Site Feedback Lack of dedicated focus forum for stimulants and opiates?

[dankplantgrower]

Let's say we make a "tweakers and twerkers" sub forum, and one for the junkies.

Where would camfetamine fit? For you see, it is both a stimulant and an opioid.

Not to mention buprenorphine is fairly stimulating.

So with all of this in mind, it doesn't make sense to split off the sub-forums.

In the research chemical forum?

Ive also been deterred the lack of stim/alcohol/opi8s/etc threads. I wanted to post a booze question thread just this morning but felt it just didnt fit in to other drugs where everyone is talking about bupe and heroin. Thats strike one against harm reduction and were barely including the last 12 hours. IMO this site is gold in 75% of the areas but some of the rules and shit are counter productive to drug users' needs. However I get enough enjoyment out of this forum that I accept the girth and deal with it.

An alcohol forum would get as least as much play as the steroid forum and the opiate forum would blow up. I feel this is an excellent discussion worth further exploration. Adding a stim and opiate forum isnt going to make you guys Drug Forums.

babylonboy

Whats the big deal if OD sees a drop in readers if the eyes are merely being moved to another forum on the same message board? OD has so many readers because its covering all the drugs it should be categorizing. As it stands OD looks to me like a half ass opiate forum with some benzo users thrown in and a couple prostitutes.

Over the years I was under the impression that BL disallowed these common sense measures because they didnt want to be like other drug use forums. You guys are so much better.

 

[Tommyboy]

^ So would you want a full on break-down, or would adding an alcohol forum suffice? Should OD be done with and us have an opiate/opioid forum, an RC one, a cocaine one, and amphetamine one, a benzo one, and then the aforementioned alcohol one? That would be 6 forums in the place of 1, and lets say there are 2-3 mods per forum instead of the 5 we have in OD, which would have us adding 7-13 more mods.

Such a change would not be able to happen overnight, so what would a more conservative breakdown be?

 

[Mr.Scagnattie]

And then what about Basic Drug Discussion and Advanced Drug Discussion? Are those supposed to just disappear or are we then supposed to have a basic stim forum, a basic opiate forum, a basic alcohol, basic benzo... then the intermediate ones, then the advanced ones? It's just not practical.

BL has been this way for a long time and turned into the largest drug forum on the internet.. that's not a coincidence. I think having all those individual forums is just spreading ourselves too thin.

 

[dankplantgrower]

^ So would you want a full on break-down, or would adding an alcohol forum suffice? Should OD be done with and us have an opiate/opioid forum, an RC one, a cocaine one, and amphetamine one, a benzo one, and then the aforementioned alcohol one? That would be 6 forums in the place of 1, and lets say there are 2-3 mods per forum instead of the 5 we have in OD, which would have us adding 7-13 more mods.

Such a change would not be able to happen overnight, so what would a more conservative breakdown be?

I clearly intimated a stimulant forum, not separate forums for meth coke and whatever.

Is Bluelight so short on members that it cant supply 7 mods? When I was reading in the last suicide thread people (with several thousand posts) saying they might not commit suicide if they chose him as the next cannabis mod instead? 7 users as mod staus isnt much and youd be foolish to assume otherwise.

Seems like youre afraid of a few more links on the mainpage. Sorry if that offends your sensibilities but it is not only logical but helpful in the pursuit of "harm reduction" and keeping drug users on the same page.

 

[QUARE]

^ we don't have access to your private messages. you'll have copies in your 'sent' messages so you can take care of resending them yourself...

alasdair

Well I already know Mr.Scagnattie sent me one, I dont know who is the other mod but Im asking to them to resend the PM not to you, the quote was more to show them what I was talking about.

 

[dankplantgrower]

Mr Scagnattie

I respect your opinion and 99% of your posts, and I appreciate the advice youve goven me in my own PMs (knucks bro) but I must oppose in this instance.

Whats the big deal with ADD and OD losing constituents if the users simply move to another link on the same site? *crickets* And whoTF asked for basic, intermediate, and advanced forums on the same topic? Im no nitpicker but add an opiate booze and benzo forum to the mix and everyones covered (ad nauseum).

