Tao Bums Forum - Growth and development

[Uncle Fester]

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Edited September 19, 2021 by darebak

[Cameron]

Thinking about it, alot of this would seem obvious. But when personal issues and emotions get involved the obvious tends to get thrown out the window.

 

I think Taobums inherent nature is like a labratory. That's really what the original members and first years of this forum were about. Studying and doing different practices and then reporting back our own, unique experiences with them. Things get off track when it becomes very subjective and we lose sight of the simplicity of Tao.

 

I think when you get into arguments over lineages or start a who's who debate on Taoism your really on the wrong track here. The only result of saying that your teacher is better than someone elses teacher is animosity. There is no way around this. I would say institute an immediete warning and then 2nd warning and then ban to anyone who takes the discussions of track by stating either,

 

a. Your teacher sucks.

b. My teacher is the best Taoist teacher alive.

c. Your teacher both sucks and my teacher is also the best Taoist teacher alive.

 

This type of discussion goes nowhere but downhill. What I think would be a good way to express yourself in that type of situation is "I tried practice X, I think it sucks, practice Y is a much better practice FOR ME."

 

By expressing yourself more along these lines you show not only that you have actually tried the practice you are commenting on but that you also show the board you are not an ego maniac by supposing your experience with any 1 practice will be the same exact experience for the rest of human kind.

 

For example, you try a certain meditation and hate it. You come on and tell us your experience. It's interesting for everyone to read. However, you realize it's a big world with many different people of all different types of energetic makeups and someone else might absolutely love the practice you hate. But to critisize the teacher of said practice directly I think is out of bounds and should just not be part of the discussion.

 

I think this way we can learn more from eachother and not just embarass ourselves and the ancient enlightened teachers who helped bring us all these wonderful practices.

 

My guess is this will be something we deal with over and over and over. At some time this year or next year another "high level Taoist master" or even "The highest level Master to teach" will come on the scene and rather than attack the teacher or go on about how incredibly enlightened he or she is. We can try the practice(if it is publically available) and just comment objectively. I liked it because..., I disliked it because....

 

I think that is the direction the forum should take.

 

Cameron

[rene]

One thing I think I will do soon is install a module into the forum that gives each member a "reputation" score, positive or negative. This will make it so that any members post can essentially be voted on for how much it contributed to the topic and the forum. There are a lot of features of this module that prevent abuse as well, such as you do not just have unlimited reputation points to distribute, you accumulate them over time, by making posts, and via gaining positive reputation points yourself. You cannot vote on the same post twice unless you've voted on x number of other posts, etc. I feel this feature will put a lot more power into the hands of the community, and in the case of trolls will become a powerful tool to "vote down" draining members without engaging them. I can't be everywhere at once, particularly as we get bigger, so this will alert me to members that are imbalanced in their taking/annoying vs. providing/contributing and I can investigate and provide "Tao Bums fasts" as needed more accurately and with a better sense that the "community has spoken".

 

Sean, hi

 

Small comment regarding the bolded sections. Imagine a scenario where within say, a hundred members who come and read, only a small percentage of them post. Also imagine that the large majority of the posting members embrace a particular system. Those members, through their many posts and self-pats-on-the-back, basically become the censors and decision makers as to who is "worthy" to post.

 

Of course, that would never occur with the fine group of people here now. Its only the potential of difficulties I'm pointing out that could arise by abdicating your responsibility to one of mob rule. Sorry, I meant your sharing the responsibility with the community.

 

If this newbie can cast a vote - a separate section for Kunlun might be a good idea - if for no other reason than to inform new people who wander in that TTB is not only a Kunlun forum. The only thing that alludes to that now - is the disharmony in the Kunlun threads. Maybe one of the sources of the disharmony is that TB is beginning to seem like KL Central. That was just a guess, of course. I'm still learning my way around the place. They keep changing the rules on me in the Haiku Thread. I blame Wayfarer.

 

Edit to add: Actually, a separate forum may not be needed. On the first page of Tao Lounge topics, only 5 indicate a connection with "Kunlun". It seems now the focus is on retention and wet dreams. Things come and go quickly around here. Maybe trusting that things work themselves out, which they seem to always do.

Edited January 29, 2008 by hfd

[Wayfarer64]

I say if it ain't broke don't fix it...

 

A few troubled souls have entered this "somewhat sacred cyber space" and made us loose sight of what we've shared ...and continue to share!

