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We have a guest I'd like to introduce you all to...

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20:55 / 07.09.05

Hey everyone - I'm here to introduce Woolly to the rest of the board. Woolly is a journalist who writes for the Guardian who is looking to talk to people about their use of boards and working from home and stuff like that. I'm sure she'll tell you more about that in a moment.

If people could be courteous, that would be awesome - and if she approaches any of you (or any of you are interested in approaching her to talk about stuff), then be reassured that I have checked that she works for the Guardian and is a real journalist. Now that's all out of the way, I guess she can do her stuff...

20:56 / 07.09.05

so no candles?

21:06 / 07.09.05

sounds great, I'd love to help out

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

21:24 / 07.09.05

Yeah, neat idea.

21:42 / 07.09.05

I'm ready to sell my story. Who knows where it might lead? I could be the next Tara Palmer-Tompkinson.

22:04 / 07.09.05

Hullo everyone... sorry for late reply, was just a little bit held up (in the pub...)
Right - ok the feature is about bulletin boards as a kind of virtual office -- if you work from home and have no office colleagues, it's kind of great, because you have no office politics, but it can also get a wee bit boring...

So, if anyone works from home and wants to share about how fabby barbelith is, that would be great. Or, anyone who works in an office, doesn't like their colleagues so much and spends time posting, that would also be great.

Up to you if you want to use real names or user names... or even special secret names, I'm easy with it...

And thanks v much for helping, I've been having a fine old time chatting to some of you already

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

22:18 / 07.09.05

I work in an office... I have nothing against my colleagues, but bulletin boards (well, this one) keep me sane on the night shift. I think without this outlet I'd have quit my job years ago.

22:24 / 07.09.05

Aha, night work. Is rubbish is it not? Makes me really grumpy...

What do you get from the board you don't get from your colleagues do you think? Or have you just worked with them for ages?

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

22:33 / 07.09.05

To be honest, I'm quite lucky regarding colleagues... but there's something nice about having conversations/discussions with people who are not stuck in here as well. It's like having a window to the outside world, if that doesn't sound overly dramatic.

22:36 / 07.09.05

I work in a newsroom (but am not a "real" journalist), and often get story leads off here. Fringe science, magic ritual and (especially) End Times prophecies are my beat.

Think that would be useful for what you have in mind?

22:36 / 07.09.05

Yes, I know what you mean -- it's like when you work nights, and friends are at work during the day, you can go for ages without talking to anyone... and then you're at work and suddenly for about four days they're the only people you've really talked to and you start to lose a grip on the real world.

Do you see people from here in real life? Sorry, questions are a bit like an interrogation.

How are you tonight anyway?

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

22:40 / 07.09.05

Not doing too bad...
Yeah, I know quite a lot of people from here in real life- the majority are people I've met from here, a few are people I've introduced to the board. There's quite a large London-based "real life" sub-community.

22:42 / 07.09.05

Hullo grant. I don't believe in all that 'real journalist' rubbish, it's just old hacks trying to maintain the status quo -- and it happens all the time.

Sorry, small rant over. Because you're interested in certain subjects, do you rec that the board kind of gives you an opportunity to chat about things you otherwise wouldn't? (I don't know the answer to this question, by the way, and it might be a little crudely put, so apologies...)

22:46 / 07.09.05

Hullo Stoatie, thanks for answering my perhaps inane questioning... am wondering about the feel of the barbelith community -- how do you find the right board? I liked this best of the ones I visited for the feature (which is why I'm chatting to you lot), do you have others you post on?
Oh, and how long was it before you started meeting up with people (not for quoting or owt, just so I get an idea)

22:49 / 07.09.05

i'd rather you called me DalaiDahmer for the purposes of an article, if indeed you use anything that needs attributed.

i work from home and on my own in a dingy office at a university.(it does have a balcony, i guess)
in both it helps to have some interaction with the total strangers and imaginary friends of the internet, but it does always feel like skiving.

i like barbelith because it can feel educational as well as social, and i like to skive with learning.

