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Petition To Keep The Forum Open - And An Open Letter
Hi everyone,
I am personally very sad that the forum is set to be closed on Friday. I am aware that there are only a couple of days left, and people may not visit the forum in time to see this (including Grant) but:
*All those in favour of the forum being kept open, say *I*!*
Or rather, please do *like this post* and possibly leave a comment - hopefully it can sway the decision.
Personally, I have found the forum to be incredibly useful, and unlike anywhere else.
___
Some Options As I See It:
(1) Close the forum entirely - this seems to be the current option and would be a great shame, and a great loss to us.
(2) Lock the forum so that users can no longer post, but keep the forum up as an "archive" of sorts - whilst this would still be a great shame, I feel this forum has some absolute nuggets of gold, and some very valuable progress logs that are not easily replicated or expressed elsewhere.
A testimonial statement (e.g. from LYL or an article elsewhere) is one thing, but being able to track a person's progress through literally years, in real time, with photo / blood test / anecdotal evidence of improvements is INCREDIBLY powerful support to the cause and purpose of this blog, and is incredibly motivating to other readers. I do not know what Grant's purpose or goal is with his work or with this log. But I feel that things are only just at their beginning stages... I believe that if we all want the mainstream to wake up and listen, this knowledge cannot remain tucked away in a free ebook - it needs real world testing evidence, and lots of it, with real people, in order to convince the mainstream. I feel we (if I may group us all together) are only JUST getting started with showing this to the world. But the more and more popular this forum gets, and the more people we have showing their progress, the more things will gain traction and real change could be made in the world - the snowball effect. If we all share the goal of making a change on a mass scale, then closing the forum would be a huge step back in that regard I believe.
(3) Keep the forum open but with some stipulations / rules - personally I don't think the forum needs / needed that much policing, nor was it completely out of control. Yes, there could be some negativity here and there, and I personally believe that there was some deliberate disruption of the core message by some users. But I also believe that this could be quite easily dealt with, with some quite basic rules:
- Be civil to all - this should go without saying.
- Keep posts and topics relevant to the content and philosophy of Grant's books and articles. I understand that healthy debate and challenge can be very useful, and that we don't have things figured out yet. But coming to the forum to discredit Grant's work, and to change the narrative from our starting premise, is really not productive. Regardless of whether Grant is right or wrong, this is just poor etiquette, and will only ever lead to arguments and squabbling. If you believe that Grant's work is wrong, then go and make your own group / forum / youtube channel / videos etc. to dispute it - but this should not be the place to attack his work. It seems to me to be a bit like turning up to orchestra practice with an electric guitar, or joining a running club and telling people that running is unhealthy in the long run, and that they should only be walking for cardio... it's not that there should be no place for these things / discussions out there, and sometimes there may be some useful points... but read the room, man!
- Possibly some other guidelines on how best to post progress logs etc. to provide the best info possible (obviously, people can share as much or as little as they like).
I am certainly not saying that these are what the rules should be. It is not my blog, and not my forum. But it is just some suggestions that could help keep things on track, and useful to all.
(3) Keep only certain sections of the forum where users (please do chime in!) find the most value, or where there is the least trouble. As mentioned, I personally find the progress logs by far the most useful. Maybe keeping the progress log section open for us to share our own experiences on our journey is all we really need?
(4) Leave things open as a free-for-all - this is possibly not ideal, but I would much rather this than have the forum closed down.
Price and cost - I know that cost of keeping the forum open was mentioned as a factor. As a suggestion, a patreon or tip jar type app could suffice. I am certain that people would be willing to contribute financially, I know I would.
@ggenereux2014 - I hope you might be able to consider some of these options before pulling the plug. Obviously, your website, your rules - but these points above are some potential options that perhaps could bring benefit...
Hopefully some people can chime in to back this 🙂
Best regards,
Andrew
The more I think about it, the more I think it is a huge mistake to close the forum!
So many personal anecdotes!
So many scientific papers linked!
So much support!
It definitely outweighs the problems of little stupid arguments.
I just started my Vitamin A reduction journey and I would definitely love to continue to have access to the forum as I am sure I will face problems at some point. I literally got access one week ago.
