Trunk

Dawei, While I know that this forum gets chaotic at times, and we are trying to reign that in where we can... and we do what we can to discern between hostile trolling and genuine disagreement This is a spiritual (internal arts) open internet forum. In the general population there is (obviously) *lots* of disagreement (even in genuine non-hostile inquiry) about the efficacy of various practices, schools, even the existence of spirituality itself! We allow that full range here. Obviously spirituality is a sensitive area and often people react too strongly (reference world history of "holy" wars, lol). We try and be not-too-uptight here. Within a school / classroom environment, it *is* disrespectful to perpetuate any disagrees with the speaker, or to outright largely disagree. Within the classroom format people have gathered (and often paid $) with the intent to gain everything they can from the speaker in the front of the room. Within that context it's totally appropriate to have that exclusive focus. Necessary even. Super important. This was the case in every classroom situation I've ever been in, academic and spiritual. It's super important that classroom formats exist, that those in charge there (teachers and their supporting staff) have really good control over their environment, and manage conversation to absolutely maximize what students can get from a single speaker. However, that is not TTBs venue; TTBs is more open than that. If a member at TTBs *really* wants full control over their thread within the TTBs format, post it in your Personal Practice Section. There you have full control. While we are in a period of flux as to how tightly we moderate within the intent of the original poster, TTBs will always be more diverse than a classroom format. That's the nature and basic intent of this venue. If people want more extensive discussion with more control, there are free blogs and free forum services all over the internet. Anyone can set up their own discussion site in an afternoon, for nearly any purpose they wish... and there should be different venues, with different basic premises. TTBs can't be everything nor does it intend to. - Trunk

Oh, one other thing, house-keeping item: The moderation logs section is really meant for staff recording of completed moderation actions at a level that require public record (and whatever community replies might follow in those staff-created threads). As such, I've made the moderation log section so that members cannot start threads on that section, but can still reply to threads there. The Office is a good enough place to post threads such as this one, so this thread has been moved into the Office.

~~~ admin statement ~~~ staff & community context: We (the staff, the mod team) are dealing with a large complex changing community; it's become more difficult to manage as it's grown. We have more nebulous problems (of varying degrees of friction) that don't fit neatly into our rule model and I've explicitly given my moderators a lot of latitude to "take the initiative, handle that area as you see fit" within the larger goal that we can bring more peace to board in general; it's been rather chaotic lately. We are experimenting some with how to moderate in order to deal with the new level of chaos that we experience at a community level. Each of us (moderators and admin) have our hands full with various issues. I have confidence in the basic intent and character of my staff members and want to support them in this process. Also, each of us is learning. Jetsun handled the original comment within the context of the whole thread and our general situation and did what he felt would help bring order to the thread generally, as well as the specific situation. I gave him latitude to do that, generally and in this specific case; this is partly my responsibility. Also I had a hint in my mind that this might turn into a conflict but I've been busy with other issues and need to hand over that initiative and if we make mistakes we'll live & learn. That's the process. We're livin' n' learnin'. So, please, with all of the above in mind... In retrospect, from my perspective, in the interest of diminishing the stress of the general milieu (and the context of wild times in general) I think we stepped too hard on this one instance. Bakeneko's original comment can be seen as simple disagreement, not harassment (etc) and specifically is well within TTBs standards of lively debate. Bakeneko's responses have been that of taking responsibility, apologizing where he felt he could, and addressing to resolve the situation with the intent of clarification, imo. All really appreciated. Suspension lifted. Thank you for your patience. Matter closed. - Trunk p.s. General comment to the community, not pointedly towards any specific in this instance... Even when any of the staff make mistakes, me included, please be civil when attempting to address, clarify, and resolve the situation. We used to give way too much latitude to the level of abuse that we'd allow towards staff. It's a rough job and we go through a lot of staff. Civility towards staff is now enforced as a matter of policy. That doesn't mean that you can't disagree with us and it does not mean that you can't work to clarify issues that you feel are unjust (I'm not surprised that this thread occurred) ... just please apply patience and civility, we're all doing our best. Thanks again. later... p.p.s. This incident will not count against Bakeneko at all in terms of historical warning, etc. ~~~ /admin out ~~~

Yup. When I was studying with my first meditation teacher/group, when we were doing a mantra for one of the beauty goddesses, a lot of students started mentioning that birds started hanging around more. I was doing mantra in my room in front of my altar, there was this small scraggly leafless tree next to my window and I heard what I thought was the tree tapping against the window. There were like 5 birds in it, one of them tapping. I find it's not all that unusual (still surprising and wonderful) when I really focus on mantra for a good stretch, that happens. Some with people, too, but more noticable with birds.

