[UPDATE 11/16/2023]: LW admin AvaddonFC has confirmed that photos of your grows are allowed.
Hello everyone, I just wanted to take a moment to make sure we are all up to speed on this community’s rules. /c/Shrooms was reopened on the condition that we enforce LW’s TOS. Feel free to post your questions here or shoot me a PM.
Our community rules as they currently stand:
1. Follow the Lemmy World Terms of Service.
2. Be helpful.
3. No trading of anything here. (See rule 1.)
4. Do not post about vendors. (See rule 1.)
5. No Irrelevant Content.
6. No instructions on how to grow or where to source materials.
I know that rule 6 is a bit broad and potentially vague. I have messaged an admin for clarification and will update this post when I receive a response. For now, I believe it’s best to air on the side of caution and remove all posts about growing.
They need to at least also allow people to talk about growing as long as no sources or warez are involved imho. Shrooms are illegal in virtually every jurisdiction in existence. Shrooms users are (wrongfully) criminals already so what’s the point of banning growing posts?
Shrooms are legal to cultivate, consume and distribute here in Colorado. They are decriminalized in several other states, which is usually a path to legalization.
Spores and mycelium are mostly legal to sell in the U.S., minus a few weird states. Mycelium can be subject to tighter regulations.
The restriction on growing information is weird though. Growing a mushroom is fairly standard information and any additional information regarding p. cubensis is just to increase yields or provide ideal conditions.
To be completely fair, I am a major contributor on pushing the boundaries here on lemmy.world. I don’t sell anything here nor would I want to. However, I am very open about my grows in all mycology related communities.
Here is how I see it. The admins and mods here seem to know nothing about these mushrooms other than it being illegal wherever they live. It is not their responsibility to know anything about it, to be honest. However, I will keep reminding them that I am acting within my legal rights and that not everything shared is completely illegal. However, I will respect the rules when they are clearly defined and also respect the wishes of the mods on a case by case basis.
I ain’t mad, honestly. There are different communities around Lemmy that I post on and that is totally cool. However, with lemmy.world being one of the largest instances, that puts it in a position to make or break lots of new users that are learning about this place or are only visiting here to learn about a niche subject.
We just need to find a good balance, is all. I will continue to post, have those posts removed and have a civil discussion with the admins or mods about my reasoning. (And not post things that have been defined as “bad”. Agreements need to be upheld, after all.)
When I was on Reddit, I moderated a reptile community that had extremely sensitive users. It’s just the nature of reptile owners to be honest. Now that the roles are reversed, and I am somewhat of an activist on this topic, I never will forget the shit that a mod has to tolerate. Sanity and clear arguments will generally prevail. Not always, but generally.
We can all learn something here and continue to build a community. It’ll take some time though.
Decriminalization and legalization in the U.S.: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psilocybin_decriminalization_in_the_United_States
Global decriminalization and legalization: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_status_of_psilocybin_mushrooms
That is something I am actively seeking clarification on. The point is afaik that LW does not want to expose itself to legal issues by hosting potentially illegal content. Since the team is small, and cannot afford a full-time legal team like Twitter or Reddit, they are playing it safe with the content that they choose to host. It’s an issue that every public instance is struggling with.