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Underground > Conversation >

The Conservative Barbelith?

21:02 / 21.12.04

did I miss anything? has the board had an influx of conservative people of late? diversity is more than welcome, but usually don't contribute to the discussions.

don't know if I spent too much time at Delphi boards, or if the guys an gals who used to dive into great insights and were open to new ideas just got old or left the board. most will feel like I'm talking out of my ass here...

I've always wandered mostly in the Magic[k] and Comics sections - more the latter in recent years - and sometimes it just feels like a litterate Newsarama board. and I'm not only talking about the rising quantity of people dissing Grant Morrison's work.

not that this was a worship sectum of the GM spirit before [some will disagree], but it feels strange... I started noticing this when a greater number of people said nothing more than that they haven't understood it at all - which everybody is allowed to.

not saying people should be expelled, flamed or anything, just noticing how the general context of the conversation has made a turn into the more conservative direction. it's very boring, actually. to the point that I bothered to come here and talk about, which is just stupid. this has been the Year Of the Monkey, damnit.

just ventin'. maybe I spent too much time away from here [not much aware of the other sections of the board] and did not age as much as I should have... maybe people should start taking more drugs again.

but if anyone has something to share about this, please do.

21:33 / 21.12.04

All I know is that I read a report on Election Day that wild monkeys were attacking children at a Hindu temple in India -- make no mistake, we have been fooled. The Monkey IS NOT OUR FRIEND. I, too, was lured in by his adorable antics. No more, dude. I say thee NAY, you simian cocksucker.

As far as conservative people on the comics boards go -- have you looked at comic books lately? The average person who reads that shit is likely to be a little bit defective. Just One Man's Opinion, though.

22:20 / 21.12.04

Could you expand a little on "conservative"? I think I understand what you're saying with regard to the Comics forum, but I'm wondering whether you're making a more general statement about peoples' apparent politics, or their posting reticence or limited subject matter, or what.

Of course, voicing this sort of opinion does usually leave one open to the question, 'well, what are you doing about it?'

01:16 / 22.12.04

you're on the money, Eddie, but attacking monkeys a reverberation of a larger phenomena, I suppose.

good point, Ganesh. now I'm avoiding what I've been doing for a while, which is just simply disappear from the boards/newsgroups that bother me and trying another. I didn't abandon Barbelith in first place, other places just seemed more active then.

yes, I've seen the state of the online Comics conversation and it's very poor. maybe we're the hellish in-between of the end of a good period and the beginning of a new good one... [does that make sense?]

in general I try too always keep an open mind and try tro open paths so that the conversation is constructive and geared towards the acceptance of diversity. amping up the good side of the context [because the bad side can grow even faster], but more often than not - and now I'm mentioning internet discussion in general - I feel the more open-minded people are outnumbered.

by scared people. so that results in destructive conversation and repetition of the same old ideas and actions. too many need for plain survival, too little room to be creative. maybe this has to do with the "Reality" need of today's context. we crave for reality in so many art presentations that we're easily fooled by the fantasy in journalistic presentations.

taking it back to the point: in the case of Barbelith, I only see the good stuff coming from old screen names. not good, since this has always been a melting pot of cool new ideas taht usually turned intro action.

08:06 / 22.12.04

I share the concerns about the quality of discussion on the comics forum. However, I'm at a bit of a loss as to what to do about it -

One of the problems is, I think, the lack of diversity of what people who are posting there read. It is rare that a comic published by anyone other than Marvel or DC (or any subsidiary thereof) sparks a topic, let alone one of any great depth - at the moment there is only one thread on the fron page of the comics forum that relates to a specific comic from a non-Marvel/DC publisher and that singluar thread is about the availibility of a dust jacket.

Maybe I should just start a raft of topics promoting the reading of a more diverse range of comics until someone else who has read them replies...

08:40 / 22.12.04

Well I think the problem, at least on the comics forum, is that for a thread to get a big response it helps if a lot of people read the comic and that generally only happens when the topic is a comic with a fairly high profile.
It's similar to the books forum where though a lot of people are reading a lot of books the chance of more than 2 or 3 people reading the same book is relatively slim.

09:29 / 22.12.04

I rarely read Comics or Magic and I've not noticed the forces of conservatism increasing in number. Perhaps this thread would be better titled "The Conservative Comics And Magic Forums".

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

09:43 / 22.12.04

There's also the "not having new members" thing... a lot of people have had the same old discussions over and over again, and already know everyone else's opinions on them. As usually happens, it'll probably pick up again once we find some new stuff to talk about, or get some new opinions. I think maybe we're just going through the "awkward silence" stage of an otherwise long and fruitful conversation.

Someone start a thread about the weather. Magic weather. In comics.

13:23 / 22.12.04

There's also the "not having new members" thing...

I agree, this is a real problem for me, the board appears to have suffered quite considerably due to this. Much as i still enjoy Barbelith it does often feel a bit like school.

Bring back new members!

