[Official] Upcoming changes to the library. Discuss.

[Midnite_Angel_]

I am for the rules and I want to write posts but don't have anything to share really. I do practice astrology but mostly as a calendar and do some elections and horary. I mean I am not the one just to write for the sake of writing without having anything to share.

I had to google what is meant by elections and horary in astrology and it sounds super fascinating!! I do hope you post about it!

 

[zagan]

I am for the rules and I want to write posts but don't have anything to share really. I do practice astrology but mostly as a calendar and do some elections and horary. I mean I am not the one just to write for the sake of writing without having anything to share.

there's always plenty to write about related to good elections for talisman.

 

[Ang3l]

Easy fix:

Trollhammaren or Troll hamer which is ban hammer

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

 

[zyfrtheFirst]

A library this large and complete is something that even non-occultist would agree, should cost some money.
Forcing people to pay to use punishes the poor among us. I do like this method! I encourage everyone who can to donate some small amount becuase I hear people everywhere asking what books they should read to get into magic.

 

[GoclenianTotchka]

1 post in the occult sections in the last week?

How about changing item 4 to
"4. Have you been registered on WF for at least one month? If yes, you have access to the library, if no:"

Already mentioned reasons: to avoid "me too"/"I agree"/"Thank you" or worse (chatgpt-generated?) spam messages.

 

[madmhan]

there's always plenty to write about related to good elections for talisman.

Sure, but still need to have something in mind first.
I'm not that good with talismans and the crafting of them but if anyone need a good astrological time for infusing some planetary energies and I think I can determine those. I'll look up relevant forum for it

 

[SkullTraill]

there's always plenty to write about related to good elections for talisman.

Trollhammaren or Troll hamer which is ban hammer

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Sure, but still need to have something in mind first.
I'm not that good with talismans and the crafting of them but if anyone need a good astrological time for infusing some planetary energies and I think I can determine those. I'll look up relevant forum for it

Let’s not go off topic guys.

A library this large and complete is something that even non-occultist would agree, should cost some money.
Forcing people to pay to use punishes the poor among us. I do like this method! I encourage everyone who can to donate some small amount becuase I hear people everywhere asking what books they should read to get into magic.

Yeah, I’d never want to restrict things based on money because:

1. I believe you can greatly improve your circumstances with magic, so keeping knowledge from those who don’t have the means is in some sense restricting it from the people who need it the most.
2. The mindset required to run a community and the mindset required to run a business are completely different
3. Just goes against the principle of being as inclusive as possible. I’d be a hypocrite

There used to be some library content (exclusive new released PDFs) that used to be locked behind a paywall for the first few days/weeks when WF first started. But I have since removed that and kept all content free to all registered members for the above reasons.

How about changing item 4 to
"4. Have you been registered on WF for at least one month? If yes, you have access to the library, if no:"

Already mentioned reasons: to avoid "me too"/"I agree"/"Thank you" or worse (chatgpt-generated?) spam messages.

Hmm… at the moment I’m not in love with the idea of timegating because the goal is not for people to just be registered, it’s to encourage more discussion and contribution. This suggestion would just penalize people without actually achieving any of the goals I want to achieve. The only way it would work is if people having to wait one month would bore them enough that they actually start posting for fun. But I think a week should be enough for that. Can tweak later.

As for the spam concerns, I’ve already addressed those in this thread. I don’t think you guys understand how much actually goes on both under the hood at WF and also by the staff team to combat spam. If we had no staff team and I turned off all the automatic measures there would be 100s of spam posts per day on WF. It’s crazy to think I haven’t considered the increase in low quality posting before making this thread.

 

[Fr.TzQ]

It's really fair enough. I've spent thousands on books over the years, and continue to buy them, but it's still really easy to find a resource like the library here and become a lazy bugger! I was pretty active in some Yahoo groups back in the early 2000s, but haven't posted much since then other than on the occasional anonymous board. I'm happy to try to contribute more and hope this works out for you

 

[St. Stephen]

Can you build it into the website and have it automate the vetting process and unlock the library once minimum requirements are met? (If x amount of posts, then ___) or are the staff going to have to go through and look at each account's post history?

