There has been a large change in the last 2 years, the forum was behind a registration wall until April 2017, so it was MUCH smaller, less busy, and opening it up has led to different kinds of people being attracted to the forum, because they find it through search results.
There has also been an increase in people who want magick to solve a specific problem, and who would not persist with magick if that problem resolved itself by other means, whereas before it was more people who practiced magick “for the sake of it.”
So, there has been a cultural change for sure: I tend to mostly favour it because I strongly believe that magick should be taught as freely as languages or any other human skill, but the old forum was also a very special place, and we had some good days on there.
But all things change: many businesses refuse to run a community at all, because of the associated time and expense, and simply move their stuff to Facebook - BALG are doing something important by creating this resource, and anyone who wants to SEE more high-quality posts has no right to whinge unless they are also MAKING them.
Any forum is only ever as good as its members, so, share your work, be the change.
Thank you. I think the worst scenario would be a mod, or any large number of mods or vocal old-timers, who get to enforce THEIR specific brand of bullshit (because all magick is bullshit to someone out there) whilst shutting down anything outside of their experience.
I have been on forums and communities like that, and it fucking sucks.
A lot of forums and communities go that route though, and end up suffocating on their own smugness. On here, not only are ALL members able to flag anything they think is so far out that it’s a genuine problem, and receive a reply that explains what happened as a result of the flag (either from me, or the automated system) you can also always prevent a topic showing up again, by using this method.
And with my magician hat on, I don’t want to white-knight for anyone by name but there is at least one member on here who I have seen described as a larper a few times, who is anything but, at least in my experience and that of others who have interacted with some of their stuff.