Being the biggest drug forum on the net means about .001 of my last hit. Glee the TV show is the biggest seller of music on iTunes and we all know Glee is a piece of shit. There are several other forums on your level, even if they dont hold the title, and if you ceased to exist right now the world would still be sufficiently served. IMO you are doing a diservice by ignoring (noti ncluding forums is ignoring) the need of drug users around the world as it stands.

"But is your suggestions including minor technicalities that the BL staff faces?"

Grow a di

 

[bronson]

Whats the big deal with ADD and OD losing constituents if the users simply move to another link on the same site? *crickets* And whoTF asked for basic, intermediate, and advanced forums on the same topic? Im no nitpicker but add an opiate booze and benzo forum to the mix and everyones covered (ad nauseum).

While I don't disagree entirely with your opinion, do keep in mind that a lot more work and thought goes into how the various boards are setup than the average user likely realizes. Having a tiered system of boards that cover a broad spectrum of substances, but at different points of understanding leads to a few advantages:

• People reading are exposed to a greater amount of subject matter than what they might be initially looking for, and at a level of discussion they can understand. Thus, leading to posters learning more, and eventually being able to contribute in situations they wouldn't otherwise. This promotes a goal of harm reduction through education.
  ...
• One needn't read through topics they already have a firm grasp on should they choose not to. Likewise, if you have a quick question about a basic dose, it isn't mixed in with a bunch of pharmacology discussion you don't care to read at the time. Concise is good when someone is considering doing something they aren't familiar with, as impatience is the norm leading to uninformed dangerous decisions.
  ...
• The forums run with distinctly different moderation styles. BDD for example is mainly question and answer. As the progression goes up, the amount of discussion typically does as well. This is good kept separate, meshed together likely threads would end up needing to be closed, that otherwise could have benefited from further exploration.

Not saying your idea doesn't deserve consideration, just more asking, how would it outweigh the benefits above?

 

[dankplantgrower]

Thank you for reading my posts thoroughly and replying with something worth reading. Your first bullet point is irrelevant (how is an alcoholic gonna be put off by an "advanced" booze thread unless its at a molecular level or something?) Forgive me, or beat me up, if Im oversimplifying and missing the point but. The more info I see, the more educated I am. And if I see something "too smart" for me here I either google the terminology and become that much more educated (99%), or move to threads where people arent discussing complex dopamine/seratonin/cb 1 interactions (1%). There is very little wiggle room here and I can only imagine this applies to the vast majority of posters here. Also, how often does a street level opiphile try to influence advanced discussion of the finer points of bupe/methadone/dope? Unless they want to look like an idiot in front of several peers, they dont.

As for people wading through basic questions 'needlessly' in your 2nd point, they are already doing that every single day, in spades, in the forums that currently exist as we speak. Take into account as well, the smaller numbers of dedicated substances users (same site, different link) that will habitually navigating the "basic" and "advanced" forums. Drunks dont mind overlooking odd questions when their prized advice is sitting on the same page. I wouldnt give 2 shits if I saw a 'Which liquor tastes better?' thread right after a "Which receptors in our brain are stimulated by ethanol' if they are in the same forum, dedicated to helping users incur less harm on themselves. Have you ever seen the cannabis focus forum? Its literally "you should get high al day everyday" versus "how to purge butane from BHO wax to insure cleaner highs" threads throughout.

Third bulletpoint; things are moderated differently with different styles.... So? Are your moderators incapable of enforcing the status quo on maybe 7 forums tops? Like you cant put out a memo telling your mods that things should be moderated uniformly, or otherwise? That should already be the standard and your moderators already appear to have that on lock, honestly.

Is Bluelight afraid of change? Sure looks like the site moderators are. Certainly you see the benfits of keeping drug users on the same page (versus sending alkies dopers tweakers benzers RCers and XXX into the same forum for "harm reduction" information. Its like 5 links on the mainpage). The basic>advanced argument doesnt hold enough water for me.

 

[dankplantgrower]

BTW I enjoy your consice and wel thought out opinions bronson, I didnt mean to come off as rude to you personally nor do I wish to offend you in any waY ... Simpyl responding to your post as I understand it and hopefully conveying the message I wish to communicate clearly...

