The more I think about this the more it's bothering me, so I've decided to dive a little deeper into the issue.
One of the biggest issues I can identify is that the moderator's response in this instance (Sivason's) comes across as strangely biased. In Sivason's initial post, he starts with an unusually emotionally charged opener ("Wow, what the hell happened here?"). Almost as if he is personally invested in the matter. As far as I can tell, he's since edited his original post to amend the opening, but it's been preserved in a quote from MoonageDayDream. Sivason for some reason then proceeds to criticise everyone who said anything even remotely in opposition to DanielLove. For some reason DanielLove escapes ANY such criticism, despite he himself having acted at LEAST as equally antagonistic, if not significantly worse.
For context on this, let's take an instance of something MoonageDayDream said during the course of the discussion: "Thing is, it does seem like most of your posts these days (if not all) include a link to subscribe to your channel. As if that's the goal, to get us to subscribe. On my end, it feels like we're a resource of potential subscribers for you to tap, not actual people to get to know. I hope this makes sense.".
Personally, I think this was put very respectfully by MoonageDayDream, and also that her point itself is incredibly valid and does indeed reflect how the vast majority of users feel in regards to DanielLove. By the way, if you think I'm cherry picking examples from the thread to make MoonageDayDream look favourable, I'm absolutely not. You can view the thread where I sourced these quotes from yourself:
https://www.dreamviews.com/general-l...eir-sleep.html and https://www.dreamviews.com/senseless...ml#post2240690
Now, by comparison, let's look at one of the responses made by DanielLove within the same thread:
"I'll say, thanks but no thanks, to you MoonageDaydream, I don't buy into happy-clappy let's all agree with everyone all the time mentality. It's a sure-fire way to sit on the fence so hard that you split yourself in two. It also leads to this kind of bubbling poorly hidden resentment that comes across as passive-aggressive, that is just bubbling under the surface of the "try to be nice to everyone" posts."
For brevity, I won't bother posting multiple quotes by each user, but once again, both threads are linked within this post if you want to have a look for yourself. After viewing the threads in their entirety, I don't think that anyone could reasonably say that MoonageDayDream wasn't respectful while she raised some very valid points. Furthermore, I don't think anyone could reasonably state that DanielLove didn't come off as quite unpleasant and aggressive.
Except, once again, for some baffling reason, Sivason ends up criticising all the users that raised any sort of objection to DanielLove. The biggest issue I have with this is that we are essentially told by Sivason (A moderator) that it's inappropriate for us to demonstrate any sort of opposition to what we consider to be a post that is spam.
I really can't help but feel the underlying bias within this next part. Not only are users criticised for voicing their opinion within a thread, Sivason then goes as far as to personally thank DanielLove for his post and to apologise to him about others 'derailing' his thread
("Daniel Love, Thanks for posting a new thread, sorry I did not realize what was going on to derail it")
Finally, perhaps the biggest injustice of all happens. Sivason then proceeds to move any dissident posts within DanielLove's thread to an alternate thread titled 'Spamming?'
("I am moving the posts about spamming out of Daniel's thread to the lounge.")
This is the most ridiculous part of the entire saga, and I'd find it laughable if it wasn't downright offensive. Why is it ridiculous? Because DanielLove's entire thread is spam!
I mean seriously, even in his original post, he directly links his Youtube Channel while saying 'Come join me!'. This is a complete non sequitur. I mean, what does your Youtube Channel have to do with an article about Lucid Dreaming technology?
But hang on, maybe I'm just being unfair and I'm wrongfully criticising DanielLove for a once-off instance.
Actually, nope. Guess what? I looked through his post history. LITERALLY every single one of his posts is self-promotion. Don't believe me? Take a look.
https://www.dreamviews.com/search.php?searchid=4906651
The worst thing is, not only is DanielLove quite blatantly and shamelessly self-promoting and spamming, he's doing so disingenuously under the implication that he's actually just a hobby Lucid Dreamer without any vested interests.
This alone makes me quite upset, as it's almost insulting to our intelligence that he would expect us to readily buy such a claim.
For example, DanielLove says: "I genuinely wish I had more time to get involved, but I also run a forum and chat community over on thelucidguide website, along with the channel and all the comments that generates. So you can imagine a huge amount of my day is spent talking online about lucid dreaming.". (He can't help himself name dropping his website even when he's writing an argument about how he's not a shameless self-promoter).
I mean come on, DanielLove doesn't care about actually engaging with the community. He just wants to generate as much publicity for his website as possible.
