Dear Tony, your posts always humble me and bring me back to the path.  I accept your arguments, they are good: until there is some physical place to protect, to be more open.  The dissenting voices just seem to take so much attention: and to me it seems like if even half of that attention were turned towards more productive questions, we would progress much faster in the right direction, rather than sitting in a quagmire of discussion on points that seem tangential to our cause and unhelpful to our mission.  You're right though: I presuppose that here we might have a community.  I guess someday, I plan on having a community - one in real life, and I always sort of thought that it would be a good place to practice skills and deal with things the way a real community would do.  I don't see the same discrete separation you do between what we have here, and what a "real" community would have.  I know you've raised that view before: and surely maybe this isn't a place for you: but if it were somewhere you felt safer, couldn't it be?  Wouldn't you like this to be the place you were more motivated to post all that cool content you just mentioned?  We could do that, make it easier - but changing the website format is irrelevant if the motivation isn't there.  I'd want that, I'd want to share more: but I don't want to share with certain people because their harsh voice are too critical, and I don't want to have to argue my point on every topic, that makes this not a safe place for me.  And I know Tony, I know you'll say that life isn't safe and that you'll fight for what you want and make it happen: that's what I was trying to do, figure out how to remove the negative feelings I have when I read the writings of certain others and realize just how divergent their ideas and beleifs are from what I EXPECT of those who are part of our community.  I want to feel safe here too, and I want you to feel motivated to share your cool content here, and I want this place to grow: and still be welcoming.  Thank you again for your response, it was heartfelt and kind: and I would never want you to leave Tony: at least not yet... 

With Care,

Dom

It's so true! They do SEEM to take all the attention!

So how have you resolved to fix that problem? For me personally, I've simply taken on the challenge to treat internet conversations more respectfully and not dismiss them and make fun of them in my real life tribal and animist experiments. It was a lot of fun doing a 'give-support-get-support' thing with Rory and crew down in Louisiana but often talking about Ishmael was about hatering on the silliness of internet communication. Having stepped away from that hatering, the value has come back into my life.

How do we fix the problem? Don't change the conversation, let the other 9,999 conversations not be tangental and haterrific. Start like 10 conversations about something positive for every conversation you don't like. No one will be mad at anyone for filling up the front page with proactive stories. 

I'm withdrawn for professional reasons. Right now, I'm supposed to be working on a landscaping drawing for a retired marine commando. Very conservative, very much into his corvette and his suv and his huge in ground pool and the koi pond I take care of for him (even though I killed a few fish this spring cleaning out the pond and shocking them with using dechlorinator that was expired. 

But you know what? Me and Joe have one thin in common: we like deer. Joe feeds his deer and keeps salt licks in his garage when the one in his woods is licked away. he throws feed corn and loves watching the birds and the raccoons and deer go nuts over it. 

Joe has an acre of woods that we recently cleared honeysuckle out of. I get to replant the understory. I'm planting Pawpaw trees, mayapples, dicentra, and an entire host of plants that are food and medicine for animals and humans. 

For all the things we don't have in common, like patriotism and worrying about Barack Obama destroying america, we both like deer and don't like honeysuckle. 

But Joe is getting a susatainable, self-replicating, diverse ecosystem of food for all. 

Do you think had we knocked on his door with the idea that his woods were a barren landscape and he needed to change it NOW we'd get anywhere?

Nope, we just started with the things we had in common and went from there. Now I'm getting to do EXACTLY what my dreams have been telling me to do.

they?

negativity, nay-sayers, and othrewise off-topic non-community builders. It's almost an inside thing, when you think of the various trolls and troll-like behavior within the history of Ishmael and the internet. This site has been crappy enough ( in aesthetics, not content ) to not attract too much of this behavior, which is why this behavior can be magnified to veteran Ishmaelites and looked over by veteran BB users

In fact, I wold say this site is a success in part by it's referral nature, the previous site of this scope, ishcon.org, one I helped create, and promote, attracted all kinds of unhelpful voices, until like the Ishmael Guestbook, it became as much of a target to throw darts at as a place to discuss Ishmael-related topics.

veteran BB users?  What are those?

What's a non-community builder?

ebacherdom... what is your answer to "who's they?"

