I am a man of constant brewing,
Seven cups of tea per day,
I bid farewell to bitter coffee,
The drink my Dad kept buyin' me,
(The drink his Dad kept buyin' himmmm)
Nah, but seriously, I think we need to hold a quorum on what ITD is about these days. When I joined (how and why did that happen?) it seemed like a sort of Old Boy's club - snarky tea socialites rubbing mugs and vivisecting the most niche, obscure teas on the market. But mostly it was conversation, and later, a lot of social drama, which quite frankly the average day has a surfeit.
I appreciate the directionless motion that's gripped ITD. Say what you will for whatever reason and maybe vaguely tie it to tea. I like that. It adds a little chaos. I'm an agent of chaos. But is it really all part of the plan? (lulz)
As I see it, the first question is whether we even want to pin ITD to a specific cause or design. If that's swings to the affirmative, then we need to ask what exactly that cause, end and purpose is.
So what have you ladies and gents? Do we need to push back the inevitable grind of atrophy, or is ITD better off with the erratic chatter that's come to define it in recent weeks? Personally, I'm game either way.
By the by, does anybody else like drinking staight gunpowder tea?
Well from my point of view it really feels like I have only just recently joined ITD. Because of that I find it difficult to say what this should be or if there is a way or another that ITD should feel. During the extent of my current stay here though, I would have to say that the most teaish things that have occured here are the monthly tastings, which I think is an amazing idea and think that it is worth continuing along that just by itself even. (not that i'm proposing restricting it to just that). But aside from that the most teaoriented behavior has been the I Want thread.
Based on the membership recruitment policies, it sounds like ITD was intended as a place to be non-pc and to escape the sometimes trite babble of the lower count posters. (nothing against them, sometimes they're just saying the same things). It is the consciousness of the teachat collective.
With that being said I believe that as an organization the ITD collective should evolve. Failure to evolve is tantamount to failure. So if the collective as a whole should feel that it should just be the sample circle or any other criteria for judging how to run the ITD, then in my opinion it should be.
I just don't know what that direction is.
Based on the membership recruitment policies, it sounds like ITD was intended as a place to be non-pc and to escape the sometimes trite babble of the lower count posters. (nothing against them, sometimes they're just saying the same things). It is the consciousness of the teachat collective.
With that being said I believe that as an organization the ITD collective should evolve. Failure to evolve is tantamount to failure. So if the collective as a whole should feel that it should just be the sample circle or any other criteria for judging how to run the ITD, then in my opinion it should be.
I just don't know what that direction is.
Jul 28th, '08, 22:27
Posts: 1559
Joined: Jan 28th, '07, 02:24
Location: Fort Worth, TX
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Space Samurai
Back when I was but a new mod and playing around with phpBB, I learned how to make private forums and thought it good. This revelation happened just as the squad was starting to get feedback from some users about how the forum was dominated by a few key personalities and tastes. It was, as I recall, the height of the "Fukamushi is GOD" craze. Tons of normal users seemed to feel uncomfortable if they wanted to talk about anything other than Japanese greens. Moreover, because the same 10 or so people weighed in on all the conversations, the general forums were getting swamped by chatter and in jokes that 'turned off' a lot of normal users.
So I put two and two together and decided that it might just be a good thing to create a clubhouse of sorts for the major TC personalities to do their thang in. In fact, I think the original name for ITD was something like "The Super Secret Clubhouse" before I chickened out and went for something more professional sounding.
So really, ITD was *supposed* to be something like an Old Boys' Club. A place to do our own chatter and to occasionally talk about the comparative merits of different varieties of 'pedigreed' teas.
I think we do less of the latter than we used to. Even then, a lot of that sort of talk was basically contained within our own blogs. most of the original members of ITD do less tea talk than we initially did. We've all more or less settled into certain tea ruts. There's Japanese camps, oolong camps, pu camps...it's hard to talk about differences between certain rou gui, for instance, when only one or two others here drink it enough to carry on a sustained and lively analysis. It's much easier to carry on with the friendships.
And now my brain hurts. I promised some friends I'd do a self-evaluation/spiritual growth thing with them...trying to do a similar thing with TC is just frickin' overkill at the moment. Sorry for the rambling non-direction of this post. (Which is sort of reflective of...GAH! NO MORE META!)
