A (very) brief history of WF

[SkullTraill]

Yeah very reasonable - even if you were 100% on board, it's unhelpful to speak in generalisations rather than specific instances. I'll report things in future. And who knows, it could end up being a reality check for me. It could be there were only a handful of things in a year, but they happened to be right when I started being more active, so I got a disproportionate sense of how common it is.

Alright, great. Also my PMs are always open if you want to bring something directly to my attention, and the suggestion section is also a great place to post if you want to gauge the general sentiment of WF members towards a change you might like.

I think that's the only part I disagree with - like I've made my gender clear, and also at times mentioned having a husband, and I don't think that should open me up to people being misogynistic or anti-straight. I shouldn't have to censor those kinds of basic life details in order to avoid sexist responses. If you look at people's introductions, most people announce their gender, where they live and what language they speak - sex and race. Simple identity labels come up naturally in discussion or when talking about magic in terms of your own life. If started a thread called "women's magic and practising magic as a woman" then yeah people can make a big deal out of my gender in that thread, but not if it's just a basic identifier in a discussion about something else.

I don't have to censor that about myself, to be clear, people haven't been sexist or idk anti-Australian? towards me, and so my expectation would be for that to be universal - simple identity mentions not attacked, only if someone sets out to make it the topic of conversation.

^ which I will bring up in future if there's specific instances of it, in a separate thread

I do understand where you're coming from. I only said it that way because while almost no one will have an issue with you being a woman or australian, there are undoubtedly people who aren't completely accepting of (for example) trans people. And those people, if you choose to bring it up in a introduction or other thread where it isn't essential to the topic of discussion, may want to focus some type of humour or remark about it.

At the end of the day, those parts of your identity are completely irrelevant to 99.99% of discussions on this forum. As the forum grows, it becomes less intimate, more sanitised to focus on the ore topics. Sure, you are absolutely free to share anything you want about yourself, but understand that you then take responsibility for bringing attention to something about yourself that others may not like. Still, no one should be allowed to break the rules over it and attack or harass you, but they may comment about it, and not always in a way that you would feel comfortable with. And for what?

Like I said somewhere else, this isn't social media or a dating app or identity forums or express yourself forums. You can contribute in almost any convo on WF without needing to show your face, real name, age, gender, sexuality, political affiliation. If someone introduced themselves as a 16 year old, they may be viewed dismissively by people who otherwise might have taken them seriously. And yes, that's the loss of the person dismissing them if the 16 year old is actually providing valid and useful contributions, but if the 16 year old complains to me that "people aren't taking them seriously" I'm going to be baffled why they ever chose to bring it up. And I'm not going to go out of my way to make people take them seriously aside from rule violations.

Of course, if they made a thread about "how to practice at home with a small inconspicuous altar" and someone derails the thread with "you're 16 stop doing magick" then that's off topic and would be handled. But if they mentioned it in their introduction post and someone replies with "you're 16, I don't think you should be doing ceremonial magick" then that wouldn't be against the rules. Sure, myself and other people would disagree and say, actually, start young it's fine, but it's still something like a "slight" that wouldn't be against the rules.

All that to say, sure, if you really want to, tell people about yourself. And yes, if people are harassing or violent towards you, they will be warned. If they try to derail a different thread you made where it isn't mentioned, then yes, that's off topic and they will be warned. But in the introduction thread or wherever you mentioned it, it will be seen as you making that part of the topic of discussion unless it's one of those super rare instances where you had to specify that detail to ensure you got meaningful replies. But that's very rare.

Myself and plenty of other people have put in something like aa decade at WF without anyone ever knowing my age, sexual orientation, gender, nationality, ethnicity etc, while still contributing plenty to WF. Yeah, I have trusted people from WF with some of that info in far more intimate settings (PMs, off site comms etc) but since I never want it to be the subject of any public discussion, I refrain from bringing it up publicly.