Go to the upper right-hand corner of TTBs window, and click on your name. In that list: "Manage Ignore Preferences"

Problem is that many in the "most popular" list are also "most likely to cause long term injury". it's just a sad fact of the state of western pop-Taoism.

Healing Tao cautions.

Staff leaving: Protector and JoeBlast are no longer moderators. Thanks for your help. Staff arriving: Aaron is now steward of Off-Topic. Mal Stainkey is a returning moderator. We've noticed that we tend to burn out moderators and so have decided to implement a staggered rotation plan for mods. What we are working towards is to have a pool of about a dozen moderators, with only 3 active at a time, one shifting out each month. So, each moderator would be on staff for 2-3 months, then off for 4-6 months. Something like that. Currently we have 2 mods on staff, and 2 more in the pool, so we're considering various members for current & pool. Let us know if you're interested. I'm going to take a vacation from admin'ing for a few weeks, so Sean is now current admin. I might be tinkering around in the back-ground occasionally, but I am now officially working on my tan. - Trunk

Often "whole body integral all-at-once" kind of experiences are the result of connecting things piece by piece and then "it all works at once" then you work (and work and work) to get to that place more frequently, more fluently, with more stability.

No one's without challenges; I admit that you're imperfect.

Sterling character.

What you are stating is the reason we experimented with a time limit on editing posts, but that experiment failed. Ultimately TTBs places a high value on members being able to control their own communication (though not others').

You can go to your ignore settings and there's a check box to block pm's next to ignore posts. Then he won't be able to send you a pm at all, period.

Thank you so much for sharing this website.

p.s. If a member#1 insulted a member#2 in a pm, and #2 responded with "fuck you" ... I'd probably allow it. A provoked response, via pm. If someone gave an unprovoked strong attack (of any sort) and reported the pm, I'd probably warn those involved. So what does that say?: Could go either way, lol. Up to the people involved, situational. Certainly stronger language is not categorically off limits in pms vs what would be in public posts. Hope this helps.

Michael, We haven't really mapped out what is allowed via pm. Certainly it is considerably broader than what is allowed in public posts. However, if someone feels they are really being attacked (or some other concern), they can 'report' a pm and it will go to the mod reports section just like reporting a public post... It used to be that then the mod could 'join' (see) the pm conversation, but my experience is that that has been disabled. Meaning, we get the report with the single post from pm conversation but can't join the conversation. Sorry that it's pretty vague, but that's kind of as far as we've gotten. Certainly a lot more latitude in pm conversations. What that latitude is, we haven't defined. Also, any member can block pm's from any other member, so that solves a lot. - Keith p.s. I really enjoy your short stories and other writings that you post. Refreshing, fun, well done.

