[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.
Honest question: if you can’t talk about where you got it from, how you grew it, and you can’t offer any trades, what’s left other than “here’s a pic of my shrooms” and “I just took 500g!!!” posts? Maybe the occasional news article, but that’s about it. If that’s the route you have to take to stay on this instance, I’d rather you find a different one. If it just becomes the two types of posts ad nauseum, I’ll just unsubscribe.
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.
I totally agree with you. !shrooms@sh.itjust.works is the closest comparable community to ours, and the admins there have apparently given the green light for such topics.
Some topics that I don’t believe break LW rules:
- Hunting for wild mushrooms
- General discussions about mushrooms that don’t involve production or sale.
- News articles
- Activism
- Trip experiences
This is by no means a list of “approved” topics that you have to stick to. I’m just trying to demonstrate that there are a lot of possible discussions around the topic of magic mushrooms that do not involve the sale or cultivation. My only job is to keep illegal shit off here and to keep things civil. Other than that I want this to be a place of open discussion. But if anyone feels that the rules are too restrictive, then I understand if you seek greener pastures. And that’s the beauty of the fediverse, anyone who stays will still be able to post to and interact with other mushroom communities.
I’ll just unsubscribe.
If he unsubscribes, I’ll unsubscribe! 👿 👺 👹 😡 🤬
Lol I hope that didn’t come off as a threat. Just a “if that’s what the community will be, then it’s not for me and I’ll go”. You do you, and all that. I just care more about growing tech and want to see that content.
The community seems kinda pointless then…
Welcome to the shrooms community. Don’t talk about doing them, buying them or growing them. Have fun!
That seems to be the general opinion of everyone I’ve heard from so far.
Rule 6 doesn’t seem to interfere with rule 1 given the content is perfectly legal in places like Colorado and Oregon. I think if that were removed we could have a community much like /r/unclebens with plausible deniability if ever approached by the LW admins. Worst case, we move to another instance
Is it federally legal though? LW needs to be careful that it does not run afoul of US regulations. One lawsuit or criminal case could spell the end for LW. The explosive growth we experienced over the summer put much light on the instance. They seem to have locked down anything that could potentially draw unwanted attention from the authorities and are loosening restrictions slowly as they evaluate things on a case-by-case basis. I will continue to push for fewer restrictions on this community.
That said, if you are looking for a similar community with fewer restrictions, try !shrooms@sh.itjust.works. A lot of the community has moved there already.
It is in the same status as marijuana and there are plenty of weed growing communities on LW. I get where you are coming from but there is precedent for similar content on LW if that helps
That’s the case I plan to make with the admins.
