Question about the current state of TDS

14YearsOfFlux

14YearsOfFlux

Bluelighter
Joined
Aug 8, 2016
Messages
126
I have been a blue lighter for MANY years. I don’t check in as often as I should. I posted a recovery journal many years ago and consider this place a HUGE contributing factor to my recovery (still clean as a whistle after 14 years of hard hard abuse (hence my username)....

Lately, I see a LOT of very unsupportive threads with little to no moderation. Not only the weird paranoid rants, but nearly every reply is an exercise in one-upsmanship. Ex. “Oh you saw two people almost die? I’ve seen like 6 people almost die”.... “oh once a week? Try once an hour”

Da fuq is going on around here? What happened to the recovery journals and the supportive outreach? Why has this forum turned into some weird rock-bottom-off? Furthermore, why do some people take pride in being “more fucked” than the next person? I don’t doubt we’ve all seen some shit. Horrible, not societally normal shit.

I don’t really have a point. I’d just like to see more positivity and support. That’s what helped me. And I don’t see a ton of help around here right now... just venom.

Makes me sad.
 
A lot of the core group of users here is drastically different year by year from what I've noticed reading back during my time here. There's an air of chumminess and bickering here these days quite a bit, mostly in the lounge but it drags out elsewhere too. I honestly didn't notice this issue of a lack of support being so prevalent as you're making it out to be, although your examples are hitting the mark. Maybe it's something we need to work on here.

I can't represent everyone here but I do think we're mostly making do with what we've got, where we are at this time. I have a feeling there's things I might miss in 5 years too that seem better in 2020 over 2025, if I'm around that long. I've seen a lot of forums come and go over the years, there's always a new wave. Some of it's for better and some for worse until eventually the forum dies.

Keep looking around. There's some really good stuff going around too, including from the standouts for your examples of bad examples.
 
I've been here a few years and trust me there's certainly been a dropoff in member quality. Lot of good ones either left or died sadly. The old Mental Health mods and contributors were incredibly helpful and compassionate.

A lot of threads in here are not here for the right reasons lately. I feel bad to generalize and assume things about people but it's a lot of self-pitying. I regret speaking about the other threads, but if you're referring to the shitshow I posted in as well please don't feel bad about that one.
 
I’ve been an on and off user of blue light for years (and I was a lurker long before making an account).

Site-wide, I think the level of immaturity has gone way up.

Additionally, most users are not interested in getting to know any of the other users (which is fine).

but the main problem is that drugs aren’t the same as they were in the late 00’s. There not dozens of new things to try and you don’t need to read up on a new substance before you imbibe. This trickles into all of the sub forums on the site including this one. the core of people from the site’s hay day are gone. They may check in occasionally, but, for the most part, they are gone.

Finally, Culture in general has changed. People don’t visit forums the way they did a decade ago.

I don’t think it’s anything specific to this sub forum.
 
I've never had any problems with reaching out to people, and in turn them reaching out to me. I went through a rough time (it's been a while now, but it's either getting slowly better or slowly worse, or in waves), and got quite a bit of support when I needed it.
 
My feeling is the whole place is slowly turning into a casual social hangout for activie drug abusers and people with mental health problems - except for a few specialist forums like What's Wrong With MDMA today and the Invega casualties one where it's still pretty professional and serious. The Lounge vibe ooozes out into the rest of the joint pretty easily. However, most people posting in need get treated respectfully and helpfully - even when its 99 % certain they are trolling.
 
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There used to be standards and a strong sense of community and an even stronger focus on safety. Now I see threads where even mods are just passively participating in unhealthy shit and allowing harmful things to be said and done. I raised a lot of shit about it a while ago and nothing happened so I just stopped coming here for a bit and now that I'm back I don't really care. I accept that it's not the great place it was a few years ago so whatever I'm just here to chill.
 
Ok cool I’m glad to see it’s not just me. I suppose I should “walk the walk” and actually contribute more as well, instead of just whining about it. That is definitely on me. @devilsgospel i definitely wasn’t referring to your thread 😂 and @Flynnal I’m glad you’ve gotten some good support here. I’ve also seen you around for many years so I appreciate the ups and downs of a “long member history” if you will.

Atelier3 said:
However, must people posting in need get treated respectfully and helpfully - even when its 99 % certain they are trolling.
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I agree with that. I just occasionally have to exhale dramatically out of my nose when I have to wade through the turd piles to find a decent, honest and respectful “TDS-appropriate” post. When you do find one, it’s usually pretty respectful. Most of the time.
 
I wouldn't necessarily say TDS has changed, just the people have changed. There aren't many people that post here from when I joined and kind of makes me wonder.
Like @HoldBack mentioned, A majority of the 'change' is just due to the cultures we live in today, and what people talk about is maybe not something new, but sometimes will trigger moments in life that may have caused grief and pain.
Bluelighters are still going to come here, and talk about what's going on in their own lives, and just having someone to read and reply to your post just kind of gives you the feeling that they understand.
I'm not here 24/7 but I do get email notifications when someone reports something from here. So just don't think some mods ignore what's going on here. I encourage people that if they find something really offensive here that isn't part of our harm-reduction code then report it.
With all that being said, I'd like to thank all of you that care enough about TDS to speak up about what's been going on here lately.
Maybe this is something that we need, to make it better as awhole.
 