 

[bronson]

You raise valid points as well, and change on the forums is only accomplished through discussion with some serious thought put into it. Your reply was on point, doing just that. Is there some reluctance to change when things already are running smoothly, yes, but it's by no means out of the question.

Have a look through this, which documents different user groups and boards that have existed over the history of the site. You'll see things actually have changed a good deal. I assure you behind the scenes, this process goes on perpetually. If a better experience can be offered to the users, anyone on staff would be remiss to simply brush it aside.

I firmly believe that any member can have ideas that staff will seriously consider, the issue more often than not is that presentation of the ideas is not complete enough to be feasible for use without considerable reworking, or new ideas are brought to light in a way that lacks respect for the people that would need to implement them. Either is a turn off, as everyone working here does so on a strictly volunteer basis.

If change is what's desired, I can't stress enough, work out ideas fully, and don't be afraid to involve other members and staff along the way. The site isn't what it is thanks to one person, the current staff alone can't even come close to taking credit. It's a group of ideas from a wide range of people that have brought us to where we are now, to help and continue that is both noble and appreciated.

Don't let people disagreeing with you slow your roll. Do expect constructive criticism. I hope this helps make it a bit clearer that it isn't staff against the members, just an attempt to cultivate the best ideas possible for changes that may be implemented.

 

[dankplantgrower]

Thanks for your thoughtful criticism.

Would considerable website reworking really be necessary to add perhaps 5 links to the mainpage? We dont need an advanced discussion, just a place to discuss our DOCs in a safe HR manner without wading through 50 bupe/dope threads first. I dont think this is a huge deal. If this thread were in a more populated forum like OD I think we would have a huge number of people who agree. Sadly this thread is in a forum that 3 users and 2 guests are browsing.

Ill be trying to recruit more posters to lend a voice, without spaming other threads, to get a broader view of what the average BL user is really looking for in this website. And if it can be done feasibly in regards to website maintenance/perceived moderator respect level. Something tells me scores of benzo users would appreciate a benzo forum, opiphiles an opiate forum, drinkers a booze forum (so many people drink!) etc.

 

[babylonboy]

It's about fractioning the community. As it is, we have a knowledgeable user base that can readily answer a broad range of questions. What do we really stand to gain by splitting up OD? As I see it, we end up with a bunch of overly specific sub-forums that no-one actually visits. Is OD really so difficult to navigate that it's offputting? You say that you don't want a separate forum for every type of drug, but that seems to be the logical endpoint of your way of thinking. Who would actually navigate to the alcohol forum? I certainly wouldn't. I have no idea why you'd want to split up ADD. Again, you have to realise that it's a community of people that constitute the greatest (the only) asset of this site, and the architecture of the site is crucial to the way people relate to the virtual space. As you say, this isn't the only drug forum on the web, and no-one is obliged to stay here and continue posting. You say you don't want to wade through bupe threads- that is why the prefix system was introduced. You can use the search function to display a narrower range of threads. The truth is that, in my opinion, there aren't that many posters who only use benzos, or stimulants, or opioids. Most of OD's posters use many different drugs, or at least have knowledge and experience that is relevant and valuable concerning a range of substances. We already have redundancy on the site (for instance, a drug being discussed in various regional forums and also in BDD, OD, and ADD), and in some ways it's a shame, because it means that knowledge isn't disseminated as well as it could be. The issue isn't that we can't add 5 links to the main page (obviously that's a task that would take an admin 5 minutes), but that it isn't necessarily the best idea. Adding links isn't the same as building forums.

 

[Mr.Scagnattie]

Mr Scagnattie

I respect your opinion and 99% of your posts, and I appreciate the advice youve goven me in my own PMs (knucks bro) but I must oppose in this instance.

Whats the big deal with ADD and OD losing constituents if the users simply move to another link on the same site? *crickets* And whoTF asked for basic, intermediate, and advanced forums on the same topic? Im no nitpicker but add an opiate booze and benzo forum to the mix and everyones covered (ad nauseum).

