Okay this idea has been bouncing around for a really long time, so I figured we should have a discussion about it. The problem some of the members have is that the forum is so big, one cannot have a good, close, productive discussion.

Shawn tried to create a second forum where we could talk without having to deal with the massive size of this forum. However, that didnt work out because Cybert happened to be plaguing us at the time... and you all know how that ended -.-'

So anyways, what do you think - should there be a private area of the forum for certain members to discuss what they are normally unable to discuss or do you think this is wrong?

I'm really not sure how I feel about it myself but the problem isn't going away. We are constantly having to answer the same questions over and over. I don't want to even think about how many times we have had the truth debate. It just hard to make progress sometimes when you have to keep running in circles.

So what do you think? Are you for or against a private area for certain Brain Meta members?

I'd be for the idea. It would serve as a good place for my Eternity2 thread, and I know of many members who I'd like to have a private discussion with

Keep in secret that you have a secret to keep.

I support the idea of the hidden forum.

An experiment the lights of which humanity has never seen before is about to be born... The course of history is at stake here. Cultism and secret brotherhood will be strictly prohibited, though... The mind can only ponder in awe at the possibilities and potentialities that may result from this holy communion of the minds!

Novum Olimpus.
The Brain Meta Invisible.
The Devine Chamber.
Novum Delphi Oraculum.
The Lore of the Gods.
The people who know things which others never knew.
International Community of the Great Unknowns.

Of course the forum will be of like minded individuals who would not upset the balance of focus on a particular belief or subject. A secret club or cult perhaps...

Don't they already have this in place such as Yahoo groups? Private members, private conversations?
Of course it wouldn't be an open forum and the moderator would be totalitarian.

In my opinion those members staying with Brainmeta are thinkers (whether they have consistently good ideas or otherwise).

Thinkers are in primary, secondary or advanced learning stages (at least more than one stage is needed)(and each thinker is in different stages on different topics).

It would seem logical to have a number of such stages within each Major Board (where deemed applicable).

Since a major objective for Shawn is education and development of people, it would seem sensible to enable thinkers to read all stages and to write to those stages to which they can add useful comment consistently.

How one gains entry to a stage (for writing) is the difficult problem if aggravation and cliquiness is to be avoided.

I also would like to see a 'reference' list, by member, of their current stance (ie., beliefs) on major issues like the definitions and existences of truth, reality, god, free will (and similar).

A forum is a public place by definition, so "private forum" is a contradiction in terms. "Private discussion place" is a better description.

The nuclei should be formed. The rest will come by itself.

Private discussion place is a nice name. A restricted number of people should be allowed.

I suggest Tea Club name.

Make mine a medium dry vodka martini, shaken, not stirred.

Rick: What do you add, and to what amount, to make it medium dry. Instead of Vodka, is Gin okay?

BTW, this topic poses so many questions: Who is the gatekeeper of this private discussion group? Do we need to apply? Who get to set the topic? What is the goal?

Pre-chill a martini glass with four large ice cubes. Put 3/4 ounce (a pony) dry white vermouth and 3 ounces (two jiggers) of vodka into a shaker. Put the ice cubes into the shaker and shake 49 times and strain into the martini glass. Garnish with twist of lemon peel. This is the preferred recipe of James Bond. Some say the shaking "bruises" the vermouth, but Bond prefers it that way.

A gin martini is made the same way and can be served with a green olive stuffed with pimiento instead of the lemon peel twist.

Alcohol modifies consciousness, but it contracts it instead of expanding it. Choose wisely.

I think the goal is to have an echo chamber of harmonious resonances.

Shaank you, OSSIFER for shhhhtopping me. Am I as drunk as you look?

BTW, I didin know you had a twin. Here are my KEEEEES. Would one of you like to driiiiiiivee me to ...SH...ay! Would you haaapen to have my address on youuuuuuu?

I like the reference idea Ryhmer, although I'm not sure I'm clued up on every idea like existentialism and all that jazz, so I'd probably pick the wrong category

The Invisible Tea Club on Brain Meta

I suggest the list of the following people, those who will be added later on should be voted unanimously by those who are in the list, if a single person from the list will be against adding a new person to the list, then the candidate will be temporarily discarded; if other members continue to insist on new candidate at presence of objections on behalf of the others, then from the Level 1 (The Initial Chamber) of the Hidden Forum the Level 2 (The Chamber of Communion) should be generated where the List + 1 will have access:

Shawn, lucid_dream, trojan_libido, Lindsay, Rick, Lindsay, Rick, rhymer, code buttons, maximus242, Dan, Dianah, cerebral, Orbz, Flex, Hey Hey, Trip like I do, Culture, kortikal, Enki.

