BobD

Sunday evening not good for me, but I'll try to keep an eye on whats going on and join in if I can.

No worries. Don't stay up til 5am to fix this one!

Yeah, that would be cool. Any chance? Mind you with the old Blogs back again its less of an issue.

Does that mean that comments can be set to be shown by default? Am I missing a very easy setting change which would make my Blog easier for me to follow?

Yeah, that could work. Use the blog when not inviting others to comment. Good plan.

Tao Bums Extra Tao Bums Plus Tao Bums Gold Tao Bums Locker or (if it is going to hold the best posts etc) Tao Bums Articles Mind you, I don't dislike Wiki (and reading this again, all mine suck!)

Now I've got to decide which one to keep live! Do I move the Blog posts to the Practice Discussion and just use that, or use both? Decisions decisions! Started looking at moving from Blog to forum and thought about it losing the entry titles (bad) but would keep better tracking of replies (good), but can't really transfer other peoples posts except as quotes (badish). That seems to be in favour of not doing it, but I think it would be better as forum posts, just cant rationalise why (except for attaching more importance to not missing posts) I don't know. What's everyone else going to do I wonder.

No worries! Well, I still think that the only thing wrong with blogs is that they are seperate from posts, and that I therefore miss comments and new entries. I can't really see the need (for me, and thats all I can talk about) for a different section. I think the idea of having a blog/journal/forum/section/whatever that I "own" is good. Its a place for me to dump my thoughts about my training/practices/experiences etc. Its a place that anyone who doesn't like me, or doesn't rate my experiences or finds me boring can just easily ignore. But I want to be able to easily see other peoples additions/comments to it. Thats all that I would need from the feature. I can't really see the distinction you make between the blog and a journal in that sense. I don't think the categories and calendar give me anything (though I don't use the blog as extensively as it could be). I would probably just vote for more like the old structure. Although that would not allow different entries, which can be nice. I don't know. Its a toughie. This one really does need input from all the bloggers. Yup, I see that would be useful, but I still feel that just linking to existing posts would be better. That way they could read the post that corresponds to the "article" by following the link, but they could also read the discussion that spawned it. Yes, but they would lose by not being attached to the original question (IMHO) Does to me. What about the rest of you Bums?

The Root of Chinese Qigong I personally found this to be quite heavy. It was too focussed on theory, and not enough on practice for me. Mind you, its been a few years since I read it, so my opinion now might be different. Qigong Empowerment Don't know, but I would also be interested to find out what this book is like. Chi Kung I like this, and most books by Master Lam. He does focus on practice, and they are easy to follow. His books on Zhan Zhuang are also very good. It all depends on what you want out of the book, theory or a practice routine. Hope this helps.

OK, here are my initial thoughts. Remember that you did ask News/Announcements Yup, just have it as a forum/posts with the others. No need to push it any more than any other posts. Lending Library I agree, there doesn't seem to be enough usage or need for a different section. Its only real benefits were tracking items and advertising initial availability, but it could be done by PM or normal posts. For sake of simplicity I'd say remove it. Blogs I'd be in favour of a more normal post structure, like old style TB. I think that I much refered that (just had a quick look back at it to make sure!). Less danger of missing posts, clearer, simpler etc. Contributed Articles To be honest, I'm not sure I see the point. There are many posts in the normal forum that are articles in all but name. Perhaps just have a links section that can point to existing posts that are deeemed (by someone) to be worthy of special notice. But then again, what is to the poster a quickly dusted off one-line comment could be an insightful post, worth reading and coming back to, so the idea of abstracting some things into a different section (or links) does seem a bit artificial to me. I learn from all the posts here, be they articles or not. Anything else? I quite like some abstraction, eg Taoist Discussion, Off Topic, Tech Support etc. Don't really care if they are all on the front page or not, provided that (as in my other post, but repeated her for the sake of completness) I am able to see all the posts since my last visit, easily and quickly, no matter if they be blogs entries, comments, posts, articles etc. That could be in the form of the site telling me what is new, or of it giving me a date ordered list of all posts in each forum (ie show me that there have been 3 posts in reply to the same topic, rather than just the most recent one), so I can find them myself. Also, perhaps allow the user to keep a setting about which date order to display posts in, so those that like can see most recent posts at the top (to save all that scrolling around) Not sure if all this is as clear as I'd like - I'm tired and off to bed, but you can probably figure out what I mean Zzzzzzzzzzz

My favourite has always been the comparison between the human self and a wave. A wave is distinct from the ocean, you can see it start, move, rise, fall and end, but it is always just water from the ocean. Before there was the wave, and after it has gone, there is still the ocean. Has the wave vanished, or just changed/lost form?

Suffering is internal, although the thing being suffered is external. So "shit happens" externally, and we react to it internally and cause internal suffering, by reacting against it, rather than accepting it as is, and dealing with it. Life isn't suffering. Life is life.

I think that if possible it would be better to show (for a logged on user) Blogs and entries (possibly from all posts) since they last logged in (or the number of such since last login). Also, at the moment (and I think this was mentioned by someone else), the thing that I might miss most are recent blog comments, since they are handled differently that posts. If I forget to go to Blogs, then even if I use the Assistant I miss new comments. Even if I do, then because the Blogs page only shows you the most recent comment entry per Blog, you can easily miss another comment made to a different entry in the same blog. If you can fix that, that would be cool!

