Liz and Arthur,

Like mascha, I said i was done (with this thread, not the forum)

I just wanted to say i share your frustrations. I don't know anything about deleted posts, but there has ben no sign of I-I being around to delete anything when it was needed. It would seem odd for them to start now, with no explanation.

I don't believe they are intimidated for a minute, I believe, however they are not very skilled in dealing with conflict and are stumped. Also the last time they tried to act they got it so unbelievably wrong.

I do think it's clear though that they won't repond till they are ready, they did say on the community forum, (I think)that they were ware of the issue. AWARE!!!!!!! Dear God in heaven , what does it take to get a reaction?

I do feel now that this forum and its views are being ignored and disrepected by the organisation that has happily been taking our subscriptions for a long time and has been spending energy inventing tiered systems that stop us communicating across the different bits withouit jumping through hoops.

That's not what I expected during all the time we waited with such hope for the other forums to appear. But, as Mark said, I owe so much to all of you here, I didn't join here for I-I, I joined for me. Now here there is a WE that I feel pert of, whether it's having good or bad times. I'm sorry people choose to leave, but I won't be joining them at this time.

Liz

 

 

 

Masha seeks to know "what have I done to Helen?"  - shes'  a wird one alright? 'oh  who cares right?

"She WON" - says Vortex  -

if i may? you sure the 'now' spelling is right? - feelin' bit dislexic this am

Theoretically I could stay on the I-I forums and keep hanging out and posting with my friends here, while good people leave each time there's an unskillfully handled crises. In practice it is difficult for me under these circumstances.

I'm in the strange and very uncomfortable position of being a moderator/facilitator on a forum run by an organization whose staff – one of whom initiated contact with me long ago and asked me to be moderator, another of which kept ignoring my resignations and then thanked me on the forum for staying on in that role – won't talk with me at all. They used to and then just...walked...away...no explanation. How can I not take that personally? Especially now that it's clear that a long-standing issue that I've been trying to deal with literally for years is being dealt with by a staff member, and I would have heard nothing of this if Helen hadn't kindly posted to let us know about it – I mean, come on. Meanwhile lively conversations have been taking place regarding on the forum regarding the general kinds of issues that were highlighted by the particular flamboyant case of Helen's crazy spamin' ways, and the response from I-I is, “We're aware of the situation.” We'll decide what to do behind closed doors and let you know. Maybe. If we feel like it.

Another point: a while back I asked questions through the secret (shhh!) moderator forum section as well as PMs about a post that was deleted on the second version of the IN forum. After much effort trying to get admin attention I was told that a staff member would look into it and get back to me – that was months ago, and not only did I not hear back on that, but that was actually the last communication I've ever received from staff on forum issues. (Subsequently I felt it was my duty to let the forum community know that a post had been deleted by parties or technical glitches unknown, with no way for anyone – including the person whose thread was deleted – to know this had even happened, and no effective way to communicate with I-I staff about it. The response? Nothing. Not one person here cared enough to say anything. Now a second post has disappeared and so far nobody gives a shit about that either. I have to admit I'm nonplused by that indifference.)

This kind of stuff – secrecy, decisions being made and taken behind closed doors, with no communication with me or other moderators (despite the fact that I'm supposedly a player here) makes me feel extremely uncomfortable. I-I now seems to me to be extremely closed to outside information. That's groupthink, cultlike behaviour (cultLIKE, OK? I'm not saying they are a cult in the usual sense, though I'm prepared to revise that assessment if Ken makes everybody drink strychnine-laced Red Bull one of these days).

I want to underline a few things here:

• I did not ask to be moderator. They asked me.
  
  
• For reasons having to do with forum politics, I decided at a certain point that it was best for the community if I resigned, and tried repeatedly to do so. This was ignored.
  
  
• I-I staff set up mechanisms for communication with the moderators/facilitators they had appointed, and then stopped using them – stopped communicating at all – with no explanation ever given (put yourself in my position and ask how this would feel).
  
  
• A persistent crises of increasing magnitude unfolded on the forum over a long period of time, with more and more posting devoted to it in an increasing number of threads, and I-I staff have not engaged with the forum at all. Nor have they engaged with the two remaining moderators who finally stepped in and dealt decisively with it to almost universal acclaim from the forum community.

