I'm not angry. I'm combative. There's a difference.
I m publicly calling Erowid to task, becauseI can't post on their site!
Since age 15 i've written many letters to everyone from fanclub presidents, to E.R. editors, to government ministers..so i found the entire response from Erowid just downright offensive and rude. And lazy.
I have a right to express my negativity towards these people, don't I?
And no, no one there, to my knowledge, is my friend.

..thanks soulfood for understanding me..!

to me Erowid insults all contributing members of the Nexus, especially those who worked so hard to TRY to get new info in there..the reason i began posting info in what i specialise in is FOR HARM REDUCTION and to help plants and people alike..it is them i get passionate about..i could happily retire, smoak all day, find new plants, and not give a damn about anyone else..but that's not me..

and last up on Erowid..what DO they do with their funding..i would like to know..

so, add to the un-prosecutable libel case..nen worries there may be corruption and nepotism at work at Erowid..

It just occurred to me that erowid staff, because of they have not kept up on their data and are so far behind the times in terms of analytical research, likely get a lot of emails and contacts asking them to become up to date. They are likely frustrated by it and so have developed a knee jerk reaction to anyone who says anyone about this, regardless of what they say, how they say it, etc.

Maybe one of the reasons they refuse to be current is just this, that they are sick of people who ask them to get with the times...?

A portion of their money does go to dealing with the trip reports section, which has sort of gotten away from them in many ways. They cherry pick their trip reports in a disturbing way, I saw a presentation by one of their staff detailing this and it was very sad. Their trip reports section reflects a very very small sampling of the submissions they receive and the criteria they use for what they do and do not publish is somewhat, but not totally, absurd.

I am sure if the reports of activity that are in Shulgins books were submitted to Erowid that they would not be published, that is if they were never seen anywhere before and had been previously unpublished.

I agree with this. Especially then part about causing harm.
If anyone remembers just lst week we stopped a new person from consuming 15g of mimosa with 50g caapi!!!!!

Thank God he either had bunk vine or didnt brew correctly becasue he and 3 freinds drank those dosages each!

My question to him after explaing how lucky they are the MAOI wasnt present with thyat much DMT was, where in thr world did you get your dosing info from?....Guess the answer.

This is just dangerous people. We have all had our ass handed to us on much less mimosa than 15g with good MAOI. Id hate to think what could have been in that apártment that night if the cappi did its thing.

Super dangerous and although I am very appreciative for Erowids trail they blazed for places and people such as us I too now see them as harmful.

Put it this way Xemnas, If people here were giving the recomendation that Erowid does they would have action taken pretty darn quickly and asked to ceist.

I dont feel nen is bashing them at all. If its true how is that slander. Its called facts. They are way out of date, been offered the help of some of the brightest most knowledgable minds in the sceen but repeatedly choose to not accept the help or correct the problem and get a complex and insecure when asked to.

Pretty straight forward to me.

A few things:

First, I think it is important to always work together. Right now with Erowid this is (too) hard, the communication lines are too long and seemingly overloaded. If needed we can help Erowid quite a lot with supplying reliable data to them via shorter channels if they want. Please Erowid, read this as an invitation!

Secondly, as Vodsel pointed out, they are still a web 1.0 site which means all the work has to be done by the admins. If they get a better interface where the community will be able to maintain and rate the reliability then that will be WAY less work for them. And one warning, if they won't do that soon, WE will and we might take over.

And to come back to that latest point, what do we want for data on a good harm reduction site?

I can readily think about this:

GENERIC INFO
* History
* Chemical info
* ???

SAFETY PROFILE
* Dosages
* Main effects
* Side effects
* Health risks
* LD50 (if available)
* Important safety remarks

EXPERIENCE REPORTS
* Different keywords with it to make search more easy

LEGAL STATUS

Other???


Kind regards,

The Traveler

What an excellent direction to steer this thread in Traveler!

One thing that is a safety issue, and Erowid does address this to some degree, is knowing what you are taking and how with some plants, extractions and RCs this can be difficult or complicated by various issues.

This is part of why up to date data on plants is a must.

People often oversimplify things, like saying an alkaloid mixture obtained via an extraction is X chemical because that chemical tends to predominate said mixture.

Wiki style approaches seem good for allowing people to add information, provided it has some evidence or verification.

It would be nice to see Erowid collaborate, but I have heard them insult forums directly and say that information on forums is not worth reporting, because it is on forums and not published in a journal. Basically they say, though not explicitly, that if you do private GCMS work or TLC and publish on a forum that it does not count as real research because it is not accredited. This is part of why they reject so much information, it amounts to a bias. I have heard them say that since forums tend to be open and anonymous that you can't trust any information on them. I disagree, but only provided there is some evidence behind claims published on a forum, and I do note that forum posts count legally as publication and the forum activity in regards to said posts does count as a form of peer review that in my opinion is often superior to those found in peer reviewed journals, which are notorious for publishing false information. On a forum however there tends to be more scrutiny than there is for peer reviewed journals because forums are open and anonymous, if someone posts made up work here they will get called on it, the standard of information that becomes accepted here is incredibly high, better than I have seen from academic institutions and journals.