Another mystifying claim on behalf of DanielLove is that he was apparently very active within the DreamViews community back in the day, but simply on an alternate account. Sounds a lot like that kid in your old primary school's girlfriend that used to 'go to a different school.'
His claim for creating another account is that it was "so as to not confuse people with a unrecognisable username". Well, first of all, that doesn't really make sense in general, but here's the closest thing that I can infer he means by that statement.
What he means to say here is "I needed to create a new account with the name DanielLove (If a previous account ever existed in the first place) so that people can associate this account with my brand when I'm self-promoting on dreamviews."
I mean really, what other possible reason could there be, and why would the new account even exist in the first place if his sole purpose wasn't to self-promote?
Finally, let's talk about the actual nature of DanielLove. One pressing question you may have, is: Why does DanielLove spend so much time tirelessly creating these spam threads, and why does he become so aggressive when people call him out on it?
Well, first let's talk about his glowing endorsement on his website. ("I consider Daniel Love to be the most authentic and comprehensive lucid dreaming teacher of our time" - Dr Keith Hearne)
Well, first of all, let's use our general scepticism and ask ourselves why DanielLove, who as he claims is so earnestly and selflessly invested in the lucid dreaming community, needs these strange endorsements? Doesn't this intuitively seem a little fishy to you? I mean, who is Dr Keith Hearne anyway? Well, he's definitely not a real doctor. He's a 'Hypnotherapist' as his own website will happily tell you. (You can simply google 'Dr Keith Hearne' to find his website and see for yourself. I won't link it here in case my post gets flagged for an external link. Basically, the guy is a complete quack. Here's an exert from his website, he offers: 'Hypnotherapy for the 'hypnotic gastric band', 'autism' and 'breast size'. (No, unfortunately I am not making this up).
I won't ramble on about this, but I think we've adequately debunked Daniel Love's glowing endorsement.
Okay, so, what is Daniel Love trying to push exactly, anyway?
Well, for the low price of just 225 pounds (around 400 USD) you can purchase a 'Lucid dream tuition and coaching' plan in a package that comes with 5 lessons. Wow, what a steal.
I mean honestly, all the information required for lucid dreaming is out there and ready to be utilised. There aren't any secrets of reasons to be shelling out 400 USD so you can chat with someone over the web about it.
Don't forget, while DanielLove is attempting to charge hundreds of dollars for a glorified Skype session, he's also falsely endorsing himself with 'doctors'.
I won't go into great depth about his website because it's boring, but it really is just DanielLove trying to push overpriced products (you can also buy a DanielLove Jumper for 50 dollars). The website is in the same format of every other scam website you've ever seen in your life. If you don't believe me, check it out for yourself.
By the way, before my closing statement, I just want to say specifically to Sivason. I hope you don't find this post to be a personal attack on you. I did indeed find your handling of the original situation to be inexplicable and misguided, but beyond that I don't have anything against you or any sort of ill-will. I'm not sure what was behind your thought process, whether it was simply a different perspective, or something more complex, but I hope you can see that my post here aims simply to utilise objective fact, rather than any sort of emotionally based or retributive/punitive behaviour. I will also say that from what I can see, your subsequent dealings with the users have been very pleasant, and that you and Moonage had a chat to clear the air, and for that of course I'm glad, and credit where credit is due. I will repeat once more just for clarity, I hope you can view this an investigation of facts and the beginning of a healthy discussion about the events that transpired. I mean it with complete sincerity when I say that I hope you don't take any offense to this, even thought it may naturally be a little confronting as throughout my post I disagree with some of your behaviour.
Now, a summarisation.
Frankly, I think it's preposterous that a moderator (Sivason) would respond in such a negative way towards legitimate DreamViews users that are pillars of the community, whilst simultaneously rushing to the aid of a glorified con-artist. As Sivason pointed out, apparently the owners of this site have some sort of mutual relationship with DanielLove. I don't know whether that involves a verbal agreement, or some sort of compensation, and admittedly, that's none of my business and I acknowledge the owners have the right to run the website as they see fit. However, I do think things went to far considering MoonageDayDream and other users ended up being criticised by a moderator and even having their dissent categorised as 'spam' just for pointing out what everyone was thinking. I mean, the community is comprised of very passionate individuals that have been here for a long time. Hell, I myself have been here for a decade now. It's understandable that we're protective of our community and each other, and above all else that we're protective about the integrity of the state of DreamViews and the general community. I'd like to think that the moderation team were conducting themselves in a way that reflected the values and beliefs of the core community of DreamViews, but unfortunately I don't believe that such behaviour was present within the handling of this incident.
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