I am sorry if I forgot anybody else. I think this list is sufficient for the start. Any additions to the list gentlemen?

You see how it is easy to form a simple conspiracy.

And we will generate special keys to guard the Club from those curious who like to penetrate into protocols of the forum. I will cast a special spell and an army of Emerald dragons will monitor the mental realm.

Any other ideas?

The old brandy with ice is better gentlemen.

Thank you very much.

I sympathize with you. One idea is to have topic generation be moderator-approved, maybe not forum-wide, but on a few boards. In that case, whenever a new topic on said boards appear, we would know that it has moderator approval and therefore shouldn't be a rehash of previous discussions.


for certain members? Sounds exclusive. What criteria would you apply to select the lucky members? Who would have access to the private boards?


not everyone is a dogmatist. Many of my own beliefs are probabilistic, so I'm not sure how that would fit into the scheme you're proposing.


this is an interesting proposal. It could be done, but would it actually be used. I couldn't help noticing several prominent members are not on the list, which again brings up the question of how to select individuals who have access. You could have several private boards, each board being like a clique, but how many cliques would you have? It's possible.

I like the idea. Moderators could elect candidates, or individuals could apply. With a majority opinion, said individual could gain access into the private discussion.

That is why I noted "I am sorry if I forgot anybody else. I think this list is sufficient for the start. Any additions to the list gentlemen?" We can discuss enlargement of the list, no problem. Please indicate the prominent members I missed to add to the list. I am sorry in advance for missing them.

The hidden forum will be very useful one. If one is assigned to the hidden forum when one logs in, then he can see the Hidden Forum, the others who are not assigned when log-in do not see this particular forum. Simple and very useful, so most of us will use the Hidden Forum as conventional forum (e.g. named Tea Club). As a trial we can create one hidden forum, then we can expand if it be necessary. I suggested two level system, no cliques.

I think I have suggested very practical approach.

Please note on advance that Joesus does not want to participate our cult.
Booooooo secret club. Yahoova groups. Totalitarian moderators. Boooooo.
In short: Middle ages...

Evidently you don't follow through with your threats Enki, lots of talk but not much commitment.

I can see that even if you could create your private club you won't be isolating yourself to it.
You'll still want to play in the world you try to ignore.

I wish to blackball Enki and myself.

1. You do not like the idea of the club. It follows from your comments above. 2. So I have excluded you from the list. 3. Any objections?

Related with the threats: you already changed your avatar, your preaching mode undergo some variations, and your holy nimbus got replaced by common human temper. You see Joe things are changing. Even your mnemonic stile is changing. You are mutating. Have you noted that? No? Good.

Besides that please note that I do not play in the world, I just live here. How can I ignore the world where I do live? I still cut wood and carry water like all do that, still want to buy a dish washing machine. And I never will tell the thing you want me to tell. I do not trust you.

The gates are staying closed Joesus. But we do not like the constant knocking, be careful, there can be a dragon behind the door.

And I added you Joesus to the Ignore List, good bye.

>I wish to blackball Enki and myself.

We are in The Initial Chamber, the rules begin from us.

This is getting too emotional. If there is a Private Discussion Area I think everyone over 1000 posts should be allowed to participate along with certain members under 1000 posts.

Some of you guys are acting like children.

Rhymer you talked about different levels, what did you mean by this? My initial thought was to have an area where we could discuss things that are difficult to discuss in public.

The main problem I am seeing with this Private Discussion Area is that we could be excluding people, yet if we have too many people, then we defeat the purpose of the private discussion.

Sort of a difficult situation.

That was a very good point about avoiding cliques, seems we are already getting some attempts at forming cliques -.-.

Another option we could also try is starting another second forum again, since it would be small it would be relatively easy to have private discussions without interfering with BrainMeta.

Given the reponses, I'm doubtful it would work. It seems no matter what we discuss, the old God and Free Will topic rear their ugly heads. Plus I think people have enough of my responses to create and derive an automated T_L reply lol. My views change when I experience something new or am presented with new evidence. So far all evidence has seemed to confirm my own view without any real exception.

I've seen a similar idea implemented on a number of forums and here's what I wish to add:

While I agree that such a discussion place can often be necessary for the prominent members of the forum, it however creates a problem of limiting information to those either deemed "unworthy" or those who hadn't had the time to prove themselves as worthy enough to gain access. (and me being me I am strictly against limiting anyones access to information)

My suggestion is that you pose a limit on who can post in the secret forum, however you allow everyone to see the discussions going on within its walls. That way you could have a private discussion without being afraid of newbies interfering with its flow, while still allowing the said newbies to learn from the information that's being posted there.

