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From The Fortean Times To Forteana: Our 10th & 20th Anniversaries

The thread is still here and responded to a quite innocent search on the FT engine!

Ghost Photos

Now I think I'll try that other search on Google - I may be some time. :)
 
1st August, 2001, I joined, so I'm near my ten year anniversary.
 
I used to love this place, but as it slowly mutated into a news clipping archive I found the real Forteana was being swamped by the "bizarre".

I look in occasionally, but I tend to plough my own Fortean furrow nowadays.
 
ArthurASCII said:
I used to love this place, but as it slowly mutated into a news clipping archive I found the real Forteana was being swamped by the "bizarre".

I look in occasionally, but I tend to plough my own Fortean furrow nowadays.
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What do you consider to be, 'the real Forteana', Arthur? I'd genuinely like to know. :)
 
Pietro_Mercurios said:
ArthurASCII said:
I used to love this place, but as it slowly mutated into a news clipping archive I found the real Forteana was being swamped by the "bizarre".

I look in occasionally, but I tend to plough my own Fortean furrow nowadays.
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What do you consider to be, 'the real Forteana', Arthur? I'd genuinely like to know. :)
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Hard to clarify my thoughts exactly, but there's a whole world out there beyond the inside pages of the Daily Telegraph. I'm just not drawn to this place anymore.

Fortean Times seems less about Fort and more about "strange but true". Sells more copy I suppose, but where are all of the serious papers and articles that don't fit into a couple of pages? They used to be published periodically in Fortean Studies collections, but the last one was published in 2001.

Coincidence?
 
I tend to agree with Arthur about the magazine itself. It's the main reason why I stopped buying it. And it's a shame that Fortean Studies seemed to have died off a fair few years ago.

That said, the forum seems to have stayed pretty constant over the years.
 
ArthurASCII said:
I used to love this place, but as it slowly mutated into a news clipping archive I found the real Forteana was being swamped by the "bizarre".

I look in occasionally, but I tend to plough my own Fortean furrow nowadays.
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Agree on all counts. I have an almost complete set of FTs, only the first few copies in facsimile and a full set of Fortean studies but have recently stopped subscribing. The forum has succumbed to pseudoskepticism or become as you say, a news clipping archive.

Like you, my interest in forteana is as strong as ever but I'm less tolerant of pop culture or vested interests.
 
colpepper1 said:
The forum has succumbed to pseudoskepticism or become as you say, a news clipping archive.
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Really? It was always a source of clipping - this was one of the reasons I found it less practical to buy FT. As for pseudoskepticsm, it seems to me that the forum is more open than it was. That said, it continues to have various posts or threads that surface once in a while, the theme of which is usually along the lines of a one particular poster's pet theory. This is then found to be a theory which no-one is allowed to question without being called skeptical, a sheeple, etc. ;) Search back far into the FTMB and you will see this happen with some regularity.
 
I took the FT long enough to recognise the difference between gullibility, playfulness, skepticism and pseudoskepticism. As a student of human nature I consider my bullsh*t detector pretty finely honed, whatever the antennae is pointed at.
 
I'd like to think that there's room for all that here, if not more :)
 
Jerry_B said:
I'd like to think that there's room for all that here, if not more :)
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Why did you stop taking the magazine if it represented your viewpoint to well?
 
Jerry_B said:
For the reasons I've outlined above ;)
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You find it hard to clarify your thoughts on the matter like Arthur then. Fair enough.
 
No, I don't find it hard to clarify my thoughts. FT didn't offer me anything I couldn't find here or elsewhere. Fortean Studies covered some other bases but that now seems to be defunct. Various other websites (i.e. The Anomalist, Magonia) also help me get my fix of Forteana. Simple.
 
The problem with CSI is that after you've watched them for a while the structure is so obvious you can spot whodunnit the minute they walk on screen. The Mentalist was a bit more fortean, but again the structure gets obvious after a while. Still subscribe to FT, there's usually something you've not come across before in each issue. And off to UnCon again.
 
Timble2 said:
And off to UnCon again.
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I'll be there again. Perhaps we could all meet up for a drink? Not in a Richard Dawkins approved lift, obviously.
 
I think I read the board (or maybe just IHTM) from almost the start but didn't join until there was a thread I wanted to reply to. It was an awesome place back then, a great place to meet future husbands ;)
All went sour when the whole reading of PMs thing came out.
 
It's simply not possible for anyone, even mods and admin, to read other people's PMs, no matter how much some of you would like that particular board myth to be true.
 
marionXXX said:
All went sour when the whole reading of PMs thing came out.
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Was Julian Assange or the Guardian involved? :shock:

(Just as long as the Telegraph doesn't get onto my expenses... ;) )
 
Jerry_B said:
I'd like to think that there's room for all that here, if not more :)
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The Fortean Timeline
I recall looking at this years ago and looking again today it's not changed.
Stuck in a time-warp?
A Decade of Strange unchanged?
 
It's had various things added to it over the years, so you may have not been reading it very closely. Not that it has anything whatsoever to do with this thread, of course...
 
Jerry_B said:
colpepper1 said:
No CSI on the side? You do surprise me.
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Your point being...?
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My question being at what point was the decision made to allow a website dedicated to a man who rejected explanations to become dominated by skepticism and those who promote the ideology to be beyond reproach?
 
colpepper1 said:
My question being at what point was the decision made to allow a website dedicated to a man who rejected explanations to become dominated by skepticism and those who promote the ideology to be beyond reproach?
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It didn't. And what on earth has that got to do with me watching CSI...? :?
 
WhistlingJack said:
It's simply not possible for anyone, even mods and admin, to read other people's PMs, no matter how much some of you would like that particular board myth to be true.
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I don't know how a certain mod did it, but this mod was suspiciously familiar with the content of my PMs.
 
colpepper1 said:
How can you be so sure when all the evidence suggests the contrary?
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If you actually have evidence of a 'decision [...] to allow a website dedicated to a man who rejected explanations to become dominated by skepticism and those who promote the ideology to be beyond reproach?' you'd best take that up with the mods.

If people don't agree with other people here, it's not a conspiracy. It's human interaction of a type which tends to manifest on discussion boards such as this. That, however, doesn't stop some people crying foul whenever a pet theory or idea is picked to bits by other people. I guess the advice in such cases would be that people should be prepared for such things. It doesn't mean that it's anything to do with Skepticsm - to try and make that sort of claim is really just an attempt to stop anyone asking questions or even showing a basic doubt about something.
 
beakboo said:
WhistlingJack said:
It's simply not possible for anyone, even mods and admin, to read other people's PMs, no matter how much some of you would like that particular board myth to be true.
Click to expand...
I don't know how a certain mod did it, but this mod was suspiciously familiar with the content of my PMs.
Click to expand...

This particular spat happened before I became a mod, I wasn't involved, and so I have nothing to gain from commenting on it.

Now that I am a mod, and have some knowledge of how the board actually works, please believe me when I say that it's not possible for mods and admin to access PMs - anyone who prefers to carry on thinking so is simply deluded.
 
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