Pagan Tea House

I’ve been looking over scripts, trying to figure out if this web site would benefit from some form of chat system or at least a forum. I’ve noticed in the comments that old friends are finding one another through this web site, and I’d like to facilitate that if possible.

Unfortunately, all of the web chat scripts that I found suck. Majorly. But then, really, doesn’t web chat in general suck? There’s nothing quite as useful where chat is concerned as Internet Relay Chat. So, since I didn’t really think of this web site as a PTH in and of itself, we’ll skip the chat function for now. Unless somebody comes up with a great idea.

Forums are another story. I could easily put up a forum script so that people could leave messages and what-not. The only problem is that I don’t have the time to moderate a forum, and an un-moderated forum is out of the question. The last time I had a forum up I spent inordinate amounts of time every week just deleting the bogus registrations. Spammers love forums. So if we were to put up a forum, we’d definitely need moderators. Any volunteers?

I’d appreciate any input from people who have ideas about how best to use this web site. With a nod to the old PTH Group, I don’t really want this web site to become a clique unto itself. I want every person from any PTH chat room, chat channel or networking system to feel at home here. So… I’m open to suggestions.

I just completed another low-level scanning of the Pagan Tea House landscape (as it’s scattered out across the vast inch deep sea of the Internet, littered with our debris). I’m happy to report back that there are survivors. I’m sad to report that there aren’t many.

I visited the various chat rooms on IRC (Internet Relay Chat), and didn’t find any warm bodies. This seems to be a recurring theme. I’m beginning to wonder if chat is dead. What’s the point of 10 to 15 people being in a chat room or channel if no one ever speaks in the channel? If you’re going to log in and only talk privately to other people in the channel, what’s the point in being there? And one has to wonder if any of these people understand what the word “chat” means.

I’ve also perused the web sites that are out there. As usual there are surviving pages from the ancient days, drifting about in the ether like relics of a forgotten time. Then there are the pages that have been put up as shrines to the vanity of some channel operator, or just some dweeb who chose to claim the name “Pagan Tea House” for their own use.

This begs the obvious question; one which I will pose to the old-timers. Is the idea of the Pagan Tea House finally dead? Did we finally let it slip from the realm of possibility into the dark, depraved corners of distant memory? Did we pass the torch to a younger generation, only to discover that they’re only going to use it to light their tiki torches and cigars?

I don’t know, friends. It’s not good when you spend an hour in the EFnet PTH, rolling doughnuts across the proverbial floor and waiting for some kind of response, and getting nothing. It’s also not a good time that in that hour not one person joined the channel. The UnderNet PTH was no different, really. Is chat dead?

If the general idea of the Pagan Tea House is thriving anywhere, it’s on social networks like Newsvine and Ning. Those are the only places where I found any life. Has PTH culture finally morphed into something useful, beyond cutting backflips into a virtual hot tub and arguing over spirituality or who came before who in some chat channel’s pantheon?

Personally, I’d like to think so. The tag line of this web site is “the history and legacy of a genuinely good idea”. There are enough bad ideas in the world. I think we should hang on to the good ones as long as we can, and we should never let them go without a fight.

To those who sit quietly in chat rooms and channels under the banner of “Pagan Tea House” but do not welcome new arrivals or respond to the words of people you don’t know, I contend that you have no idea what “Pagan Tea House” stood for and you sully its memory.

But to those on Newsvine and Ning, who are engaging in dialogue and the free exchange of information, I want you to know that you remind me of all that was good about the original Pagan Tea House. And while you don’t need it, and certainly don’t seek it, I’d like to offer my sincere well wishes and blessing as one of the members of the first PTH. It’s not how I thought it would be done, but I’m glad to see that someone has picked up the banner and is carrying it farther down the line.