I'm very much into open communication, and tend strongly in that direction in my own life. I have repeatedly directly solicited honest feedback, especially of the critical variety. I feel the kind of feedback I have received as a result, and also from being willing to openly, publicly make mistakes, admit it, and move on, has aided my personal growth enormously. It now seems to me that I-I, in practice, is actively hostile to that approach. I also get the feeling that people decided at some point that I was untrustworthy or dangerous in some way, and decided to cowardly turn their backs on me and freeze me out. Paranoid? Maybe – although there is at least one case fitting nicely into that paradigm which was witnessed by my fellow moderators and to some extent by fellow forum members at the time. Maybe it's paranoid, but how would I know? Nobody is talking to me.

I love Ken and his work, and strongly believe in the mission of I-I. I have very warm feelings toward almost all of the I-I staff with whom I've been in contact. I believe everyone who works for this organization cares deeply and works hard. I also believe there are systemic pathologies here that are fucking things up, as described above and in other posts.

Ah, but why should that affect just hanging out on the forum with my friends, engaging in lively discussions and communal sharing? Well, at the moment it all feels like fruit from a poisoned tree. I don't want to sit around waiting for the next belated, hamfisted, adhoc solution to a forum crises. I don't want to be in this weird twilight zone status as a moderator actively and deliberately ignored by the organization I supposedly do volunteer moderator/facilitator work for.

I'm going to be testing the Zaadz waters.  If you miss me terribly, feel free to drop by.  Possibly we can find or make a pod we'd all like to hang out in together.  Type "integral" in a pod search and a lot of stuff will come up.  Of particular note:

http://pods.zaadz.com/ii/

love to all,
arthur

---

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

I just put in an application for zaadz.  Odd that it may take a few days -even a week!  It's almost as if they don't want to let just anybody in.  When I get approved,  does that make me elite? 

Zaadz looks real promising - a lot of features I like there.  I won't abandon this forum though.  I urge you and others not to Arthur - whatever problems there are,  well,  samsara is what it is.  There is bullshit everywhere.  Sometimes you gotta take a break,  have a little retreat,  a "magickal retirement."  But when you are rested and refreshed,  the battlefield awaits you - there is glory and joy and suffering and sorrow to be had by all. 

A growing forum
in stumbling adolescence
passing mile stones (ouch!)

okay,  that was clumsy and amature,  but I wanted to try anyway .

Later,
Mike

P.S.  My zaadz name is Enkidu

Repeat of my message on the Integral Relationships thread:

Indeed, Arthur. When we spoke this morning, I wasn't sure what to say about this. How ironic that this"integral relationship" we have with the forum is so dysfunctional because we simply can't get any information at all from the staff. For me, it poisons the we-space and I just can't be a part of this cycle of neglect anymore.

It feels like an enormous betrayal to everyone who's supported us through all of this to simply throw up my hands and say "I can't do this anymore," but what else can I do? I feel like I'm enabling a very dysfunctional organization by cleaning up their messes for them. It's also disrepectful to Helen to go through any more rounds of arguing about her in the third person. I won't be backed into another several weeks of arguing over her or the next person. It's humiliating for everyone involved, and totally unnecessary.

To everyone who felt we were unfair to her, I would say: why didn't this supposedly integral organization spare her. and us, the trauma of what she's gone through by making a decision about her months or even years ago? What they have done, by sin of omission, is inhumane to all of us.

A few minutes. This is all it could have possibly taken for someone, anyone, to simply give a thumbs up or down, to say thank you, or to tell us to shut up, whatever. Any kind of direction at all. Their silence tells us the forum is inconsequential to I-I.

I'm so sorry about people getting hurt, about anyone missing me, and especially about abandoning Helen and her need for structure, but I just have to withdraw. I'm not sure what I will do in the future. But for the moment, I have to step back.

My deepest and most humble thanks to all of you for everything you've given me, especially when you've been willing to talk to me about difficult things. I've been consistently amazed at the depth and openness of the people here who disagree with me!

I am also tamgoddess at zaadz.

Liz

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

Tam/Liz, Arthur, Vortex, Girard, Gene (coppersun) and all -

please don't go through with this.

Please don't stiffen around your current positions and make them permanent.

Please don't punish your friends by withholding your energy.

Please don't do to us, who totally cherish your input, what someone else has done to you.

Play with us here, okay?