You could take it a step further and do it on a case by case basis. Is it a lot of work? Maybe, depending on how you build it out. You could do a library access request form and have it as a feature that only unlocks once the minimum post/time requirements are met. They can answer simple questions on the form like "Why are you requesting access?" "What books are you looking for specifically?" etc. Gives the staff an opportunity to personally vet users and see who's really here to learn something and who's just trying to rip .pdfs. New users who are really here to develop themselves and be a part of the community ideally should be joining for those reasons first and access to tangibles second, in my opinion.

I do sympathize with the new user who can't afford to buy the books they're looking for, hell there's no way I could have ever afforded ALL the books I've wanted to read, but giving them an to show the community they mean business I think is a step in the right direction.

 

[SkullTraill]

Can you build it into the website and have it automate the vetting process and unlock the library once minimum requirements are met?

Of course.

They can answer simple questions on the form like "Why are you requesting access?" "What books are you looking for specifically?" etc. Gives the staff an opportunity to personally vet users and see who's really here to learn something and who's just trying to rip .pdfs.

In the future if the requirements are made stricter, I may do this to allow people to request access without meeting the requirements on a case by case basis.

For the current set of requirements there is no need for anything manual. I see no reason for staff to be inundated for checks that are easily automatable.

 

[Van Horne]

I only found this forum because I was looking for a certain book. With the restriction I had not joined and without the library I had lost interest very quickly. I do not like very specific rules because usually they don't really solve the issues, in my experience.
Ehhm... one very stupid question: what is meant by "the occult section"? The General Occult Discussion Board?

 

[SkullTraill]

With the restriction I had not joined and without the library I had lost interest very quickly.

That's fine... I assume that would be the case for most people who are only coming to WF to take a book and leave.

in my experience.

What experience would that be?

Ehhm... one very stupid question: what is meant by "the occult section"? The General Occult Discussion Board?

All the sections under the title "The Order" on the home page.

 

[Van Horne]

That's fine... I assume that would be the case for most people who are only coming to WF to take a book and leave.


What experience would that be?


All the sections under the title "The Order" on the home page.

You mentioned the idea that under the new rules people will discuss more with each other and don't just point to a certain book. A very noble cause indeed!
Unfortunately, in my personal experience with social media people act how they like or they don't act at all in the medium. In a nutshell, if they want to discuss they will already. New rules will not change basic behavior.
But in point I agree with you to the fullest. A forum like this needs monitoring, a certain codex of conduct. Actually, a reason why I stayed here!

 

[HermesX3]

If I may, I do have a suggestion. We all have high quality books that we're kinda reluctant to share to random people. Maybe there should be a section for high quality, not openly circulated books for a fee.
In the end it's your forum reborn for the nth time from its ashes.


One thing closed libraries do wrong is offer people to give a certain book if asked for, but they don't provide a catalog! To mitigate the fallout do a directory listing of your library and let people ask for one a week or something.

 

[weirdostereo]

Sorry for the late reply, but I actually think this is a great idea - myself being relatively new to WF and using the library actively. While this will definitely limit some activity, I guess we can all agree that it would be the unwanted kind anyways. Also, this ensures WF has more valuable members which I appreciate as someone who is trying to access "no-bullcrap" knowledge from smart people. Looking forward to being a contributing member but that will have to wait untill I'm done re-learning the basics, so I can ensure that anything I put out there is valuable ahah

 

[rmxmolina]

but you see newcomers are usually people who are new to this stuff, so they'd wanna check out the library first so that they can learn about the stuff they're practicing but they'd need to post 10 things first so they'd post low quality replies bcuz they dont know anything, so you're blacklisting people who wanna learn and people who have a lot of hidden potential they haven't unlocked yet

This!!! Im definitely new to the esoteric world and have been trying to gain as much knowledge as possible because I dont have a person to guide me or teach me anything. That alone has made me feel imposter syndrome. Mind you, I've been suppressing this side of myself for my whole life because I was led in many other directions or simply taught certain things were just evil. This site has taught me so many things and given me the confidence to pursue my magic. I dont participate as much in forums since being that I'm new to this, I dont want to embarrass myself or be put down for simply not knowing as much as someone who's been in the spiritual world for almost their whole lives.