Of course, I understand not everyone minds/wants to stay that private, hence it not being a rule or anything official. But if you do, expect some labels to be attached to you, potentially unwanted attention, or unsavoury remarks. You won't be protected from that unless they break the rules in some way. And "don't make anyone uncomfortable" will never be a rule here on WF.

Anyway, at this point I think I am contributing to the derailment of my own thread. I wanted to keep parts of this exchange here so that others who come to this thread to get an idea of what WF is about will understand these aspects of WF culture, rules, and moderation. However, since we are close to being on the same page now, and have a good idea of each other's viewpoints, let's move this convo into PMs or a suggestion thread.

Thank you for engaging.

 

[Baal]

great read

 

[Xenophon]

The thread itself is becoming a vivid chapter of WF history.

 

[pixel_fortune]

Alright, great. Also my PMs are always open if you want to bring something directly to my attention, and the suggestion section is also a great place to post if you want to gauge the general sentiment of WF members towards a change you might like.


I do understand where you're coming from. I only said it that way because while almost no one will have an issue with you being a woman or australian, there are undoubtedly people who aren't completely accepting of (for example) trans people. And those people, if you choose to bring it up in a introduction or other thread where it isn't essential to the topic of discussion, may want to focus some type of humour or remark about it.

At the end of the day, those parts of your identity are completely irrelevant to 99.99% of discussions on this forum. As the forum grows, it becomes less intimate, more sanitised to focus on the ore topics. Sure, you are absolutely free to share anything you want about yourself, but understand that you then take responsibility for bringing attention to something about yourself that others may not like. Still, no one should be allowed to break the rules over it and attack or harass you, but they may comment about it, and not always in a way that you would feel comfortable with. And for what?

Like I said somewhere else, this isn't social media or a dating app or identity forums or express yourself forums. You can contribute in almost any convo on WF without needing to show your face, real name, age, gender, sexuality, political affiliation. If someone introduced themselves as a 16 year old, they may be viewed dismissively by people who otherwise might have taken them seriously. And yes, that's the loss of the person dismissing them if the 16 year old is actually providing valid and useful contributions, but if the 16 year old complains to me that "people aren't taking them seriously" I'm going to be baffled why they ever chose to bring it up. And I'm not going to go out of my way to make people take them seriously aside from rule violations.

Of course, if they made a thread about "how to practice at home with a small inconspicuous altar" and someone derails the thread with "you're 16 stop doing magick" then that's off topic and would be handled. But if they mentioned it in their introduction post and someone replies with "you're 16, I don't think you should be doing ceremonial magick" then that wouldn't be against the rules. Sure, myself and other people would disagree and say, actually, start young it's fine, but it's still something like a "slight" that wouldn't be against the rules.

All that to say, sure, if you really want to, tell people about yourself. And yes, if people are harassing or violent towards you, they will be warned. If they try to derail a different thread you made where it isn't mentioned, then yes, that's off topic and they will be warned. But in the introduction thread or wherever you mentioned it, it will be seen as you making that part of the topic of discussion unless it's one of those super rare instances where you had to specify that detail to ensure you got meaningful replies. But that's very rare.

Myself and plenty of other people have put in something like aa decade at WF without anyone ever knowing my age, sexual orientation, gender, nationality, ethnicity etc, while still contributing plenty to WF. Yeah, I have trusted people from WF with some of that info in far more intimate settings (PMs, off site comms etc) but since I never want it to be the subject of any public discussion, I refrain from bringing it up publicly.

Of course, I understand not everyone minds/wants to stay that private, hence it not being a rule or anything official. But if you do, expect some labels to be attached to you, potentially unwanted attention, or unsavoury remarks. You won't be protected from that unless they break the rules in some way. And "don't make anyone uncomfortable" will never be a rule here on WF.

Anyway, at this point I think I am contributing to the derailment of my own thread. I wanted to keep parts of this exchange here so that others who come to this thread to get an idea of what WF is about will understand these aspects of WF culture, rules, and moderation. However, since we are close to being on the same page now, and have a good idea of each other's viewpoints, let's move this convo into PMs or a suggestion thread.

Thank you for engaging.

