Jump to content

This site is going downhill


Dog

Recommended Posts

Most of what I would say has already been said.

 

I remember seeing topics like this a lot on P/C board on GameFAQs, back when I was active there. People would post things like "Remember back in 2005 when it was all serious discussion? Now it's all trolls!" But I remember the first topic I posted in on that board, back in 2001, and it was posted by a troll.

 

I've only been a member of this community for about a year, but I have read through a lot of the posts from 2012, and you know what? There was a lot of really stupid crap posted then too. We've seen some necroing of it here and there in the past few months, but there's a lot more that never sees the light of day anymore.

 

I remember John Cleese talking about how the second season of a TV show has to work harder than the first. It's because by the time the second season comes out, people only remember the highlights of the first season, and they expect the entire second season to live up to the highlights of the first.

 

Remember how the TV and games that came out when you were a kid were so much better than that crap they put out today? Same principle. The people who were kids ten years before you think that their era of TV and games as better than yours. And the kids of today will grow up to say that they were kids during the golden age.

 

We tend to remember good things as being better than they were. Thus, when we join a community, we join during the golden age and watch its decline -- no matter when we join it.

 

What can we do about it? As Gandhi said, "Be the change that you want to see in your internet communities." You want intelligent discussion about tulpas? When was the last time you posted any?

"Some things have to be believed to be seen." - Ralph Hodgson

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 29
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Guest Anonymous

I agree with a lot of what this thread has said.

 

So that it is clear, it is not my intent to harass or intimidate any one member of the community by any examples I link or embed. As such, I am stripping the names off of all the posts I quote. For what it's worth, I'm writing this while possessed. Nothing I say represents the opinions of anyone (IRC network staff, the others in my system, anyone) but myself.

 

I personally think a lot of the problem with the community as it is right now is that there are a lot of people with longstanding hates that won't let it go. I also think that the posts in the topical areas of the forum should be unquestionably about tulpas.

 

Here is an example of an off-topic post (that was deleted) from a thread on Orange Juice as a forcing booster. Link to thread here.

 

I often make wine out of orange juice.... That said, the only reagent with that potential i see is Vitamin C (or ascorbic acid depending on the labels) which is widely, widely, WIDELY achievable through less sugary ingredients so you've been saved from a bad fate enjoy

 

When we reported that post, the reply back we initially got was "Actually everything except the wine making seems to be on topic". When we asked if any action beyond a talking-to was being taken, the reply was "That really isn't of your concern".

 

This is not to attack the other staff, but really to show the state of affairs. I could make a post like:

 

I like transformers. Optimus Prime is going to be the base for my tulpa. I think Megatron is a cool bad guy.

 

in one of the topical boards and it would be judged as "on topic if you remove the fanboyism".

 

The GAT's 'Symbolism Considered Harmful' should be Considered Harmful. And ideally the GAT should be replaced with an open, community-centric review process. I have a few prototypes of such a system in the works, but none are anywhere near ready for testing with the public.

 

Across several parts of the forums, I have noticed a pattern in criticism and rating that bothers me. People are rating good works that the community made purely on the fact that they use symbolic ways to communicate ideas. This behavior should be considered harmful for several reasons. It can discourage people from contributing to the community, it is an unreasonable restriction to have in a mostly symbolic process, and the way it is de-facto enforced on the community is being done in a harmful way.

 

Like it or not, creating tulpas is a symbolic process. There is a lot going on that cannot be explained without symbolism unless you want to include a lot of psychology textbook on consciousness, the mind, and a lot of other (albeit interesting) text that is not directly related to the process of creating a tulpa. As such, symbolism should be encouraged as a way of helping people understand it, and authors should only really be asked to reword things if the community at large doesn't understand it. I could dig through that guides submission page (and the ones that were accepted for what it's worth) and find many more such examples, but that would get beyond the post length limit fairly quickly.

