Please visit Entering the Garden and discover what are our sustaining roots. You may only apply with us if you agree and consent to our Community Vision and Purpose and Ethos and Ethical Guidelines.
The registration includes writing a letter of application in which you sincerely tell us why you wish to join.
This under construction page will contain simple suggestions how to make quality contributions in the Academia forum stem which you can visit here:
These instructions are mostly meant for Practitioners who have elevated user priviliges to tag content, for example. We also encourage Students to write clearly and well.
A quote from our Community Vision and Purpose:
It bears emphasizing for Academia contributions that we expect at least a fairly good standard of writing that serves both clear communication and grammatical correctness.
cu·rate (kyo͝or′āt′) tr.v.Source: http://www.tfd.com/curate
- To organize and oversee (an art exhibit or film festival, for example).
- To gather and present to the public: a blog that curates news stories.
Simply put: Curated content is something that you would gladly read again and share with others.
Well cared content is easy to digest and it preserves good value because it offers timeless insights.
Curating content has two separate but related aspects: (a) applying good quality standards when writing the content and (b) classifying or categorizing it.
Good quality writing standards are mostly self-evident:
The classification is very similar to metadata management in archival or library keeping purposes. We hope that everyone can see the wisdom of keeping written and contributed material easily searched and accessible to all: This is why we have invested into designing a smart system that also allows discerning between content presentation and interaction types besides the usual content topics tagging.
This forum has stems (forum categories), branches (subforums), and roots (pages). These lend to the idea that stems are the supporting structure, branches their extensions, and roots are the nourishing foundation upon which the Alchemical Garden forum was built on in the first place.
Formal inner practices and their applications have designated public discussion areas:
If you post such content elsewhere, then it's likely to get either removed or relocated.
Custom thread fields are this forum's way of emphasizing some tricky aspects about internal training. You can think of them as warning labels.
The custom thread fields have been enabled on Herbalism and Naturopathy, Esoteric and Arcana Methodology, and Ask About Good Practice branches. Why these branches only? First of all, these are directly practice or application oriented branches. Others like Monastic Traditions, Wisdom and Ethics, What Went Wrong?, and Textual Study have so strong self-identifying and self-correcting flavors that they leave little to no room for doubt what are the premises and precautions.
Here is a list of all the current custom thread field attributions. Only moderators can change these after the thread has been created.
Required. This is for declaring if there is, or may be by the nature of the topic, something in the discussion that could lead to energetic distress if applied carelessly.
Description: Are you speculating about how practices work together, or are you innovating new? Are you referring to valid practice that is known to require extra carefulness?
Optional. Please choose three (3) items at most.
Description: Which of these precautions apply? Please select three (3) at most according to the topics and in anticipation of the discussion that may follow.
Required.
Description: I wish this discussion to be held from the point of view...
Readers are also reminded with this: — Please try to uphold this point of view so that the discussion always returns to it.
Thread prefixes are mandatory for indicating what type of interaction or which communication format you put forth. Take your time to figure out what different prefixes are available: it changes based on your user privilege and forum branch.
There is a pre-selected set of 50+ tags that describe discussion subject matters. You can see them here: https://forum.alchemical.garden/tags/
Tags are optional, but we hope that you make the effort to find the right keywords that describe the actually discussed content first and foremost; it's not encouraged to go out for any meta-level connections and theoretical underpinnings for tagging purposes unless these are really intimately and specifically related to the topic. There is a fixed upper limit of five (5) tags so often less is more.
Everyone can tag their own threads.
When to choose the article thread format? Whenever you are absolutely certain that the first post content will be a complete stand-alone piece. It will stay on the top of every subsequent page of the thread. What Went Wrong? and International Translations are articles-only forums, which gives them a special grid layout which displays the first attached image in the article preview.
If you make an article thread, then please add a fitting picture to it so that it looks good on the preview. Choosing public domain pictures saves the hassle of attributing the source. Don't post pictures of unclear copyright status! 600 pixels usually is a good image maximum width, but you can adjust it to be even smaller when you click the image in the editing mode. Take note that it might take a bit figuring out how to make the picture mesh well with the text. If you wish to have the text flow closely around the image, then it must be set to align to either left or right side by clicking on it and selecting the appropriate menu option.
Before posting a new thread you could first look around if there has been similar discussion that either covers your inquiry or could be reasonably continued from where it was left earlier.
It generally is better to assume less than more for the sake of discussion. Furthermore, it cultivates humility to presume less of your own skills. It also is polite and grounding to make no presumptions about what you don't know through personal contact and direct experience.
Please don't use text emoticons or emojis, meme images, or other trite writing conventions. Officially we only support thumbs up (y) and thumbs down (n) emojis because these are meaningful gestures.
During writing your message, please use the preview button to inspect that you have formatted everything alright.
Formatting links with text description makes reading and accessing relevant material easier. The referred and linked sources should be checked for who is saying and what, so that the original publication and trustworthy sites are preferentially brought up.
Grammatical correctness and good writing style can be learned and provides many benefits. A well-written article is a special joy that glimpses clarity like a well lit room. One place to study articulate written English language is the Chicago Manual of Style which is recommended as an invaluable reference for thoughtful language.
Please visit our School Etiquette to gain insight about what type of discussion style we wish to uphold:
Long story short: be self-aware and clear, not self-conscious and dull.
If we give extra privileges that denote committed practice and community acknowledgement, then it's entirely reasonable to ask that this must not remain entirely one-sided tribute.
We encourage engagement here, and while we aren't breathing down to anyone's neck and scream to the ear that "Participate harder and keep looking happier!", we prefer at least some presence rather than lurking.
Some may not know what to ask or want to take a passive approach, but in the spirit of joining this community and reading what is available freely, one doesn't need an account to read what's here, but one does need an account to participate—so if you're not participating, it may be time to reconsider what you're doing here.
If this place is missing something—talk to us! This place is a work in progress and it grows based off of the community's participation. If you don't speak up, you won't see the place be impacted by your presence.
On the flip side, don't try to make your presence known, as this is trying too hard. Rather, whatever you give, know that if done in the spirit of learning and community, it will be enough to make your absence felt.