Jun 14 2009
Another Scan For Survivors
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.
5 responses so far
Dude, I couldn’t have said it better myself. Remember that political post I made to the PTH page a long time ago? A lot of that has come to pass. These are scary times we’re living in. Nowadays, it seems as if we’re done no matter what side of the aisle we’re on. Plus, our beliefs have been made into something “fashionable” by posers who really don’t have a clue. The serious people out there may soon find all religions illegal if things keep on the way they’re heading. Sometimes I look at it all and want to puke. At the same time, however, I am also very aware that there is an immensely strong Pagan community hidden beneath the snow, waiting for the excrement to hit the air conditioning. Then, when all the dust settles, we’ll be here to build again.
So this is a really old post… but one I just now have read. PTH has been pretty much dead for *years*. I would pop in from time to time to see what was up and chat with people, most of which I never got to meet in *real* life… though some I did. It was always the same list of names, and really not much more than that. It is a bit sad to think that a place that once scrolled by so fast that I could hardly keep up when I first started going had settled into a room full of silence. At the same time however there is some comfort in the belief that we were all there for each other when we needed to be and it is very likely that many of us just got too damned busy in our real lives to spend much time sitting in a chat room anymore.
KaLea (Cailly)
{{{Wic}}}
Great to see you again and the PTH. It is me know who was known as Lady Bast in the ole PTH…Good to see you again
For me, it’s pretty much what KaLea chalked it up to- I just didn’t have the time to sit in a chat room any more. Between the move to Seattle with the rest of the kids, a marriage, career change, divorce, and everything in between- as much as I hate to say it I just kind of de-prioritized IRC and chat. I also kind of forgot who my friends were for a while… but hey, that happens to the best of us.
I do wish that I’d stayed in better contact with everyone, though. PTH made a huge difference in my life in many different ways. If it wasn’t for that group of people, I could very well still be sitting in the middle of nowhere, still doing absolutely nothing.
I really do miss it, though. Glad to see that I’m not the only one that still checks in
Hey I hope cailly is who I think, if so, ))Hugs(( if not well I guess I deserv a slap but Trying to connect cailywaly