.
 
I dont think i have ever even seen a post of catch-22's, or at least that i can remember, and i have no clue who he is, but i vote for a blanket party on his behalf! Sounds like he is a right good arsehole, so a good beating may just do the trick. ;)

As far as what happens to BL, so long as there is a CEP board where the few posters whom i respect and who i learn a lot from still post in, i could pretty much care less. All i know is that if i were the one paying for BL i sure a HELL would at least have equal say with anyone else as to what does or does not happen with this site.
 
Ahhh, I love the smell of dissention in the ranks. Sounds like it's almost time for a regime change... civil war,... REVOLT! Resistance is futile.

I have some idea about what it takes to run a board as big as bluelight... those of you who wish to see C-22 lose his power... which one of you (or group of you) wishes to take over the responsabilities? Careful what you ask for, you just might get it.

Me? I really don't care anymore... gave up that fight a while ago. I'm gonna go smoke a bowl.
 
about the pay thing, once upon a time, we (staff and former staff) thought up ways in which we could help fund the site, by selling merchandise, or just plain ol' donations, but all were steadfastly refused by Skydancer. on that note, i would like to thank xtcxtc for his selfless funding of this place :)

on the subject of wanting things changed, once upon a time we tried to handle all of this in the staff forum. years ago, only the staff members and their close friends (cuz we would bitch to them about how bad things were going ;) ) knew what was going on. one of the biggest problems was that Catch-22 would ask our opinion on something, and then completely ignore everyone that responded. that was one thing that really drove me up the fucking wall. and unfortunately, Skydancer wouldnt listen to us either, either because he was too busy, didnt care, or trusted Catch-22 enough to feel that he (skydancer) didnt need to get involved in such matters.

so essentially this discussion is pointless because none of us have the power to actually make changes in this dictatorship. at least in real life, we could truely revolt and blow shit up to make a regeme change, but in this case, about the only way for something to happen would be for xtcxtc to make an ultimatim--changes or no more funding--and i for one would not like to see it come to that.

i'm with web though, i gave up this fight a long time ago. i have more important things to worry about these days.

oh, but i do love the hypocrisy of mods getting fired for not posting enough, but admins are immune to that lil rule ;)
 
Roger&Me said:
Same thing with me. I would still be a mod now under my old username if BL was a democracy.

In addition, there's a whole legion of people that hate Catch-22.
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No, I doubt it. Your behavior was out of line and you were punished accordingly. What; did you expect a vote on whether you'd stay a mod or not? And who gives a fuck if there's a "whole legion" of people that hate Catch-22. I'm sure there's loads of people who dislike me but that's the way life is.
 
edit: was it really necessary to post that quoted message publicly?
 
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Well, I'm not as old as other posters such as goldbug, but I have seen the change from UBB to VB and catch-22's rise to power, originally as a Trip Reports mod > Admin > Snr admin role that he now occupies....

All I can tell you is my story: I joined bluelight with the hope of getting some drug information, but found alot more. A social networking device, a place where I could 'hang out' [as much as one can on the internet] and talk about 'stuff' & 'things' with this new group of people who were also interested in the counterculture of drugs and drug use. Time passes, people login and out, some leave, some stay. In my 3 and a bit years, I have watched the site grow and change, like all things do, but not all growth is healthy. More and more when I was a moderator, ever since VB was instuted, policies were written, paricularly about the staff conduct, minimum postcounts were implemented, this site had started to lose [for me] the feel of being a community.

I, as an unpaid volunteer, did not feel like my contribution of time and research to the website was valued and wanted, instead, was to be directed and managed like a commodity. Less and less did I feel like 'one of the team', instead feeling more like some sort of unappreciated internet janitor that worked for a large organisation, who's bosses sat in a glass box above the floor where I worked and issued 'voice of god' style decrees.

The moderators only forum (MPC), whos name was changed to give the site what I would call "a more professional image" is now not even a place that DISCUSSION, the primary purpose of the site, can be facilitated.


