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Moderating the Temple

  
  

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ONLY NICE THINGS
15:11 / 15.01.07
Generally, we ban if somebody is posting or gathering personal information. However, in this case he wasn't - he did not know that the person involved was a member of Barbelith, and it was only subsequent posts to that thread and now this one that have made it absolutely clear that he is. In terms of the original thread post, there was a supposition that he practised Vodoun, and this:

So, please, any information, thoughts, experiences with Stephen Grasso, his work, and/or "the English Hoodoo faction of London occultists?"

I can see the concern, but I think we can steer that pretty easily to talking about ritual practices, methods, the toolkit of hoodoo. If I were he - WHICH I MAY BE - I would be more concerned with the wikipedia entry, in terms of exposure, if such exposure is undesirable.
 
 
Alex's Grandma
15:23 / 15.01.07
The request for information about experiences with the writer in question was a bit odd maybe, but then again, I've lost count of the number of times I've asked for this kind of thing with regard to Grant Morrisson. So I don't think there's much danger of anyone actually giving out personal information about named authors on Barbelith even assuming they have it at their disposal.
 
 
Ticker
15:23 / 15.01.07
I'm very appreciative that the Temple has so many skilled folk willing to share their insights and that those making their living doing so IRL under regular public scrutiny feel comfortable participating here.

Member privacy in general should be a priority and if anyone has chosen not to reveal who/what/where that should be respected regardless of how they make their living. No talking about other people's bidness, let them decide what to reveal/conceal. That is to some extent the beauty of a ficsuit.

At the same time not all of us know what other members get up to and who they are IRL and who they share their DVD's with. If a topic is about someone's (anyone's) publicly available information it is a far cry from dirty laundry and garbage picking queries.

It is one thing to ask when the esteemed Dr. Quant's next lecture is and another when he goes round to the pub to be harassed into signing table napkins. On the third hand I should mention that one of my friends was very delighted when people were discussing his work on here and after I asked him, was pleased to have me forward his contact information to interested parties.

Perhaps-ably the best option is to not divulge the information requested until the person it directly impacts approves. This I think is only common courtesy.
 
 
Seth
17:00 / 15.01.07
i am TEH GRASSO and i wil happly ansa all questons innit!!!1!ONE!!
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
17:30 / 15.01.07
This I think is only common courtesy.

Which (common courtesy) should be a general rule of thumb. Fuck, we start threads on all manner of people all the time- if Cormac McCarthy were to turn up in Books, and say he'd been Sax all along, or something, I'm not sure it'd be any different. When it comes to personal information, that's where politeness comes into play. Unless it's Haus fighting George, of course, when it's funny.
 
 
Ticker
17:51 / 15.01.07
Seth that's twice now you've made me laugh over this. You are a gem!
 
 
Quantum
13:40 / 16.01.07
Stoatie; you are Teh Grasso and I claim my five pounds. Can you sign my copy of the Vodoun Gnostic Workbook?
 
 
Quantum
14:08 / 16.01.07
OK, the GEK thread (and it's evil twin). Let's discuss the pros and cons of moving them both into the Convo before we do it, I'll start by supporting the move;
The GEK thread is a wishing well now and has been for ages- we get to read all about someone's back problems or new job, not about magic or spirituality. The renegotiation attempt unfortunately passed by the posters it was aimed at, those who only ever contribute to that thread. The KEG thread only exists to critique GEK, so let's move them both to the convo where standards of discussion are less rigorous and people can pootle on about their mundane desires without wasting Temple bandwidth.
Anyone want to propose keeping it in the Temple?
 
 
Saturn's nod
14:12 / 16.01.07
You might want a couple of links for easy reference: GEK, KEG
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
14:13 / 16.01.07
So, the contentious GEK thread: I'm within an ace of transplanting this to the Conversation, but I wanted to have a bit of discussion first.