 

In terms of content on the site, shouldn't we not be intimidating new contributors by posting comments like:

 

My what now? Can we not use silly Tumblr terms here? This is a tulpa guide for a tulpa site, so you might want to use tulpa terms such as you know, your tulpas. You wanna upload this guide to other sites and use that term, sure. But this is .info, not multipleheadmateotherkinpersonalityswitch website.

 

Why is a debate about "should pure symbolism guides should be allowed" going on in the middle of a thread about a specific guide? Isn't this something that should be discussed elsewhere?

 

Well, a lot of this is just symbolism. That's why this is so hard to rate in any way, because I'm having trouble finding the non-symbolic tip buried in all of this. "Moving" the "locations" of your thoughts in your mind? Yeah, symbolism...I wouldn't approve of this as is because it's mostly just symbolism with a small tip buried under it all, so it won't work for those who don't buy into the symbolism...I would approve of the underlying tip here for tips, once it's made a bit more obvious.

 

This is of course not to mention that a good percentage of the GAT does not take place in a lot of the IRC channels or even from what I can see communities other than tulpa.info.

 

This isn't Reddit. You don't type what you want to say in the title and leave nothing for the actual post.

 

What is this the Linux Kernel Mailing List now?

 

Disapproved for guides because it reads like a bad hypnotic induction guide, and the writer takes critique seriously to a level they consider throwing backroom tantrums appropriate.

 

The GAT member received no punishment for that post.

 

if you want me to back off the drama, you should go transparent and share with us all the logs of [their] tantrum

 

Oh, and there's actually edits to make comments less inflammatory. Probably should screen things next time before that little ninja edit attempt starts.

 

I have been told by countless people that things like this are why new users on the IRC network are afraid to contribute to the tulpa.info forums. As such a lot of good content is ending up posted elsewhere and becoming harder to keep track of.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest Anonymous

There's a multitude of reasons that I don't use this site. In talking with many others, i've found that some of these reasons aren't purely myself.

 

- The overall tone trends toward very negative from experienced and veteran members and STAFF. This causes experienced people to leave once they've gotten out of the site what they want instead of staying around to contribute. This shows through even in advice given to newbies. When I used to read those forums, I always felt like newbie questions were just barely being tolerated and saw many instances of people actually berating newbies. Unacceptable.

 

- Hostility towards others' beliefs or interests. This is being allowed to happen, and it drives people away. Who cares if people are bronies? This community has roots in /mlp/, this should come as no surprise. I'm not a brony and the level of hate for people that are is disgusting. And that is but one example.

 

- Lack of staff action on many cases of blatant trolling, off topicness, and flaming. The amount of stuff it takes to actually get banned is ridiculous.

 

- Lack of any serious research or searching for new or improved methodology for development. It isn't happening. It is true that perhaps there's less to find. Great. But it is nonexistent.

 

- Guides in general need to be re-thought. Why does every single guide need to explain in depth what a tulpa is? It's poor organization and requires every guide author to write a tome of tulpamancy just to document their methodology for others. And then they have to deal with the...

 

- GAT. Seriously? I've seen the arguments. It isn't working. Get rid of it. Nobody should have veto right because they disagree with a subjective idea.

 

This community's reputation is HORRIBLE amongst most of the rest of the overall Tulpa community. Many other parts of the community refer to this site as a cesspool. It has promise but doesn't seem to want to correct it's problems. You can observe this in just the sheer number of splinter communities that exist.

 

I've intentionally left out names. I don't care who is responsible for what. I don't care what amount of thought went into decisions. If the site is to be fixed, it will have to be top down rather than bottom up.

 

Edit: I apologize if this reads harshly. It isn't intended to be offensive, but I wanted to list the issues I and others have noted with the site.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest Anonymous

I agree with a lot of what this thread has said.

 

That's good but... with all due respect, what did the rest of your post have to do with anything?

 

 

 

Also to throw my two cents in.

 

I remember John Cleese talking about how the second season of a TV show has to work harder than the first. It's because by the time the second season comes out, people only remember the highlights of the first season, and they expect the entire second season to live up to the highlights of the first.