But, I digress. I do not think a democracy is the best thing for bluelight. I think, at best, we could hope for a benevolent oligarchy, but one that had democratic systems of communication. Clear and defined channels within the organisation [the site] that every poster had access to voice their concerns to those at the top. By the looks of it now, the people in power aren't even communicating with the guy who pays for the entire site out of his own pocket. Critical mistake that one. Don't forget who pays the traffic bills.

xtcxtc - I have always been a long supporter of you, although I may have not voiced my opinion, please do not think that you are the only one who is dismayed by the way the site has become. Your economic support is what keeps the site alive, and I personally belive that your word is the final one. I personally commend you for your actions in starting this thread, in my humble opinion it has been long time overdue. When long-time moderators, who have poured hours of unpaid time and effort in to the site start to leave, I think that is a pretty clear indication that something is wrong. When our channels of communication, be they with a question or a suggestion get [locked] by either BlueAdonis or Catch-22, what is the point of contributing.

Thankyou and goodnight.
 
nickthecheese said:
The moderators only forum (MPC), whos name was changed to give the site what I would call "a more professional image" is now not even a place that DISCUSSION, the primary purpose of the site, can be facilitated.
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I too feel that this is a bad thing. I've been a mod on other forums, and the "Mod forum" has always been a place of joking around, getting to know each other and be able to feel that you get along with the other people you "work" with. As per the post Tathra last made, quoting his "You're fired" message, Catch puts a big thing on mods having confidence in themselves and each other. Its sad to say it, but there's very little air of group confidence in the mods on Bluelight. There was some before MPC got changed to "Staff Forum" (like it matters, we're the only people who can see it!), when I first was made a mod, but its been sucked out if it with "Announcement only" posts and threads being closed overly quickly.
blahblahblah said:
The site might splinter...? What does that mean Europeans/Americans would have different BL's...?
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You laugh, but a number of posters in EDD have commented that if thats how Catch is going to treat them, then they'll go elsewhere, even pay for their own small social forum where at least they know someone won't come in with "I don't know anythign about the forum, but its got to change, even if 90% of you don't like it", which is what many people feel he's done. Its certainly been the catalyst for all the "Why aren't we being listened to?" and anti-Catch sentiments latelly.
 
This is my main beef. In the last year, how many mods were removed from their positions for no good reason whatsoever. I'm not talking about the ones who stepped down, such as myself, and i'm not talking about the ones who deserved it. But the number is quite a few.

MPC became less and less of a forum where mods were heard just in the short time that i held all 3 mod positions, I go to support, and whether it's a good idea or a bad one, it's rather useless to even post. B/c NO ONE is listened to. Ever. TLB listens quite well and the Support staff have always been pretty great, including current and former mods. Catch merely shows up to say "Deny Deny Deny".

Invalid Username aka Brian Oblivion, recently posted about a banner for LEAP.org. It seemed to have unanimous support. No one disagree with the idea.. and yet Catch declined it.

We've been told again and again and again.. that new forums will be based off member participation in threads in pre-existing forums. Things such as sports, science/technology, pharmacology, along with other drug related idea.. and only a small small minority of them have been acted on. Lets see, how many science threads do we have now? How many tech threads? How many sports threads? (I'm a community guy.. so i'm not arguing that these have priority over the drug community, merely mentioning things i've noticed). We've all been told to shut up.. go post threads about it, lets see how popular it becomes and maybe a forum will be created. You could post about it until the cows came home, and believe me.. nothing would be done.

My latest pet peeve, which another bluelight kindly pointed out to me, is the sheer disrespect that Catch has shown to our benefactor. I'm sorry, but this is biting the hand that feeds you. I'll give an example in a second, but i've never particularly "liked" xtcxtc, we agree on somethings, we disagree on others. He's made threads in SLR that i've found absolutely repulsive and he's been in disputes with BlueAdonis and server Music and Djs mods where i thought xtcxtc was flat out in the wrong. But i don't think I have ever shown xtcxtc any amount of sheer disrespect. He provides the funding for this wonderful medium of comunication that we all love so very much and for that I'm grateful. I've had people listen to me and be here for my personal problems when i had no one in my "real" life. And i don't think i could ever curse someone who was mostly responsible for providing that, nor undermine that persons contributions. (besides, he's pumping out some quality CE+P posts lately :) )

Here.. i'm quoting from a PM that quoted a thread....


wrote on 11-02-2005 14:17:
Catch doesn't own Bluelight, and if Alan were to pull his funding bluelight will end up being a 404 error. Catch is a legend in his own mind. :)

Originally posted by xtcxtc
i think the report function is for "snitches, spies & cowards" but Catch has declared war on EDD so i have declared war on Catch.

i had already reported his post above >>

"harassment, fighting again.

blatant disregard for feelings of BL'ers in general. inferential insult to all."

all admins etc --- please feel free to CLAWS me.

edit: "You were always able to be CLAWSed technically, but we'll instruct the senior staff to not look the other way in the future! 6th Aug' 04


Alan (xtcxtc) is the sole reason that Bluelight exists (he is paying for all of the hosting and hardware). It costs over $25,000 per year to keep the service online (due tr the massive traffic that the site receives).

