Community Profile

[revised June 14, 2020]

Welcome!

We're a place to talk about Paganism, Pagan paths, and related topics (ritual, divination, magic, deities, and many others.) We want this to be a thoughtful place, a place where questions and details are welcome, where ongoing conversation in a thread may take us into new and interesting territory.

We're welcoming to people from all Pagan paths and practices, or those who are curious about them. (And how do we define Paganism? That's a good question for a discussion, don't you think? Check out our initial discussion here for a range of views)

Think of us like a cross between your favorite coffee shop, your local pub, and a neat outdoor park with actual functional seating. Like that. Informal, but not quite everything-goes.

Local culture:
I want this to be a space where people can hang out and talk and learn more - that means encouraging conversation, being open to questions, and assuming good will to start out.

Sometimes I think topics like religion and spirituality can be scary or hard or just plain complicated for a lot of people because there's a lot of pressure about how we talk about it, or what things we do. I bet most of us have come across pressure at some point to change a practice, prioritise something else, or that something we're doing that matters a lot to us isn't important.

Consider this, instead, a place to chat, ask questions, learn about what other people do (and some of why), that's open to a wide range of practices, priorities, and preferences.

Some other tips
Opinions aren't facts (and vice versa)
Your opinions are very welcome, but if you state something (especially an unusual something) as a fact, chances are good someone will ask for a source. Reference links to other posts, web pages, or other sources are a lovely thing in general, and we encourage them, because that's how we all learn more.

Diverse communities have diverse communication styles
Everything from short and witty to long and detailed might show up here. Engage with it as suits your interests and energy - you don't need to reply to everything!

Policies:
Help everyone to read and respond to what you write
It helps a lot to write clearly (avoid netspeak, put a blank line between paragraphs, etc.) Please be clear what an abbreviation means the first time it comes up in a post. It can be hard to tell whether BTW means "By the way" or "British Traditional Wicca" if you're not familiar.

Staying purely on topic is not necessary (conversation flows).
However, if you're having more than 2 or 3 exchanges on a noticeably different topic, please consider making it into a new post - you can also get more responses and ideas that way.

Comments that try to shut down conversation will be moderated.
Your maintainer believes in moderating in context (responding in the thread where a problem occurs) whenever possible, though she may also use email or PM conversation to address a larger issue. Screening comments will only happen for privacy issues or other significant needs (like comments which are designed solely to disrupt conversation, not add anything to it: by this, we mean things like pure insults, threats, disruptive images or repeated text) [1]

Respect other people's choices about distribution of their work
Don't post other people's copyrighted material here without including appropriate permission (not just citation), and indicating the place you got it from. Links to other sites are, however, just fine. (Your maintainer is also a librarian, and has been known to do discussions of copyright law and best practice with little prompting.)

Sales posts, announcements of local events, etc. do not generally add to discussion and are not welcome by themselves.
However, a post with substantive discussion (i.e. "I've been going to this event [link here] for the last 3 years, and really enjoy X, Y, and Z, but find Q frustrating. Do you go to local events? What do you like about them?") would be fine.

As the community grows, we're open to having periodic advertising-only threads (once a month, perhaps) for those kinds of comments.

Posts that raise legal concerns will be handled in a manner appropriate to the concern
This may include screening comments, freezing further discussion, noting the concerns and then freezing further comments, etc. up to removing the post if needed. (Added June 2020)

Your maintainer
Jenett is priestess in a small initiatory religious witchcraft tradition founded in the Twin Cities, Minnesota, now living in the Boston, Massachusetts metro area. Her past community things include being on the board of Twin Cities Pagan Pride, being part of of the founding of Paganicon (a spring hotel-based conference in Minneapolis), various and sundry articles, and the Seeking website aimed at people interested in modern Paganism but specifically religious witchcraft.

Jenett obviously has a Dreamwidth account and feel free to check it out, but if you want an easy intro to her Pagan interests, you might like a series of three posts she made early in her Dreamwidth career. Other info and links can be found in her personal profile for the curious.

[1] Your maintainer is generally online a lot of the time, but appreciates a head's up in email or message if you see something going awry.