Recently I was compelled by what in hindsight could only be called morbid curiosity to visit Mystic Wicks, One of the larger pagan themed message boards on the internet. Some years ago I was a member there. They have always had just one rule there, respect. They claimed this meant that everyone should respect one another's opinions beliefs and their right to them, which was in theory a wonderful rule. But in reality things were not quite that utopian. Don't get me wrong, it all started out well enough but eventually the spirit of the rule was apparently banned, much like 20 or so people at the time I was a member. These people were Discordian and not of like mind with the administrators or forum guides, and they were belittled for it. When they tried to respond in kind they were summarily banned. It continued like this for a time and I got sick of it, though the pranks the Discordians were pulling on the administrators were mildly amusing, Finally I referred the head admin and site owner as Adolf Hitler with delusions of Godhood and said a few other things best not said in polite company. I was of course banned and happy to have been so.
Anyway I digress. I was feeling generous and felt I should look up the site and see if it might be deserving of a more favorable review for my first blog entry for this site. So I spent an hour perusing the site before casting judgment. My first thoughts were that the site was not very visually appealing; the color scheme bland and apparently they must have hired a four-year-old to work on the layout. If not they should have, a four-year-old would have probably done a better job. I tried to forgive this and move on to the main issue I was concerned about, whether the respect rule was still enforced in a lopsided manner or had the site adopted some actual rules to keep the drama to a minimum.
I found that the forum had indeed changed. Before the site had been run like a high school student council; all the popular people and the teachers pets running the show and enforcing one set of rules for their friends and another for everyone else. Now it was run more like rabid wolves; they protect their own but nip, bite and generally run to ground everyone else. The site owners who also happen to be the admins seem to want no involvement in the site other than raking in what money they can from the many Google ads on the site and leave the running of things to those wolves. When I was a member the site boasted over 50,000 members, at the time this was written there were now 22,428 members and a whopping 6,988 who have been banned. People aren't just being banned, it's a mass exodus and people are staying away in droves.
For those who do remain, I can see why. It has the disturbing appeal of a train wreck or reality TV; you know it's going to be an ugly mess, but you just can't look away. Like reality TV you know there's going to be people hurt, betrayed and they'll probably be hurt and betrayed next week too, but you watch to see if they'll come back with some sort of revenge, if they'll finally say enough is enough, or whether they're really stupid or naive enough to believe that things there will change and get better.
My opinion of the site is such: Satan himself could not have imagined a more hellish way for me to spend an hour of my time than at Mystic Wicks. It is an hour of my life that I will never get back, and I deeply regret that. I would have much rather spent the time having a root canal without the aid or an anesthetic or something equally painful. I did get one small measure of satisfaction though: When I saw the number of people who had been banned form the site, I realized that I was banned before it became popular.
With recent events as they are it seems things have not changed at all in the last 5 years. There are still administrators there who have the " Do as I say, not as I do" mentality. And people wonder why so many are leaving or causing the so called drama.
ReplyDeleteI left before I could be banned.. I refuse to give in to my morbid curiosity.. I don't need to go into it, cause you and everyone else at our other site know ... that's why they left as well.
ReplyDeleteYou do realize spammers that try to register are banned. That 6k+ banned member is mostly taken up by them. They are either banned or deleted. Most of them are banned, because that helps curb some of their issues. There has not been 6k+ members banned because of disagreements or behavior issues, those actually make up single-digit percentages. Other accounts are banned because their duplicates and other issues. But most, if not all of the banned members were never members at all. When people register, they are put in a moderation queue. An Admin checks them and if they are a known spammer, they are perma banned. Recently there were over 300 known spammers that registered, that means 300 acconts were perma banned. So your belief that 6k+ people were banned because of behavior issues is just wrong.
ReplyDeleteI find it to be one of the few pagan sites where no one is mean or nasty. When they are they are shunned by the members more so than the staff. It's a nice site with little traffic. I think it's good. The bigger the board the meaner the board.