 

The thing is, I feel like it's been forgotten. This is an information site, not a television series. Or maybe it is. Just because I think you guys are losing the plot in terms of what it means to keep this place active. It's treated like TV, but it's not. Definately the next season might be the hardest, but what if the second season isn't supposed to exist.

 

Metaphor aside, I disagree (or at least I don't agree completely) with the idea of keeping the site active just to keep it active. Because if you keep something running long enough, like the human condition and most anything that exists, it'll eventually decay. Put a straw of hay in my mouth and call me ignorant if you want, but shouldn't the big solution be to just to preserve what's good, and leave it at that for anyone interested and dedicated enough to do this thing.

 

...if we're talking about a solution anyway. Because it's more than obvious that it's going down hill. And it'll keep going down hill until we eventually forget that this place is for tulpalamas to begin with.

 

Because forget the bronyfags, forget the otaku-loli dum dums, because preference is preference. That's not the problem. The real problem is people feeling the need to talk about it, and expecting not to be called out on bullshit. Like one or two of you said, what happened to calling people out on bullshit? If it's true, then why should it matter? If it's not, at least then they won't continue doing what they're doing.

 

To be honest, the way it is, it's just encouraging insecurity. That's what we are, or what we're headed towards at the bottom of the hill of metaphors.

 

The reason why it is the way it is, is because... to be honest, making a tulpa should be a personal experience. You shouldn't need a community to push you along, that just makes laziness. Don't get me wrong, it's good to have a community to bounce ideas off of, to get a "is this a good idea" from members of the community that may have experience or a different perspective, but the way it is, just sharing stories that hold no substance or anything to learn from is just ridiculous. It makes us difficult to take seriously, and to be honest, if more people come to the community like that, I actually hope less people take it seriously.

 

I suppose you could argue that this is the mod's job to regulate, sometimes, certain mods can be just as bad. Others either aren't able to cover everything, are too "by the books" or simply don't care.

 

All that said, the reason why the community is going down hill is because the people here encourage it, and we teach the people who come here to encourage it, instead of building them up to eventually not have to rely on the community at all. To be able to live with their tulpalamas and evenly find a way for them to be sociable.

 

We shouldn't be focused on keeping, but we should be focused on teaching. And I feel like that's the big thing that's lost, and why the community is infinitely going down hill.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest Anonymous

Related:

 

!Quora | I have no way of proving my existence to you or that the guides will work for you. The guides are really a collection of methods that work for that person. The only way you can be 100% sure is to try it yourself

 

'Symbolism Considered Harmful' Considered Harmful

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest Anonymous

I think the direction this thread is going accurately represents what's happening to the community - reasonability drowned out by irrelevancies, arguments out of fear and paranoia, as well as intolerance.

 

In short, downhill. What you should do about it is stop blaming the community for everything they're doing wrong like you're some kind of messenger from heaven who has the answer to all questions, and instead look at what you could do yourself (besides complaining) about these issues. As long as you blame everyone but yourself without doing anything to change the fault in others (and no, telling other's they're fucking wrong isn't doing something) you're just as much at fault for the decay of the community. If you agree, and think the community should decay - just leave. If you don't think the community should exist, don't participate, let it die.

 

If you want it to change and improve, then do something about it, rather than coming up with half-assed metaphors and making statements based on baseless assumptions that won't change a fucking thing. This thread will die off just like any other and nothing will happen unless everyone starts looking at what they can improve in themselves, improve those things, and then start trying to improve others - constructively. Not by telling them they're fucking wrong or whatever, can't you see that doesn't work?

 

I'm not directing this post towards anyone in particular, just everyone who feels addressed by it. Seriously, whining won't change a single thing, you're not as justified as you think you are and your ideas aren't the only (if even a) way to solve this. The only way you'll be able to work on this problem is if you discuss it with others constructively. What's happening in this thread is that everybody is going on their own personal justified rants and not listening to anyone else.