Whilst I was very exited about the GEK project when it kicked off a little over 6 years ago, I feel that it has become stagnant. No real progress or development has occurred and we now have a thread consisting of 25 pages of disjointed wish posts that contribute little or nothing to the Temple as a forum. Most of the people posting to the thread also do not contribute to the Temple in any notable way; they swing by, make a wish, and disappear again. Worse, the thread has become a source of contention, annoyance and general bad feeling in the Temple. It just doesn't fit in anymore with the more rigorous tone that the forum has evolved over the years.

Would it cause undue stress or friction if the Gek thread (and possibly its evil twin) were moved to the Conversation?
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
14:13 / 16.01.07
Sorry, this seems to be my day for x-posts.
 
 
Quantum
14:25 / 16.01.07
The GEK thread is basically a multi-person blog now IMHO. Since the KEG contributors seem to be regular & valuable posters and the GEK contributors are tourists, I'm thinkening* that their opinions have enough weight to justify a move, and I don't know if there will be bad feelings generated- it's not like we're euthanising GEK, just moving the thread. I'll be glad to see the back of it myself.

*I almost corrected this typo but I like the word so much I'm keeping it and may use it again- thinkening, it's got a ring to it.
 
 
Ticker
14:28 / 16.01.07
I'd like to hear people discuss the standards of the Temple for topics and what the criteria is for shifting something off to Convo versus locking/delete. This seems to be a good example to use.

The GEK thread seems to be in part an artifact of an older atmosphere in the Temple. There seems to still be some room for servitor threads in the forum, only the request as I've read it is for the exchange to be more thoughtful than the wishing well approach.
Is this true from other people's points of view or is the Temple no longer the place for this style of online work?

I'm hesitant about using Convo as a dumping ground for things we don't want and are not useful. Is the GEK thread an artifact that should be locked, kept in the Temple, and allowed to sink? Or is it a useful strip of fly paper to keep from having other topics of its kind created? What are the standards we want for productive versions of this kind of topic, are there any, or should it be in Creation? Do we need a consensus about what do if this sort of thread pops up?
 
 
Char Aina
14:28 / 16.01.07
it's not like we're euthanising GEK, just moving the thread.

there, there.
it's okay.
gek's going to go and live on a beautiful idiot farm in the country.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
14:34 / 16.01.07
I'm hesitant about using Convo as a dumping ground for things we don't want and are not useful.

The thing is, whilst a lot of regular Temple posters feel that the thread has outlived its usefulness (to put it politely), there are plenty of others including the OP who would disagree. Otherwise why not just more for a lock and let it sink? A move to the Convo isn't a "oh this is a bit rub let's toss it in this handy bin right here" thing, it's a "this is not where the forum's really at anymore but some people still seem to have a genuine interest, so we'll compromise by moving it to a chattier forum."
 
 
Ticker
14:41 / 16.01.07
Since the KEG contributors seem to be regular & valuable posters and the GEK contributors are tourists,


While the KEG folks actions may have kicked off this productive discussion their approach was born of frustration and as such was not really the best way of keeping heads cool. I have sympathy with why they did it but it is often cringeworthy to see scathing mockups of other posters (having been taken to task for the same I may cringe a bit more).

Anyhow I'd rather we not frame it as valuable vs. tourists but as current use vs. outdated use. It seems to be the general opinion that the Temple is no longer the same place it was when the GEK thread was born and it may no longer be appropriate.
 
 
trouser the trouserian
14:46 / 16.01.07
Personally, I was just indulging in a bit of light-hearted satire - which has its place in teh magicks - and have no strong feelings about GEK either way.
 
 
Ticker
14:52 / 16.01.07
A move to the Convo isn't a "oh this is a bit rub let's toss it in this handy bin right here" thing, it's a "this is not where the forum's really at anymore but some people still seem to have a genuine interest, so we'll compromise by moving it to a chattier forum."

Ok, but as a creative effort would not Creation make more sense than Convo? GEK being a creation of the community and all? It seems a bit dismissive to toss it into Convo and I've read other threads in Policy about people being pissed with stuff being shoved off to Convo without much thought. Perhaps the respectful compromise if it is still in use is Creation?