Could be (yet another) web page to watch Shaking is a good, fun exercise. I've used it on and off in my morning routines (not recently though). I should perhaps add it as another morning wakeup (God knows I still need them)

I'm easy. I tend to read all the posts anyway, regardless of which forum they are in. As long as there is an easy way to see which posts are new so that I don't miss any, the actual layout is less important (to me, that is)

Thanks for these great posts. I now understand much more about the history, and the pre-existing community of the taobums. I had not appreciated the depth of the community, and interconnection between members, that existed on HT and that was the impetus for this site. I hope that none of my previous comments have offended either side of this discussion. Humbly, BobD

If they are interested in the philosophical side, I would recommend: Tao of Pooh Tao Te Ching - I love the Man Ho-Kwok, Martin Palmer, Jay Ramsay translation Anything on Taoism by Alan Watts or Osho For the alchemical side of things, I'll defer to the better opinion of others here , though I did originally find the Awaken Healing Light and Energy books from Chia to be useful to me when I started, and the first 100 Days Yudelove book too for that matter.

Pietro I will be sorry to see you go. You have contributed a lot of good posts to this board since the start, and would have still more to contribute if you'd stay. As one of the few members with an advertised web site, I think you were always going to be one of the most vocal in terms of what this site should looke like, how it should run, what software should be loaded etc. Knowing the alternative softwares available, you were bound to have more of an opinion than me (who knows nowt about nowt) I can see your desire for a group-led site, with no imposed administator, just one to implement the will of the group, as judged by polls etc. That would be nice in an ideal world. However, I think that in an online community consisting of people who (on the whole) have never met each other, and possibly never will, there does have to be someone who is clearly in charge of the site, and who finally makes the decisions. There would come a point when it would be impossible to please everyone, and even if the majority's will is done, then that would leave a minority on any issue who would feel hard done by. I think that Sean has done a fantastic job of creating the site in the first place, responding to suggestions, requests, bugs etc, and I cannot help but see this as his site (in so far as the payment, the legal ownership etc). I am not a webhead, I know little about the technologies, softwares or options that could have been used instead, and so I at least have been happy to use the site as presented. I think that you can see the will of the group manifested through this site, and that anything that Sean has "imposed" (such as the new board and structure) has been of benefit and for good reason. As the administrator (in the sense of one who is reponsible for updates), Sean needs to install whichever software etc makes his life easier. With the single exception of your departure (and a few hours of us all getting used to the changes) I can see no harm done to this community by anything that has happened so far (though I admit that I have never been as much at the core as you and others). I wish you well in the future, and I hope to read your future posts, either here or elsewhere.

LIveChat could be fun. My schedule is quite varied (plus I'm in the UK - just to complicate things), so I reckon I'll just have to keep an eye on it and join in when I notice it going on. Do I have to use the LiveChat plugin, or is there an actual chat room & server that I can use Opera's IRC client to access?

Should the Latest Blog Entries section list your own entries? Just added an entry to mine and though it is in my blog, its not in the list of entries. Also, just tried logging out and checking the page to see if its just a case of it not showing you your own entries (on the quite reasonable grounds that you probably know about them!) but it still didn't. Is it a setting I need to change, or has the site correctly recognised the duff content and decided not to advertise it [Edit] Whoops, just gone back (a few minutes later) and there it is, displayed for all to see. Must be an RSS thing!

Yup, I'm flipping around like a mad thing, and I'm still logged in. Sweet. Thanks

Hey Sean Been playing with the new site for a while, and it rocks. But I do have two points about the logins. 1) (This was probably true on the old site aswell) Once I have logged on, if I click the News page (to see for instance the summary of recent posts, or perhaps because I just missed when aiming for Forums!) then I get logged out. Even when I then go back to Forums I am still logged out. Probably not really a big issue, but as I am still checking out the new site I find that I'm doing this more, and so having to log on again 2) As before, it doesnt seem to remember the Remember Me setting, so each time I am logged out by the above I have to login again manually, as well as each time I visit the site from scratch. Does anyone else have these problems, or is it just something I'm doing wrong again? Point 2 is OK on the old site still (ie it does remember me, so I'm fairly sure its not me or my browser again for that one) Cheers [edit] Actually, just done some more testing on 2) If I login in, close down, then run my broswer again and go directly to taobums.com/forum/index.php then it does remember by login. Its only if I go to taobums.com (ie the home page) first rather than the forums page. So point 2) is probably just point 1) restated.

Yup, problem is still there, although, lets face it, its not much of a problem really. If I bookmarked directly to the forum page it wouldn't kill me, but I like using the main page with its summary of recent posts (though I like the new "recent blog entries" section on the forum page). Its really no biggie. This new site is way cool! Top job Sean!

LOL! Hiya Ron I have cookies enabled! The problem is not with the cookies as such cos if I go straight back to taobums.com/forum then it does log me in. I was just saying (ok, maybe "trying to say" would be more accurate) that once I have visited taobums.com/forums and login in, if I then go to taobums.com/ itself then I get logged out. Since this front page is now so useful with the summary of activity and so on, it would be useful if the logon was remembered. Does noone else have this problem?

Yeah, done that but that's not what I meant. By my first point I meant that if I go to www.thetaobums.com and click login then it works and takes me to the forum pages. If I then click News on the links bar at the top of the page, I automatically get logged out. Clicking on Forums then takes me to the forum pages as a non-logged on guest. So it seems to me that the login is only remembered until you go back to the top of the domain at www.thetaobums.com, at which point it is lost. BTW love the link on quoted text that takes you back to the source of the quote. Very nice.