Thanks

I want to note that I brought this all up because of the golden rule: I would want someone to if I were in your position.

Like, a woman emailed me to say she can't share my writing when it has cursewords in it. I think that's silly and oversensitive, but I'd still rather she told me, so I can make an informed decision about whether to care about the 'cost' of occasional swearing.

Re: the thread I described as a homophobic pile-on, I went to look for it and you'd actually already given a long response in-thread. I didn't see it previously because I'd muted the thread. You thought I was going too far, but also that the commenters were too, and you closed the thread. Closing the thread ended the harassment so it was just a longer-than-usual delay in moderation, and that happens sometimes, people have lives. It also meant we had basically already had this discussion, but I didn't realise we had, so I'm sorry about that. I wouldn't have brought it up again if I realised you'd already responded.

 

[Xenophon]

Thanks

I want to note that I brought this all up because of the golden rule: I would want someone to if I were in your position.

Like, a woman emailed me to say she can't share my writing when it has cursewords in it. I think that's silly and oversensitive, but I'd still rather she told me, so I can make an informed decision about whether to care about the 'cost' of occasional swearing.

Re: the thread I described as a homophobic pile-on, I went to look for it and you'd actually already given a long response in-thread. I didn't see it previously because I'd muted the thread. You thought I was going too far, but also that the commenters were too, and you closed the thread. Closing the thread ended the harassment so it was just a longer-than-usual delay in moderation, and that happens sometimes, people have lives. It also meant we had basically already had this discussion, but I didn't realise we had, so I'm sorry about that. I wouldn't have brought it up again if I realised you'd already responded.

I suppose this has bearing on how history gets written. I have read a lot of your posts (and contrary to my often acerbic tone, your stuff is pretty damned good & often first-rate.) BUT, I honestly do not recall reading cuss words in your posts. My immunity to such locutions must be pretty high. Makes me wonder what else I am missing when I read. Also it raises the issue of whether a "true" history of WF could be written. Everyone's attention is selective. Quote Wellington re: his silence in print about Waterloo---"One can no more write the history of a battle than of a dance ball."

 

[pixel_fortune]

I have read a lot of your posts (and contrary to my often acerbic tone, your stuff is pretty damned good & often first-rate.) BUT, I honestly do not recall reading cuss words in your posts.

Well, shucks, thanks

I don't swear much! (My mum swore a lot when I was a kid, so I had to go the other way.) But I use normal phrases that have swearing in them, like "it's a fucked-up situation" or whatever. That's a level that's completely acceptable in Australian workplaces and business meetings at all levels, so it doesn't register with me either. I had to do a ctrl+f on a few articles to find swearing, and was like "huh, i guess technically".

Post automatically merged: Thursday at 3:08 AM

I think not being able to write a "true history" can't be a barrier though, or you'd never get a history of anything. You know how they used to publish two books in one volume, with a "front cover" on both sides, and you'd flip the book over to read the other? You could have a forum history written by two people on either side of a schism

 

[SkullTraill]

Aight, on topic from now guys.

 

[Djnenas]

Omg, I remembered her name. It was 'Sorceress' I believe. Anyone remember that chaos? She sent a bunch of Staff members titty pics and then accused everyone of being sexual predators exploiting the power dynamic, and then sent more pictures, and started posting publicly about exposing us and reporting us to the police, and other troll posts. It was so hard to resist the urge to just ban her.


Yeah, there has to be a balance. Especially if you want your website to grow, and be a first-stop type deal for new occultists. Having a coven or a private group is one thing, but running the largest occult forum is another.


That's the thing, it simply was not the aim or vision of the founder. And that has to be respected by the staff. To this day, I see myself not as a founder or creator of WF, but simply a torch-bearer to carry along the initial vision - which I deeply respected and admired. Obviously, I have made some changes, just because it's not possible to grow when there are cancerous trolls infesting the site, however, I still want to remain as close as possible to the original vision of a open, welcoming, public forum for occult discussion, and as such, I restrain myself from performing actions that I normally would take, in the spirit of the original vision.