M

I may not be gone forever. Probably not. But I am taking a break. It's actually a sign that I feel able to take a break that I think there are plenty of people to keep this place going well without me. That hasn't always been the case, but there a a lot of new really smart people posting here, and it feels like I'm leaving it in capable hands.

Let's not have too much hand-wringing over this. There may be a few people who will really feel relief that we're going away for awhile and will step forward with new ideas and fresh perspectives. Change is constant. Embracing it is easier than fighting it.

Not to minimize my connection to this place and the people in it. I probably won't be able to stay away forever.

Love you all.

Liz

---

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

Okay, I had posted a message here that was posted on another thread already (integral relationships), but decided to try to avoid overkill ... by deleting it.

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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

My friends,

If we intentionally took up ANY issue in the world and worked on it sufficiently anywhere, I suggest we would likely end up in a place similar to our frustrating one with I-I and trolling..........so I implore for broader perspective, deeper reflection and the sacred silence to be here Now...........

Why so much focus and energy being expended on this issue, as opposed to all the others available to us to work on?

I recall from yesterday the anecdote about deceased CBS reporter Ed Bradley, who invited all the warring and affected parties to his apartment during a bitterly acrimonious and divisive time surrounding the Smoking-Whistle-Blower story on 60 Minutes..........

He said, "No one is leaving here until we return to civility and decide to move forward together...."  They did........and all are now very glad they did..........and the world is a better place............

R.K.

 

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"No problem can be solved at the level of consciousness that created it in the first place!"

887 Posts on Forum #1; 222 Posts on Forum #2......Member Since 8/8/2003

adastra:

  Now a second post has disappeared and so far nobody gives a shit about that either.

I got a response from Jason Lange on this second missing post. (I e-mailed "help" about this mystery). Turns out that the poster had simply deleted his own post.

I was unaware that people could delete their own posts here, because there's been difficulty with that in the past. But I just tried it on a test post of mine, and it worked. (This might be a more complex process if the post has replies to it).

I made a mountain out of a molehill. Sorry, folks! (See the Spamming and 2nd-Tier Communities thread for a little more info on this astonishing mystery ... )

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

ugh. only made it to page 27 of this business... made notes as I skimmed... haven't involved myself here for awhile..., yet what prevails is that

I LOVE HELENE

And, I'm pretty sure I'm not being all love-blind, which is a fault of mine which She and Tim unknowingly helped me to realize about myself... Helene with my younger lovey-dovey a while back and Tim with my nephew... anyway, that non-surety is as secure as the non-surety from which anyone who supports or casts off our Helene in this matter is coming from. First-tier of me I suppose, well, fine.

To quote some fellow human here, "Helene Rocks". To slap everyone who doesn't get her remarks and therefore resorts to judemental qualifications of where she may or may not be coming from, I implore: please try harder to understand what you condemn.

Oh, and to be all first-person-addressing, as was done earlier:

Hi "Auntie" Helene! How have you been? Hope this stuff hasn't troubled you too much... Sorry i haven't been around at all, but I've been working with my hands this summer, building stuff in my diabolical little architectural laboratory this summer: muahahahah. Been fun! I now have a miniature barn back there! God knows what I'll ever put or do in there- workshop maybe- I just really loved the process of building it!
Anyway, Hope you are well.

Love,
Jeff

Thank you for your honest feedback everyone.  I just want to respond and say that for anyone that has had a hard time communicating with I-I staff in the past, I'm sincerely sorry.  It pains me to read that our organization is non-responsive, as in June of this year I worked very hard to create our Member Services center for the explicit reason of giving members a way to contact us.  Since that time we've had our Member Services line manned nearly 8 hours a day, 5 days a week taking calls trying to offer as much support as we could to members on a variety of issues.

Simultaneously, we've also been monitoring our Help Desk system for trouble tickets, the suggestion box/feedback link for user feedback, and created the memberservices@integralinstitute.org email address that we respond to daily.

Those four methods of communication have formed the backbone of our Technical and Customer Service support structure, and we've done our best to encourage Members to contact us via those means whenever possible.  We try to browse the forums reading posts whenever we can, but this usually doesn't happen until we've finished assisting those that have contacted us directly with their issues.

I strongly encourage you to directly contact us ANYTIME you have an issue, whether its a technical problem, billing inquiry, a question about the institute, concerns about another member, or even if you just want to talk!

