Heads Up ver JUNE 2010

TheLoveBandit

Indefinite break from BL - contact other admin
Joined
Feb 22, 2000
Messages
38,986
Building on the recent ANNOUNCMENT (duplicated below), and allowing a SUPPORT thread for discussion of this content...


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Just keeping you, our membership, aware of what is happening behind the scenes.

  • Site Content:
    • BL WIKI goes public - DONE! We will look into making it more accessible via QuickLinks, NavBar, and-or forum header. So far we have successfully migrated our 'Bluelight FAQ', BLUA, most of the Greenlighter Guide, and more! If you'd like to help out on building this resource (either migration of existing FAQs, or the creation of other new ones) please stop in our WIKI forum and see what's going on.

    • WORKSHOP goes public - a place for new site projects, where anyone can pitch in. This forum is open now, but we will evaluate in coming weeks the need for any moderators to keep the forum focused and organized.

    • Drug Studies Content expansion - DS mods and Admin are looking to better integrate the research community with our site members in mutually beneficial ways. Our first step will be to start including links in the headers of targeted forums in an effort to raise member awareness of research that may benefit them or studies in which they can participate (see our Aus Drug Discussion as a prime example of this already in place).

    • Partner Sites (banner exchange, cross linking, etc) - Partner Sites? What is that? The likes of erowid, etc. HOWEVER, to best manage this, we're thinking of simply putting it as a thread in the WORKSHOP - this will provide an easy checklist of who is up for consideration, who has been added, and who has been declined (and why). Look for a thread in WS soon after the forum goes public. New thread in the WORKSHOP is here - Partner Sites



  • Upgrades:
    • Bluelight proper - upgrade from 3.6 to 3.8 during the 3rd quarter of 2010 in an effort to close some security gaps and clean up some bugs. It is possible that this upgrade will break the old JOURNAL and GALLERY areas. We will explore the migration to vb 4.0 sometime later in the year, but that jump will most assuredly break the old JOURNAL and GALLERY. We ran this announcement in an effort to prepare our members for losing these old areas of the site, no more notice will be given regarding them. We will, however, try to give some advance notice of possible down time when we do the planned upgrades both in site-wide announcements and through our twitter feed. We expect to have brokelight up and available during those times.


  • Site Funding:
    • Admin access to accounting - DONE!

    • Regular updates to donations bar - DONE! Monthly!!

    • Expand transparency of accounting in - Donations Discussion thread - We wish to include research funding and site expenses, and are continuing to work on sharing this information.

  • Housekeeping:
    • Blacklight has historically been used when one of our members passes away, however rather than continuing this pattern, we will set aside one week per year to acknowledge the passing of all Bluelighters, and to remind the rest of us of our moratlity and to stay safe. The week chosen is Jan 28 - Feb 4, in honour of the passing of our site's long term benefactor, xtcxtc. Similarly, we are looking into changing the user accounts of deceased members to some other title (perhaps 'Blacklighter', or 'In Memorial') so you can expect a call for suggestions and a public poll to choose the most appropriate title in the coming weeks.

    • Changes to our site disciplinary system - This has been out for awhile, recently updated with an explanation of how long each ban would last, and how you too can get a free vacation from the site :)

    • Added a link to BLUA in the footer of all pages, so members can't argue it is hard to find and staff have it quick at hand should they need to quote it.

    • Our 'Contact List' page now includes a link to the ANNOUNCEMENT threads where Admin and Sr. Mod forum assignments are listed (same as my sig).

    • Bluelight Day - We were looking for a way to celebrate our Harm Reduction mission, and this thread was put in SUPPORT for a bit to gather suggestions and try to reach a publicly chosen time to do this each year. However, we'll give another run at this shortly, since the earlier poll got very little voting. :\ We'll open it back up for more suggestions shortly :)
 
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Blacklight has historically been used when one of our members passes away, however rather than continuing this pattern, we will set aside one week per year to acknowledge the passing of all Bluelighters, and to remind the rest of us of our moratlity and to stay safe. The week chosen is Jan 28 - Feb 4, in honour of the passing of our site's long term benefactor, xtcxtc. Similarly, we are looking into changing the user accounts of deceased members to some other title (perhaps 'Blacklighter', or 'In Memorial') so you can expect a call for suggestions and a public poll to choose the most appropriate title in the coming weeks.

part of the reason for turning the site black was to help let members know that somebody had passed away, somebody that perhaps was a great friend of theirs but didnt have regular contact with in recent times, or maybe if it was somebody who hadnt been to the board in forever but there were still people who visited who knew them.

along with turning the site black for a week to honor the deceased, maybe a list of everyone who passed away in the previous year, along with links to their shrine thread, could be posted?
 