ReplyDeleteI go there for one reason: information. Mysticwicks is one of the few forums that has a fairly religiously/spiritually diversified group to mine information from. I think most of the good threads are long dead and anyone serious has left the site, so don't expect to get good information from starting a new thread. Lol. Most other pagan forums have a huge Wiccan base, so, if you are not Wiccan, you are going to have a hard time finding information that doesn't come from Gardener or some of these delightful modern Wiccan-influenced writers. I like a more varied source pool for my book recommendations or insights of practitioners. Just my thoughts, though. As long as you aren't looking to chit-chat, it's a pretty okay site, when it's working! Which seems like never lately.... That would be my biggest issue with the site. It is completely unreliable.
ReplyDeleteI've been a member since it started in 2001. I left a couple of years ago - but have recently visited and was shocked by its present state. It is but a shell of its former self, left in disrepair. And now they've done something where you have to enter a PW and username to even look at the site - you can't even browse it as a guest! And even that isn't even working! If it doesn't get fixed soon, the site is as good as dead, imo. So sad.
ReplyDeleteThe site was as good as dead years ago. Some people may like to think it is a friendly little site, but in reality the site is like many others in that it stays friendly as long as you support the status quo. For the last two years it seems the site spends as much time down as its members spend fighting amongst each other. Many of the members who have been banned did not get banned for being nasty, they were banned for no longer being in the popular crowd due to getting a life that did not include posting 5000 times a month. Though I am still a member I no longer bother with the site since they put up the new log in screen. I see no need to deal with any extra security for the dubious pleasure of getting judged harshly by Welfare Wiccans who cannot even conjure a job for themselves and are upset that some of us can effectively juggle jobs, family, and furthering our education.
ReplyDeleteSeems it disappeared. I left quite a while back, I didn't like certain decisions of the leadership, and I didn't like what I was becoming. I confess I have a low irritation threshold and could easily be baited into trolling. Thing is, I seem to have been one of the admin pets, I know some people got banned for very trivial things. I won't say I was necessarily bad, but I said at times a lot worse than those folks, and protested a lot more, more vitriolically than a few of them, and yet I was never even warned. Others, who said the same things, in much kinder more diplomatic terms, were banned. Still others, for trying to help enforce the spirit of the rules by gentle nudges, were likewise banned. I still don't even understand those decisions. But I gradually became disgusted with myself, and it became much more stressful for my mental health than any forum should be (That is my problem more than any given online forum, but still, the fact that I let it affect me that much was a good sign I shouldn't torture myself). And so, I left.
ReplyDeleteI was ShadowcatX over at mysticwicks back before the bannings and I left out of protest for the discordians and specifically Daniel being banned. I decided to go back and check the site out again and now it wants a user name and password to view the site? Wow. Open and welcoming indeed.
ReplyDeleteHey this is formerly Felidea "banned for life". Just doing some soul searching snd stumbled across your reply...
DeleteMiss you. Don't miss MW.
Hope if you see this you know who I am and that I hope you're doing well.
Still banned for life here and proud of it. :)
Hey Shadowcat!
DeleteCain here, long time no see and all that.
Can't disagree with the blogpost above...as a one of the aforementioned "Discordian pranksters", what made MW such a tempting target was the mixture of high school politics and complete and utter lunacy that reigned on the forum in general and among the admin team in particular.
If even half of the rumours I heard about Mol and the rest are true, then they are pretty out of touch with reality.
And you know what we do to people who are out of touch with reality and powertripping. *pokepokepoke*
Its good to hear from both of you. I hope you're both doing well. Happy Samhain!
