Original Dao Bums

[Nungali]

7 minutes ago, silent thunder said:

I still vividly recall the several years of untethered abuse fostered and supported by the group that sean eventually saw and summarily swept away without any hesitation.  For folks to suggest they all be welcomed back kumbaya with open arms is, concerning.  They had their time.  Years of it.  They were banned for the health of this community.  They formed another place and now that is depleted.  This is not surprising. 

 

Glad someone can see that .

 

They got right wing political here and started fucking up this forums focus on   spirituality .

 

So went and started their own 'spirituality' forum  .... which got fucked up due to their insistence on being political .

 

.....  and now  ?

 

7 minutes ago, silent thunder said:

 

After a certain point of maintaining a relationship with an abusive person or group, they are no longer abusing you, but you are fostering the abuse yourself, by allowing them to remain in your life.  There's a need for healthy surgery from time to time. 

 

Yeah, but there is an .......  undercurrent   here .  It isnt  you making the decision this time is it   ?

[wandelaar]

The reason Original Dao is closing is not the set up with a separate hidden part for politics, but the fact that the activity on the public spiritual part of the forum gradually died out, while the activity on the hidden political part remained. But the hidden part was meant as a relatively unimportant side project for those interested in politics, and not as the main goal of the Original Dao forum which was discussing spirituality and in particular Taoism. The reasons it is closing can be read on the site while it is still in the air. 

 

Those who think that the spiritual public part of Original Dao was a place of untethered abuse should take a look while the site is still in the air to see for themselves. For the hidden political part I cannot speak as I didn't visit it.

Edited May 1, 2022 by wandelaar

[liminal_luke]

I agree that the Trump Talk years were problematic.  Personally, I wasn't so bothered by the right-leaning views of some members so much as their contempt for those who disagreed.  Sean obviously has the final say about right wing bullshit, but I disagree with the view he put forth way back when.  I think if we're going to have political discussion at all there has to be room for all kinds of bullshit, left and right wing.  But we also need to be respectful and kind to each other regardless of our political views.  

 

It's unfortunate that everyone with right wing views was made to feel unwelcome here, including those who were thoughtful and kind.  I miss the conversations I had with Red Cairo, to name just one right leaning bum who left. The whole group was painted with the same brush but not everyone was a troublemaker.

Edited May 1, 2022 by liminal_luke

[zerostao]

40 minutes ago, Nungali said:

 

Just getting the story in order here ;

 

You saw OD separated  politics into sub forum .

 

You decided to follow that model .

 

Now its wrecked OD .

 

... and you welcome any of those people here as long as they behave .

 

 and they can take their politics to DBs sub forum .

 

 

- did I get that in order ?

 Not really

[zerostao]

1 hour ago, Nungali said:

 

Thank goodness !

 

I really dont want to know what 'goes on the back room of the club'     .... but glad to hear that  not many are  involved .

 

So I can probably safely assume that when I come to DBs and its quiet and no posts for a day or two , you arent all in that back room 'being weird ' to each other .

safe assumption 

 

edit to add/// there has been very little activity in the Current Event section. 
 

second edit to add\\|
You, yourself, Nungali, were also a banned member here  { and going by your own account over the years here, banned by other sites or at least displayed detailed knowledge related to bannings]
and you were banned here from way up high, well beyond my pay grade. 
And there were key members here that lobbied for your return, myself included.

And we were successful and able to allow your return. We appreciate you here.

There are others now banned that would be welcomed back Kumba ya and all.

And in my opinion there are some that in my estimations would be too problematic to allow back.

Edited May 1, 2022 by zerostao

[ralis]

What if hate speech discussion takes place outside of current events? Tolerance for awhile until more than one member reports it? How many? I was told that unless there are reports from several members,  moderation will not happen. In other words, hate speech is an illusion if only  one member reports it? 

 

One member here in the recent past threatened me with gun violence and when I reported it I was told the threat was in the past and I was far too late on reporting it. Enough with this passive I don't really care attitude that comes with moderation here!!! That attitude has been around this forum for years and it needs to cease and desist! Just because one is on a so called spiritual path doesn't absolve one from social responsibility.

 

Besides my recent list of transgressions here at the beginning of this thread, bullying needs to be dealt with. Bullying is bullying and a moderation committee to determine/discuss what bullying or any form of hate speech is, fails to solve the problem. Are mods afraid to offend transgressors? I guess welcoming anyone with a penitent attitude is welcome here? The most recent bullying by one member was given a 30 day suspension. 

 

I volunteered to be a mod awhile back and was told I wasn't cut out to be one.  

