Helene:

oh so yuki color-combination-suggestions for the helenitis ceremony! i mean puleeez! have you gots no sens-astheticas? what color-co-ordinates best with a full moon?  if i may, a small hinthint?  at least make it helen-appropriate and since i'm into rainbows big-time, (i mean who hates ranibows!? right?)  you can  easly put together a rainbow-colored cape (think' i'm honoring my chakras')...tall black hats and brooms optional?

Helene, I'm so happy you gave a responsive reply there to Jane. You know, I'm totally rooting for you to get this ping-pong, back-and-forth conversation thingie going for yourself. Everyone has aspects that are less developed. This is one area where you can learn from others here. And they, in turn, can learn a lot from you.

Bushels of Poziomkas,

M

I've got a suggestion that might be a heckuva lot more fun.  A sizeable minority of people on this thread have made it known - Jane and MichaelD among them - that they treasure Helene's contributions to the forum; and I believe they should get what they want: more Helene!

 

Yikes!  This reminds me of the movie I watched again last night, the last of the Starwars flicks where Anikan gets his Darth on.  He says at one point, “If you’re not with me you’re against me”.  You know, that whole thing….

 

I’m surprised to see myself listed as a Helen-lover.  “Treasuring Helen’s forum contributions” forsooth? I shudder openly….

 

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HeartMind.us

balder:

 

  Can everyone see the shadow-projection here, on all sides?  Can anyone here see the truths that are also being uttered by all sides?

 

 

Bruce, I think you can rest assured that pretty well everyone posting on this thread can see the dilemma, the shadows, the truths.  So in reality, this is a wonderful opportunity--- "when you come to a fork in the road:  Take it."

the truth is also for me, that I don't know how to resolve this situation, and at the same time, I recognize that it reflects real world situations, far larger than Helen and the IN forum.....it reflects every meeting just about, where people have varying agendas and varying levels of awareness, varying levels of investment.  It reflects all sorts of uncomfortable places where love, kindness, compassion, understanding don't seem to bring about any satisfactory outcome. Neither does bullying, shaming, chastizing. It reflects all the places where unrest rules, and decorum and dignity are abandoned, politeness is forsaken, boundaries are violated.  And it reflects all of those situations in a fairly benign, dry run, kind of a way, right here where all of us are here puzzling at the puzzle, one of those Jordian knots....and wondering how it gets untangled, or whether it can be.....and so far we are not getting anywhere.....oh a conundrum....so much for all our smugness at the boomeritis greens.

And the thing is, we could make some rules to bring a solution to the IN/helenspamming/helenbashing particular, but that does not bring us any closer to the real world where that same sort of situation is going on all the time.  I am reminded of an old thread on one of the old forums..."planting seeds on the rich rez"....where an aboriginal fellow asked for some sincere advice about how to work with in his own reservation where he was in a corrupt situation-----I remember thinking at the time, that the integral map did not provide him with any solutions, and neither from what I could tell, did this community.......  Here is Helene.....nobody is dying because of her, she is not a terrorist, a thread killer at best, (but so what, if any of us did not care enough to keep our threads alive)......we have had more discussion about how to get her to tone down her postings that we ever gave to the guy on the reservation where children are dying and politics are corrupt and pain is the call of the day.  Go figure!

helen is an integral koan.

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The fabric of my life is the cloth with which it is my responsibility to polish the lens of my own perception

Let's see.....

We have off-topic post....
We have writing that is damn near unintelligible,
Grammar that is from another planet or plane,
We have the individual stating they are heading off to "bug" others.....

The only rule is.....there is no rules.

Adios

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In a black and white picture....there's a lot of grey junk

Michael, Jane, my question about whether or not anyone could see the shadows and truths was a rhetorical one.  Maybe just a sloppy way of writing, as I tried to squeeze off a post at the last minute before heading out into traffic on the way home.  Because I recognize quite well who I'm talking with here, and I expect everyone can see quite clearly what's going on -- even if perhaps we each respond, at times, from various trigger points.

About the Rich Rez dilemma you brought up: I remember that quite well.  I recall being disappointed by Wilber's very vague answer -- something I would have been disappointed to hear, after driving so long to ask The Man for some guidance.  And as you say, novel ideas were not very forthcoming from the peanut gallery either.

It is a little sad, and perhaps telling as well, that a thread on "spamming" has attracted so much more attention than something serious like that.  But I've noticed that's often the case here: the serious threads get less action than the silly ones or the controversial ones. 

