talkmagic.co.uk

You have crackpipes here?

Sorry, make that bagpipes....

When I first decided to get serious about magic I knew I wanted to join a forum so would read TM and Cafe on a daily basis and I went with TM because it had more of a friendly/family type vibe with the odd annoying troll (think annoying Uncle!). Things just seem that little bit more personal here...

The Cafe is too big for my liking anyway, but I will stop by and have a read of the reviews there from time to time, and as Tony mentioned the children's section is very good and I have learnt a fair bit reading that

The cafe is horribly designed and it's impossible to search the site. You HAVE to use the google search engine to actually find a review on the site an from what I heard is that once you sign up, you get bombarded with Ad PM's by the admin nonstop and there is no way to op out of it.

I've never had any interest in the green place.

I joined here and MB and I'm more than happy with that. I know quite a few people on here now and have met a few too. I get all the support I need here and also try to give some back.

Although there te differences of opinion, that's sort of the point in some threads.

The cafe would give me a headache with its lay out. It's too big and would swallow me whole. I'm quite content here thank you very much.

Alec

Mandrake wrote:As far as I'm aware Craig, nothing has been edited or deleted in this thread, not by me anyway.

Added later:
I've just checked the Moderator logs for the last three days which record all the editing, deleting and banning, nothing showing there at all.

That's odd... I wrote a very scathing response. . . maybe a similar question on a different forum?

Censorship is however, one of the biggest problems with the Cafe. Not only is it rampant it is not even handed and frequently involves the politics of the forum; if you say things one or two moderators don't like nearly all of your posts will be censored in some way and you go on a list to be black-balled. Too, many of these censors are born-again right-wing political & religious fanatics who seem to have big problems with Mentalists & Bizarrists that play things real and who express themselves a bit more directly and less PC than they think "proper" (even Banachek has been quietly called on the carpet there and he tends to be far more mellow and balanced)

One of the nick-names for the Cafe is the Society of Brown Nosing Magic Buffs in that Brooks and the majority of his wannabe team exploit the forum as a way to snuggle-up with VIP types and push out/ignore those that may interfere with their little dream world. VIPs advertise and likewise bring in newbies that want to rub elbows and so on. If you buy advertising Brooks & Co. will love you and give you tons of leeway. . . then again it also means that he ignores those that are known pirateers when it comes to Intellectual Property, supporting prop builders & merchants that are notorious for manufacturing low-end versions of popular pieces without any kind of permission and licensing agreement. They likewise look the other way when it comes to those that operate a Black Market scenario within the forum; running off physical copies of popular eBooks as well as scanned hard-copy in bulk for the sake of sales for which the author sees nothing but likewise, to be used as a form of trading cash in horse trading situations . . . Rick Maue and I nailed one such individuals who is now part of the management team there and "protected" by the establishment from we evil types who set-up and "out" such criminals. . . and I emphasize (before anything is said) that this is true piracy we're talking about, not the casual and limited sharing of a book or video with a friend, which many may do, it is the sort of thing friends do with one another and used to be quite common practice in magic clubs, many of which hosted a club library. . . some still do, like the Magic Castle and I'd bet, the Magic Circle as well.

The assholiness of the Cafe has resulted in several alternate forums including MagicTalk and at least 3 or so private forums, most of which deal with Mentalism & Bizarre styles of performance.

Yes, I have been known to take on a new persona or use stealth software to check in from time to time, just to see what the latest gossip is, a little something which others are known to do as well.

Yes, the Cafe does host a wealth of insight and perspective due to the collective mind that's evolved via members. Mixed into the good however is more than a few tons of inexperienced opinion and general rhetoric that would confuse the common mortal. Sadly, in this particular case, the lowest common denominator tends to be the loudest and most frequently invoked.

If you have product to hustle, the Cafe is an awesome community to exploit, just ask Sankey, Banachek, Hillford and others that generate tens of thousands of dollars on every book or video release. But then it is easy to inspire the dreamer when it comes to handing them methods to the "impossible", they'll buy most anything if you package it right and toss in a designer signature.

Bottom line is, you can learn a great deal through the Cafe so long as you learn to sift through the B.S. and understand that the Gestapo management team can make your time there a living hell if you challenge them or one of their idols like Osterlind (especially).

In general, it's just not worth the insanity in my opinion.

So - just to clarify - Craig is not a fan of The Cafe
Bruce

Alfred Borden wrote:When I first decided to get serious about magic I knew I wanted to join a forum so would read TM and Cafe on a daily basis and I went with TM because it had more of a friendly/family type vibe with the odd annoying troll (think annoying Uncle!). Things just seem that little bit more personal here...

The Cafe is too big for my liking anyway, but I will stop by and have a read of the reviews there from time to time, and as Tony mentioned the children's section is very good and I have learnt a fair bit reading that

This was me too, ive been a member here for 5 years and not felt the need to register to any other magic site.

They all looked too cliquey to me and very pretentious so haven't really looked further away from this friendly place. Saying that I only have access to the public forums so who knows what goes on behind closed doors!!

I find the whole place too garish-looking to even register.

Bah! The most annoying aspect to me of the Cafe is a certain magic creator forever saying "Thanks!" to his buyers or just mentioning that he has just sold the 500th product to keep his Topic at the top, as well as including oversize adverts he really gets on my wick.
Ade

Good afternoon all,I know this is an old post and i have not posted much on here,but i will from now on as i have been reading some very good threads and people seem real friendly on here, there really are some strange folk on the Majic Cafe ,nice people too but have seen some not so nice people , and yes the colour green can give one a headache,I will see how it goes on there ,but may well leave the place and hopfully enjoy my time on here ,take care all.

I'm not even allowed to join the Cafe because I only have sky or hotmail address. They will just have to manage without me

They have tried to manage without me for years but they seem to have some difficulty in the doing of it.