I don't like gunpowder tea. Now that you freaks have gotten me drinking Japanese greens, I just can't stomach the stuff.
So I put two and two together and decided that it might just be a good thing to create a clubhouse of sorts for the major TC personalities to do their thang in. In fact, I think the original name for ITD was something like "The Super Secret Clubhouse" before I chickened out and went for something more professional sounding.
So really, ITD was *supposed* to be something like an Old Boys' Club. A place to do our own chatter and to occasionally talk about the comparative merits of different varieties of 'pedigreed' teas.
I think we do less of the latter than we used to. Even then, a lot of that sort of talk was basically contained within our own blogs. most of the original members of ITD do less tea talk than we initially did. We've all more or less settled into certain tea ruts. There's Japanese camps, oolong camps, pu camps...it's hard to talk about differences between certain rou gui, for instance, when only one or two others here drink it enough to carry on a sustained and lively analysis. It's much easier to carry on with the friendships.
And now my brain hurts. I promised some friends I'd do a self-evaluation/spiritual growth thing with them...trying to do a similar thing with TC is just frickin' overkill at the moment. Sorry for the rambling non-direction of this post. (Which is sort of reflective of...GAH! NO MORE META!)
I don't like gunpowder tea. Now that you freaks have gotten me drinking Japanese greens, I just can't stomach the stuff.
Jul 28th, '08, 23:04
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Space Samurai
Jul 28th, '08, 23:43
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Location: the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the galaxy
This is how I was invited.We'd like to invite you to join our Super Secret Forum (Intense Tea Discussion). It's a place to ask the specialized tea questions that would confuse most users, as well as a place to indulge in all the silly in-jokes that develop among the TeaChat regulars. We've also begun to organize tastings and such there.
Jul 28th, '08, 23:50
Posts: 1598
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scruffmcgruff
I think evolving is a great idea, and the best way to do that is let it go. Trying to decide on a direction to take ITD would be intelligent design, not natural evolution, right? Okay, that's a silly point, but still, I think natural ungoverned development of ITD would be best.
I think once you define something, you find that there is much less to say about it. So, let's just laissez faire (hey, at least I know brandon will be all for it
).
I think once you define something, you find that there is much less to say about it. So, let's just laissez faire (hey, at least I know brandon will be all for it
).
Jul 29th, '08, 00:08
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Location: Back in the TeaCave atop Mt. Fuji
...of course as someone has a brilliant idea to add, but is there a new and singular idea that will strike a universal chord of ITD...scruffmcgruff wrote:I think evolving is a great idea, and the best way to do that is let it go. Trying to decide on a direction to take ITD would be intelligent design, not natural evolution, right? Okay, that's a silly point, but still, I think natural ungoverned development of ITD would be best.
I think once you define something, you find that there is much less to say about it. So, let's just laissez faire (hey, at least I know brandon will be all for it
One thing we can agree on, we want to try new teas...today, tomorrow...always. This is an area that I have wanted to expand upon.
blah blah blah SENCHA blah blah blah!!!
Re: O ITD Where Art Thou?
Boys and Girls Club!Thirsty Daruma wrote: When I joined (how and why did that happen?) it seemed like a sort of Old Boy's club
Jul 29th, '08, 10:03
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CynTEAa
Jul 29th, '08, 10:58
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Proinsias
I'm not sure the ID vs evolution analogy is very useful. ITD could easily be argued to have been intelligently designed by entities who post within it, it could also be said to have evolved from teachat.scruffmcgruff wrote:I think evolving is a great idea, and the best way to do that is let it go. Trying to decide on a direction to take ITD would be intelligent design, not natural evolution, right? Okay, that's a silly point, but still, I think natural ungoverned development of ITD would be best.
I think once you define something, you find that there is much less to say about it. So, let's just laissez faire (hey, at least I know brandon will be all for it :twisted:).
I don't think natural ungoverned development sounds very natural. A bit of both is the way it will continue to be in the future. I'm not about to let my 4 yr old develop without any sort of government or introspection on my part.
If one plans to halt the place evolving or halt all government of the place then one is in for a rather frustrating time. Polls for future membership would have to go along with the government and we could have a randomiser in the software that sporadically selected teachat posters for membership.
If we credit our mother Mary with a rather large chunk of its creation then I think it would be fair to say that the place is trundling nicely along the path it was designed for.