..and what is the standard by which we are saying it is no longer valid in the Temple forum? Something changed from when it was created to now and that something would be useful to have defined.

I think the matter is well explored here but to c&p a bit...

To get to the bare bones of it, my concern is that threads like this - whilst being fair enough as a kind of gateway drug into experimenting with magic - tend to make people atrophy in their practice if they don't move on. I think what takes place in this thread cultivates the sense that magic is a kind of wishing game, and that everything you ever dreamed of can be had for the price of an ice cream. If someone gets this idea into their head, and gets stuck on it, it's unlikely that they will bother to explore some of the more interesting territories of magic that actually force personal development and a wider understanding of the universe around them. The fact that you rarely see many of your regular customers contributing to any of the more thoughtful or involved threads in this forum would seem to provide ample evidence for this observation.

Attempts were made to transform/update GEK and it appears didn't work. If we push the thread to Convo/Creation whereever, what is the standard we are going to hold up to prevent it happening again?
 
 
Alex's Grandma
14:52 / 16.01.07
I can see why you might want to see the back of Gek, he's old now, and embarassing, and his personal hygene probably isn't quite what it used to be, but is the Conversation really the best place for him? I worry that his autumn years will be soured by the mockery of non-believers.

Wouldn't it be kinder to just lock his thread, and let him enjoy the years he has left to him in peace?
 
 
Ticker
14:57 / 16.01.07
Personally, I was just indulging in a bit of light-hearted satire - which has its place in teh magicks

this makes me want a barbeannoy/mock style T3H M4J1KX thread!!! Maybe we can run a bit of transform on the KEG thread after all of this and refit it for the purpose? Perhaps-ably the forum could use a playful thread?
 
 
Gypsy Lantern
15:03 / 16.01.07
I see what happens in that thread as a perfect example of a superficial approach to magical practice that would instantly get unpacked and challenged if it appeared elsewhere in the forum. If someone started that thread in the Temple forum now, I would imagine that its functionality and usefulness would be discussed with a lot more rigour than they were circa 2001 or whenever it was. So I mostly see it as a bit of a legacy thread from an earlier incarnation of the temple, and whenever it is bumped to the top of the forum, I find it quite jarring with the culture that now exists there.

But I guess the thing that really grates is that it gets bumped to the top so frequently by a parade of posters who never contribute anything else to the forum other than asking for stuff in that specific thread. That's the only reason it's always at the top of the pile. The same bunch of guys always bump it and then disappear until the next time they want something. Phat Mikey and The Player, for instance. Who are these people? It feels like they keep coming up to your table in a bar, where various involved conversations are taking place, and helping themselves to cigarettes out of peoples' packets without asking. At least make a bit of effort to contribute to the forum, guys, eh? It's not that much to ask.

I tried once before to engage with this issue, and suggested a new way of interacting with Gek whereby - if you wanted your wish granted by the magic internet sprite - you would have to start a new thread or contribute an interesting post to an existing thread. As far as I could tell, the usual suspects who sustain that thread didn't even notice the suggestion, let alone engage with it. Neither did they show up in policy to argue the case for Gek when the discussion was taken here. I very much doubt that any of the posters in question actually bother reading what other people might contribute to the Gek thread before they add their own wishes to the pile. I would be very surprised if this current debate doesn't go right over their heads either. When you are dealing with that sort of total absence of engagement anywhere else, I'm not sure what really separates the people who keep bumping the Gek thread from the sort of drive-by spam poster who only ever drops in to plug their book or clubnight or something. It's not really adding anything to the temple forum, but it's one of the most visible constants.
 
 
illmatic
15:12 / 16.01.07
I pretty much agree. I'd suggest moving t'other thread to the Conversation, as it's designed for the purposes of satire, and that is one of the things that Conversation does very well, and locking the other one and letting it sink. A lock can always be reversed, should anyone put forward an articulate and passionate case as to why it should remain open.

