some thoughts follow. i scanned the thread and thought that some of these comments merited a response. if i didn't address your comment or answer your question i likely didn't see it, felt your tone was undeserving of a response or i simply don't like you. you might be on ignore - i have 3 bluelighters on ignore but i'm pretty sure none of them have posted in this thread yet
Serious question. If we are worried about our public appearance why do we still highlight the deaths of our members?
one person's "
highlighting death" is another's "
respectful remembrance".
Is it not a failure of the Harm reduction ethos for moderators to overdose while handing out advice to members?
not necessarily - it depends on the advice they are handing out. do what i say and not what i do? maybe. is it hypocritical for people to advise one thing and do the other? sure it is but, at the end of the day, the responsibility for action resides with the individual. if there was an example of a moderator hypocritically advising safety but behaving recklessly, we'd look at that on a case by case basis. but sometimes it's a 'boiling frog' and we're not aware of it until it's too late.
as you probably know, we've done a lot of work on the mod 'hiring' process since we started and i think we're better at flagging this kind of stuff now than we were before. could we do better? probably.
What is more unsavory, someone being called a bad name, or someone dying from drugs?
they're both problematic to different extents.
Is there any process in place to correlate and track the reasons for each member ending up in the Shrine.
no.
Surely in the name of public health and safety we should feel some responsibility for peoples unfortunate demise when we are often inadvertently promoting the causes of these deaths?
that we are "
often inadvertently promoting the causes of these deaths" is a matter of opinion.
Are there any checks on who moderates and decides the direction of HR advice given...
that's a function of the community.
...and if there are an increase in deaths or misadventure from a particular substance, why do we still in good conscience continue to promote it's use?
that this is happening is a matter of opinion.
It is evident that not everyone is going to like certain things on here, but as long as it's not causing people to kill themselves and od on drugs I really don't see the problem.
that you don't see a problem doesn't mean there's not a problem.
Got to lol at the loungers who donated. That's exactly why I didn't donate.
because one should only donate if one gets something of equal or greater value in return, right?
seriously, the level of entitlement on display here is pretty impressive.
it's awful easy to say you knew what was going to happen after it's happened.
What about the rejects! Shouldn't we have a place of our own?
Right now, I proposing the idea of a new forum for us who didn't make the cut!
there's nothing stopping you from doing this already so why haven't you done it? it happens a lot - disgruntled users get bent out of shape when a toy is taken away from them and so they go off in a huff and start the next bluelight and then they all turn into the kind of mod nazis they claimed they hate so much here and the thing implodes under the weight of its own fail after about six weeks. yes, there are exceptions but even those have their issues. the fact (i.e. my opinion

) is that the reason those people, in part, come back and the reason bluelight has survived and thrived so long is that it is managed well, given the challenges.
it's much easier to moan about the darkness than it is to change a lightbulb...
...who should be held responsible when the senior staff fail its members?
while you're blaming me for deaths across the board, do i get to hang deaths like tally and melange on you? in what way are you responsible for the deaths of lounge regulars when you were a lounge staffer?
It is strange that there's no suggestion box. So many bluelighters are talking about the importance of community, yet no place for feedback....
what's even odder is that you are giving us feedback in the forum that's for feedback while complaining there's no way to give feedback.
Has the lounge resulted in any suicide?
maybe. maybe not. but the lounge has certainly seen more than its fair share of deaths of high-profile members in the last, even, two or three years. and the lounge is a forum where drug talk is
explicitly forbidden. something don't add up.
God knows European DD has caused a hell of a lot more direct deaths in the past 12-18 months but we don't hear anyone wanting to restrict it's members.
"
has caused"? sure eadd has seen some deaths too but can you support the claim that they have been
caused by the forum? post hoc ergo propter hoc?
Before i donate anymore money , fix the lounge so i can see my post's. If not.. Man RIP DM,lonewolf,keaton i'm outies. Thought i'd be better then this.
I gota get shit approved in the lounge before i can say rest in peace to you guys.
U know where u fucked up admins, fuck u. I miss my friends; i cant say RIP Tim,without it being approved. If you dont fix it, where i can post regularly. Then i'm out.
You just lost a valued bluelighter,
Bye
Drew
valued. lol. bye.
I am simply asking why the Shrine is not a secret subforum, yet no one has answered me.
it's not secret because it's a public place of remembrance.
Is this so much of a hardship?
amen. again, there's a sense of entitlement on display here that only a ny yankees fan could possibly understand
Droppers I don't think you realize how stupid you actually are, and that the majorty of lounge posters think you're a douchebag
agreed.
Who is held responsible for the hypocrisy that exists when The Shrine is filled up with staff?
filled up with? when you have to exaggerate to make your point you're conceding already. there are about 160 threads in the shrine and by my (swift, unscientific) count, 14 of them are for people who were at any time bluelight staffers. that's less than 10%.
but you've made it pretty clear that all deaths on bluelight are my fault (along with the other admins and smods). anybody else?
any bluelighter death is a tragedy and i take it hard every time i read of another. your pointing the finger right at me and telling me they're all my fault is hard to read but i understand why you say it.
there's no way of knowing how many deaths have been caused by somebody being exposed to bluelight and there's no way to know how many of those could have been prevented and how many would have happened anyway. i'll be the first to admit that, with some names, there's a sickening sense of inevitability about it when the news comes.
there's also no way to know how many lives have been saved by people finding bluelight and learning how to try a new drug safely and maybe, in some cases, to not try it at all. or not yet. that's the work i'd like to focus on.
as i write this, there are 3185 active members on the site. 84 bluelighters (of whom about 13 are lounge regulars) and 3101 guests. let's try to maintain a little perspective?
happy holidays.
alasdair