 

https://www.adl.org/news/press-releases/adl-audit-finds-antisemitic-incidents-in-united-states-reached-all-time-high-in

 

[ralis]

35 minutes ago, liminal_luke said:

I agree that the Trump Talk years were problematic.  Personally, I wasn't so bothered by the right-leaning views of some members so much as their contempt for those who disagreed.  Sean obviously has the final say about right wing bullshit, but I disagree with the view he put forth way back when.  I think if we're going to have political discussion at all there has to be room for all kinds of bullshit, left and right wing.  But we also need to be respectful and kind to each other regardless of our political views.  

 

It's unfortunate that everyone with right wing views was made to feel unwelcome here, including those who were thoughtful and kind.  I miss the conversations I had with Red Cairo, to name just one right leaning bum who left. The whole group was painted with the same brush but not everyone was a troublemaker.

 

One must treat right wing purveyors of hate speech with respect? No way!! After the Charlottesville racial anti-Semitic problems a few years back Trump said there were "good people on both sides." Many of those freaks stormed the nations Capitol and nearly brought about an authoritarian coup. Now we are still involved cleaning up the mess!

 

Authoritarian neo-Nazis are not deserving of respect in any form.

 

RC consistently referred  to the YouTube personality  Stefan Molyneux a known misogynist as well as 4chan and 8chan. The chan channels are right wing authoritarian sites along with known criminal activity.

[liminal_luke]

16 minutes ago, ralis said:

 

RC consistently referred  to the YouTube personality  Stefan Molyneux a known misogynist as well as 4chan and 8chan. The chan channels are right wing authoritarian sites along with known criminal activity.

 

I disagreed with a lot of what RC had to say.  I still do.  To be fair, she wasn't the biggest cheerleader for my views either.  But I respected her as a person and, I think, vice versa.  She made me think and I'm proud of some of our conversations, proud that we were able to be conversational rather than confrontational with each other.  Despite everything, that was still possible back then.

Edited May 1, 2022 by liminal_luke

[ralis]

1 minute ago, liminal_luke said:

 

I disagreed with a lot of what RC had to say.  I still do.  To be fair, she wasn't the biggest cheerleader for my views either.  But I respected her as a person and, I think, vice versa.  She made me think and I'm proud of some of our conversations, proud that we were able to be conversational rather than confrontational with each other.  Despite everything, that was still possible back then.

 

You can respect another all you want, but don't foist it on others.

[doc benway]

On 5/1/2022 at 5:35 PM, silent thunder said:

I still vividly recall the several years of untethered abuse fostered and supported by the group that sean eventually saw and summarily swept away without any hesitation.  For folks to suggest they all be welcomed back kumbaya with open arms is, concerning.  They had their time.  Years of it.  They were banned for the health of this community.  They formed another place and now that is depleted.  This is not surprising. 

 

After a certain point of maintaining a relationship with an abusive person or group, they are no longer abusing you, but you are fostering the abuse yourself, by allowing them to remain in your life.  There's a need for healthy surgery from time to time. 

 

I'm glad to see the frank discussion here.

Some of the people who were thrown out were clearly abusive and should not be allowed back.

Others left in solidarity or in response to the extremity of sean's action and had no involvement in the abuse that led to it.

Still others were made to feel unwelcome because of their political views... unfortunate but I guess unavoidable at the time.

Unlikely they would have any desire to return.

I welcomed sean's action at the time and appreciated his decisiveness, humor, and compassion. 

I also regret that causes and conditions have brought us to such an unstable and unpredictable political and social state of affairs.

 

I have no interest in seeing an increase in political flame wars or bullying.

I do not recommend we tolerate abuse or disrespect in the name of free speech. 

Those times are done here from what I can see.

I agree with Nungali regarding freedom of speech. 

There are lots of places people can find to share their views, it doesn't have to be here.

With freedom comes responsibility and accountability as well as sensitivity on behalf of those who are vulnerable.

 

I don't advocate welcoming everyone back with open arms or actively trying to recruit anyone.

On the other hand, I do feel that as a community of practitioners we could give some consideration to principles like inclusion, forgiveness, and compromise in select and appropriate circumstances if some people reach out.

I suspect it will prove to be a moot point as I don't see many who left coming back... but I guess you never know. 

 

Sean has been largely distant but steadfast in maintaining this place during many ups and downs.

This place could easily have gone the way OD appears to be headed on any number of occasions over the years if not for sean.

I have complete confidence in Trunk, ilumairen, zerostao, and dwai in continuing to maintain a peaceful and respectful atmosphere.

They will never be able to please everyone and it's mostly a miserable and thankless job.

 

So THANK YOU @sean, @Trunk, @ilumairen, @zerostao, and @dwai!!!

And cheers to all of you who still hang around and shoot the shit with me here...