'tis a decent idea, we can raise that with staff on feasibilty of carrying it forward. Fwiw, in the Shrine's sticky thread - About the Bluelight Shrine the second post was added in JAN when we lost 3 staff/crew members :\ So it's started, just a matter of how to carry it forward consistently.


Also, for those aware of tobala's recent passing, the staff are looking to go black this Friday for him - this goes against the policy we just rolled out above, but too many of us feel this is needed right now to not do it. Just a heads up on that.
 
Also, following up on the partnering with other sites topic we have created a new thread in the WORKSHOP for this purpose:

Partner Sites
 
'tis a decent idea, we can raise that with staff on feasibilty of carrying it forward. Fwiw, in the Shrine's sticky thread - About the Bluelight Shrine the second post was added in JAN when we lost 3 staff/crew members :\ So it's started, just a matter of how to carry it forward consistently.


Also, for those aware of tobala's recent passing, the staff are looking to go black this Friday for him - this goes against the policy we just rolled out above, but too many of us feel this is needed right now to not do it. Just a heads up on that.

TLB,

I write this having just read your post and finding out about tobala's death.

I'm shocked. I'm sure you spoke to him more regularly than I, so condolences to you and others who knew him. He was a top bloke.

Please understand that I don't wish to use this sad event to support my argument (I was going to suggest this anyway) but, as tathra pointed out, I feel that turning the site black when a member passes away is a very simple and effective method of communicating to the whole site that something terrible has happened.

Over that past six years on the site, I've seen waaaay too many deaths of both UK and more distant Bluelighters. In all cases, one of the few consolations is how the site kinda rallies together and gives testimonial to the person in question. It's a way of bringing those familiar and less familiar together and, in some cases, gives rise to words of kindness from unexpected sources, shedding light on global friendships and networks that had remained hidden. In other cases, it simply allows anecdotes of humor to surface.

If people feel this is appropriate for tobala's memory, then I'm almost certain that people will feel it appropriate for others when the time inevitably comes - probably because it provides a much-needed community focus at times like these. I feel we'd be losing something by abandoning what started as a spontaneous tradition.

That said, I think the idea of having a dedicated memorial week using the Blacklight colours is an excellent idea, particularly one that coincides with Alan's passing. I can also understand that the memorial week would need to be differentiated from individual deaths in order for it to be effective, and that using similar themes would confuse matters. I would request that the Senior Staff work with other community members to work out a method of retaining both old and new traditions (slight colour theme differences - one with purple?), rather than having one at the expense of another.

Cheers,
W
 
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^ I'm totally with you. I think that BL either needs to do blacklight once a year or do it for everyone's passing because otherwise it feels like we are saying one person's life/contributions were more important than another.

Tobala was well known on BL by most people since he was an admin, but what about the BL who dies who only had a few posts? He may not be personally known and missed by many on BL, but he may have been the most important person in the world to the BLer who lets us know he died. How is it fair to his loved ones that BL says he's not worthy enough to have his own Blacklight day?

I mean, how can we put qualifications on who is worthy enough for that and who is not? It turns death into a popularity contest, imo.
 
as bluelight grows, things have to change. several years ago when the site was smaller and a more tight-knit community, it was almost guaranteed that the deceased was widely known. with the site's massive increase in size though... arg, i know what i want to say, but having trouble finding a way to say this without sounding insensitive; hopefully somebody else can figure out what i'm trying to say and put it in the proper wording.

i dont know for sure who started this (noodle?), but i'm liking this idea of switching avatars to the one belonging to the recently deceased to honor them, and to alert others of the passing, instead of changing the entire site black every time. this would put it on the members themselves instead of the staff. granted, this could also be seen as a 'popularity contest,' but it'd be better if you saw it in a more positive light.
 
^ I like noodle's suggestion a lot. I think it is a good happy medium.
Also, I think using the term "Blacklighter" for someone that has passed is a good idea. :)

My 2 cents
 
I am noticing a lot of people asking about the change in the avatars rather that going and looking for the answer and this can lead to trouble perhaps if a Lounge member does not respond appropriated.
So perhaps when avatars are changed to make a member's passing we need to have it written with the person doing it (perhaps in the status area or something) "In memory of username" so that we can avoid any trouble.

Just a thought
 
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