The first word in the summary of the Temple forum is 'Faith'.
While other people may have a different take on the concept, faith for many people seems to consist of wishing that another entity enact a desire for you.
While this approach is definitely at the suckier end of the spiritual spectrum, it is an approach that is taken by many millions (billions?) of people in this world.
Recent discussions have been held in the forum on the subject of acceptance and tolerance of other people's faith/religion/practice. I'd suggest that this may be an instance where we take the this approach.
It sucks that there are people who appear only for this thread, and it sucks that their only interaction with the board is that of asking favours, but what harm does it actually do?
If there is a concern that this thread will lead to waves of new recruits who want only to beg favours, then why hasn't this already happened? (Yes, people come and beg favours, but not tons) If someone is seeking an online wishing well, there are tons more easily-accessed one on t'internets.
If the worry is that it will be bad for the image of the forum - that it will make it seem less rigorous and thoughtful than it is - then i'd suggest that a lazy thread which pops up every few weeks does nothing to alter the content of any other thread in the forum.
If the thread is to stay open, then it should stay in the temple - it being a magical servitor and a practice in faith. Convo would just be a dumping ground for it. As the thing is no longer a properly creative project, it doesn't seem to fit in Creation.
I'm resistant to ideas of changing the remit of the thread to one which requires other magical work/discussion, mainly for the reason that it would do nothing. As has been shown in-thread, the wishers seem pretty ignorant of anything else going on in the thread (or even the forum).
If we tried to force them to involve themselves in the forum by locking the thread if they didn't discuss things, they'd either leave or post the kind of 'tool = truthtellers for the new millenium' shit we specifically don't want on the forum.
If the abstract is to change, perhaps change it to something a bit realistic and/or embarassing:
'Gek is a temple servitor who most people seem to use to fix their backpain or car problems. Many people like to sort their own problems, but if you find that too daunting, ask Gek! You get to eat some cookies too!'
And if people are still a bit worried about the thread reflecting poorly on their current state of progress/maturity, we could get a post done in Mordant's old post saying something along the lines of:
'As you can see by the dates of the posts, this is an old thread and, as such, does not really reflect the current disposition of the Temple.
While it started as an experiment, with the intent that it would evolve and grow, it has become a place for people to drop in a quick request to Gek and eat a votive.
In the Temple, we encourage people to explore and expand upon their spiritual and/or magical practice (practice being the key word here) but we also accept that many people's interaction with 'the spiritual' is through simple faith. For this reason, we have left the thread running.
We would encourage any posters in this thread to make, or attempt to make, a contribution to the rest of the forum. It's the polite thing to do.
x
teh admin' |