As an added bonus, if someone wanted to apply they could easily see if they would fit in and whether they actually want to partake in the kind of discussions that you will partake in once the place is established.

is this such a good idea? Let's think it through. Would the second forum use the same software as this, and if not, then what software? What features in the new forum are desired? What topics? One feature I would like to see implemented is to be able to see links to related threads at the bottom of a given thread. In that way, similar threads will get clustered together and it will be easy to jump among similar threads. One other interesting idea is to see whether it's possible to have a self-organizing forum, whose organization (in terms of categories and boards) is dependent on the actual threads. I don't think I've ever seen this sort of thing, so it would probably have to be custom coded.

One of my pet peeves about forums is that they end up being just a big accumulation of threads with little organization, and commonly with old threads being forgotten, buried, or rehashed as new threads. There should be a better way to organize information on forums. This should be the key to focus on before implementing any new forum, since hastily creating a new forum with the same problems as before is not a solution, it's just propagating the error.

About the private boards, several people have pointed out that it's completely contrary to the public nature of forums, and maybe this is a good point. I mean, if you want private conversation, what's wrong with PM?

Better yet, build the worlds first self organizing neural network forum software. ;D

Maximus242,

1000 posts are not indicator, some people may post nonsense 1000 times.
I do really wonder why you dislike my Tea Club suggestion?
I suggested a scheme where origin of the cliques is impossible.

Let us form the Tea Club, see how it works and them proceed further.
There are topics people do not want discuss on public.
Most of us know where from the danger springs, so why should we
look for complex solutions rather than simple?
Enlarge the list I have suggested, let us discuss it and go on, it is quite simple.

So what is the problem?

cool idea but all modern forums use a relational database backend and it's not possible to implement a self-organizing neural network through a relational database. For finding related threads within a given thread, I was thinking of just querying the database when you view a thread to find related threads whose links would then be posted at the bottom of the thread you're viewing. I imagine there would be some performance decrement, but it might be useful.

Enki, since you're suggesting the idea of a Tea Club, what's wrong with using PM to talk privately with ppl in your Tea Club?

The inbox size on brain meta is very small.
The same thing should be written and forwarded to many people, it is very tiresome.
Forum regime is more convenient, otherwise we all would use e-mails for that purpose.

I gradually start to understand why you do not want to open the tea club. Very interesting I should say, very interesting.

Why?

It is not information, those are private discussions. You have internet can Google whatever you want, buy any book by Amazon.com etc.

There are things people do not want to discuss on public. What is the problem?
You posted 9 posts on the forum, there are so many topics in Brain Meta, who knows maybe the keys to the philosophic stone are scattered somewhere on the forum, you can search and find them. You are free to access any info here on Brain Meta. I do wonder, really, why you go against desire of humble people to talk about Cabbages and Kings in private?

true

I think if you spidered a forum, then used it as data for a NN, then had the NN organize topics based off of combinations of words, that would be a self organizing system. If google can index brainmeta, we should be able to index it as well, then organize catagories using a trained NN - its just recognizing patterns and combinations of words and then assembling them into different categories.

You never considered me really. (Call me master of the obvious) I figured that out when you posted on 3 separate threads that you had pressed the ignore button, recommending others do the same.

Yes they obviously had to. You couldn't persuade others to take your opinions seriously, so you would have to succumb to the obvious.
I'm the same lovable guy I've always been, you've just come to a compromise in accepting something you can call your own.

By not playing in it.

Damn, I hate when that happens..

As I said before, (the gates being closed) I knew you never considered my for the private club,
but so far you haven't really ignored me. You've only cried wolf.....

I do hope when the Tea Club will be opened Hey Hey will come back to the forum.

How can I ignore you Joesus, I know quite many not to ignore you. How can I ignore such an interesting username and the things standing behind it. Such a ''lovable guy'' with such a mnemonic art having power to change this word. But the matter is that the Joesus Group cjsc does not understand simple things.
I do not ignore you, I just close the doors. You see there is a great difference. Good bye Joesus. I am not going to read your posts anymore. The doors are closed.

I do not want to see you in the Tea Club and you quite well know why.

I know that you have your reasons, but I'm less than interested in what they are. God doesn't need another Enki, one is enough. Paranoia strikes deep.

So, when the Tea Club (or something like that) will be opened?

http://brainmeta.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=18275

Dear Lucid_dream,

Thank you very much, I am deeply moved indeed.
May the Force stay with you.

Bests,
Enki

You forgot to add Life Mirage to the list thingy.

Yes indeed I forgot Life Mirage, sorry. We should ask Lucid to add.

Maybe it is better to preserve Tea Club name without username behind? As it will attract too much attention to my decent personality.