 

Also, if anyone thinks bersinger's post is hard to understand, just post about it and I'll try to put it in more understandable points. I get what he means and he makes a perfectly valid point.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest Anonymous

Also, if anyone thinks bersinger's post is hard to understand, just post about it and I'll try to put it in more understandable points. I get what he means and he makes a perfectly valid point.

 

In a topical part of the boards there should be no such ambiguity.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest Anonymous

Related:

 

!Quora | I have no way of proving my existence to you or that the guides will work for you. The guides are really a collection of methods that work for that person. The only way you can be 100% sure is to try it yourself

 

'Symbolism Considered Harmful' Considered Harmful

 

Again. Wat.

 

 

I think the direction this thread is going accurately represents what's happening to the community - reasonability drowned out by irrelevancies, arguments out of fear and paranoia, as well as intolerance.

 

I think you might have it backwards. I don't think there's enough paranoia in the tulpa.info community. I mean, if it wasn't, then we'd be having a very different topic, but think about it. Barely anyone can openly question when someone starts weaving a "symbolic" narative of their tulpalamas' adventures in their wonderland. And those who do risk being either criticized or put down, just because someone doesn't believe someone else's story.

 

And to be honest, what's the harm in a little outward doubt? Especially if you told any other normal person they'd say you were full of shit.

 

In short, downhill. What you should do about it is stop blaming the community for everything they're doing wrong like you're some kind of messenger from heaven who has the answer to all questions, and instead look at what you could do yourself (besides complaining) about these issues. As long as you blame everyone but yourself without doing anything to change the fault in others (and no, telling other's they're fucking wrong isn't doing something) you're just as much at fault for the decay of the community. If you agree, and think the community should decay - just leave. If you don't think the community should exist, don't participate, let it die.

 

 

I did actually leave, but some dik hoel reminded me that this place existed

 

 

Probably wasn't directed to me, but the biggest problem is that no one will let it die. Again, tulpa.info is the security blanket everyone has, that no one should need. No one here's claiming to be a messenger, and no one here's claiming to be a saint. Believe it or not, everyone here has done something stupid and arguably wrong.

 

Some more than others.

 

But the question becomes, does it really need to be advertized? I don't disagree with having a community per say, but I do disagree with the attention whoring that it entails. Rather, the attention whoring without consequence.

 

You can tell me to leave, but I'd rather see it become something better instead of a place for little boys and girls to whore out themselves and their tulpalamas like a bunch of New York prostitutes. Where Pleeb is the pimp.

 

If you want it to change and improve, then do something about it, rather than coming up with half-assed metaphors and making statements based on baseless assumptions that won't change a fucking thing. This thread will die off just like any other and nothing will happen unless everyone starts looking at what they can improve in themselves, improve those things, and then start trying to improve others - constructively. Not by telling them they're fucking wrong or whatever, can't you see that doesn't work?

 

Oh probably. This thread might change something, but in all likelyhood, nothing's gonna change. But hey. Everyone has a right to dream, isn't it?

 

Also what can one do besides just bring awareness to the issue? It's all we can do besides hunting down every single one of our 3000 users knocking on their doors and shaking them 'till they come to their senses for better or for worse. Oh, I know what we could do. But it's not in my control. How about modding? I mean, I know that's kind of been said to death, but seriously. Mod.

 

Or even better, set up some regulations.

 

Or even better, encourage people to do something better with their time rather than circle jerk on good ol' tulpa.info about issues that have been discussed over and over again

WARNING! Hypocrite in-bound

or tell fanfic-esque stories about how they did lewdicrous things to their tulpa last night.

 

I maybe telling you that "you're fucking wrong" but I'm also giving my idea on how to be "fucking right"... or at least ideas to go in the right direction.

 

I'm not directing this post towards anyone in particular, just everyone who feels addressed by it.

 

.-. (yeah okay)

 

Also, if anyone thinks bersinger's post is hard to understand, just post about it and I'll try to put it in more understandable points. I get what he means and he makes a perfectly valid point.