 

 

 

… oh and fuck trump

[dwai]

I am seeing points and counterpoints in favor of, and against, the proposed change in position vis-a-vis the OD members being allowed to return to this forum. I am undecided in terms of where I stand on the topic, because tbh I didn’t/don’t particularly care to take a stand politically - I see good and bad in both of sides of the binary divide.
 

But I do believe that people who were abusive in the past (verbally, mainly, but also threatened physical violence in some cases) should be handled with caution. 
 

What is @Trunk‘s perspective on this subject? 

[Earl Grey]

3 minutes ago, ralis said:

I suggest checking for sock puppet accounts. 
 

Iliketurtles complained about doxing from another member, the thread was temporarily closed for review and no announcement as to findings was forthcoming. Why is that since doxing is very serious?

 

There are already sock puppet accounts of banned members from OD. Some I've reported (and been ignored), others I don't mention because someone else already recognizes who they are and says it before me, and one in particular who doesn't know that I know but it only ends up working out for me because of their harassment towards me that gets ignored because they are very good at passive-aggression.

 

I didn't intend to come back here for a while as per my last post even with a couple PMs I've received, but I just had to point out that there are already banned members hanging out here in sock puppet accounts.

 

Back to AG for me for a while (give or take a few weeks). Anyone trying to PM me can just find me on AG instead because I want no part of welcoming back some seriously dangerous individuals, let alone a current moderation team whose reasoning I often disagree with since they took over--especially for welcoming back OD folks knowing what they've done.

[silent thunder]

4 hours ago, Nungali said:

 

Glad someone can see that .

<snip>

 

Yeah, but there is an .......  undercurrent   here .  It isnt  you making the decision this time is it   ?

Nope it's not.

I don't make any decisions here regarding what's enforced or not or who stays or goes, except for me... and I'm good with that.

 

If it turns ugly again, I'll slip off and leave it to its own process for a while, then check back to see how things have proceeded.  I took several long breaks during the ugly years for heart and mind health.

 

Referencing @ralis and doxing.  I was doxed by a member here and only found out through another member who let me know.  I reported it, but never heard anything regarding it again.  C'est la vie.

[ralis]

3 minutes ago, silent thunder said:

Nope it's not.

I don't make any decisions here regarding what's enforced or not or who stays or goes, except for me... and I'm good with that.

 

If it turns ugly again, I'll slip off and leave it to its own process for a while, then check back to see how things have proceeded.  I took several long breaks during the ugly years for heart and mind health.

 

Referencing @ralis and doxing.  I was doxed by a member here and only found out through another member who let me know.  I reported it, but never heard anything regarding it again.  C'est la vie.

Doesn’t seem to matter what is reported here, but there is usually very little or no communication forthcoming. 
 

Doxing along with the most egregious violations as I listed previously are usually ignored. I wonder why? 

[silent thunder]

Well, with what @thelerner has revealed; the return is already underway and nigh on a moot point as folks are returning with new masks and moderation it seems is taking a light or hands off approach.

 

We'll see how it pans out.  Folks can't hide their nature for long.  So we'll know soon enough.

[zerostao]

5 hours ago, ralis said:

What if 

 

That’s a lot of what ifs. Instead of speculating, wondering what if, or trying to think up hypothetical scenarios, which seems like an inefficient way to use energy, I will wait until something happens and then deal with it.

We don’t know if more than a couple will return or more than that, at this point.

[Nungali]

8 hours ago, zerostao said:

safe assumption 

 

edit to add/// there has been very little activity in the Current Event section. 
 

second edit to add\\|
You, yourself, Nungali, were also a banned member here  { and going by your own account over the years here, banned by other sites or at least displayed detailed knowledge related to bannings]
and you were banned here from way up high, well beyond my pay grade. 
And there were key members here that lobbied for your return, myself included.

And we were successful and able to allow your return. We appreciate you here.

There are others now banned that would be welcomed back Kumba ya and all.

And in my opinion there are some that in my estimations would be too problematic to allow back.

 

Yeah thats right ...... but what has it got to do with the quote of mine you put this info under ?

 

I am glad that Daobums  are not being weird to each other in the current events / political forum and it is little used .

 

- but let's  remember I was a previously banned member . . . and allowed back

 

 

[Nungali]

and going by your own account over the years here, banned by other sites or at least displayed detailed knowledge related to bannings]

 

and what is THAT supposed to mean ?

 

" displayed detailed knowledge related to bannings "

 

[Michael Sternbach]

Not all of the members that left back then were banned, quite a few did so of their own accord. The latter are free to return anytime they choose to. Personally, I actually wouldn't mind to see a few of them back here.

 

But sending them all something like a general and official invitation seems quite reckless to me. It's like handing them a carte blanche to bring the controversy that wrecked their own forum here. At any rate, some of them will take it that way!