16:17 / 22.12.04

Hmm. More damaging than a lack of new members, I think, is the lack of a useful front page. Pre-rainbow, you could sit yourself on the hub, and even if you were following one forum, you’d notice as soon as a big discussion was kicking off somewhere else. I *think* I understand the rationale behind the redesign, and I certainly think it’s had an effect. I’m just not sure it’s been an overwhelmingly positive change.

Maybe there have always been forums where some people just don’t go, but now it’s more difficult for non-participants to quietly lurk them, pay more attention whenever something interesting is happening, and leap in if and when they decide they’ve something of value to say. You’re either committed to the Comics forum or you’re not. Hence lots of threads about all the various Avengers titles, maybe. I was reading an old Temple thread a night or two ago, and was surprised by how many posters from the rest of the site were chipping in with questions and comments, rather than just the usual Temple crowd - I'm not sure that happens so much any more. And Conversation is stuffed with ‘game’ threads that could easily be pushed into Creation, but the threadstarters are scared that no-one ever looks in there. Stuff like that.

I mean, I *love* the rainbow, it sure is pretty, but maybe it doesn’t move quite so well? Although, y’know, site stats will doubtless disprove my little theory.

16:37 / 22.12.04

Bring back new members!

I am new!!! And very much enjoying myself. I'm pals with another 'Lither, who put in a good word or ten. Which I am very happy about. I shall be as non-Conservative as possible, which really shouldn't be that hard....

16:40 / 22.12.04

Bed Head, I don't know what effect the change has had on others, but it has certainly had that effect on me. I have much less incentive now to go anywhere outside of my one or two usual haunts.

17:37 / 22.12.04

ME HEAR MUMMY SINGING NOW

Maybe it's the quiet lull, like Stoatie said. I know that sleaze has made a new thread about non DC and Marvel comics and that's a good thing. As for the Magick forum, I don't know. Possibly there's a good few of us relative newbies getting to grips with Magick at the moment and that's resulting in a lot of the basics being re-covered. Hopefully in the future we'll start experimenting if we progress and adding something original to what's being said. Maybe we could also do with a few more posters in there.

17:42 / 22.12.04

Absolutely seconded. I used to read all the top threads in every forum. Now I can't remember the last time I looked at Comics or even the Headshop come to think of it. I really wish we still had those top threads listed for each forum because I think it helped to create a more fused society. This rainbow Barbelith sometimes feels like many different communities now.

Part of the problem is, if you work, you do a quick check to see what's going on and as Conversation is the first forum you get stuck in that. When you could see the top threads for every forum, you were far more likely to go and look and get engrossed in another forum just because of the thread. I can't remember the last time I looked at Laboratory or Switchboard, but I used to lots. You can see that. There are posts from me, pre-rainbow. Now there aren't.

I check the Temple, Conversation, and Creation these days. Oh and Books but only because I moderate it.

That saddens me.

17:44 / 22.12.04

Seconded Nightclub Dwight and Bed, I mean.

Haus of Mystery

17:59 / 22.12.04

Maybe we should all start talking about fiction suits and 5-D Squids again! Revolution!

Seriously though, I really don't find Barbelith a 'conservative' place. Snarky and bitchy it can be, but that's message boards. Everyone likes being cutting and harsh when there's little chance of a beating on the end of it.

I dunno. I'd like some examples of this newly emergent 'conservatism' before tackling the issue properly. If it's just a case of 'this place has changed, I don't like it as much' then, really, that's a personal issue.

18:00 / 22.12.04

Thirded. Tom, you listening? And is this an easy fix?

Brigade du jour

18:23 / 22.12.04

Everyone likes being cutting and harsh when there's little chance of a beating on the end of it.

Speak for yourself. I'm pathologically terrified of hurting people's feelings. Doesn't stop me putting my foot in it up to the groin most of the time, of course.

18:25 / 22.12.04

Dude, I don’t think it’s gonna be an easy fix. I wasn’t meaning to sound like I was stamping my feet and demanding changes. More like something along the lines that this *might* be a teensy problem; and then, I suppose, what can we all do about it? Should we be doing more unashamed inter-forum pimping, to get people into discussions, for example?

(Damn. There was a previous thread on this which I just went and dug up, but I’m not going to link to it, because it very swiftly descended into a flamewar. A fabulously amusing and witty flamewar, of the quality only ever found on Barbelith, but still not the kind of thing one links to willy nilly.)

..But anyway, trust me, it seems to have been previously agreed that linky-link spam posts of the ‘hey! there’s something interesting going on over here!’ variety were not thought to be appropriate anywhere on Barbelith. Time for a rethink, or does anyone have any other ideas to pull Barbelith back together again?

ONLY NICE THINGS

20:50 / 22.12.04

Seriously though, I really don't find Barbelith a 'conservative' place.

well, I think I'd like to have a better picture of what Hector means by "conservative". His example so far seems to be that people are not as gushingly enthusiastic about the Invisibles as they used to be...

D Terminator XXXIII

21:05 / 22.12.04

...Or that there just aren't enough beauty contest between you and the Planet of Sound anymore.