Offtopic but ...

Who are these people?

I felt the same about some of the contributers to the RAW thread. Guys, who are you? Why do you never contribute?
 
 
Char Aina
15:24 / 16.01.07
every forum has lurkers, man.
these are clearly people who enjoy barbelith as a resource, but feel, for whatever reason, that they have no need to contribute.

i agree about gek, in the main.
i think probably people who don't otherwise post on barbelith are using it because they feel that the mighty barbelith(dan-dah dah!) servitorz have the mad skillz.
it's like visiting lourdes even though you arent catholic, or bathing in the ganges for the misteek without any real knowledge of the underlying majeek.

i mean, barbelith is the home of stephen fucking grasso, man!
how cool is that!
when barbelith ask, god surely listens!
 
 
illmatic
15:28 / 16.01.07
every forum has lurkers, man.

Indeedy, but why only pop out on this instance? I don't care that much - I'm not losing sleep over it, but it would be nice if these lurkers contributed a bit more. It's irrelevant anyway.
 
 
Char Aina
15:37 / 16.01.07
i think it's the thought of letting 'the world' know how you feel via the high, high platform of 'the best occult discussion forum on the net'.
barbelith is bigger than jesus, man.
well, jesus lizard, anyway.
 
 
iconoplast
15:38 / 16.01.07
It may just be me, but I feel like moving a thread to Conversation because the people who contribute to it (a) don't contribute to other threads, and (b) don't jive with the kind of discussion the rest of the forum likes... that seems a bit off-putting.

I mean... there are lots of threads in the Temple that I think are total nonsense. I'd rather not say which, so we can all happily imagine I'm talking about everybody else's threads. But when I find myself reading one of them, I don't feel the need to let whoever posted it know that I find his spiritual beliefs to be a joke. I just go and try to find something I'd rather spend my morning reading.

I mean... there are, clearly, some posters who have an ongoing practice (which they would probably characterize as spiritual) which involves milk and cookies and posting to a thread on barbelith. I'm okay with that, even if it means avoiding the thread every time. Which, coincidentally, is what I've been doing for years now.

I feel that this proposal is analagous to me asking moderators to move threads that I consider adolescent wish fulfillment and role-playing to the Creation. Except that I don't post to the temple as much as Gypsy, am I missing some qualitative difference between the two requests? What's so offensive about that handful of posters cointinuing a practice which, for whatever reason, they get their kicks from?
 
 
illmatic
15:49 / 16.01.07
It's possibly the length of time it's been going on. It rises to the top, like dread Cthulhu, what? Twice a month? I normally don't look at it either, but it does seem sorely out of keeping with the rest of the forum.

there are, clearly, some posters who have an ongoing practice (which they would probably characterize as spiritual) which involves milk and cookies and posting to a thread on barbelith.

TBH, I wonder what degree this might be characterised as a "practice", since it's never been discussed or critqued, despite attempts to encourage posters to do so, and doesn't seem to change or evolve at all. The posters in question have posteed so rarely and infrequently elsewhere on the board it's hard to know what their opinions are, on Gek or anything else.
 
 
electric monk
15:54 / 16.01.07
What's so offensive about that handful of posters cointinuing a practice which, for whatever reason, they get their kicks from?

I think the trouble comes from the GEK thread being well below the agreed-upon and expected standard of current Temple discussion. It's constant reappearance at the top of the forum sends a message, essentially. "We're alright with this," it says. "This type of thread will go unchallenged." And a majority of Temple regulars are upset about that. Rightly so, I might add, as many of the regulars have worked hard to make Temple as rigorous and rewarding as it is today.

Who are these people?

It might be interesting to find out, so I'd like to move for a temporary lock on both the GEK and KEG threads, lasting maybe a month. I'm thinking that if we put a lock on, our band of drive-by wishers will either A) start asking questions about what has happened to GEK or B) shrug their shoulders and move on somewhere else. Group A's questions are easily answered with a link to discussion here, and a reminder about the terms of THRB's side deal. They're not exactly "playing the game", as it were. If they do agree to play, contribute to other threads and start threads of their own, great. We'll unlock both threads and let the wishing/critique continue.