So if you have an urgent problem or issue of anykind, please contact us directly:
1) You can call us weekdays anytime from 10am-6pm mountain time, except for Friday's when we close early at 3. (866) 603-9456
2) You can email us at memberservices@integralinstitute.org
3) You can open a trouble ticket: http://integralinstitute.crmdesk.com/ask.aspx
4) You can write us feedback & suggestions: http://multiplex.integralinstitute.org/public/about/FeedBack.aspx

I created this department to serve you, the community, and hope to assist you in anyway I can.

Give me a call sometime!

Jason Lange
Member Services
memberservices@integralinstitute.org
(866)603-9456

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I'm thinkin' of something orange. Something orange. Give up? It's an orange.

Adastra and Tamgoddess,

Much has been written here that I'm coming too late to the conversation to comment on, but since I've survived 33 pages of posts to make it to this point I do have the energy to thank you both (esp. in regard to your actions as volunteer moderators) for doing the sometimes painful work of keeping the spam in the forums to a minimum.

Repetitive spam that disrupts the forum despite numerous warnings is a clear violation of the forum rules, as you know, so thanks for doing what you've been able to do in a frustrating situation of nonresponsiveness from staff. It seems not too long ago (was it a year already?) the staff was much more responsive in handling one disruptive member of the old IN forum, and apparently there have been other cases that were handled with greater ease. I'm not sure what went wrong in this case (which I haven't followed closely, though the member in question is familiar to me from her days spamming the old IN forum) but I regret it. I hope and trust the nonresponsiveness is a short-term issue that will be corrected.

On a more positive note, I will add that reading through 33 pages of posts was NOT a total waste of my time and I got many laughs and insights along the way. Ironically enough many of my loudests laughs came from breezing pasts Helene's posts which can be quite endearing for their childlike beauty and originality ... if one's exposure to them is infrequent, voluntary, and in short bursts.

I've always enjoyed your contributions to the IN discussions and your work in building community, and hope those interactions continue be it on IN, Zaadz, or wherever.

All the best,

Joe

 

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Home Page - joe-perez.com
My Blog - until.joe-perez.com

jperez:

Adastra and Tamgoddess,

Much has been written here that I'm coming too late to the conversation to comment on, but since I've survived 33 pages of posts to make it to this point I do have the energy to thank you both (esp. in regard to your actions as volunteer moderators) for doing the sometimes painful work of keeping the spam in the forums to a minimum.

Repetitive spam that disrupts the forum despite numerous warnings is a clear violation of the forum rules, as you know, so thanks for doing what you've been able to do in a frustrating situation of nonresponsiveness from staff. It seems not too long ago (was it a year already?) the staff was much more responsive in handling one disruptive member of the old IN forum, and apparently there have been other cases that were handled with greater ease. I'm not sure what went wrong in this case (which I haven't followed closely, though the member in question is familiar to me from her days spamming the old IN forum) but I regret it. I hope and trust the nonresponsiveness is a short-term issue that will be corrected.

On a more positive note, I will add that reading through 33 pages of posts was NOT a total waste of my time and I got many laughs and insights along the way. Ironically enough many of my loudests laughs came from breezing pasts Helene's posts which can be quite endearing for their childlike beauty and originality ... if one's exposure to them is infrequent, voluntary, and in short bursts.

I've always enjoyed your contributions to the IN discussions and your work in building community, and hope those interactions continue be it on IN, Zaadz, or wherever.

All the best,

Joe

 

Thanks, Joe. 

Please consider coming over to play on IIzaadz, and Liz and I hope that we will be able to meet up with you in January when we stop in Seattle on our way down the fantabulous West Coast.

arthur

p.s. I happened to come across - no pun intended - an essay you wrote on porn for nerve magazine.  Good stuff.  Um, the essay I mean. 

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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

Hey jlange,

You mean we could have avoided the past 33 pages of posts and solved this problem if someone had just picked up the phone or used one of the other methods you provided? 

Consider this a call........I look forward to seeing your and I-N's solution posted here in this thread..........and it is a test to see if we have to post another 33 pages to get another response........

R.K.

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"No problem can be solved at the level of consciousness that created it in the first place!"

887 Posts on Forum #1; 222 Posts on Forum #2......Member Since 8/8/2003