And there is something else to consider: in this thread, we are trying to come to terms with a situation, however insignificant, that is immediately facing this forum and its members, and in talking it over we are actually forum-making; whereas problems such as the Rich Rez are both removed enough and daunting enough that we may hesitate to get in deep and get our feet and hands wet with them.

Maybe if we can get past these small bumps as a community of passionate inquirers, we can actually come together over bigger issues as well.  But right now, it seems we're pretty much stumped by spam.  Forget endemic poverty and despair.

~*~

Turning back to this spamming/banning issue:

We both see individuals stepping forward to try to promote or preserve a kind of "order" and normalcy on the forum: those who want to encourage a particular member to spam a little less often and get her to adopt certain norms of behavior or meet certain expectations, and those who want to encourage those encouragers not to try to set limits or interfere with their own preferred "norms" of forum behavior (noninterference, non-conformity, respect for diversity and free-spiritedness, etc.)  I expect all of us can see both positions as relatively reasonable, and that we can also perceive the irony of pouncing on perceived "norm enforcers" to try to get them to conform to a different set of standards or expectations.

The question is, What do we do now?  It seems most of us have concluded that not much really can be done.  At least, many of us do not want to go so far as to call for actual administrative action against Helene.  (I've been mildly annoyed by the spam, but have never considered actually trying to prevent Helene from posting here, since I also appreciate some of her contributions and think she has a right to post in these forums.)  With you, I'm glad to be having this discussion; we're learning something, even if Helene personally isn't.  As a guy, I guess I like to work things towards more of a satisfying resolution than is likely here, but I can hang with the openness and ambiguity too. 

Best wishes,

B.

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May the boundless knowledge that time presents and space allows illuminate the native perspectives of your original face.

JaneMc:

Here is Helene.....nobody is dying because of her, she is not a terrorist, a thread killer at best, (but so what, if any of us did not care enough to keep our threads alive)......we have had more discussion about how to get her to tone down her postings that we ever gave to the guy on the reservation where children are dying and politics are corrupt and pain is the call of the day.  Go figure!

Jane, I think that because Helen's postings are a forum-specific thing -- although indeed, as you shared in your previous reflection, there are significant "real-world" or non-cyberhelenial extrapolations worth examining as we observe our interactions in this thread -- folks may feel that helenspam is more potentially "solvable" as an issue on the IN forum in comparison to the horrible problems faced by that aboriginal fellow. Thus, thinking some kind of feasible resolution is in reach, we spend more time gabbing about it....

(And I have to admit that I have currently "given up" trying to do something about the world's deeper wounds--i.e. terrorism, horrific poverty, genocidal hatred, etc., through discussion, online or otherwise. I can lift the pain up in wordless prayer, love and serve the people in my day-to-day life, keep myself open to learning and discovering, tend to the suffering of others in the little ways that I can, but discussion feels futile. At the moment, at least. Even here in this post I do not know if I am making much sense ...)

Peace,

Mary

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Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.

~Rumi

Mary and Bruce,

I am pretty sure we are all on the same page on this.I understand the issues of forum community building.  I am not intending to divert the conversation with my thoughts on 'noncyberhelenial' extrapolations(but I did have to write that extraordinary new word down, Mary!  )...it does however seem that Helenspam is a practice of some sort.  It is what is on this forum's path, all of it, not only the Helenspam, but all of us as humans, with our triggers and shadows, and with our desires for fixing problems, for not living with ambiguity....It would be interesting what Thomas Moore would have to say about his from his Care of the Soul book.....he might suggest that we take some delight in the murk and mess....and stretch ourselves to live with the ambiguity as you suggest Bruce. 

It is a fine line perhaps between living with ambiguity and living in chaos and mayhem. And also where does polite tolerance of, or open acceptance of ambiguity deteriorate into an unworkable, irritating heap. 

Arthur, you have taken some liberties when describing how I think about Helen's contributions-- I hope you know that. 

I am again reminded of one of my favourite passages from Marie Rainer Rilke:   'Try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books written in a foreign language.  Do not now look for the answers.   They cannot now be given to you because you could not live them.  It is a question of experiencing everything.  At present you need to live the question.  Perhaps you will gradually, without even noticing it, find yourself experiencing the answer, some distant day. '

Jane

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The fabric of my life is the cloth with which it is my responsibility to polish the lens of my own perception

Just as an exercise in being integral, I decided to try and express my views on spamming from multiple levels. Here's what I came up with. Maybe it's important to add that I never really felt triggered by spamming.

