What are the Buddhist communities & forums on the internet and in the real world? What are their history? How does BuddhismSE fit in with the others?
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My impression is BSE is 5.4 years old and is unrelated to other Buddhist forums.
The first major Buddhist forum I was aware of was called E-Sangha, which was extremely sectarian, and banned lots of folks, including DD. Legend says it was cyber-attacked. Read here.
From the ashes of E-Sangha appeared to arise a number of Buddhist chatsites created by David N. Snyder Ph.D, such as:
- dhammawheel.com (Theravada)
- zenforuminternational.org (Zen; now defunk)
- dharmawheel.net (Mahayana)
Most of the founding members of dhammawheel.com were active on E-Sangha, such as the current admin Retrofuturist and Venerable Dhammanando (and some now ex-DW moderators).
There is also a current chatsite at newbuddhist.com with moderators who were E-Sangha members (however, possibly not the site owner).
Another independent forum is buddhismwithoutboundaries.com, which I and another ex-E-Sangha-bannee posted a lot on.
There is the low traffic Goenka orientated vipassanaforum.net and more low traffic off & on forum called freesangha.com and low traffic secularbuddhism.org/community/
There is dharmaoverground.org, where members focus heavily on personal claims of attainments.
There is discourse.suttacentral.net, which appears to have a narrow doctrinal focus
There is bswa.org/forum/, connected to Ajahn Brahm's monastery.
That's probably it.
Oh... and there is Reddit, which looks like a sectarian free-for-all to me; where folks can set up their own site and cult.
I post/have posted on most of them, under various pseudonyms, unless I am banned or forget them.
Because I'm in the habit of reinterpreting scripture, and questioning traditional authorities, I often find that fundamentalists are upset by what I write. For instance some time ago a chap going by the name of 'Namdrol' on the E-Sangha bulletin board, in a discussion of the Theravāda three lifetimes model of the nidāna chain - for which there is no Pāli Canonical authority - declared: "to reject the three lifetimes model is harming the dharma". I mentioned back then that I thought this a fundamentalist view, but was told that the word "fundamentalist" was banned in that forum (along with any reference to the New Kadampa Tradition which was a bit of a give away). E-Sangha died not long afterwards, but not before I realised that online forums, and arguing with strangers on the internet generally, were a waste of my time and started focussing on writing this blog.
Dhamma Dhatu
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Sympathies to Jayarava -- he hasn't posted here since 2015 actually. – ChrisW Oct 16 '19 at 06:09
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Last seen Aug 25 at 21:29 https://buddhism.stackexchange.com/users/5715/jayarava – Dhamma Dhatu Oct 16 '19 at 06:11
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Yes but last posted -- sic transit -- some people aren't up for much "arguing with strangers", Ven. Yuttadhammo wrote something similar when he retired. – ChrisW Oct 16 '19 at 06:14
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Personally, i find arguing with strangers to be extremely beneficial. I have found my knowledge of dhamma theory growing strongly, particularly with the help of SC sutta facilities. – Dhamma Dhatu Oct 16 '19 at 06:19
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Yes, good. And argument might be traditional in some schools, like part of the curriculum: important. People volunteer for that though, imo, know what they're getting into as students in that school. People here on BSE asked, "don't assume a teacher's mantle". Quakers are aka "Friends", did you know? Well I met a Young Friend when I was a teen -- he mentioned, "I'll discuss anything with anyone, but as soon as it turns into an argument I walk away." – ChrisW Oct 16 '19 at 06:35
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Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat. – ChrisW Oct 16 '19 at 10:54
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What DD wrote is fairly accurate. I would add that on SC has imo a fairly prominent ideological bent on feminism and climate change, such that they even made ToS policy reflecting it.
Dhammawheel.com is run by Retrofuturist (Paul Davy) and David Snyder. According to Dr. Snyder's wikipage he isn't a Fully Enlightened individual but had a miraculous birth like the Buddha and thinks original Buddhism is a mix between Theravadin, Zen and Mahayana doctrines, whereas Paul Davy keeps teaching people about existence of "Non-Dhamma which the Buddha didn't teach" albeit does not answer questions if you ask him about it.
It is a small community of like 20 active posters and it is rather hopeless imho.
These communities also have little to no experts because people who can teach generally don't post there because they don't want to be abused, patronized and harassed everytime someone can neither disprove nor understand what they are saying and are in disagreement.
People who know their stuff don't want to deal with it and the Admins are uneducated and are unable to say; 'This guy is irrational,is wrong, jumping from one thing to another, is inconsistent and is unfit to participate in a discussion. Let's ban him so he doesn't confuse junior members nor annoys the knowledgeable members.'
Many people on these forums have been there for years and years and are probably not going to have much to show for it in the end.
Also since the early days of online Buddhist communities there have been conspiracy theories about the real motivations and people behind them.
Btw i am not saying that these people on dw & sc are wrong and worthless, it's just kind of weird and confusing dynamic.
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Well I act like an admin here -- and on this site, I am not meant to delete an answer which I think is not well explained, that is not my role -- my role is to keep users from being "abused, patronized and harassed" though, so if you see that happening please "flag" that for attention (in case I or another moderator didn't notice). See also this help topic which describes "when should I and when shouldn't I comment?" – ChrisW Oct 17 '19 at 20:43
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I was speaking loosely about my impression of the dw. I like SE because it's very chill and one can just type up mostly whatever without getting into a discussion which could annoy and anger. It is like all are free to give their take on a matter here based on their interpretation, that is fine and clean imo. The forum format is a lot more tricky and is more of a multi round debate format whereas here it is just 1 opener each + comments. – Oct 17 '19 at 20:53