So let's lock them out for a while. When they can't make their wishes, they'll poke their heads up elsewhere. Hopefully here, but probably in the Stupid Magic Questions thread.
 
 
Gypsy Lantern
16:04 / 16.01.07
I never asked for a thread that I didn't like to be moved to the conversation or creation. Every so often I attempt to critique what happens in that thread, as per the spirit of a discussion forum about magic where magical practices are critiqued. The Keg thread that I started was intended as a satire on how people interact with the Gek thread. If somebody thinks the Keg thread isn't serious enough to exist within the culture of the Temple forum, I think that also raises a few questions about its dayside twin, as was my intention.

I don't think that raising questions about the validity of a certain practice is outwith the bounds of the temple. If you think there are other threads in the temple that could be approached with more rigour, why not say so rather than make veiled references so as not to hurt anybody's feelings. If you have something to contribute, why not contribute it? Start a thread about it. Challenge what irks you. Put your alternative perspective forward.
 
 
Ticker
16:35 / 16.01.07
it sounds like we have a couple of forum wide approaches to discuss. On one hand we have the not-my-cup-of-tea-ignore-it protocol and on the other the engage-challenge-evolve option. I'm sure there are others but what I'm curious about in regards to the GEK thread is I'm getting the idea that the engage-challenge-evolve option has been tried in various forms and the thread keeps resisting evolution even when the criticism is concurred with by the other in thread users.

Looks to me like the OP agreed that it was time for it to evolve and it did not because the casual users are not engaging with the rest of the forum enough to be impacted by our suggestions?

So while the not-my-cup-of-tea-ignore-it protocol has its place as a form of polite etiquette for not wandering into an on going conversation and disagreeing just because you don't dig it and don't have anything constructive to say, the engage-challenge-evolve option is the current preferred standard of the forum?

To try and draw this out a bit... Can the core issue with the GEK thread or any other thread we would want to push off elsewhere be held up against this standard? Are posters engaging with each other? Are methods/ideas/practices being challenged in a hopefully constructive manner? Is the thread beneficial to the evolution of how we as a community/individuals are interacting with a topic?

I guess while we're deciding the fate of a specific thread I'd like us to really quantify WTF we're doing and why. Maybe another exact copy will not pop up again but I'd like us to derive something useful from its expulsion.

If the thread is really a dead end vestigial limb from a bygone era why should it survive to live in another forum at all?
 
 
Char Aina
16:40 / 16.01.07
...because the conversation is the jar we keep such oddities in?
 
 
Papess
16:41 / 16.01.07
Wouldn't it be kinder to just lock his thread, and let him enjoy the years he has left to him in peace?

Maybe I am sentimental, but I wish that this is what is done instead of making more of laughing stock of Gek, the thread, and it's contents. Solving this by doing what we didn't want done in the first place seems quite bizarre to me.
 
 
Ticker
16:50 / 16.01.07
What about an extraction? Can we lock the old GEK thread and put hir in a new shiny evolved version wherein unevolved posts are subject to the same level of challenge/delete as other threads?
 
 
Papess
16:55 / 16.01.07
hmm...New, shiny, evolved...

I like that, and evolution rather than the devolution of Gek seems more appropriate for Barbelith.
 
 
Papess
16:57 / 16.01.07
My views from the Gek thread:

If someone puts garbage in my garden, I don't counteract by adding more garbage...or by moving my garden to the neighbours yard.

This is such a shame. I am not meaning to stir up trouble. This thread was never meant for a discussion. If people don't do their part to fulfill their dreams, what does it matter to anyone else? If people only post a wish every now and then to Gek, why is that so hard for people to just let go and tolerate? I mean, why does it matter so much so, that now we have to toss Gek out of the Temple and onto the street corner of Barbelith?
 
  

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