That little edit that Alan added says a lot about what has been going wrong, and how Catch has lost touch with reality. Catch has no business talking to the sole person who funds Bluelight that way. :\

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Now to be fair, I know Catch-22 has been a fucking douche. I know Catch doesn't listen to shit anyone says, and he shows blantant disrepsect for our benefactor. But Catch has put alot of time and effort into this site as well. And i think that needs to be recognized. I'm not jumping ship with everyone else that's pretty much begging for him to step down or to go the fuck away. I'm asking that he look at these criticisms and take them to heart. I'm asking that Catch take the fucking responsibility himself and make the changes that need to be made in order to sate the BL community, it's growth, it's health, and it's morale. I'm not asking that he give in on every idea, i'm asking that he listens. truly considers it, and will at least meet us half way. maybe implement some kind of semi- democratic approach to BL rather than lording over us like some tyrant. If Catch paid for the site, maybe he's had reason to act this way. If Catch was the sole creator of the site, maybe he'd have a reason. If so many wonderful people haven't pitched in and helped out. .and given countless hours of our time and effort, maybe he'd have some leeway. But fact is.. his fucking power rests on all the mods and admin who've done the job for free. His power rests on someone else's paycheck. And frankly he doesn't have the right to be all fucking high and mighty.

Off the high horse Catch, come entertain us in this discussion. Or do you not have a legit arguement to jump in the thread and defend yourself?

(btw-- I've never had a personal problem with Catch, he's always been quite friendly to me the few times we had any kind of contact, that's not to say that i support his actions against others on the site though)

I'd also like to note, that starting another community and getting people to migrate there wouldn't be hard to do. It's been talked about amongst some of the BL "elite" (for a lack of a better term) before. A particular bluelighter (former mod and former admin) already owns quite a proper domain. It wouldn't be difficult for a couple of responsible BL members/mods to jump ship... copy and paste all the harm reduction material, copy the forums rules THAT WE WROTE, and have it funded by other means.

And IMO, it's supply and demand. If you piss off the community too much, the community will find a new home. It's that simple. And believe me, it can be done for less than $25,000, even with the huge bandwidth it takes.
 
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DigitalDuality said:
My latest pet peeve, which another bluelight kindly pointed out to me, is the sheer disrespect that Catch has shown to our benefactor. I'm sorry, but this is biting the hand that feeds you.
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Xtcxtc mentioned in a post of his sometime in the last few days that even if he were banned (or he autobanned himself) he'd still fund Bluelight. Its a wonderful gesture, but I'm not exactly sure why he'd want to fund a forum he doesn't want to be a part of, after all if he considers it not worth being a member of, why would he let it continue for others to us? Perhaps Catch has taken this and "run with it" (so to speak), because Xtcxtc has said he won't withdraw funding for any reason, so noone can hold anything over Catch?

As you said, Xtcxtc has had a few posts in a few places some people might not have liked. but I imagine we've all done that and noone is perfect, and recently I think his comments and opinions have been spot on. Ultimately Xtcxtc should be able to use his "power" to change things he and others feel are wrong with Bluelight and this is perhaps one of the most fundamental? I'm not saying "Kick Catch out", he's put a lot of effort into Bluelight, and I doubt there are many people here with the time and want to be a Senior Admin, but perhaps just to tell him that he should be a bit more open to comments from the members, and consider Bluelight less like a business and more like a community, which ultimately it is. A friendly welcoming forum with members who get along well and are open to new people will always attract new members. Ones where peoples comments are ignored and with all the social aspects sucked out of it will not.

A business can get by by pissing off 90% of its customers provided the remaining 10% are huge customers. A forum isn't like that, you require a lot of people, because otherwise you've little new input. Would Bluelight be as good as it is if the number of people posting dropped by 50%? 70%? 90%? I'm exaggerating for most of Bluelight, but things look like they might be heading that way over in EDD :(

Majority opinion should rule, otherwise posters don't come back.
 