I know... yes, definitely. I am happy for anyone to come and share their side of the story, as this was certainly centred on my experience, even though I tried my best to remain unbiased, there was plenty I simply didn't get to see, so surely, others who were involved may have their own story to tell.


Yeah, I mean it wasn't so hard. I do have experience in this area, and it was time consuming, and some would say expensive but imho it's so worth everything I've put into it to see this this sacred bastion reborn and come alive again. There's just something about this site that I feel it deserves to exist.


Nice, I'm glad I could cover most of the key details. And yeah, I was so sad to see what happened to him as well.


Maybe, but if he was behind it, I guess it was more something to do with him using some NYC bowery connections who owed him, as I can't see him spending his last bit of money on revenge... but who knows, maybe it really cut deep for him, enough to make him want to do that. He also has basically disappeared from the internet at this point, so perhaps that's what he did and it backfired on him. Only thing I know for sure is he didn't do it himself, he simply could not. Maybe the curse just caused a likely event (someone hacking an unsecured site) to be inevitable.


I know right? Crazy guy. Definitely struggled with mental health, and honestly, when I spoke to him privately on Discord, seemed like a relatively kind individual, however had an insatiable compulsion to troll and play pretend.

Fun fact: I was totally surprised to find out that this guy legitimately was some sort of cult leader. Despite his mental illness and compulsive trolling/lying/delusions of grandeur, he actually managed to be charismatic enough to have a dedicated following of about 12 chicks and 5 guys, some of whom actually paid him monthly stipends, and some of those females were what I can only describe as deeply in love with him, even though he was married and had a wife etc.

One of the weirdest, jarring, depressing-but-impressive in a cognitively dissonant way type experiences I ever had was venturing into TAM's inner circle fantasy world.


Glad you enjoyed it man!


Thanks for the kind words, I'm glad you found it interesting


Tbf, if he knows about WF 4.0, he must understand that it wasn't me who hacked it, otherwise I would have used the hacked database to populate this site with the old posts, instead of tediously starting from scratch and having to copy valuable posts as archive threads from the WaybackMachine archive.

So I don't really know, when I asked to buy the site from him, he asked for $10k because he thought I hacked it and would have all the posts and would simply continue the site from where WF 2.0 left off, but after I started WF 4.0, I never contacted him again (didn't want to rub it in his face or make him feel bad that I now owned WF), so there is no way to know.

Well, let me tell you this (for whatever is worth)... THIS is the ONLY forum i've visited that instantly caugth my attention and heart, propelling me to create an account and stay active on. I even added a picture of my real face!!! I honestly feel this forum is everything and more it should be. Of course, there is always room for improvement. And as soon as i get those ideas, i promise to let you know. But from the bottom of my heart... THANK YOU. For all your hard work, for all the sleepless nights (cause i believe there must be lots of those) for all the sincere inputs... just so that we all can have a place to call "home" for all our Wizard needs... May WizardForum 4.0 keep thriving under your care and the work of all those that alongside YOU, make WF what it is today

 

[Xenophon]

Well said and I second that, despite my incessant whinging.

 

[SkullTraill]

Well, let me tell you this (for whatever is worth)... THIS is the ONLY forum i've visited that instantly caugth my attention and heart, propelling me to create an account and stay active on. I even added a picture of my real face!!! I honestly feel this forum is everything and more it should be. Of course, there is always room for improvement. And as soon as i get those ideas, i promise to let you know. But from the bottom of my heart... THANK YOU. For all your hard work, for all the sleepless nights (cause i believe there must be lots of those) for all the sincere inputs... just so that we all can have a place to call "home" for all our Wizard needs... May WizardForum 4.0 keep thriving under your care and the work of all those that alongside YOU, make WF what it is today

Thank you so much for the kind words! It's really inspiring and motivating. But I also wanna give a huge shout out to rule-abiding, active members who post quality contributions, especially the volunteer staff team! And yeah please do let me know if you have any ideas. Always evolving and improving! <3