Veteran Bulletin Board Users:  People who are used to being around dissenting voices on online Bulletin boards, the precursor to this site.

A non-community builder: someone who is around, taking part in the discussion but only disruptively because they are not OF the community in their own minds and beliefs - imagine the one jehovah witness at the mormon convention, or the single ritish apologist at the constitutional convention.

My answer to "who's they?":  Generally, folks who troll, and make arguments due to a scism in beliefs upon which the other discussions on this board take for granted.  For instance, its hard to discuss which paths to take with someone who believes that the decision to leave in the first place was fundamentally wrong.  Specifically: a quick scan will easily highlight the voices I am looking for, specifically the one loud krist-chin apologist that has gotten under my fingernails and whom arguments with have seemed to become a major focus of the group for the last several months when the discussions could be more profitably turned elsewhere.

If you are here and sure about what you believe, and you are looking for ways to live differently: great.  If you are unsure, great.  But if you are sure, and you know you do not believe as we do - but you stay out of some penchant for sado/masochism or just to kill time because you don't have anything better to do: move on.  None of us should have so much extra time that we have any to waste.

I still haven't had ANYONE propose any kind of protocol for banishment, or give me any idea about how such a system would be put into place.  If you don't want things to happen as they did before (which, though abrupt, was good for this group) than help by proposing an alternative.  How do we deal with the snake in the camp when it occurs, even if you don't agree that it is occurring now.  

Surely not everyone believes as that this community is not something that matters enough to protect?

Dominic

what community?

look, I'm sympathetic toward community and its preservation, and would kill to protect my family etc. ... but this is an internet forum, and a sparsely populated one at that, with people that don't know each other very well at all. If I'm reading you right you're annoyed that one of the only active members here seems to disagree with what you feel is the intended spirit of this website, and would like to create a place for conversation where this person could not participate.

I think your perception that the community is under attack or however you'd phrase it is a bit unfounded. Do you ever wonder why so many of the people who were active at IshCon are no longer active here? It's sure as hell not because sceptic posts here, he was a regular at ishcon too. Have you even tried asking him to move on and/or stay out of conversations that are important to you because he's bothering you? Or was banning him the first thing you thought of?

If there's one thing I've learned from this whole IshThink debacle, it's that if you want to create something with other people, go ahead and create it. Other people will join you as they see fit.

I'd like to think that folks from Ishcon have largely moved on because most of the conversations from there have been repeating here in various forms over and over again.  After dealing with those ideas they largely have moved on to other projects or interests.

Though that might be too idealistic of me and not including all the hard feelings and backstabbing.

lol, you're so silly sometimes

if ishthink were worth coming to I would come here more than once every few months, it has nothing to do with me feeling welcome or not

And yet, Michaelangelo had only to remove the pieces of stone that weren't in his vision in order to create David: everything that was david was always inside the piece of marble, waiting to  come out.  One chisel blow at a time he removed the pieces that were not of David, so that the truth inside could show its true form, the secret of its potential could be revealed.

Erractic Retaliator behavior!

Unfortunately on the internets, it  always seems to go straight to the 'godwin' scenario:(

emphasis mine

I think it's pretty appropriate in this case.

I had no idea whatsoever what 'godwin' actually meant, thanks Devin, I thought it meant "God(s)-Win" like when you get to the point in an arguement where supernatural smiting could only be the next step. I'm enlighted. While in some spirit agree with your sentinment, however, I prefer my response that I immediately wrote to Dom to encourage him to 'toughen-up' not 'de-nazi'.

Oh and by the way I dont' even remember why whatever happened last happened, but I have since resolved to make fewer dick moves as a result. I hope that does something for ya

The great thing about our little corner of anarchy is that each person is communicating their needs and projections with little consequence.

Only individuals bring their own consequences. We face the consequence of being honest, we face the consequence for what we don't do.