Being the biggest drug forum on the net means about .001 of my last hit. Glee the TV show is the biggest seller of music on iTunes and we all know Glee is a piece of shit. There are several other forums on your level, even if they dont hold the title, and if you ceased to exist right now the world would still be sufficiently served. IMO you are doing a diservice by ignoring (noti ncluding forums is ignoring) the need of drug users around the world as it stands.

"But is your suggestions including minor technicalities that the BL staff faces?"

Grow a di

You know, being rude and abrasive is not the way to get anything done, man.. I mean, really.. who are you?

I have a hard time respecting anybodies opinions who makes it by being rude and talking down about the forum staff and the site all together. If you don't like BL.. you do not have to be a part of it. We have a massive member base who love this site and everything it is.. if you're not one of them and want to put us down at every turn under the pretense of "improving" the site, then I don't think this is the place for you.

I don't know what is irking you so bad enough to be so blatantly confrontational but.. we do not have to stand for it. I think you need a serious attitude change or should figure out what's going on with you personally that's making you lash out. Don't blame Bluelight for whatever your issues are.

 

[Tommyboy]

I clearly intimated a stimulant forum, not separate forums for meth coke and whatever.

Is Bluelight so short on members that it cant supply 7 mods? When I was reading in the last suicide thread people (with several thousand posts) saying they might not commit suicide if they chose him as the next cannabis mod instead? 7 users as mod staus isnt much and youd be foolish to assume otherwise.

Seems like youre afraid of a few more links on the mainpage. Sorry if that offends your sensibilities but it is not only logical but helpful in the pursuit of "harm reduction" and keeping drug users on the same page.

Keeping drug users on the same page by making even more pages? I don't think that would work out well. I really don't know what kept you from posting your alcohol question in OD, and to say it's not HR because you chose not to post because of there not being an alcohol forum is a cop-out of sort. What about drug combinations? Where would all those posts go?

Then I'm sure some kid would be home wondering if he could add some dope to his xanax high, but wouldn't ask because he didn't know if he should post it in the benzo forum, or the opiate/opioid forum, and thus does it anyway and overdoses. And there are tons of drug combination posts on here. Benzos/alcohol, benzos/opiates, benzos/stimulant comedowns, speedballs, alcohol/opiates, alcohol/cocaine, alcohol/opiate/benzos, alcohol/cocaine/opiates, and many more...

I think you may have misunderstood the tone of my last post. I was being serious when I asked how you thought that we should break it down, and if I was only off by the stimulant thing then we would have RC's, benzos, opiates, alcohol, and stimulants forums which would mean adding more than just 7 mods. And to touch on your question about adding mods, all I'll say is that it's likely a lot harder than you realize to add a few mods, let alone 7+ at once.

You said I'd be foolish to assume that adding 7 new mods wouldn't be easy, yet I'm involved in the selection of every new moderator and you are just seeing it from the other side, so I'm clearly not the foolish one here. Just because 1 person said he would kill himself if he wasn't made CD mod doesn't mean there's always a lot of competition. And you want someone that unstable being a mod here and having access to some privileged information anyway? Also it took a few months to find new CD mods this time around, so like I said it's not always easy.

I don't mind more links on the main page. When scrolling through the site I check via the forum tab, and I can just 'collapse' any sections I don't want to scroll over, so that's not the issue.

It's about fractioning the community. As it is, we have a knowledgeable user base that can readily answer a broad range of questions. What do we really stand to gain by splitting up OD? As I see it, we end up with a bunch of overly specific sub-forums that no-one actually visits. Is OD really so difficult to navigate that it's offputting? You say that you don't want a separate forum for every type of drug, but that seems to be the logical endpoint of your way of thinking. Who would actually navigate to the alcohol forum? I certainly wouldn't. I have no idea why you'd want to split up ADD. Again, you have to realise that it's a community of people that constitute the greatest (the only) asset of this site, and the architecture of the site is crucial to the way people relate to the virtual space. As you say, this isn't the only drug forum on the web, and no-one is obliged to stay here and continue posting. You say you don't want to wade through bupe threads- that is why the prefix system was introduced. You can use the search function to display a narrower range of threads. The truth is that, in my opinion, there aren't that many posters who only use benzos, or stimulants, or opioids. Most of OD's posters use many different drugs, or at least have knowledge and experience that is relevant and valuable concerning a range of substances. We already have redundancy on the site (for instance, a drug being discussed in various regional forums and also in BDD, OD, and ADD), and in some ways it's a shame, because it means that knowledge isn't disseminated as well as it could be. The issue isn't that we can't add 5 links to the main page (obviously that's a task that would take an admin 5 minutes), but that it isn't necessarily the best idea. Adding links isn't the same as building forums.