 

It is ungainly cumbersome for Sean to deal with this wild brew of ( 7,000 ! yikes!)... that he's nurtured so well as it is, but so what... we can each deal with it and help him to do so too,

 

I feel no need to run a popularity contest of sorts with eachother...I do have a few folks on ignore now and can read them as I feel up to it...

 

If Sean is uneasy about his role right now, as some folks are just troublesome as hell...We can tacitly support him in his job by voicing our thoughts as always...

 

Where's the beef? (no offence meant here Lin.... but where's the Soya just doesn't have the right ring to it)

I accept all blame everywhere for the breaking of rules !!!

 

I am the very incarnation of the rule-breaking wizards of ancient lore - In fact,

"Cast no rule my way, lest you wish to see it broken assunder! " Is on my family crest, with a smiling wolverine and a beaver kissing a Polar Bear in each corner of the shield's eight sections...All linked to the power of Baguas of course...

 

Never ask about it tho-it is a secret that will cost you money to learn and yr life to practice...

Edited January 29, 2008 by Wayfarer64

[SiliconValley]

Right on point Cam...

 

True, if some practice does not work for one, like Kunlun didn't for me, he should move on with whatever works. Not everything works for everyone but that can hardly be the way to judge the validity of the practice itself.

 

Also, abstaining from responding with the same stuff to the same question will naturally discourage further conversation. Sometimes, when people invest time and money in stuff, they would want to promote the practice and propagate it and probably need to avoid others from 'bad mouthing' it as well to protect their interests, and that is probably understandable to most here. Yes, publicity and claims about Kunlun were a bit too much sometimes to the point of almost being disrespectful to other systems but those can be interpreted to be in good intention. In Vedic system of logic, called Nyaya, there is a rule, nahi nindaa nyaaya. To convey the greatness of one aspect, another can be slightly ridiculed or spoken less of, or the other exaggerated a little, but the wise understand that to be a way of expression and don't accept it to mean literally. Thinking on the same lines in the present context can avoid discomfort to some here, who are unhappy with the whole thing and not for 'just the sake of it'. That apart, people have learnt a lot from Kunlun I guess. Those who liked the practice learnt a wonderful practice and those who did not, understood something that doesn't work for them. I learnt to turn off/on energy by lifting heels up, learnt to return to my Kriya Tantra with greater vigor having tried another system and evaluated another practice, learnt about people, emotions, pros and cons of publicity, the greatness of the 70% rule of moderation etc. So, at the end of the end of the day, it has all been learning, which is good. So that should leave no room for complaints

 

And it is really important not to make those who respectfully disagree with the majority view 'unwelcome'.

Edited January 29, 2008 by SiliconValley

[Buddy]

Sean,

You'll have to ban me outright. I won't be silenced otherwise, although many will decry me. I'm not running for a popularity contest and this sort of democracy is really anarchy.

 

So, you might as well do it now. I'm here to stay as the voice of caveat emptor. I'm happy to add the positive (and I have) but when the voice of silly and stupid blindless cultism raises it's ugly head in the guise of whatever _isms (why doesn't everyone realize there are no -isms), I'm happy to be their Tom Joad (look it up if you don't read)

[Oolong Rabbit]

That is kind of what I am affraid of. Anyone with a dissenting opinion will be marginalized. Sometimes a counterpoint can bring a healthy balance even if it's unpopular.

[sean]

Great points regarding the reputation system, I'm glad I brought it up before just implementing it. haha... Ok, for what it's worth I have no intention of using the rep system as anything other than a method of community feedback, not as a popularity contest to decide who gets banned. Since finding the "suspend" feature here banning is even more of a really last last resort, for someone that is just out of control with personal insults and refuses to moderate themselves. To some extent the rep system does rely on the honor system, but I think in the long run it can be a good system, particularly if the majority of active participants are honorable which I believe is the case here. Also, there are several thousand members here, but only 700 something members that have completed the full registration process and made a Lobby post. So I could limit the rep system to only be usable by full members. I've spoken to other forum admins who say it works nicely even just for the fact that a quality post can be silently recognized with +rep by people that otherwise don't post or don't feel like writing only "awesome post!" to someone in a topic. And the -rep is typically only invoked by members for posts that completely lack any contributive substance, not just posts that have a viewpoint that is disagreed with. I really feel like the overwhelming majority of us are on the same page that just because a post is diametrically opposed to our own viewpoints, if it's written thoughtfully and respectfully it can be more valuable than 30 posts that provide no challenge. Reflecting on my own posts over the years I noticed a trend that at first I found slightly disturbing but then I just accepted which was the realization that the majority of my posts were rebuttals to posts (or even perceived prevailing viewpoints) that I strongly (often emotionally) disagreed with. Perhaps it's through respectful disagreement and civil debate that we grow and develop the most.