 

Please? We could use a translator.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm too lazy to use the quote system so I'll just put a > before any quotes.

 

 

>Like it or not, creating tulpas is a symbolic process. There is a lot going on that cannot be explained without symbolism

 

No, everything can be explained without symbolism. Some people like symbolism and some do not. Symbolism should be fine in guides as long as there are some guides without symbolism for people that don't like it.

 

 

>In terms of content on the site, shouldn't we not be intimidating new contributors by posting comments like: QUOTE: My what now? Can we not use silly Tumblr terms here? This is a tulpa guide for a tulpa site, so you might want to use tulpa terms such as you know, your tulpas. You wanna upload this guide to other sites and use that term, sure. But this is .info, not multipleheadmateotherkinpersonalityswitch website.

 

I agree that we shouldn't be so aggressive towards new members, but we should all also use the same vocabulary to describe things. If there are 5 different words for wonderland, no one will know what anyone else is talking about.

 

 

>Quote:

Disapproved for guides because it reads like a bad hypnotic induction guide, and the writer takes critique seriously to a level they consider throwing backroom tantrums appropriate.

>The GAT member received no punishment for that post.

 

You're seriously still pissed about that?

 

> I always felt like newbie questions were just barely being tolerated and saw many instances of people actually berating newbies. Unacceptable.

 

This is partly due to the fact that we have one board for ALL questions and answers. Someone looking for advanced discussion might get angry when all the posts they can find are simple beginner questions. A separate board for newbie questions would help this issue.

 

 

>just sharing stories that hold no substance or anything to learn from is just ridiculous. It makes us difficult to take seriously, and to be honest, if more people come to the community like that, I actually hope less people take it seriously.

 

I agree

 

>Related: Code: !Quora | I have no way of proving my existence to you or that the guides will work for you. The guides are really a collection of methods that work for that person. The only way you can be 100% sure is to try it yourself 'Symbolism Considered Harmful' Considered Harmful

 

wtf does this even mean. If you want to use the code tag, make sure you put code into it. Using it like that doesn't make you look smart, it makes you look like an idiot.

 

>What you should do about it is stop blaming the community for everything they're doing wrong like you're some kind of messenger from heaven who has the answer to all questions, and instead look at what you could do yourself (besides complaining) about these issues. As long as you blame everyone but yourself without doing anything to change the fault in others (and no, telling other's they're fucking wrong isn't doing something) you're just as much at fault for the decay of the community.

 

This is partly true, we do need good user contribution, but another part of this community is the mod team. The users have no control of what they are doing, and if they can't properly moderate the site what the users do doesn't matter.

 

>In a topical part of the boards there should be no such ambiguity.

 

hypocrisy to the max

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest Anonymous

wow at first i thought that comparison was mortally insulting but makes sense in one way - lately i've developed a near-clear theory that Maverickthecat is a conscious work of intelligent satire about everything laughable about tulpamancing and the tulpamancers and that IS the kind of shiet i would've picked up if i had learned to value it on time:D

 

MavericktheCat is Albatross. Or I'm still hoping.

 

- GAT. Seriously? I've seen the arguments. It isn't working. Get rid of it. Nobody should have veto right because they disagree with a subjective idea.

 

Big part is there hasn't been any new elections. Most of the GAT people went inactive.

 

This community's reputation is HORRIBLE amongst most of the rest of the overall Tulpa community. Many other parts of the community refer to this site as a cesspool. It has promise but doesn't seem to want to correct it's problems. You can observe this in just the sheer number of splinter communities that exist.

 

Tulpa communities hate each other from what I understand. It works both ways. I've only heard bad things about /r/tulpas and the likes.

 

-snip-

 

Ea, elaborating on my moderators rant: I just want you guys to post more often. Once a month at least to show a presence. And no, posting in the moderator clubhouse doesn't count. Needs to be public.

 

This is exactly what I am talking about.

 

He has a point. You're using the tag wrong and it's eccentric and unnecessary. Snowflaking. Stop it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...