Red: Huh! Spammers are pathetic assholes in need of attention, and I don't need any of their shit. When the revolution comes, they're the first to go against the wall.

Blue: I'm part of a community which has rules. These rules are there for a reason, so it's important for me and other people to follow these rules, and to behave. The alternative is to degrade into a mess, so I expect the proper authorities to act against violations of the rules.

Orange: Upon first reading the Road Rules, I decided to join ISC, and upgraded to Sponsor Membership a little later. (I subscribed to IN long before that, but never even looked at the IN forums, primarily because I didn't even notice them, to be honest.) So I decided to pay $240 a year, a decision that was partially based on being enthousiastic about the Road Rules, which among other things state that I shouldn't have to worry about spammers, at least that was my interpretation of Rule 6, which I think is reasonable. So besides being a member, I'm also a customer, and I feel that the product I purchased is not completely as advertised. I expect the service provider to correct the situation within a reasonable time period. Also, the Road Rules state that by posting on any I-I forum, you implicitly agree to those rules, so anybody who does not agree with the idea of people being removed from the forums are in self-contradiction.

Green: The I-I community has rights of it's own. The Road Rules are beautiful and important, but should not be enforced rigorously (individual members also have rights and duties). We all make mistakes sometimes, and an occasional off-topic post should be tolerated. There is plenty of room within the forum to present your creative output, and I think no one would object if somebody would start a Craziii Wisdom Bob thread in which you can ramble freely. People who spam consistently and/or willingly, however, really cause their own removal from the forums.

Yellow: Don't worry, I got my Red voice under control, and it will not prevail. I don't even mean it. The Blue, Orange and Green voices all contain some truth for me, and together form my current stance on the matter. I don't see them as contradicting each other. The I-I community is a social holon, and has the right (and even the duty!) to defend itself when necessary in order to maintain its integrity.

I'd love to see people who think spamming should be tolerated to do the same exercise, simply because I'm curious to what that looks like, since I don't really get it, and I like to learn. (So I'm not accusing anybody of having shadow issues just for disagreeing with me.)

Maybe I do have shadow issues on this, but by simply yelling that out to me you are not going to convince me of your point of view. Please pretend you'r balder, and use arguments, okay?

Peter

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"All nations should be like Amsterdam" -- Ken Wilber

listening to the Blue Jay's Sermon (for real) ...

 and the answers my frieds are written  on the subway walls...

angry graffity fences heave heavy in noon's  rain

When working with groups, there are hard choices.  Can the ends really justify the means?  What IS the greater good and is it relevant???  And so on.

 

I recall an interesting dialogue that several of us were sharing on the Forum and the exchange was obviously very creatively charged, even providing little satoris along for the way for several of us.  Every batch of theme-focused posts were punctuated by Helene posts, which were so off-topic and without exception self-referential in a manner that attempted to draw attention back to her own subjective experience and limited identifications.  The sense I had (in addition that she did not actually read the content of the posts to which she replied) was that she perceived that she was either there to try and teach a lesson from a condescending posture, and/or that she had absolutely no skills to engage in a real communication with the rest of us, who were so sincerely and excitedly trying to understand and learn from each other.  I found her posts there to be nothing less than abusive, and I eventually adopted the practice of scrolling past almost all her sometimes amusing and often sad snapshots of a very busy new age mind.

 

There is plenty of room for every perspective on the Forum and enough latitude for types of expression as to make an anarchist proud.  I think an ideal from several perspectives would be a self-governing dynamic, to the extent possible. 

 

But I’d like to throw out an idea for a potentially pragmatic way to upgrade quality on the Forum.

 

Please give me some feedback as whether anyone thinks this might work and what the inherent problems (both philosophical and mechanical) would be with the following:

 

1. on every post, there would be another link at the bottom next to the report abuse and quick reply links that would read something like “off topic”
2. in the event any participant of any particular thread felt that a post on that thread was so off-topic as to be destructive to the intent of the thread, they could express that view by clicking on the off-topic link
3. in the event enough participants on that thread clicked the off-topic link on that thread (either to be fixed at a certain number or a percentage of the participants on that thread), the post would get relocated to another viewable location for such posts within the Forum
4. in the event the poster of the relocated off-topic thread wanted to object that their post was not off-topic, there would be a mechanism for that poster to appeal to the administrator to reinstall their post to the original thread
5. the admin would then have to make a call on what to do, and their decision would be final

The idea here is to limit the admin’s need for time and involvement and leave room for reasonable arguments all around.  This would occur on a thread by tread basis and provide an individual way for the participants to have their own opinions yet form a collective for change within their thread community.  Then there would be the Forum admin reality check to avoid the madness of crowds.