Please, Deci Belle, you can do better than the above. It's still a complaint: You are pointing out a flaw, a condition that is less than optimal in your opinion, in order to blow off steam and/or achieve a more positive condition. Whether you call it a "complaint" or a "challenge"; it's basically the same thing. I'm trying to contribute quality to this community, trying to make it better. In order for me to act on what you've presented, I need to know where it's coming from, need to see the original goings-ons. A clickable link is critical to making this into something positive. Please, please help me make this a better place by contributing constructive quality. What you've done in your original post is to stir up heat and smoke with no route provided for resolution, improvement. This has been going on a lot lately in the community that people are merely blowing off steam with their complaints and it just makes things worse. So: If you complain, complain constructively: Be concise, courteous and provide link/s. If you want to help me, and everyone else, make this a better place ... then I sincerely appreciate your constructive actionable complaints or challenges or whatever you want to call them. If you are just blowing hot air into the Office (which I don't think is your intent but without actionable information that's what it practically amounts to), then it's not welcome. Too much of that already. This community, we are all capable of helping each other more effectively. - Trunk

Deci Belle, The basic instruction when submitting a complaint is be, "concise, courteous and include a link". So, 1. Include a clickable link. Complaints without links are non-actionable by staff. Offering complaints without a link is just stirring up heat in the community; it is not constructively offering a situation for solution. Please, everyone, be constructive. 2. If you feel that you have to post your complaint publicly, of course you are allowed to. But please consider whether it would be more constructive to first: a. use the report button b. pm staff (either a mod or an admin) 3. Consider this an official warning for insult: - Trunk

A few thoughts quickly re: contributed articles, and strategies for "protecting the message". Probably I'll write something more extensive publicly, that covers larger related topics, but this just quickly... What I'm talking about is when someone wants to present some quality material in some protected way. *Very* legitimate, but not what TTBs is set up for. Within the current framework of TTBs set-up (+ other web resources)... 1. create a blog, using wordpress.com (free) or other. Use it to a. write articles, b. but maybe more importantly for this idea, store pdf's of articles you've written. 2. Make a post at TTBs with some teaser-portion of that article, plus a link to the pdf. (You could simply attach a pdf, but that would run up your attachment megabytes, which has a limit.) Then people who want to read the whole thing will likely open the pdf and print it, probably save it to their home computer. *That* is a good outcome: - They're more likely to give a document like that quality focused attention at home, not just a post flying by that they can post-disagree with. (The forum's post printing facilities are awful, btw, so the pdf remedies that.) - They are less likely to post a poorly considered disagreement, because they'd have to reference & quote the pdf, too much work. More likely that responses would be of higher quality due to effort involved. - You'd have one place (the blog) where anyone could easily download & read any / all of your articles. Link to your blog in your TTBs signature line. Maybe the above is not appropriate for you; I don't know. ... but it's a thought. - Trunk p.s. Some time soon I'll write a broader supportive guide (working title, "Cafeteria / Classroom") for people who need / want to protect their message more than TTBs naturally supports. There are free blog services, free discussion forum services, etc, that people can use skillfully in conjunction with their presence on TTBs. For teachers, or people who are becoming teachers, or anyone who is producing material that they want to present in a more protected focused way. This guide will clarify what TTBs is / isn't, and provide supportive options for those navigating in between. p.p.s. This is 1 of 2 "bridges" that I see need to be built between TTBs and non-TTB formats: 1. bridge to protected formats "Cafeteria / Classroom" and 2. bridge to local get-togethers, "Training Partners, Training Parties" p.p.p.s. If your word processor does not already support export to pdf files, CutePDF Writer is the free defacto standard for creating pdfs.

Several stewards have been recently added. Please welcome - Brian, steward of General Discussion - Xor, steward of Taoist Discussion - Zanshin, steward of Off Topic + Healing Circle - Jetsun, steward of Buddhist section Viator and I have been talking and we will be taking turns being "current" admin or "on vacation", so far based just on when ever we choose. Avoiding burn-out for each of us is part of the idea, lol. I'll stay current for a while. I've pinned a Current Staff list in the Office. We'll keep it updated. - Trunk

watch out for the fine print!

Viator is enjoying his vacation from TTBs and so is extending it (something about, "more time for 'real' life" my paraphrase ). So my temp-admin role has expanded to actual-admin role. The to-do list that I was saving for Viator is now mine to deal with, lol. BaguaKicksAss resigned as tech. Thank you for your excellent, excellent help. I disabled the "automatically merge posts" feature. It was an experiment that didn't work out. A number of members made good observations & arguments against it in the previous "state.." thread. Thank you for your input. Well spoken. Well taken. Thanks for your patience and support, Trunk

The sentence, "For issues of staff bias, members can contact the current admin." has been added to the Three Foundations document. Also, a TTBs Current Staff list has been posted, pinned & locked in the Office.

~~~ Admin Action ~~~ 1. This topic is moved back to its origination: Off Topic. There's nothing here so far that points to pitting. 2. The insult will be edited out shortly. Carry on, . ~~~ /admin out ~~~

~~~ This topic is locked ~~ Sorting out the issues around this, back to you soon. - Admin ~~~ / moderation off ~~~~~~~