DeleteThey have a Facebook page right now. On that page they claimed they suffered from money problems and that is one of the reasons why the site went down (2011). More recently the site is down due to "reconstruction". I'm not sure if that means that they were hacked or what. Apparently, according to the FB page, Mol (Van) still runs the site, he was running it back when I used to frequent the site. I left because I didn't want to be involved in the drama that was created. Anyways, I have moved on to a more local group but have seen some good conversations on other sites like ecauldron, paganspace, and such. I doubt I will go back to MW. I did enjoy my time there, but sometimes it's best to move on.
ReplyDeleteThey may have had money problems, but they also had "Contributing Members" with three levels! I know, because I was in the middle tier for some time, then reduced it to $5 a month, then after Katrina and the shoddy treatment of the Discordians happened I stopped, though my willing "banned for life" status came months later!
DeleteThey had Google ads and us dishing out via Paypal for YEARS, to pay "server fees".
Still, people were singled out if they had a Discordian on their favorites list, which I had a preponderance of because they're funny and smart as hell- Money problems, indeed... But not from the damn servers.
This site almost saved me back in 2001, then almost soured me completely on Wiccan thought and paganism in general 4 years later...
ReplyDeleteStill taken aback by the bigotry I witnessed there, and ashamed of what I became trying to separate myself from it.
Not hard, since I jumped both Mol and phoenix blue and became a banned for lifer at my request when I was given the choice of that or shutting my mouth.
I was a member back in 2004 but got fed up of a number of narcissistic people on there who were deliberatley trying to ruin peoples threads on there; I was amazed when some on there got banned - Memnoch as an example, but was amazed when they were allowed to come back again!! The cliq between the admins was also intimidating and always felt that one was walking on egg shells. The owner - Mol, seemed to portray that he didn't care about the place and hardly got involved when I was a member.
ReplyDeleteTo be honest, these old fashioned PHP forums/messageboards are now yesterday's news and are now being taken over by Facebook and Google+ groups. Mysticwicks is a dead duck in my opinion.
Memnoch got banned because, at least in the political forum, he was an exquisite douchebag. I think he was able to come back during the "blanket forgiveness" window not too long after the Discordian/sympathizers purge - basically, anyone previously banned was being given one more shot at the boards.
DeleteHe's now one of the mods. Quite amusing.
Well, it's offline totally now but most of their problems stemmed from the way they handled the discordians. They are trolls, pure and simple by definition. They invaded that site and parked on there day and night. Then they poached some of the non-discordians over to their stupid "cause".
ReplyDeleteDaniel was one of them. The admins there tried to appease him over and over, and all he did in return is to demand more. Finally, they had to ban him, and that was a sad day.
But the way the MW admins handled the whole problem was awful - the discordians were there to disrupt and did so for years. Byebye MW.
If your site can't handle Discordians, then there's something fundamentally wrong with it in the first place.
DeleteIn MW's case, it was that the entire admin team was a pack of petty tyrants on an internet pagan board.
And they're gone now, and I am glad of it.
- Little Billy
LB! I miss you!
DeleteThe first sentence is correct, but the rest is complete and spurious nonsense. I can't tell whether you're just sadly misinformed, or yet another of the butthurt former forum members who hated having certain...inconvenient facts pointed out to them.
ReplyDeleteEither way, your explanation is woefully simplified to the point of caricature and missing out several important details about things you didn't see, which occured behind the scenes and in PMs and emails.
And maybe, the fact was they handled the situation awfully because the admins are, in fact, awful people. Ever consider that?
"Pan it, can't understand it, ban it
ReplyDeleteThe underhanded ranted, planned it and left 'eim stranded
The best, any who profess will be remanded
Yes sir, request permission to be candid? Granted
I don't think we can handle a style so rancid
They flipped it like Madlib did the old jazz standard"
-MF DOOM
Didn't they lift Little Billy's ban in order to get him to write a set of rules, and then ban him again once they got that?
ReplyDeleteAnd the protection of racist statements there was appalling to the point of being surreal.
I joined to learn more about paganism and network with others. It was a transformative experience, by the time I left I was anti-pagan and purely Discordian. It only took a few months at that place.