 

I have no idea what technological havoc within the mechanics of the website would be created by the above, and my suggestion is predicated on the basis that this is not only doable but doable on a reasonable financial basis as well.

 

The very spirit of this Forum is collaborative, and not just chat room collaborative but pointing towards the serious (yet humorous) work of growth and evolution. 

 

Limiting Helene’s (or anyone to come’s) contribution on a particular thread as the result of a thread-collaborative effort doesn’t exile Helene to a world of non-growth.  It also doesn’t ban her or prevent her from another attempt at explaining her contribution to that thread with another post on that thread.  In the event the thread participants get a pileup of unremitting off-topic posts on their thread, they can report abuse, which case the admin would have to make their call.

 

Love to get input on my little brain dump, thanks.

 

yours in collaboration, Mike

p.s. Peter...loved your post...been digging your stuff.

p.p.s. figure/ground reversal: maybe we should stop spamming Helene's playground with all this serious and/or coherent and/or on-topic and/or properly placed shit we've been posting everywhere.  Goes against the whole zeitgeist thingie.

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I am seeking meaningful work.

bio: http://aqalicious.gaia.com/

I spend most of my "forum time" these days on The Integral Pod: http://pods.gaia.com/ii/

"You've never seen everything." - Bruce Cockburn

....A Chalice of IN  - Harmonic - Bliss....

hey! hard to tell adastra, which side of it are you on?...wana kisss-faciiii or something?

Shakti

I do like your ideas, Mike (let's have lunch), and like so many others, it would require effort and attention from the administration, which I'm skeptical can happen. Actual programming stuff, well, I'm more than skeptical about that.

If I recall correctly, there are only one or two people at most who would be the ones to work on that, and they are completely swamped with other work all the time. The vast majority of people who do the nuts-and-bolts work at I-I are very young-early 20's-and very underpaid. Doing this for the love of it, bless them.

This in and of itself is inspiring and beautiful to see. Those of us who went to the Boulder gathering last year really witnessed some fantastic kids doing amazing things, while several of them are living in that rambling, stunningly beautiful house that Ken and Treya built. I think living in Ken's house is partial payment for their work-I-I simply had no money to pay people. Honestly, that Ken put this together at all is a brilliant miracle.

There are, of course, drawbacks to this. There is a lack of "corporate culture" to fall back on. They are making this up as they go along. Even though they're doing this from such a lofty place, it's still the same way every other seat-of-the pants organization gets off the ground-with lots of bumpy starts. The lack of experience on the part of the staff also means they simply have to learn too much to be on top of everything. There are people there, I'm sure, who would never have the titles they have in a more mature organization. I think, and this is conjecture on my part-I have no special knowledge of this-that they are probably intimidated by the folks on here, who have so much experience and knowledge, and many of whom were here from the beginning, or from before they joined the organization. that would make it tricky indeed to come in and make some sort of unilateral decision. They'd prefer there were a strong consensus about what to do before acting, I'm guessing. This can appear to be a lack of concern on their part, though that isn't true.

This is not a fault, mind you, it's simply what is. They are flexible and innovative, but inexperienced and make mistakes. Things fall through the cracks. I believe this forum is one of those things. However, I'm not wringing my hands over it. It is what it is, and it's still a place I choose to spend a great deal of time, so they've done quite a bit that's right about it, which is good to remember and restate once in awhile.

Liz

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Upgrade to ISC!
http://integralinstitute.org/public/static/multispirit.aspx
http://pods.gaia.com/ii

duplicate post deleted

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Upgrade to ISC!
http://integralinstitute.org/public/static/multispirit.aspx
http://pods.gaia.com/ii

Mike, I like your ideas as well.  I would add one suggestion -- that if a thread starter clicks "off topic" on a post, that should carry more weight than if other posters on the thread do.  It may not be necessary to make any programming adjustments to reflect this, but I think it should be part of the decision-making process.

However, I also understand that -- as Liz suggests -- the I-I forum staff work under a number of restraints, and are generally over-worked and under-paid (that's the common belief, at least), so it may indeed be difficult to realize these things. 

But I think your ideas are very good and deserve consideration.

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May the boundless knowledge that time presents and space allows illuminate the native perspectives of your original face.