 

And no, you won't be able to confine the spirit you summoned to a subforum. Quite likely, you will be prompted to increase the  monitoring and the topic lockdowns, the warnings and the bans, perhaps even to the level those things were at when I joined staff for a little while. And ironically, such a course of action will itself incite further controversy. In other words, you will be approximating in spirit what you are opposing... Spiritual principles 101, really.

 

It was exactly for that reason that I was critical of Sean's decision to limit free expression on TDB and 'clean up' the board (and freely spoke my mind regarding the issue ). On the other hand, the board had effectively been managed by some kind of right-wing oligarchy for several years at the time and things just couldn't continue that way.

 

At any rate, in retrospect, Sean's sweeping action had the advantage that it did depoliticize the forum. Fortunately, its focus shifted back to its original purpose: simply providing a platform for philosophically and spiritually oriented 'discussions on the way'.

 

So I too agree with those members who think it would be wise not to temper with that and keep things the way they are right now.

 

As they say in IT:

 

Never touch a running system!

 

Peace,

Michael 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[wandelaar]

There are probably one or two members of Original Dao who could cause trouble because of their political extremism, but most members were perfectly capable of civilized discussion as one can see by looking at the public spiritual part of Original Dao. So yes - one has to be careful, but not much more careful than one has to be anyhow in these times of political polarization and upheaval. Besides so much active members of Original Dao weren't left lately, so even if they would all want to come back it wouldn't be the hordes that some are expecting.

[wandelaar]

1 hour ago, Michael Sternbach said:

But sending them all something like a general and official invitation seems quite reckless to me. It's like handing them a carte blanche to bring the controversy that wrecked their own forum here. At any rate, some of them will take it that way!

 

But that isn't what happened. There was some discussion before the owner decided to close the site as to how to revitalize the forum. And at that point some members proposed to allow politics in the public part of the forum, others including me disagreed as this was not how the site was supposed to operate. After much thought the owner decided that he would rather close the site than allow politics on the public spiritual part of the forum. So the public spiritual part of the forum died of its own accord, it wasn't killed by the hidden political subforum. Indeed at the end some members tried to politicize the forum but didn't succeed. But the public spiritual part of the forum at that point was almost dead already. - My own guess is that Original Dao simply wasn't big enough to continually generate interesting spiritual discussions: with only a few people around you eventually reach a point where everything has been said.

Edited May 2, 2022 by wandelaar

[Michael Sternbach]

40 minutes ago, wandelaar said:

 

But that isn't what happened. There was some discussion before the owner decided to close the site as to how to revitalize the forum. And at that point some members proposed to allow politics in the public part of the forum, others including me disagreed as this was not how the site was supposed to operate. After much thought the owner decided that he would rather close the site than allow politics on the public spiritual part of the forum. So the public spiritual part of the forum died of its own accord, it wasn't killed by the hidden political subforum. Indeed at the end some members tried to politicize the forum but didn't succeed. But the public spiritual part of the forum at that point was almost dead already. - My own guess is that Original Dao simply wasn't big enough to continually generate interesting spiritual discussions: with only a few people around you eventually reach a point where everything has been said.

 

How can everything be ever said about matters of spirituality and cultivation for people who  genuinely care for those things?  This only underlines that such topics were not the primary interest of the majority of members to begin with. It's quite telling that the political part was thriving, while the spiritual part was starving to death!

 

Well, if you guys want to see that kind of shift in emphasis happen here on TDB again, go ahead... Inviting them all back in is a sure way to go!

 

Edited May 2, 2022 by Michael Sternbach

[doc benway]

8 hours ago, silent thunder said:

Well, with what @thelerner has revealed; the return is already underway and nigh on a moot point as folks are returning with new masks and moderation it seems is taking a light or hands off approach.

 

We'll see how it pans out.  Folks can't hide their nature for long.  So we'll know soon enough.

 

I guess I'm missing something here, did @thelerner post info about this somewhere?

 

 

 

[ralis]

9 hours ago, zerostao said:

That’s a lot of what ifs. Instead of speculating, wondering what if, or trying to think up hypothetical scenarios, which seems like an inefficient way to use energy, I will wait until something happens and then deal with it.

We don’t know if more than a couple will return or more than that, at this point.

 

You posted an alleged quote "what if", but I never used those exact words. Why not post the whole quote like most everyone does on this forum? FYI, I can decide on my own how best to use my energy. 

Edited May 2, 2022 by ralis

[liminal_luke]

I prefaced my suggestion of welcoming back the OD members with the phrase "if there's no big objection."  Well, there's been a big objection!  So as far as I'm concerned my idea is off the table and I'm fine with that.