In a journal or institution research is reviewed by a small select group and this does not eliminate bias, however on a forum the open aspect of it allows anyone to review and this means that people with serious expertise in the topic area can review the posts and information, this ends up being superior to peer review by specific select people. I recall trying to have a paper peer reviewed in college and the people reviewing it had zero comprehension of the topic, I could have gotten away with anything as long as it was well written and I used terms that those in review did not know. I could never do that here, I didn't do that there either but do recall that I could not get decent feedback because of the problem with this. Falsified and innaccurate or poor esearch is much easier to get away with in an institution or journal than it is on a forum like this.

So now what is happening here is that Erowid is failing review from it's peers, it simply does not meet a high enough standard to be acceptable at this point. This might create conflict, but it does not have to, the process can be incredibly productive and constructive.

Good direction by the Traveler.
It puzzles me, though, with this many knowledgable people here (in this thread even) that no one has been able to get through to Erowid. I guess I'm interpreting Nen as wanting their admin to be more accountable.

Perhaps,using their posting process, someone could make a 'public' invitation/statement to help, stating some of the new upgrades!
Not exactly 'shaming' them to reply but allowing the users to respond.??
2c

Shaolin wrote: It's not just Nen this happens to.

When I first came across Erowid it was super helpful, but like others have stated above, nothing really has changed for years in the site. As I began to want more detailed/nerdy information on certain things, I found I was relying more on Wikipedia, books I would need to buy, and other internet sites. They seem to focus more on trip reports now. These are interesting and important, but if you look, simple things like under the "basics" section of many drugs, there is nothing. The quality of the trip reports isn't anything spectacular either. The media sections should be kept up to date too. I had to email them about several PMMA deaths in January-February 2012 in Western Canada to put up a warning on their site. (It was subsequently done, just two days later, which is great!) However, I'm not sure it would have been done if I hadn't.

One of the things Erowid has going for it is notoriety. Many people know about it, even if they don't use it a lot. Even people not really nerdy about drugs. Junking Erowid might not be the answer, but changes are necessary. I can donate some time for editing/research if communication channels open up between this site and Erowid.

Salvia led me to Erowid, Erowid led me to DMT, DMT led me to the Nexus. Purpose Served.

I'm sure those interested enough in DMT will find their way

I had similar experience. I also find them first before I got here. I found lots of good info over there.

We should try to help them if they are interested of course.

erowid is like a little footnote for the nexus...lets make THIS place the place to be( i mean it already IS..but you know)

If we really wanted to help the entire Psych community, human ego aside, then why not just offer to let them Cut and paste all our more current and accurate information and replace theirs, maybe even along side their work. Let the reader decide.

So they dont have the time or resources to re work their whole site ...I get that to a degree but they need to be open and honest with themselves that a LOT of information on there is really harmful and wasting peoples resources. Even more so because of how big and well known it is!

The 15g mimosa dosage for ayahuasca for example was, correct me if im wrong, written and accurate during the days that nobody understood the differewnce between inner and outer bark plus mimosa usually was sold in whole form not finely moon powder.
BIG DIfference!

So I agree with others here that for the greater good lets work together. yea its a shame that all our hard work and brilliant dillegant trail blazing minds here wouldnt get due credit but thats not whats this is about.

Its about helping people on their path and even more important stopping dangerous incidents that would not only hurt individuals but the whole damn shabang were all doing here. All the online entheo communities should at least agree that pétty differences aside we are trying to make a change in those who seek it and the worlds perception of the benefits of these substances.

Trav, ya think they would be open to this and do you think its fair to the memebrs and writers here?
Just a thought.

Why wont they really accept our help if the answer is no. if this was to happen and they declined I would have serious doubts of their intentions and feel action would be not only warranted but in a way our duty.

Bluelight was my first exp with anything like what we are. It had huge flaws but it did get me here. At least they had community participation, albeit shady ones, lol. I still have gratitude for them.

dISCLAIMER, IM NOT SAYING WE SHOULD DO THIS JUST TALKING...

olympus mon wrote: ..except that they are not open to any input, won't even respond to email offering info..!
..it offends me that Erowid asks for public donations and does WHAT with that..?

..basically for DMT and other Tryptamines, Erowid is terrible relatively speaking..
and the one link to the nexus and mulga's site don't work!

also, i hold Erowid's irresponsible and poorly researched use of info in part directly responsible for the horrific environmental damage sustained by a particular Acacia species in australia..
the acacia info thread was an attempt to rectify this, and provide properly researched and up to date info..

shame on you erowid

shame on you..