 

[Asteriskos]

I dont want to embarrass myself or be put down for simply not knowing as much as someone who's been in the spiritual world for almost their whole lives.

No one worth their salt here would do that to someone that's doing their best and wants to learn!

 

[SkullTraill]

This!!! Im definitely new to the esoteric world and have been trying to gain as much knowledge as possible because I dont have a person to guide me or teach me anything. That alone has made me feel imposter syndrome. Mind you, I've been suppressing this side of myself for my whole life because I was led in many other directions or simply taught certain things were just evil. This site has taught me so many things and given me the confidence to pursue my magic. I dont participate as much in forums since being that I'm new to this, I dont want to embarrass myself or be put down for simply not knowing as much as someone who's been in the spiritual world for almost their whole lives.

These requirements do not expect you to be knowledgeable about the occult, all you have to do if you’re a newbie/don’t have knowledge to share yet is:

1. Spend a few minutes to consider what you’d like to learn/know more about
2. Use the search function to see if someone has already asked it
3. If not, make a thread asking about it (in the correct section), or reply in an existing thread with a relevant question
4. Wait one week OR repeat above steps 9 more times
5. Visit library for more info/to download books to supplement your learning

There is plenty to gain by reading and engaging with the forum even for newbies. It will also help more seasoned members to know what to post about to help newbies.

 

[the_snake_charmer]

I'm going to outline an upcoming change to the library. Sometime in the near future, I will be changing the access requirements for the library section. Feel free to discuss and share your thoughts in this thread.

What will change​

There will be minimum post/account age requirements to post in the library, and rather than give a text wall to explain it, here's how the system will check to see if you can access the library:

1. Are you a Benefactor? If yes, you have access to the library, if no:
2. Have you ever posted a book share? If yes, you have access to the library, if no:
3. Have you made 10 posts in the occult sections? If yes, you have access to the library, if no:
4. Have you been registered on WF for at least one week? If yes:
   1. Have you made at least 1 post in the occult sections in the last week? If yes, you have access to the library, if no:
5. If you have none of the above, you do not have access to the library.

So essentially, you need to either have posted at least one book share, made 10 posts in total in the occult sections, been registered for at least one week and made 1 post in an occult section, or be Benefactor in order to access the library.

The individual details may be fine tuned over time.

Why is this happening?​

Two main reasons, firstly, I simply don't want WF to be a file share focused site. It's nice to have the library as a supplement to out discussions, and as a service to help spread as much awareness and knowledge of the occult as possible, but the primary goal is to do that via discussions as a forum. I can see that there are thousands of people per year just joining WF to download books and contribute nothing. While I have no hard feelings about that, the concern is that WF will end up primarily being used as a file sharing site, which it is not, and was never intended to be.

Secondly, I want to encourage more active discussion about occult topics rather than just pointing people towards books. Yes, I understand the concern that this will lead to a spike in low quality posting from people who just join the site and want to spam out the post requirement ASAP to get to the book they want to download, but I strongly believe we can counteract this with measures such as requiring a minimum character count in posts made in the occult section (which is something I've been thinking about doing for a while anyway). Not to mention, we have an extremely competent staff roster, who if they express such a desire, can be expanded with new staff members. I also personally believe that a lot of the people coming on WF looking for specific books are people who are already dabbling in or experienced in the occult, and who aren't contributing because they simply don't have to. I've been made aware by some that we could potentially lose out on some members who would contribute much later on of their own free will after downloading a book from WF, but there isn't strong evidence of that in the metrics (that it would outweigh the amount of people who are introverted or lazy who would contribute if they had to).

Also, if it turns out that this ends up causing more trouble than it's worth, it would be easy to undo and go back to business as usual.

Why allow Benefactors to access the library? Is this a cash grab?​

I assure you no one is going to be paying $4 to download one PDF. This is simply because it would be unethical to bar parts of the site from people who are actually paying to keep WF running.

Is this the makings of a plan to remove the library from WF?​

No, there is no such plan. I love having the library on WF - but to help our members educate themselves on the occult so that we can have more in-depth and meaningful discussions about occult topics to further WF's ultimate goal of being a community that focuses on bringing more people into the occult, and bringing more occult knowledge to as many people as possible. WF is not a library, WF is a forum with a library.

Seems good.