 

Buddy, I really like your posts and your presence here. Sometimes you teeter on personal put downs but besides that, I think you are just a direct no-nonsense person that just has strong views tempered by a lot of experience -- and while your perspectives may not be the consensus in what gets articulated, I find them refreshing and contributive to the discussion. fwiw.

 

Best,

Sean

[Mantra68]

Hey folks,

It was never my or Max's intention to turn Tao Bums into a "Kunlun" forum. That it became popular and a subject of interest is due to it's effectiveness and the quick results it produces.

 

I hope that my presence here has helped clear up any confusion regarding the practice or Max's background. I have tried to answer as many questions as possible because I genuinely do care about people getting the real benefit of this practice.

 

Anyway, until recently, it was nice to bop in and see what was happening, now I think it is important for us to just do our own thing.

 

A Kunlun forum is in the works and it will be for serious practitioners only. Max has said that he will even come on at different times to answer questions personally.

 

We will also have a section for Kunlun basics and FAQs so that topics don't become weighed down with rudimentary and often asked questions.

 

The topics will be much broader than just Kunlun and will include the Golden Flower, Red Phoenix, Red Dragon, Spirit Travel, Kunlun medicine, various palm techniques, Kahuna methods, Egyptian schools, Shamanism and more. Max has only shown a small portion of what he knows, so it should be a very rich experience for people.

 

Again, it was never our intention to dominate this forum, we just happened to make some friends here.

 

Follow your bliss and do what you feel is right for you.

Edited January 29, 2008 by Mantra68

[Procurator]

to two of mine in the last week and it does not encourage people to post well thought out comments because what is going to happen is the thread is going to fall into nonsense....kind of like this one is with the talk about tampons.

 

take care,

Brian Kennedy

Brian

 

i encourage you to post. please do it for its sake and then there will be rewards. 99% of people are ignorant and empty, it is just a fact of life, so an intelligent discussion is not a norm, here or anywhere. i certainly post here not in a hope of an intelligent discussion, but for my own reasons. please do the same.

[Buddy]

"Sometimes you teeter on personal put downs "

 

You're right and for that I apologize.

[Pietro]

Thank you everybody for the kind words.

 

Actually, Craig, I was thinking about you when I wrote the description on how it is possible to win respect over time. So I am not that surprised that you liked it. It should fit you like a glove

 

Sean, I also appreciated your message. I have to say that I don't feel anymore like a guest. I feel taobum.com has now finally been buried, with a laugh, as it should have happened long time ago. Long life to thetaobums.com.

 

Speaking about the community, I would say that we are facing two different problems. One is Onthological, and one is Ethical. The Onthological problem can be expressed as: how do we split up Taoism in a way that makes sense of all of us. So that we find all the posts on a certain topic together, and generally no posts of different posts in that topic. The Ethical problem boils down to: what is an acceptable behaviour, and what not.

 

I want with this post to try to actively help in solving the onthological problem. Mostly because I do have a solution for it, and also because I think that ones that is solved, the ethical problem will be less severe, thus giving us time to face it properly.

 

Being a son of this generation I am convinced that many problems can be solved a priori, by changing the technical features we are using. In a sense we already have the solution. We just need to tweak it a bit, add a few extra bits, and make it obvious how to use it.

 

The idea is that everybody will have its own personal onthology. And this will let the onthology of the community emerge bottom up. How to do so? But using tags, of course. Tags are already there, they were introduced some time ago. Possibly after my suggestion, but since at the time I was in a big brawl with Sean himself, I never got a chance to explaine in full details the idea, and how it should work, and so it remained this sort of added thing, only partially working.

 

I now, would like to finally explain in details how tags can be used to solve the problems we are facing. We only need to modify them slightly from what is alread implemented.

 

How do they work right now: Any person who starts a thread can now decide the thread tags. This would be ok, if we were all agreeing on the same onthology. Then we would all tag a thread in the same way, and we would all feel ok with how a thread is being tagged. But fortunately we are not like this, thus we all feel like tagging (which essentially mean classifying) a thread in many different ways. Plus not everybody knows how to use tags, and so on...