The EDD situation is sad, as i know there are already threads on that subject. It's funny how one can look at say "Americans Social" which is both.. the Lounge for the most part and NAS, and they're not tight nit communities like Aus. Soc. or EDD. Why would you take that away? I just don't get it. The option of keeping that forum wasn't even presented in that bullshit illusion of a choice anyways.

And reading through that thread Harry@Piekhoweverthefuckyouspellit actually comes off as being far more quality than our site's own admin. This is a guy who's been banned how many times? The thing i find funny is how Catch justifies everything with system statistics. That might work well in some network administrative position in the corporate world, but this is a community, and if the quality of the community goes down, if the morale goes down, if threads like this keep popping up, well.. it just shows how little your little statistics mean when compared to the human condition..
 
Maybe if he took part a little more he would see more than statistics and see the community. But thats up to him. I hope he replies to this thread.
 
but i've never particularly "liked" xtcxtc, we agree on somethings, we disagree on others. He's made threads in SLR that i've found absolutely repulsive and he's been in disputes with BlueAdonis and server Music and Djs mods where i thought xtcxtc was flat out in the wrong. But i don't think I have ever shown xtcxtc any amount of sheer disrespect

DD i think that is a fair assessment except for the plurals -- ie threads & disputes. i believe there was only 1 "repulsive" thread in SLR and 1 dispute in Music and Djs.

edit: "You were always able to be CLAWSed technically, but we'll instruct the senior staff to not look the other way in the future! 6th Aug' 04

Alan (xtcxtc) is the sole reason that Bluelight exists (he is paying for all of the hosting and hardware). It costs over $25,000 per year to keep the service online (due tr the massive traffic that the site receives).

That little edit that Alan added says a lot about what has been going wrong, and how Catch has lost touch with reality. Catch has no business talking to the sole person who funds Bluelight that way

nearly all the above is wrong.

i am nowhere near the sole reason BL exists --- the contribution of many others has been far greater than mine.

the traffic cost is about 1/10th of the figure you quote. the figure,quoted by Catch, in gratitude, in the staff forum about a year ago, was still < than the 25k you quote and due to new h/ware costs.

the CLAWS response was to a request of mine that a s/ware patch making it impossible to CLAWS me be removed. i had not asked for it in the 1st place but it turns out it was not a patch after all but rather a request to staff that they do not CLAWS me.

the response above was to indicate to staff that they could indeed CLAWS me, as i had requested. ( but i wonder if the follow up instruction did ever proceed )

i do not think Catch has been disrespectful to me ( beyond not paying sufficient attention to my opinion given that i have been managing people for longer than either of them have been alive ;) )
 
Please, no one beat up DD for those statements regarding xtcxtc and funding. I made them myself based on my understanding of how Bluelight is financed.

Appearently either things have changed recently, or there is a whole thread from the past which exists in the Twilight Zone. :\

I have not read through this thread yet, but I will do so and post comment later.
 
AlphaNumeric said:
Xtcxtc mentioned in a post of his sometime in the last few days that even if he were banned (or he autobanned himself) he'd still fund Bluelight. Its a wonderful gesture, but I'm not exactly sure why he'd want to fund a forum he doesn't want to be a part of, after all if he considers it not worth being a member of, why would he let it continue for others to us? Perhaps Catch has taken this and "run with it" (so to speak), because Xtcxtc has said he won't withdraw funding for any reason, so noone can hold anything over Catch?
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not exactly true. see this post >>

http://www.bluelight.ru/vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=2722757&highlight=Felixonapedestal#post2722757
 
DigitalDuality said:
I'd also like to note, that starting another community and getting people to migrate there wouldn't be hard to do.
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the only problem with this is that most bluelighters are flakes, plus if you dotn get a LOT of people to jump ship and stay dedicated, eventually it will all fall apart as peopel forget about the place, and others just stop comming due to lack of posting.

in theory, it would indeed be easy, but in practise, its not so simple :\
 
^I think it would be very easy to do...when BL was down not too long ago other BL's popped up pretty quick and the word spreads fast.

Forget all of that! Can we just begin the blanket party on cath-22 "Full Metal Jacket" style and get it over with or what?
 
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