I completely agree. I have knowledge of a decent range of drugs, but if OD was split up I would end up not ever viewing a lot of the threads that I would normally contribute HR advice in. I think the same holds true for a lot of members here, and splitting it up that much would likely result in a very busy Opiate forum, a few people in the stimulant and benzo forums, a dead alcohol forum, and a lot of confused people not knowing where to post about their combos.

Whats the big deal with ADD and OD losing constituents if the users simply move to another link on the same site? *crickets* And whoTF asked for basic, intermediate, and advanced forums on the same topic? Im no nitpicker but add an opiate booze and benzo forum to the mix and everyones covered (ad nauseum).

The big deal would be many people would not simply just move to another link on the same page. Like I just said, there are many people capable of giving great HR advice on a number of substances, who just wouldn't bother with going into new threads outside of their DOC. And once again, drug combos, where do they go? And don't say a separate forum for combos because that wouldn't work.

 

[QUARE]

• People reading are exposed to a greater amount of subject matter than what they might be initially looking for, and at a level of discussion they can understand. Thus, leading to posters learning more, and eventually being able to contribute in situations they wouldn't otherwise. This promotes a goal of harm reduction through education.

• 
  
  I got to agree with this, when I browse on OD and BDD I always find some thread which I can contribute to or ask futher question on while i was not really looking for this at this moment.

 

[dankplantgrower]

babylonboys post makes sense and I see the error of fractioning OD now... But I disagree on one point, of course people would visit an alcohol forum, its hardly touched upon here but at my other drug forum of comparable size it is easily more active than steroids are here. Just because you arent interested in discussing alcohol doesnt mean there isnt a population in this community that does. I feel like its a place for a people who share the same DOC to go and really understand each other and have their own place to talk and support each other and suggest HR. Sure prefixes are great in OD but alcohol users dont go there to talk and discuss much here because theyre not identifying with other alcoholics. Rather they are getting all kinds of input from people who seem much more interested in opiates, benzos, and the rest of the rainbow in there. Probably because alcohol is my DOC and I get such a better vibe discussing it with people on other sites, that know it as intimately I do and theyre here to talk about that alone.

Also apologies for coming off crass I had completely forgotten about a rescue dose of Xanax I took last night then went to a get together with a bit of booze, I dont even remember how I got home, much less insulting a bunch of poor mods on this website. I was gonna go edit it out but its quoted twice now in big blocks so, I gues that would be useless. Apologies ladies/gents.

 

[babylonboy]

In my experience, the regional and social forums are pretty good for discussing alcohol. There's threads about what you're drinking now, threads about craft beers and alcopops and spirits. Forum social threads often have booze talk, too. Alcohol is unique, culturally and in its form, which is primarily a tasty beverage, and so the way it's discussed will be different as well. Lots of BLers are smokers, but I don't think a tobacco forum is appropriate either. Can you see how the two are analogous? In terms of recovery and support and the darker side of booze, I think that TDS and all the forums (which have been overhauled pretty recently, by the way, and have had loads of new staff brought on, as a result of senior staff actively developing and reforming the site, something you seem to think doesn't happen)...the forums that cover sober living and that stuff are good, and I think that most people will agree that it's not your DOC that's the defining characteristic of a substance abuse problem. I think that recovering heroin addicts and ketamine heads and pill poppers have a lot in common with one another, and with alcoholics, too. To split that would be just another case of needlessly driving people apart when what we should be doing is gathering them together and pooling the wisdom of the collective. Before you splinter a forum, we need to move past thinking that it's obvious (or fair or sensible or whatever supposed abstract virtue) that a topic should have a dedicated forum, and consider what actual practical improvement we expect to gain, and at what cost.

