Communique'

[Joan Marie]

Hi Everybody.

Today I get my 2nd Pfizer jab. This weekend I have guests from out of town coming for a visit.
The weather makes everything feel like slow motion.

I'm working away at rebuilding the Library of Decks.
I had big hopes for it when I first started it back in 2018, but I really had it set up not so great so it never quite rose to what I had wished and I was sort of stuck in a format that wasn't working so well, for me or anybody. Not to mention, it's performance on phones was very limited. Which sucked.

The recent upgrade has forced me to completely rebuild it from scratch (though I have all the data, text, links, images etc)
It's a lot of work but once it's done it will be much easier for me to add decks.
I've changed a couple of things in the format, just small things but I think they make a big difference. And it will work perfectly on phones.

Once it is done I will give every deck creator a chance to make any changes or additions they want. Then I will start very actively adding decks.

I also want to begin work on re-organising the whole forum. And I want to put more emphasis on reading tarot. I'm not exactly sure how to go about that. Some of the old ideas just don't grab people any more, so I am looking for new ideas.

This is going to take some time. But I think (I hope) the result is going to be something good for all of us. I want to work on cultivating a real atmosphere for tarot reading, learning, and art. This is what I have always tried to do, and some of my ideas were good and some frankly not.
We have a good thing going right now. I can see it getting better. There is a good foundation here. But I think the whole place could be organised to be more fun and clearer for everyone.

Just now I had an idea, for example, that there should be a section dedicated to Love/relationship questions! Keep them all in one place. It's an important aspect of tarot reading for a lot of people (you see all the posts we get!) and why not just give it it's own dedicated space so people can explore and have fun with it?

Like I said, I'm not exactly sure how to go about all this so any and all ideas or thoughts or opinions you have are extremely welcome.

[Joan Marie]

I just had another idea, again though I don't know exactly how to make it work, but: Spontaneous Reading Circles.

Anybody can start (and end) one whenever they want, set their own "rules" or whatever and run it.

This needs to be thought through more to make it actually work, but I kind of like it. The old way of doing monthly groups was sort of wonky and limited. I want to give people more freedom (and support) to set them up, do them, and finish them.

I think this would let us all try more things.

[BlueStar]

I don't really have any ideas to contribute at the moment, but I really appreciate all the effort you do to improve the forum:) I'd like to become more active in doing readings, as I haven't read for other people in a while and want to get more confident and improve my skills, but haven't been sure how get started with it. So I look forward to any upcoming reading groups etc.

I hope your jab goes well:)

[Joan Marie]

I just had another idea- and I'm posting it here to keep it with the others.

I want to create a homepage link to a page of concise links to al lthe resources we have here for deck creators to promote their work and collectors/buyers to find it

We have so much, besides the Tarot Bazaar section where people can show and promote their work, we also have the Library of Decks and the World of Decks News newsletter.

I feel like a lot of people are missing some of these resources.

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Another thing, a while back we had a thread on 3-card spreads that I promised to consolidate into a useful resource - I have not forgotten.

[TheLoracular]

I really like the ideas you've got in mind. I'm going to sleep on the topic of "best ways to focus on reading tarot" and changes in general.

So after sleeping:

I also want to begin work on re-organizing the whole forum. And I want to put more emphasis on reading tarot. I'm not exactly sure how to go about that. Some of the old ideas just don't grab people any more, so I am looking for new ideas.

Just now I had an idea, for example, that there should be a section dedicated to Love/relationship questions! Keep them all in one place. It's an important aspect of tarot reading for a lot of people (you see all the posts we get!) and why not just give it it's own dedicated space so people can explore and have fun with it?