I can name off-hand three behaviors that get the attention of lurkers and old-time contributors:

a. when the fabric of anarchy is threatened or questioned

b. when a real-life event is being promoted

c. when a girl does that classic 'hey I'm new here' post and never shows back up again.

in the course of responding to the first;

it always plays out like this: someone doesn't like something, and says so, then someone doesn't like that someone doesn't like something. the point is then lost and we either resolve to going back to liking everyone and everything, or threaten to disappear, for a while anyway...

in the course of responding to the second;

many people show interest, most often in teh form of 'I WISH I could be there, bbut can't because my dog is on fire' or whatever, resolve to do something similar in their neck of the woods(but never share), or, rarely, actually attend and post cool blogs or videos of the experience.

in the course of responding to the third;

most women become objectifried early and lose the rush of excitement very early as soon as a lurker or even regular contributor busts out with the come-on private message. Jumping into the loner pit, rather than be comforted by like minds, they are urged quickly to build a ladder to get teh fuck out of there as soon as someone IM's a woman 'hey your ideas sound hotz wanna meet up?' -- this happening has been brought to my attention more than once by the female individual and ensures a picking off one-by-one by the other sex and keeps this a boys club.

So really, trolling is the least of our problems, but we have three good ones I'd like to see some solutions to, but a man can dream, can't he? (even if he's dreaming in the dark!).

My quick and dirty answers are:

a. get a few more layers of skin and roll with the punches. you can't employ an anhilator strategy on a bulletin board unless you are the admin or post so much that the other posts can't be found in your belching. The more we address problems as if they need to be addressed (Like Sceptic has ever hurt anyone with his pleas for salvation), the more they become actual problems, and the less they are simply the opinion of one poster. Do really want people to get to know you on the basis of one-off responses?

b. share more of what you are doing no matter how mundane; I know the majority of you have cellphone with fucking cameras; the more you are real the more peopel are going to want to spend time with you. The more real we are, the more being real with each other becomes appealing.; The very appeal of Ishcon the website was that it wasn't a web site first; that felt real to people, that felt safe, that was the core of it's success.

c. Stop sexually harrassing the other half of the population. Stop PM'ing every new girl who joins the site completely, no matter how friendly you think your PM was, you don't know this person and have no other reason to PM this person other than the fact that you are casting your line into the water and going fishing for a girlfriend. This is creepy behavior and grosses women out. Having said this, Ishmael has gotten me more sex than all other books combined. That was because I'm a fuckin' pimp, not because I read a book and hinged on that similarity as the basis of a relationship. Also, when women do post a follow-up message, dont' fucking jump on that shit too, try and treat women like people and with enough of that, we might get the other half of that conversation back that we've been missing. Mama 'Nene can't carry the ladytorch all by her Tipi-Dwelling self. 

I wasn't aware of the gender hassling. 

-----

(IRL) "not stalking" is when love's more likely to appear...

-Jim

I always respond (publicly, I don't know what this PM stuff is you're referring to) when someone interesting posts a "hi I'm new here". It doesn't matter their gender, though I'm probably more interested in girls for what I'd think to be obvious reasons. I'm not trying to pick anyone up, though, and I haven't seen evidence of anyone else doing that either. It matters far more to me how old people are, since peers are pretty hard to find.

I think a more plausible reason that people don't come back here is that this place is really pretty dead. Often I don't even notice people's "hi I'm new here" posts until weeks or months later.

This is the only private message I've sent to someone I didn't know.

From: Devin
To: Meghan
Subject: hi
Date: Tue, 2007-06-12 22:44

Hello. Always curious to talk to the younger members of this forum. My name's Devin. I dropped out of high school a couple years back, so you're probably around my age. Anyway, just thought I'd say hi and introduce myself a bit.

Yowza! Think she digs me?

Adam,

Your a great example at how love can solve the most difficult problems, way to be you!

Being able to reciprocate the energy of the posts, that's a great point. I sometimes feel that way about myself or Matt or Bill or anyone else that shares something lengthy and well thought out, that I and others appreciate from a distance because the conversation is too difficult to give it justice.

Having said that, I've also realized that Cracked.com has an article for every moment in our trying lives, like this one:

 The Eight most Obnoxious Internet Commenters:

http://www.cracked.com/article_16605_8-most-obnoxious-internet-commenter...

Devin,

You can be very silly. For some dumb reason I'm compelled to share how unhelpful and dismissive your comments are to a problem that I hadn't even considered you a part of. Until now;)

talking about what we want is much more important that what we don't want.