Yeah, that was almost exactly what happened. Kaylara and Xentor were endlessly baiting Little Billy once his ban was lifted, and when he told Mol about their constant campaign of harassment, nothing was done.
DeleteSo it was a setup from the start.
Yeah, that's pretty much what happened. In the end, I can't remember if I was banned or not, and that alone is the biggest indictment of them all.
DeleteIn other words, all the good people left, and the site became BORING.
I had been there since 2001, was active through about, oh, 2008? I remember back when it was a tight-knit community. Things got more and more political, and it became more about *who* you knew than what you knew. When I became a 'pet project' of one admin in particular, chastised and punished far beyond regular members for any opinions, I just had to leave for my own sanity.
ReplyDeleteStill sad to know what's become of it. Once upon a time, it was a pleasant place.
I find this all moderately amusing, seeing as though I'm still on pretty good terms with a bunch of the people who founded and ran the site, but like many of you... I left a long time ago as far as being participant on the forums themselves. I was curious about why the site went down but haven't found much except people who are unhappy with how things eventually ended up. I hope you all found more comfortable online communities or perhaps groups in your areas that are welcoming in the way that better suits your paths and personalities. I'm not sure it's a good idea to point fingers at anyone in particular... but remember that none of us are perfect, and absolute power corrupts... absolutely. I personally found that I'm better off pursuing my spiritual path on my own since I don't fit into any particular category and I really don't like feeling belittled or tromped upon for having opinions that don't fit nicely with everyone else. Blessed be, and all that jazz.
ReplyDeleteIf you didn't know - Mol got arrested a while back (before Mystickwicks) for Indescent Exposure! It goes to show the sinister sort of people that were running that site!
ReplyDeleteIf you don't believe me then type his real name into Google and you'll find out all about it.
Yes, I heard all about that and I don't believe even the state of Oklahoma would give that harsh of a sentence for just that.
ReplyDeleteWhich ties into what my REAL problem was with mysticpriks about seven or so years ago . . . I was looking for fluffy bunny pagan stuff but mol and most of the other mods there were hardcore Satanists - he had been introduced into that in prison. 93!!!
whats this site about am new to it all so seeking like minded people who actually possess real power as havent been able to find anyone like me on any site so far.Detest humans who imagine they can do magic have my own forms that always work for my but scared as dont know how to harness my dark side and am constantly wrestling between the light and dark,am very powerful not boasting or consumed with own strenght ,as am humble most of the time but need a mentor to guide my way onto a good path as am angry with a few people and dont want to curse them.Have a kind and loving nature people usually are drawn to me, but want to use my so called magic(dont know what else to call 0 it for good to help people in need.So please someone out there has to help me as am getting stronger,barely eat,havent slept in weeks but never tired, amazing energy and presight predictions getting stronger now, can tell news days before it happens, losing hours in day with lucid daydreams which are coming true,im scared as dont know what the fuck excuse my language this strange possesion of my body and mind is butb have never felt better in my life.Full moon tonight here in Ireland am writing this under a blanket of stars,with my familiar dog Maisy(a gentle natured german shepard) beside me and the neighbours cat and kittens curled up on my feet am frozen but dont want to wake them.Animal like me,always come to rest at my side for some reason. Am hyper all the time cant stop moving, went to doctor and my diabetes has completely disappeared cut myself on sharp knife yesterday and cut turned overnight to fully healed scar cant explain,also extreme light sensitivity,abnormal hearing and senses heightened by ten fold,my capacity to aborb information is ridiculous am driving boyfriend nuts with my non stop talking and p.c usage, and am wearing him out with my abnormally high sex drive,dont mean to be rude,just stating the facts.Am not joking around but is their anybody who can explain my predicament to me and help would be extremely appreciated, thanks White Shadow
ReplyDeleteOkay... I was looking for that Mysticwicks site. I left it years ago because of personal issues and stuff... and had not enough time to browse forums...