I've always had the feeling a lot more people read CoT posts than necessarily contribute themselves? Which isn't a bad or good thing, just a thing, lol. And that's definitely true of forums in general, of any genre. So maybe an approach could be putting together a section that was almost more of a teaching the craft of reading tarot and folks with a lot of experience could collaborate on topics like "Good ways to read for a querent about romantic relationships" and "Reading for clients vs. reading for friends/family"

Maybe there could be a thread specifically for newer readers (or others) to ask questions about learning how to read, but that thread was just the asking part and not the answering part. A moderator could take that question and start a new thread for us where we all contributed insights answering and any follow-up questions from the original poster or others could continue that conversation there in that thread.

It would also be a good way of giving new people a specific place to go to make their next posts after an introduction so they weren't so overwhelmed by all the topics and all the old threads?

That was what I came up with at least. I can't wait to see other people's ideas too!!

[Rose Lalonde]

I'm loving all of the ideas!

And I like the focus on reading!

Just now I had an idea, for example, that there should be a section dedicated to Love/relationship questions! Keep them all in one place. It's an important aspect of tarot reading for a lot of people (you see all the posts we get!) and why not just give it it's own dedicated space so people can explore and have fun with it?

Like this. It would be popular.

I don't have an idea of how to do this (no help at all ), but for exchanges, I always seem to want something that sits in the middle between the minute it takes to do a one sentence game kind of reading, and the 45 minutes or more I tend to put into a monthly reading circle reading (without even counting the feedback).

If it's of interest, I do have one idea for a way to incorporate doing readings that aren't exchanges. I was involved in a study group where the study was actually doing practice readings or discussing readings rather than going card by card through a deck. I really enjoyed it (it went on for months with people rotating in and out for each 'round' as they felt like it). One of us would draw 3 cards, and then all of us would do a reading for those cards and the same hypothetical question. (So we would all read for an imaginary sitter who was, for a random example, a woman in her twenties asking what she could do to further her career with the cards 5W ~ 7C ~ Priestess. We'd write it up in second person as though talking to a real sitter.) You would think it might devolve into who was "right" but there was none of that, and we focused on the reasons behind different takes and interesting instances where we read the cards the same way. We did that with one deck (well actually TdM, so a few similar decks), but I imagine it could be done with different decks in one thread if that would open it up more. Or if there were enough interest in something like this, maybe it could be sections added to RWS, Thoth, and TdM study respectively, but I guess the more it's split into different threads, the fewer people we might have getting together.

(And a random 2 cents... I know it's definitely better organization, but for things like deck of the week or solstice readings, there's something a little lonely to me about everyone having a separate thread instead of one big thread we all check together. Not a big deal, and I could be in the minority on that.)

[Joan Marie]

... So maybe an approach could be putting together a section that was almost more of a teaching the craft of reading tarot and folks with a lot of experience could collaborate on topics like "Good ways to read for a querent about romantic relationships" and "Reading for clients vs. reading for friends/family"
...

Maybe there could be a thread specifically for newer readers (or others) to ask questions about learning how to read, but that thread was just the asking part and not the answering part. A moderator could take that question and start a new thread for us where we all contributed insights answering and any follow-up questions from the original poster or others could continue that conversation there in that thread.

It would also be a good way of giving new people a specific place to go to make their next posts after an introduction so they weren't so overwhelmed by all the topics and all the old threads?

Excellent ideas! Really.

[Joan Marie]

One of us would draw 3 cards, and then all of us would do a reading for those cards and the same hypothetical question. (

....

(And a random 2 cents... I know it's definitely better organization, but for things like deck of the week or solstice readings, there's something a little lonely to me about everyone having a separate thread instead of one big thread we all check together. Not a big deal, and I could be in the minority on that.)

Great comments.

I really like the idea of the hypothetical question. What a great way to practice together.

I also agree with your random 2cents. It is an organisation thing, but there must be a better way to do it.

FYI- I am trying to get this Library of Decks re-build finished (hopefully very soon) and then I will move on to implementing some ideas and changes here. In the meanwhile, everybody, please keep the ideas coming. I'm so impressed with everyone's input and support.