I want friends that I can't make at work or at school or in my neighborhood as easily as I can make online. I want to keep the wading pool open, not close it down because it doesn't ahve a diving board. Is anyone picking up what I"m putting down?

We gotta learn to love the haters. And if people can't handle giving respect even when it isn't given in kind, then ideas like animism and tribalism just aren't for you. Cause this is a core principle, accepting things as they are. 

what a load of bullshit, "a problem that I hadn't even considered you a part of. Until now;)"

right, I buy that for one second captain witchhunt.

let's all e-love each other and give each other e-hugs and shut the fuck up and get the fuck off this forum if you do anything to break our happy e-topia. It sounds nice in theory but I really have no idea how you can even talk about stuff like that in reference to IshThink. There was infinitely more rapport between people at IshCon, and nothing came of that. No one even donated to keep it afloat.

I'm all for community and all that happy go lucky lovey dovey shit, I really am, but let's keep it in some fucking perspective.

Does that title come with a ship?

A malus perhaps?

(horticulture joke)

Devin, you are the living reminder of an unfulfilled desire to be understood and the walking billboard for adolescence, interrupted.

Thank you for your gift.

I thought those were the core principles of Christianity and other salvationist religions.  Turn the other cheek, blessed are the meek, and all that razz-ma-jazz that adds up to: accept the shitty situation you are in and than you will be rewarded after the lights go out on your life.  

Last I checked, Animism is based on an understanding of relationships between things.  You raise your threat display, if it matters enough to me, I raise mine to try to ward you off and back you down.  Most of the time this isn't needed because people know the way the relationships are structured. 

Tribes are notorious meritotocracies where they people who have earned respect for what they do are asked to lead where their expertise counts the most.  Erratic retaliator and tit-for-two-tats sound familiar?

I see no place in animism and tribalism for giving respect that is not due, nor for passively accepting a bad situation.

This is an echo of Quinn and Marx. And it is wrong. If it would be true then there wouldnt be any successful Christians, there wouldnt be any Christians in head of state or in any sort of position of power. There would not be any Christians alive probably.

The fundamental error that Quinn and Marx does in trying to understand Christianity is that they think that it is entirely about "accepting" suffering. This is not true either. Historically, the founders of Christianity were also influenced somewhat by the Stoics and They had the idea that you should be able to - endure - any kind of suffering. The Stoic philosophy was used by the military in order to train people to endure and handle hardships. This has nothing whatsoever to do with blindly accepting suffering, the idea is absurd. But life does involve some amount of suffering and Christianity is not trying to sugarcoat it. Christianity is teaching humility, because humility is better than pride. A prideful person is handicapped mentally because he cant look past himself and if anything bad happends to him, he will constantly shift the blame to someone or something else and thereby becoming powerless.

It is a bit Marxist in retrospect, and your point is interesting, though I think it opens up another topic of conversation that should be in another thread.

It could perhaps better be suited in a "Christianity talk" sort of thread yes. I started the "Either or" thread recently, but it seems to have attracted only mild interest.

Because you are seeing respect in deficit.

Living a life in full respect of all things; slights to that respect regain their original meaning -- slight, indeed.

There's nothing to retaliate to, nothing to turn your cheek to. No reason to show your tits or whatever you are talking about

Because you are okay, everyone else is okay, too.

Being okay isn't being fulfilled by others, it's being fulfilled by yourself. When you can get that obnoxious is OK, that pain is OK, that suffering is OK; and worthy of your respect, then all slights of respect become slight.

Because respect can only truly come from yourself and your own values.

Respect cannot be injured. It can only appear to be injured. It can only have this appearance when respect is not whole within the individual. Respect 'is' or 'isn't' and it only comes from the self.

Having the things you need, like community and food security and warmth in cold times, you cease to have a balance sheet: nothing can therefore be 'due'. 

It's like bacteria, they got their start somewhere. They didn't come out of the aether to provide us the lessons of community. The internet wasn't invented to provide us community. We simply lack it, and are testing it to see if it will provide. It's not a question that can be answered, you experience community; you experience your answer. This either feels like nothing, or it feels like something. If it feels like nothing, that's only a possibility. If you feel something, that's only a possibility. The only answer you can get to 'is this community' is 'possibly'.