14YearsOfFlux said:
I agree with that. I just occasionally have to exhale dramatically out of my nose when I have to wade through the turd piles to find a decent, honest and respectful “TDS-appropriate” post. When you do find one, it’s usually pretty respectful. Most of the time.
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You should apply to be a TDS mod I think they're looking for one. You'd be good I can already tell with this thread.
 
devilsgospel said:
You should apply to be a TDS mod I think they're looking for one. You'd be good I can already tell with this thread.
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This touches on I think the main problem. There's been a lack of good tds mods.

And I think it's understandable why. Tds is one of those forums that does a lot of good for non staff individuals, but involves exposing yourself to a lot of negativity if you're responsible for it.

Not everyone who'd be a good tds mod is in the right mental state to deal with it. So finding people who'd both make good mods and are up to dealing with it has been challenging.

In today's covid19 climate, mental illness is on the rise, and so tds is probably both more needed and yet also harder to see fully moderated.

I'm gonna move this to site technical help, which is where we'd usually have these kinds of discussions. But I'll leave a redirect to it here in tds a little while.
 
JessFR said:
This touches on I think the main problem. There's been a lack of good tds mods.

And I think it's understandable why. Tds is one of those forums that does a lot of good for non staff individuals, but involves exposing yourself to a lot of negativity if you're responsible for it.

Not everyone who'd be a good tds mod is in the right mental state to deal with it. So finding people who'd both make good mods and are up to dealing with it has been challenging.

In today's covid19 climate, mental illness is on the rise, and so tds is probably both more needed and yet also harder to see fully moderated.

I'm gonna move this to site technical help, which is where we'd usually have these kinds of discussions. But I'll leave a redirect to it here in tds a little while.
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Yeah I've never had any allusions about being a decent TDS mod I'd be the worst lol. I'm just not that kinda person.
 
Atelier3 said:
My feeling is the whole place is slowly turning into a casual social hangout for activie drug abusers and people with mental health problems - except for a few specialist forums like What's Wrong With MDMA today and the Invega casualties one where it's still pretty professional and serious. The Lounge vibe ooozes out into the rest of the joint pretty easily. However, must people posting in need get treated respectfully and helpfully - even when its 99 % certain they are trolling.
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I'm going to cut to the chase here since nothing much said does anything anyway tbh, it's not "the lounge" or "insert subforum here", never really was and never will be.

It's simple, there are a handful of people most of which are staff or their untouchable buddies that are being selfish, boring, trolling inept tools and why they get away with it is they are more useful for other people who should get rid of them but wont as they "get stuff" from them.


Might have always been the case but ppl so clearly malignant didn't last long regardless of how well connected they are.

Don't worry about it. If ppl need help they can find it elsewhere, ok?
 
✿Dai₷y✿ said:
I'm going to cut to the chase here since nothing much said does anything anyway tbh, it's not "the lounge" or "insert subforum here", never really was and never will be.

It's simple, there are a handful of people most of which are staff or their untouchable buddies that are being selfish, boring, trolling inept tools and why they get away with it is they are more useful for other people who should get rid of them but wont as they "get stuff" from them.


Might have always been the case but ppl so clearly malignant didn't last long regardless of how well connected they are.

Don't worry about it. If ppl need help they can find it elsewhere, ok?
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daisy aka zephyr is a disgruntled former staff member.

for the past couple of years, her only mission has been to discredit Bluelight.

anything she writes is very biased and must not be taken as objective fact. 🙂

she clings to the past (many years ago) and is unwilling to accept Bluelight and its members as it stands today.
 
The measure probably needs to be “are people in serious drug related psychological need being prevented or intimidated from posting in TDS or an alternative BL forum”.

While there is quite a bit of tomfoolery going on I’m not sure its driving people away. There are still many heartfelt posts full of sensible and compassionite replies. Though it’s getting harder to see the wood for the trees.

Some aggressive pruning by mods of threads more suited to other places - especially drug culture or The Lounge - is probably all that is necessary.
 
mal3volent said:
daisy aka zephyr is a disgruntled former staff member.

for the past couple of years, her only mission has been to discredit Bluelight.

anything she writes is very biased and must not be taken as objective fact. 🙂

she clings to the past (many years ago) and is unwilling to accept Bluelight and its members as it stands today.
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Hit a nerve did I?


Oh well too bad.


Shouldn't you be at least pretending to be interested in the quality of some of this place or does credibility get bought these days?
 
✿Dai₷y✿ said:
Hit a nerve did I?


Oh well too bad.


Shouldn't you be at least pretending to be interested in the quality of some of this place or does credibility get bought these days?
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You just lurk STH don't you? Ready to pounce. Just waiting for one of these threads to pop up. :\
 
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