ReplyDeleteSo where on earth is it? Is it like gone forever?
They've set up something at allpaths.boards.net
DeleteDoesn't look like most of the flock followed along, however.
Anyone know what happened to the admin "Twinkle"?
ReplyDeleteThe site was hacked and has been down since before October of 2013. They set up the temp board but Mystic Wicks itself will soon be up and running. The board will be monitored for spam but post/member moderation will be very minimal.
ReplyDeleteI was glowingsun. I was a member for a couple of years . There some great people on there and then there were the trolls who passed off as hierarches.* There was this one girl, no matter what I posted, what topic it was, she would just tear it apart. I liked to start convos on many topics, not just pagan or religion, and there was this one thread I started about the serious problem with human trafficking because I had watched a documentary and wanted to bring more awareness. Well, this girl posts why those girls just leave their captures and they are not really forced to do anything. I didn't even know how to respond to that. She would always come after me and belittle everything I post. I tried to ignore it. She would always put a Wikipedia address to back up her claims, and this was during the time people could edit things on Wikipedia very easily. A few years later, I went back on the site and I found that the girl was an admin and she did not want me responding to any of her posts or her threads and not to any of the other admins. But they seemed to be the only ones posting anything. Even if the thread was not hers and she posted something, I kept getting warnings about replying to her posts. When it was my threads, she would criticize me and then warn me when I replied. What kind of a forum runs like that? That was the last time I went there. I looked it up recently and found that the site was down and now it says the page cannot be displayed.
ReplyDeleteSo true. I can personally vouch for everything you said. I joined some years ago and let the community know point blank that I was a Christian wanting to learn about every aspect of paganism/magic/witchcraft/sorcery, etc. I wasn't in there to save souls, I was there to share ideas and learn and meet interesting people who were much different than the folks I knew and was surrounded by in my life. I wanted to learn the history of the various belief systems and know how people came up with their ideas and theories, etc. I was also interested in friendly debate. At first, I was mostly ignored. I posted a couple ideas and questions and received no responses. However when I got scientific about some of the thoughts I had, people started jumping on me. They removed my posts and told me I was not being "tolerant." They said Christians are not allowed on the forum, regardless of their level of respect. Amazing. Some of them even insulted my occupation and some of the "personal interests' I had. I was about 28 at the time and had already retired from real estate (I got really lucky in my younger years) and I was investing in a small farm that I now own and operate. I was attacked for "lying" about what I do and insulted for being a "hilljack farming redneck" and told I was probably a close minded midwestern idiot. This forum was ridiculous. I spend about 2 hours a week online, just looking for info and unwinding a couple evenings a week. Mysticwicks was not the place I wanted to waste my little bit of time on the internet. Horrible community of haters.
ReplyDeleteI joined MW way back when I started my path on Paganism, and I practised what I recognise now as being Neo-Wicca. The folks on MW were still pretty cool back then, and helped me develop along. I later joined eCauldron, which is much better, though it still has the same problem of whiny, easily-offended people politicizing everything.
ReplyDeleteBut after about 2009, all the decent posters went missing or were kicked for stupid reasons. Then the board itself disappeared. By then I'd moved on to better fora.
It would be kind of fun if someone from the community who wasn't of the previous establishment resurrected the site.
ReplyDeleteI was more of a lurker than an active poster. But i always enjoyed the discussions.
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ReplyDeleteMysticwicks.com is back up.
ReplyDeleteSad to say I still see this behavior in Pagan groups on Facebook. Not so blatently bigoted or nazi like, but a dangerous blanketing that nearly obscures the rest of the users friends out. An assimilation by playing with the programming parse. An "In" clique with a join or die philosophy underpinning it all.
ReplyDeleteI've resolved my issues with Paganism, shared this blog on my own page, and shall probably remain a Solitary lurker from here on out.
And read books ;)