Anyway, I'm going to channel alasdair and tell you to "be the change". Have you started any alcohol threads? What aspect do you want to discuss? I am confident you can find a place to talk about whatever it is, be it stories of wild benders, or cocktail recipes, or help with a problem. I guess you're a CD poster, the CD social used to be very busy when I modded it, I don't know if it is still that way. NSADDASASDAS, I imagine, has threads as well (I'm also guessing you're American here, I'm being very presumptuous), EADD definitely does and you'd be half-welcome at least, the lounge you could try if you can hack it, second opinion... I think that you will be able to either find what you're looking for, or create it yourself.

Sub-forums get created when there's so much talk about a drug that it warrants a whole forum to itself, and that results in two more focused and organised forums, but also two sufficiently busy forums. For instance, CD was split off from PD because there were so many cannabis threads (I'll try and find a list of what subforums BL has had over time, it's quite interesting to see how the architecture has developed). As it is, we're not swamped with alcohol threads, so we'd have nothing to populate the forum. The people who are talking about alcohol now are doing it with a group of posters they are acquainted and comfortable with in their "home forums". I think if you suddenly throw all those threads together into a new forum, you're probably going to put some people off, as they wanted to shoot the shit with their pals, not a bunch of strangers, and it could actually be counterproductive and lead to even less talk about booze.
[/$0.02]

EDIT: Found quite a lot of relevant reading. I'll just chuck it all here for you to have a look at.

Opinions Needed - Splitting Opiate Discussion Off From OD Into A New Forum- the poll results favour splitting OD, I think it's an intuition a lot of people have, but if you read the thread I think you'll see why it was decided then not to go ahead. Lots of people wanted it split, but I think you'll find that the people who have been here longest and as mods have a consensus in favour of conserving OD as it is.


RFD: Focus Forum and Drug Discussion groupings

Alcohol Forum? - Split from Heads Up thread

Thanks Staff Members- this one has a list of all the subforums ever at the top. It's not the thread I'm looking for, which has a chronology of all the splits, merges, creations and deletions. That thread does exist though, hopefully a staff member knows where.

EDIT #2: History of Bluelight- not as detailed as I remember, but whoomp! there it is.

 

[Tommyboy]

babylonboys post makes sense and I see the error of fractioning OD now... But I disagree on one point, of course people would visit an alcohol forum, its hardly touched upon here but at my other drug forum of comparable size it is easily more active than steroids are here. Just because you arent interested in discussing alcohol doesnt mean there isnt a population in this community that does. I feel like its a place for a people who share the same DOC to go and really understand each other and have their own place to talk and support each other and suggest HR. Sure prefixes are great in OD but alcohol users dont go there to talk and discuss much here because theyre not identifying with other alcoholics. Rather they are getting all kinds of input from people who seem much more interested in opiates, benzos, and the rest of the rainbow in there. Probably because alcohol is my DOC and I get such a better vibe discussing it with people on other sites, that know it as intimately I do and theyre here to talk about that alone.

Also apologies for coming off crass I had completely forgotten about a rescue dose of Xanax I took last night then went to a get together with a bit of booze, I dont even remember how I got home, much less insulting a bunch of poor mods on this website. I was gonna go edit it out but its quoted twice now in big blocks so, I gues that would be useless. Apologies ladies/gents.

Well if we were so split any drug from OD, I agree that it should be alcohol. Over the years though, The Dark Side has become home to most of the people here with alcohol problems, and then more social discussion of it is spread out throughout DC and the regional threads. OD and BDD of course handle most of the HR threads about someone who is about to drink, and then TDS seems to handle the aftermath.

That doesn't mean that it has to stay this way though. The alcohol forum could handle the HR and social stuff, and then when someone is ready to quit they can hop over to Recovery Support which includes TDS, Sober Living, and Mental Health.

 

[Mr.Scagnattie]

I'm not opposed to starting an alcohol sub forum.. I just really don't think it's going to get much attention. We get alcohol posts in OD but I just don't see a demand for it enough to justify having its own dedicated thread with specific staff.

 

[bennyZA]

Alcohol seems pointless due to lack of demand, and also, could you imagine the type of posts... It would be 90% new college drinkers asking how to get drunker, faster, with less nausea.