21:13 / 22.12.04

I don't understand Hector to mean that at all. I understand him to mean exactly what everyone is talking about here - in that lately there appears to be a big influx of 'not very interesting' discussion and that this is particularly obvious in topic specific forums.

The reason this is happening has been posited here already, and I think those people are right. The lack of interesting discussion pertains directly to the people that frequent the forum. Don't you think that if the only posters who choose to look at the Temple forum are way, way big on magick, the level of discussion will eventually fall?

When there was the opportunity for non-Templeites to see a thread title which was contentious or challenging, it drew people in who knew not so much about the Temple and it's topics - and that led to a very varied and interesting discussion.

That simply doesn't happen now.

21:18 / 22.12.04

Because people are too lazy to click on one extra link?

21:22 / 22.12.04

... lately there appears to be a big influx of 'not very interesting' discussion and that this is particularly obvious in topic specific forums.

Point being, this would tend to fall within the rubric "dull" rather than, specifically, "conservative".

21:45 / 22.12.04

Well just look at Michael Howard for instance : he's that busy doing his big box-little box rave move that he's discarded all fabricated notions of 'dull' or 'not dull' and transcended them.

I think people should clicky through the forums more. A few of the forums rarely evar have anything that I'd be interested in but I still click through just incase. Also with places like the Temple, if more people have a look every now and then they might see something that reminds them of some experience they had in the past or something that they where interested in but never followed up a while back or something.

I mean that Art, Fashion and Design forum has hardly ever had one thing that interests me but I still managed to find a thread on Web-Design that I found worth a good read.

Also, it often takes me 30 seconds to a minute to scan through all of the forums when I'm done with where I usually go to, just to check and see if anything new is about the place, it doesn't take long at all.

22:10 / 22.12.04

Because people are too lazy to click on one extra link?

Basically, yes.

It's called Usability.

ONLY NICE THINGS

22:10 / 22.12.04

olulabelle: Hector's one example was:

I've always wandered mostly in the Magic[k] and Comics sections - more the latter in recent years - and sometimes it just feels like a litterate Newsarama board. and I'm not only talking about the rising quantity of people dissing Grant Morrison's work.

not that this was a worship sectum of the GM spirit before [some will disagree], but it feels strange...

Annnyway. People aren't _prevented_ from visiting fora just because the most recently updated threads are not on the front page, but I agree that it's missed. I understand why Tom chose to change it, but it is something I might think about changing back if it were doable, as an experiment.

Reopening the board might also be good, or at least having a better mechanism for letting people in, but these require engineering of the board structure which at the moment th emanpower doesn't exist for...

22:23 / 22.12.04

Basically, yes.

It's called Usability.

And the solution is... what? To show one active thread title for each section on the main index page? How does that make the forum any more exciting? If people are that lazy/disinterested, they're still not going to explore the various areas. They're just going to open and read that one thread.

It may lead to a larger number of participants in those threads that are active enough to make the front page, but it doesn't necessarily solve anything.

Arguably, if somebody has that little interest in a certain area of the board that they can't even be arsed to move the cursor over the name and click their mouse button, they've probably not got much of worth to add to the threads within anyway.

23:08 / 22.12.04

Well it's not a usability issue because the end result isn't clear. That is to say - the board is neither more or less usable because you can't see the threads from the homepage, unless you specifically state as an objective that individuals should have mechanisms to help facilitate the finding of new conversations to engage with. This is a good goal. The other goal might be to limit the amount of one-liners and trivial conversations that people have and encourage them to think of these things as ongoing larger conversations with more weight to them. If that's your understanding of the goal then putting links to recently updated threads on the homepage woudn't help at all - in fact it would be more likely to hinder.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

06:49 / 23.12.04

Also, it often takes me 30 seconds to a minute to scan through all of the forums when I'm done with where I usually go to

Depends entirely on the speed of your connection.
Still, I admit it's not that much of a hardship... it just requires the desire to do so, which a lot of people obviously aren't feeling for whatever reason without some form of enticement.

Again, though, I haven't noticed the conservatism thing as much as some others- possibly because I don't spend so much time in Temple or Comics.
There're always changes in the quality/amount of discussion- about eighteen months ago or so ago the Switchboard was in a similar state- everything had been said, views were entrenched... then, as always happens, current events threw up new and more interesting avenues of debate. Currently traffic there's relatively high, and varied.

10:06 / 23.12.04

Well it's not a usability issue because the end result isn't clear.

People are claiming that it makes for a situation where people stick to their favourite fora. I tentatively agree, and the fact that each fora is easily accessible doesn't seem that relevant if this is the result. Personally, I think the problem of one liners and badly thought out posts takes isn't that big a deal, and moderators can often deal with it, whereas I think that some fora could really do with more contributors.

11:06 / 23.12.04

If clicking on fora is really that hard for some people isn't therre an RSS feed around somewhere that would allow people to view the active topics without even having to trouble themselves into opening a web browser...