The Bluelight ownership, administrator and senior moderators have, for some time, been discussing The Lounge. In short, we're concerned about the current state of the forum and feel that some changes need to be made to address the issues:
We're very happy to answer questions and discuss in more detail but please keep it civil. If you just want to rant or insult and abuse people, rather than discuss issues, then probably better to do that somewhere off-site.
alasdair
- The Lounge was always intended to be the social, off-topic forum for all of Bluelight. It has, however, evolved into a place where a small number of users who, for the most part, do not participate anywhere else on the site post an increasingly large amount of content.
- much of content posted in The Lounge today is mean-spirited and offers nothing beyond having a 'joke' at the expense of others. It's deliberately and aggressively non-inclusive. This issue recently came to a head and was brought into sharp relief when the deaths of a couple of members were used as fodder for 'comedy'.
- there remains a persistent undercurrent of racism and homophobia which manifests in use of racist and homophobic terms as pejoratives. Generally speaking there is a fundamental disconnect between The Lounge staff's position on the enforcement of site-wide rules and that of the ownership and administration. This tension compounds the problem of discouraging problematic behavior among lounge regulars and, indeed at times, often simply encourages it.
- making The Lounge visible to all users (registered and unregistered) and available for posting to all registered users (Bluelighters and Greenlighters).
- rewriting The Lounge guidelines to clearly lay out expectations.
- review the forum moderator team and make changes if/as necessary.
We're very happy to answer questions and discuss in more detail but please keep it civil. If you just want to rant or insult and abuse people, rather than discuss issues, then probably better to do that somewhere off-site.
alasdair