Generally speaking, I believe everybody is different so arguing about health approach is kind of useless and lot's of arguments here have been about different opinions instead of embracing the difference.
What I actually personally need, is to be able to find people that are similar to me and that faced similar situations as me and see how they tackled it.
Anyway, I understand Grant Genereux opinion to close it down as well.
Last comment => I feel sorry for the ones that spent years in this forum. There will most likely be a moment of emptiness
"
- Keep posts and topics relevant to the content and philosophy of Grant's books and articles. I understand that healthy debate and challenge can be very useful, and that we don't have things figured out yet. But coming to the forum to discredit Grant's work, and to change the narrative from our starting premise, is really not productive. Regardless of whether Grant is right or wrong, this is just poor etiquette, and will only ever lead to arguments and squabbling. If you believe that Grant's work is wrong, then go and make your own group / forum / youtube channel / videos etc. to dispute it - but this should not be the place to attack his work. It seems to me to be a bit like turning up to orchestra practice with an electric guitar, or joining a running club and telling people that running is unhealthy in the long run, and that they should only be walking for cardio... it's not that there should be no place for these things / discussions out there, and sometimes there may be some useful points... but read the room, man!"
Amen and amen and amen!!!
Amen that they need to start their own blog if they want to cause such mayhem. You aren't helping anybody by attacking them for agreeing with Grant's theory.
It's always one or two people that can completely upend a forum. Which is why freedom of speech isn't really free. Never ever have humans been free to do whatever they want without consequences. There are consequences for every choice you make.
I do agree that he should set up a donation page, not to threaten people to donate but to say hey I can't keep paying for this so feel free to support it or it will go away.
I think the forum aspect was what he paid for so when he stops paying it's just gone.
So no ideas for a new group? A lot of us are not going to join the existing low vitamin A group on Facebook. And it appears no one wants to move the convo to the raypeatforum despite that it's safe to talk about it there.
You know we've all been through the ringer and it seems like, knowing that, we should be able give one another even more kindness than usual. Compadres in misery.
@itsme
It has turned in to a bit of an echo chamber, but don't most groups? The ones who highly disagree with the group's approach usually leave because what's the point in staying in a group you disagree with? That'd be like me staying in this group despite that I eat liver again and think vitamin A is fine (that will likely never happen!). I would probably update one last time and then lose interest. The FB group is heavily watched by Andrew, so every time you say something in the back of your mind you will have to ask yourself if it's something Andrew would approve of because if it isn't he will make it known. All groups with one central leader end up like this.
@itsme
I was there when the bannings happened. I saw what provoked most of them. It's his forum (I can't imagine how much something like that cost him over the yrs if Grant said this forum costs over 1,000 per yr) and he wanted to change up the core beliefs of the group, those that were upset took to being disrespectful about it. Maybe he could have allowed them to express their feelings more considering a lot of them had contributed for yrs, but he felt like he was being attacked as a person, people wanted him dead. Those that wanted it to remain how it always was just needed to say their goodbyes, they refused, they wanted to argue and attack and rage and say he was an awful person. He has the right to change what the forum is about if he believes the current paradigm of ray peat harms people. And it did. I was one of them that was harmed. My husband thinks Ray Peat nearly destroyed our family as I had also taken up a more 'free thought anti-authoritarian' approach to life and our marriage was failing, I was failing as a mother because I didn't have any structure to my parenting, and my kids were suffering as a result. We are now christians, our kids lives have completely turned around, my marriage is amazing, and I don't believe in most of what Ray Peat taught about life anymore. I don't blame charlie for wanting to abandon it and distance himself from those who wanted it to remain the same. The only thing I disagree with is keeping the name. It really doesn't have much to do with Ray Peat other than experimenting.
What is insecure is feeling traumatized by what a forum owner wants to do with the group he pays for. We have to understand that about any internet group that isn't ours. We can contribute but don't attach yourself like your life depends on it.
No one has to be there if they don't want to be that's for sure. We should be more kind to people though. No one is perfect, most of us here have been fanatical about a diet or ideology, thank goodness I didn't host a group during the last 16 yrs! Boy would that be embarrassing! I'm thankful for in real life friends who don't judge the way people do on the internet.