Barbelith Underground > Policy & Help > PETITION TO CLOSE DOWN BARBELITH AND HAVE IT REMAIN AN ARCHIVE, A TESTAMENT, A MUSEUM

I've been thinking about this since the thread went up and I'll outline my considerations. The background for those considerations being that I moderated barbelith and was one of the few who asked Tom to remove me from the moderator lists and ensured that I was not on those lists before I locked my Tryphena suit out. This should give you the indication that I have always chosen my relationship with barbelith, often because I was annoyed but responsibility always came first and in a sense I feel like I'm in a good position to comment because of that.

Barbelith has no functionality and at this point that is not something to be frustrated about. The time has passed! It gives information out that we personally choose to keep public, no email addresses are apparent so any concern about trolling is internal to the space. In that sense this has become a different board and it's an interesting one- what do you do with the end of a barbelith's life span? We are free to say anything to each other, our failure lies in the fact that we are still acting by consensus along with the intention of the structure, treating this as a functional community, applying moderation requests when we are unclear as to whether they can be passed. Most people here who have been around for a long time have been unwilling to allow their relationships with the realities of the place develop and El Directo is an example of the way that we should respond. More than that though because when we get something wrong in a post we should relinquish moderation and correct it in thread. The fundamental truth is that if we see barbelith as a degrading space than we try to fix it but since it cannot be fixed we need to change our individual responses to it and let it be as it is. If you don't like it, particularly the loss of functionality and quality of discussion than you need to leave and lock yourself out because this is too frustrating for you. It is time to give up Tom Coates, I find it surprising that this thread in 2009 is still asking for his contribution, that you have faith that he will act. I don't.

Do I want to close barbelith? Of course I do when I think about what it was, the relationships I formed here, the amount it taught me when I was 20 years old but then I look at these threads- split into two even though they're on the same subject, rotted by people having discussions and the suggestion that you're going to go around every forum counting the votes from every thread you started and I just think it's funny. It's funny that you still want help from the administrator who won't update the moderation lists, it's funny that you think he will shut it down (does he have time to even do that?), it's funny that you still want consensus and democratic voting. After years of putting up with Tom and his lack of interest, having chosen to abandon my responsibilities to the functionality of barbelith I find you all very dreamy! You lovely, dreamy people and you want to close that idealism down?

I say NAY