 

And the result is that very few people are really using those tags. And this makes them useless.

 

So the first important thing is that each person must be able to tag any thread. Yes, not just his own thread, but any thread from anybody. I can start a thread, and Cam can tag it as "Pietro's nonsense again". And this must be ok, too.

 

Not only, but the tags of a person should not get confused with the tags of others. So we should be able to see who have tagged what.

 

It should then also be possible for a person to easily search for all the posts that he has tagged in a particular way. By making it easier for a person to tag things in way that he likes, and then giving him the possibility to search according to his own personal onthology we are providing the reason for members to tag the threads:

If I want to keep an eye on a particular thread I better tag it.

If I want to keep the threads I am looking organised, I better be consistent in my way of classifying them.

If I want to be able to search for those thread time after, I better use intuitive tags.

 

Technically this change might require to insert a whole new table on the mysql database. I hope there are already some tools out there that supports this, but I am willing to divide the expenses of having a programmer write the code needed for this.

 

Now as a thread start to receive tags from many members, a tag cloud starts to form up. This is a list of tags, where each tag has a different weight. The tag cloud is the emerging onthological classification of the thread, according to community. It will be like: 20 people tagged this as kunlun, 10 people tagged this as fire method, 5 people tagged this as newmasters, 30 people tagged this as retention, and 9 people tagged this as nonsense. Or just,

kunlun, fire method, new masters, retention, nonsense. (with the size of the tag reflecting the importance of each tag).

 

Once this is done we have to implement 2 search funtions. In each of them the list of threads should appear as in the main page (red square if there are new posts, white squares if there are more pages, etc...):

get me all threads that I have tagged with the tag x

get me all threads that n person have tagged with the tag x

get me all threads this person (...) have tagged with the tag x

 

Essentially we will be implementing a sort of local del.icio.us classification (Sean knows what I am talking about). Once this is done the richness of this community will start to really shine. Everybody will start to go back and tag threads that were important for them, to be able to recall them. People will use tags to refer to a certain series of threads. Instead of saying, the answer of this is in those threads, a person y can just tag those thread with some word (i.e. answers on kunlun), and can then refer to the page:

get me all threads y have tagged with the tag "answers on kunlun".

 

Also a tag cloud for all the community can then be added in the homepage, with each tag t pointing to the page:

get me all threads that 3 person have tagged with the tag x

 

This will let people get on the spot the list of the threads on the topic they are interested in, according to the emerging onthology of the community.

 

It might need some further tweeks, but this is the basic plan. And can assure that if it gets implemented it would let this community grow to much more than 700 active members. But of course it needs a lot of work, and I don't think Sean has the time to program it. Maybe if we agree to do it we could outsource the programming to some external programmer. Right now free programmers willing to program things for others are very common.

 

 

Sean, as you will remember years ago I was a vulcano of ideas. Eventually I stopped, and once I came back I avoided to speak to much. If you feel that my posts start again to sound demanding, please let me know. For me is hard to realise why does not everybody see those "simple" technical solutions

[sean]

Pietro you are definitely not a guest man, you are a founder. Your ideas shaped this community in many ways, our spats I recall were mostly political. Water under the bridge.

 

I had this funny intuition as I was choosing the word ontology (you spell onthology, same thing right?) in my last post that this would catch your eye. You were the one that inspired my plunge into folksonomy and since then I'm hooked and it's been one of the biggest goals of mine for TTB to be the first forum (that I'm aware of) that uses tagging in this deeper way you are suggesting, not just peripherally as is it's current implementation.

 

Here is an old post sketching some of the rough ideas I had toward this kind of functionality.

 

One notable addition is that I thought would be cool to allow individual posts to be taggable. Think of how this might address the problem with topics, like the one Brian referred to, where old friends start joking around in the thread totally off-topic. If someone was surfing the tags Max + History and had, let's say, a "post view" option ticked, then only posts would be returned that match those tags. So in this scenario not only new topics, but also replies would require tags. And similar to how in del.icio.us, it could assemble all the existing tags in the topic into a suggested list above the field to choose tags, making it simpler to click tags you agree with.

