Here's a post I made in the moderator's forum, I just wanted people to know where I stand on the issue and maybe give the mods an opportunity to see how the rest of the members feel about it.
I didn?t weight in on the initial discussion of OTD, so I felt it wasn?t really my place to get into it now that the experiment is already underway. However, geo messaged me asking for my opinion so I figured I?d share. I just finished a long-ass paper so I?m kind of burnt out on writing. Please bear with my rambling, I promise I do have a point.
First of all, let me say that I agree with the sentiment of the OTD reformers. I fondly remember the days when OTD was a place for light-hearted, good natured discussion. Most of the people who posted were regular contributors to the other forums who just wanted a break from mushroom talk. Today, many people visit the forums solely to post in OTD, and they may never visit the cultivation boards. I think it?s very telling that OTD has almost twice as many posts as the cultivation forums combined. At the same time, it?s obvious that the quality of the posts continue to decline as the quantity increases. Perhaps 1 out of every 50 posts in OTD is a ?keeper?, or something which I would subjectively say adds value to the community. Whether this actually reflects poorly on the site as a whole is open for discussion. I feel much of the criticism of the Shroomery comes from the apparently young age of our members and the ?let?s all get fucked up? attitude predominating the discussion in all the forums. However, for the purpose of this argument I?ll allow that OTD may be a blight on the community which causes some people to look down on the site or dismiss its potential for serious discussion. It also obviously places a greater load on the server, and necessitates more frequent upgrades in order to keep pace with the continually growing forums database.
It definitely took balls to suspend the OTD forums and I acknowledge the courage of the admins responsible. It?s never easy to make unpopular decisions and like I said, I agree with and respect the sentiment of those responsible. However, I feel the efforts may have been misguided and regardless, the reform was implemented in the wrong way. Let me explain.
First of all, I think it?s important to recognize and understand the nature of a community like our forums. Anybody can set up a bulletin board script, and many people do. The value of the board does not come from its availability. It isn?t popular because we reached the magic balance between forums or created the perfect color scheme. Regardless of how good or informative the rest of the site is, there?s no reason people will automatically use our forums when a million other BBs are just a click away. The value of the BB comes directly from the posts made by our members. For this reason, many of our members feel a sense of ownership of the BB, and rightly so. This is what makes or breaks a community like ours. People will continue to contribute as long as they feel they have a stake in the forums. If they don?t have this, there?s no reason they will stay here. Anything which undermines this sense of ownership is destructive to the community as a whole. This is why it?s important to act by consensus and in response to the will of the members. Our role should be to implement policy and features which are conductive to this sense of ownership, and avoid actions which undermine it. Of course, our members don?t always know what?s best for the forums or even have the interests of the site in mind. Don?t forget that often we don?t either. This is why we must make an effort to fully explain any actions we take, solicit feedback, discuss and reach a consensus within the community and strive to respect the wishes of our members to the greatest extent possible.
Closing OTD definitely does not respect the wishes of our members. I still haven?t seen a well thought out and articulate post explaining the reasoning behind this action. You could argue that we do not have to be concerned with the will of the OTD members, since those are the people we?re trying to get rid of anyway. I would argue against this. Even if people hate OTD and never read it, when they see the admins acting in a way which disregards the will of any large group of members, they lose confidence in our ability and desire to respect their ownership of the BB. Further, I?m not exactly sure whose interests we are trying to respect by closing the forum. I certainly didn?t see posts in any of the other forums calling for its removal or reform. People may complain about it, but they tolerate it because they know they aren?t forced to read or post in it. We have provided an alternative to OTD for people who don?t find the atmosphere of that forum pleasant. What exactly necessitated these drastic changes?
Do people look down on the BB? Maybe a few, but who cares? They think we?re vulgar, we think they?re elitist. Ultimately, we have one of the largest, most tightly-knit and most active communities among drug-related sites on the internet. The fact that we are dedicated to a relatively obscure entheogen makes this fact even more remarkable. Our community didn?t evolve out of a strict set of rules and controls on free speech. People gravitated to our BB because we let them have that ownership which is so important to a community. You could argue that this move is in the best long-term interest of the forums, but I would say the best thing we can do for our forums long-term is maintain an overriding sense of respect for our members and their wishes. If there was a public outcry against OTD, and the majority of our members really wanted it reformed, it would be very much worth consideration. However, that is clearly not the case. We have already alienated a large percentage of our members, and at best it seems that people are viewing the move with a sense of resignation. The will of our members is clearly to leave OTD intact. I think that carries a lot of weight.
Is OTD taking a toll on the server? Of course. So, we upgrade the server when it needs it. No big deal. I have confidence in technology?s ability to outpace the growth of OTD. We can get faster hard drives, CPUs and RAM once every two years and we should be fine. It?s certainly within the site?s budget. If people still feel it?s too slow, we can customize our search to optionally exclude community forums. That way people searching for mushroom information don?t have to wait while the script slogs through ? of a million posts. Worst case, we can expire threads which have been inactive for 6 months and cut the number of posts in OTD drastically. Removing or reforming OTD is not necessary.
Some people think we aren?t obligated to keep OTD because it doesn?t have anything to do with mushrooms. All I can do is point out that ? of our forums have nothing to do with mushrooms. Our BB should not be a joyless place where every thread without ?mushroom? in the title gets deleted. I understand the feelings of those who say we should place a priority on mushroom-related discussions ? of course, that?s the point of the page. However, it?s not like OTD is preventing any of the other forums from working properly. At worst it has a miniscule impact on the performance of the server. I don?t think it?s interfering with our mission statement or purpose.
What?s my recommendation? Open OTD again, now, before we piss of more people. If you don?t like the tone of that forum, then make positive posts and replies and lead by example. Remember that our members should dictate the BB?s policies and everything we do should be in their interest. If OTD is distressing to you, don?t read it.
Anyway I?m going to stop typing now. I welcome all comments, questions and feedback. Hopefully the mods and admins of this site will make the right decision.
Peace,
-Y
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