Bluelight inner workings

If a subpoena is ever presented, you guys better call me before you do anything!
 
And oh yeah: I've wondered this for awhile. Are people like Sebastians_ghost (MAPS.org) and fire (Erowid) considered staff?

And I can't say ive ever seen an engineer online posting. Are they active?

They are representing those organizations on our site as officially as anyone can. The tags where given, so if seen on this site, members would know those are indeed people from those organizations should you wish to ask questions or sought the veracity of their statements. fire is indeed half of the ownership and leadership of erowid...the fire...and sometimes they visit us for subjects. Likewise, whilst we had MAPS banner ads (which incidentally brought us some server funding) we had SG on here as a representative to answer questions and help promote that research. We know these individuals, know these are indeed their accounts, and seek to recognize them as who they truly are (rather than impostors) for our members.

As to the engineer side of things, we currently list ruski, but there have been others over the years (some in an admin role but taking those duties). Off the top of my head, I can think of aby, chr1.5, Catch-22, and ruski. Of course, rus is the only one at this point. The early ones were more active as members, as general staff, but in recent years - moreso starting with C22, they focused intently on critical server issues and had lost the time or interest in staying active on the site publicly. ruski still remains available to us in a crisis, but for the most part, he's the plumber you call when your basement floods....in return, he and johnboy have been granting increasing power to the standing admin group to cover day-to-day engineer kind of work. Hopefully, we're remaining visible and engaged whilst we pick up this additional work ;)

Exactly. More in depth. Like viewing it from the outside world. The people and organizations who were involved, the different sources of funding. That kind of stuff. :)

That summary, along with the 'Thanks Staff' listing of who worked in which roles over time (mods, engineers, admin, etc....unfortunately not in time sequenced listing) give a good idea of who did what. I guess what you're looking for is the storybook that starts off 'Once upon a time, there were druggies, and then there was the internet, and the two met to create ...' and end with 'the lounge continues downhill, and more banning ensued. The end.' ;) Actually, a more fleshed out story showing the chapters of our life, rather than the info provided thus far may be an interesting endeavor, but we'd miss a lot of the background to paint in due to so many of those older people (at least ones knowing the inner workings) have moved on.

Eh, a few more things to point to - looking back thru ANNOUNCEMENTS you can see when forums were added or removed. Looking at the GGuide will also provide a section dedicated to the 'Bluelight Timeline' which may answer some questions. One last place to look may be the wabyback machine where they have archived some forum listings and such so you can see what the place used to look like (I'll defer to someone else for a link).

Why was mine removed?

Actually, and interesting question, as I think we outline how to 'get the tag' but not how to 'lose it'. To get the tag, you need to be a staff member (so work your way to being a mod at least) then upon stepping down you may have the option of asking for the crew tag. We don't force it on everyone who used to work for us, because some prefer to NOT have that recognition for whatever reason, so we oblige. However, if a parting staff member requests it, and they are in good standing with the site (not fired, having caused trouble, etc)....then it's usually a quick and painless procedure. To lose the title? Well, one could request that the title be taken from their account, and we'd oblige, but it is also where the 'in good standing' still applies. We've unfortunately had several staff who, after retiring to 'crew' status, proceeded to cause problems either by trolling, attacking, or other means which either harmed the site or simply became too much of an embarrassment to have associated with the site with a 'crew' tag. In most cases, these individuals got banned - like any member, there is a progression of effort to drive home the need to change behaviour such as edits and PMs, though having been on staff the individual typically already knows what is acceptable and what isn't. Escalation would lead to stripping them of their crew title, to show that we don't want that behaviour being representative of the people who run this place, but also to let them know they are one step closer to being banned. If things continue, the ban ensues. I believe their names remain on the 'thank you staff members' listing in BoBL, even if they get banned, because the effort they put in earlier is appreciated and still respected....it is who they became and how they acted later that is no longer wanted. I can think of only a few ex-staff who asked for the title, had it, then lost it. And of those, damn few straightened up to not get banned.

Now, did anyone really want to get into the specifics of any one of those individuals?


If a subpoena is ever presented, you guys better call me before you do anything!

You, and about a half dozen other key people that may help us. Though I'm sure you'll see a tweet about it should we need to warn members to protect themselves....then again, people know better than to do something that would put them in danger, correct? At least, not on our site - right?
 
just can't wait for the links! thank you!!! you are awesome!

~October

(ps. i miss sigs :( )
 
(ps. i miss sigs :( )

I'm glad we don't have them. Reading hipforums is such a pain. Everyone puts big pictures in their sigs and it clutters up the page and sucks the bandwidth way down. It's alright to post a picture in a post but to have it on EVERY SINGLE post you make; it's so annoying. And for those of us who live in the country where we're still in the stoneages of dial-up internet it can be quite infuriating when you just want to read the text and interact with the damn forum; the very essence of what we do here.
 
Has the site ever received a subpoena or injunction (cease and desist, etc.) before???

Who has jurisdiction in these situations (international treaties, russia (or wherever the host is located)
 
hm.... i dunno, but don"t wanna find out!!! bad news!

^^ hi adoptive dad!
 
It would depend how far both entities are willing to press the situation. Naturally, Bluelight's not going to want to tangle with any country's peacekeeping force more than it has to, but I'm sure with a few case histories, it could either keep jurisdiction down to the location of physical data or originating IP of data in question.

Of course...it could boil down to the jurisdiction of the website's owner...obtaining intellectual property that is by nature spread over international boundaries is a case-by-case basis.
 
May I ask why the domain was switched to ru ? And furthermore, just out of interest what type of servers are you operating ?
 
hi im fairly new but a very experianced user, and was wondering how i could be informed when questions about drugs that i am experianced in have been asked/discussed so i could be more active in the fourms. thanks :) if this is the wrong place to post this i apologize ahead of time
 
hi im fairly new but a very experianced user, and was wondering how i could be informed when questions about drugs that i am experianced in have been asked/discussed so i could be more active in the fourms. thanks :) if this is the wrong place to post this i apologize ahead of time

You can use the search function and then post in the threads you are interested in. If you use the search on the top right of the page it is best to click on 'advanced search' and then type the name or phrase with the drugs into the search, and choose to 'search titles only' on the drop-down menu before clicking search. If you know the specific forum(s) you would like to search in you can select them from the menu as well.
 
Sorry about the delay, to answer as best I can.

  • BL Crew have no extra visibility over members
FWIW to the inquiring minds who want to know, they can use the staff/ex-staff forum. And still communicate with Greenlighters via PM--or has that capability been extended to everyone now?
 
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