 

This whole concept is awesome and I would also be willing to put some money toward outsourcing this to a programmer. I am only really a hack programmer myself but I know just enough to be really good at turning ideas into technical proposals that programmers can understand and follow clearly. I use the website RentACoder.com quite frequently to subcontract programming jobs outside of my league and have had a lot of success with it. It's open to the world market to bid on, so you have the opportunity to pay someone in a smaller economy three times what they would normally make and half as much as you would normally pay.

 

Estimating project costs. Well to start I'd have to upgrade the forum to the latest version which I've been procrastinating. It costs $150. After that I believe we could find a competent programmer to build this feature precisely the way we describe for $500-$800, but perhaps much less (sometimes you get very competenent low-ball bids from programmers looking for experience). In any case I'd be willing to put up half of all these costs and my time and energy managing the programmer and implementing the finished component.

 

Hahah... what impact Taoist geeks will have on the Interweb, only time will tell.

 

 

Sean

[AugustLeo]

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[AugustLeo]

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[Buddy]

I'll miss you.

[AugustLeo]

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[Buddy]

I was nice to you but...no bother. I'll sleep well just the same.

[AugustLeo]

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[Cameron]

But I refuse to endorse or support the continued personal attacks on anyone - non-forum members included. If disagreements can't be voiced without personal attacks, then I'm out of here.

 

And here's my reason: Disagreeing with an idea is one tactic, but tearing down the person who voiced the idea is fascist. I learn nothing from the repeated BS of the immature who continue to abuse others with their posts. I won't accept the abuse.

 

I'm sure most (all) won't miss me. Fine. See ya.

 

AugustLeo

 

 

I'll miss you man. I appreciate your presence here and agree with what you said 100%. I like to think of Taobums as a Tao Lab for people to give feedback on different practices.

 

The paradox is, only by really respecting eachother can we get accurate feedback. For example, say Pietro dedicates his life to studying BK Frantzis system. If people are arguing with him over little issues and personal attacks we don't get interesting feedback about what studying with Bruce for 10-20 years might look like. Sean Denty is hooked up with an interesting teacher and system but alot of the conversations from both sides here devolved into disrespect. So we probably won't be getting much accurate feedback from what studying with David Shen over years looks like. Kunlun is probably going to be different as quite a few long time posters are practicing Max's system and the website is being developed.

 

Hell, I would even be interested in hearing more about Starjumpers system and getting accurate feedback but when you cloud the conversations with disrespect by repeatedly issuing personal attacks to teachers it can get hard to listen.

 

My solution, which I think might not work because secretly people enjoy disrespecting others personally and aren't really committed to creating a 100% respectful community. Don't get me wrong, I am all for hearing peoples opinions on practices, but it really should end there imo.

 

Cam

[Pietro]

Pietro you are definitely not a guest man, you are a founder.

Yeah, give me this responsability too

 

I have a flight in a few hours. Those days were pure gold, I was in Tuscany, but now I need to go back to Dublin. I have tons of things to say, but to avoid getting all tangled up, you'll have to wait till I am settled in Ireland again.

[sean]

Sean - I'd be happy to kick in $100.

 

AugustLeo

Sweet! Thanks Leo.

 

PS - You CAN'T leave!

 

Man, if you leave I will ... ban you!

 

 

Pietro, take your time, no rush.

 

Best,

Sean

[Mal]

I've current got 2 pages of new posts to read and threads everywhere. Are things really so bad after all?

 

The tag idea sounds interesting. You could sort of make things into a dynamic list structure, weave across numerous threads. Although I like reading everyones reply.

 

But when it gets busy I have to cut back on threads, I'm sure I've got something I should be reading right now in another tab

[joeblast]

Sean, I'll kick you a few as well whenever the time comes!

 

I'm all for a completely respectful community as well. When people act with the emotional maturity of a 13 year old, it gets old fast.

[mYTHmAKER]

All this new programming etc is nice but perhaps it is a bit over reactive

Certain types of people are naturally disruptive whether on purpose or

unaware of their actions.

 

Voting and rating can be tricky and lead to us and them.

The moderator should take a firm stand - so many warnings and your out.

 

I would guess most people are here to learn and for self development.

 

Part of self development is learning how to get along with others and

express yourself in a non confrontational manner.

Being aware of ones actions is a path of martial arts ,meditation and understanding the Tao

 

If someone can't control themselves and use the excuse that's my nature -

I'm going to say what I feel etc they should be asked to leave and not be

allowed to remain at the expense others.

Edited January 31, 2008 by mYTHmAKER