while i do visit other message boards, this one is the only one i currently read with any kind of regularity.

so, uh...
what would you like to know?
i'm meant to be working now, and skiving to make my mark on posterity seems fairly easy to defend to the anti-procrastination league.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

22:54 / 07.09.05

To be honest, this board was the first I found when I first got net access, and I liked it here and stayed. I've tried others, there're a couple I post to occasionally, but this is the only one I really spend any (far too much) time on.
I'd been on here probably only about three or four months before I started meeting people... that was largely because there was a Stop The War demonstration (I think October 2001, just prior to Afghanistan) that a bunch of 'lithers were going to- I figured what the hell, even if it turns out I don't like these people in real life, the march was something I would have gone on anyway, so it seemed like a good way of going about things. Fortunately, they were all very cool.

22:56 / 07.09.05

Hullo, the educational stuff sounds interesting... do you have different conversations in here from the ones you might have at work/ with friends?

If so, do you think it's to do with having to think before you speak a bit, well in terms of actually having thoughts on screen. I'm feeling quite aware that this is not just going to disappear when the conversation is done, and that people who aren't interacting in it may also read it.

22:59 / 07.09.05

How long does anyone think they spend on the board? I was kind of looking from work today and I could have whiled away hours reading stuff. Or do you just get really good at multi-tasking?
Stoatie, that was a v nice story about meeting. It made me feel quite warm and tingly.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

23:05 / 07.09.05

I... ah... I spend rather too much time on here. When I'm at work I always have the window open, and pop in and out, if anyone else is around. (Just read that back... I mean the computer window, not the real one. That sort of behaviour would probably get me sectioned.)

To be honest, I have yet to meet anyone from the board in real life who I didn't like. Maybe I have low standards, but I like to think we've got a generally good bunch of people here.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

23:09 / 07.09.05

Although, in addition to my previous answer- I'm spending more time on the board at work recently than usual. I work in a press cuttings agency, where I deal mainly with media clients, and there hasn't been much media news recently, so I've had much more time to waste. It varies.

23:09 / 07.09.05

as aware as i am of the nature of the internet, i dont think its that that colours my words.
coming up against resistance wheni become an arse is what shapes my interaction.
i quite like that there is a permanent record of all that is said as it makes it easier to have discussions without getting bogged down in differently remembered accounts of conversations.
the idea of an audience rarely comes into my mind and when it does it soon leaves.

based on reactions to my posts here and elsewhere i have concluded i dont have the self awareness to see how i appear to others accurately enough to regulate my online persona with a great degree of control.
i'm not very guileful here or in real life, really.

do you think it's to do with having to think before you speak a bit?

have a look around.
its not something i am famous for.
i am trying, though, and barbelith helps with that.

on education;
i just mean that i like to read the revolution forums when i am at work rather than the fluff threads in the conversation or the spectacle.
its easier to justify to myself if i'm meant to be doing something else, hey.
lazy but learning.

Tryphena Absent

23:09 / 07.09.05

It's a terrible time-waster, I sometimes wonder how many temp jobs I've been fired from because I was too busy discussing something important on barbelith to pay attention to work. Actually I've only really been fired from one temp job and I had very little to do there so clearly barbelith isn't that bad a time wasting device.

It's very dangerous though because it's much more interesting than any office job could plausibly be and you can get a sneak peak into everyone else's monotonous day. Shared boredom that's already set in at 10am...

Though if you stuff a lot of envelopes you can read at the same time.

The answer to how long anyone spends on barbelith who can access it from work inevitably has to be too much time. Too much time being more than 10 minutes while at work.

23:10 / 07.09.05

When I'm at work I always have the window open, and pop in and out

ha ha! I also read that as a real window and was a bit confused for a minute. For some reason it made me imagine you as a burglar with a stripey costume and swag bag.

If you didn't work in the night, do you think you'd use the board as much?

23:13 / 07.09.05

Yello. I work in an office and post here from the office as well as home. I get on well with my team (particularly two class peeps), it's more management that I'm dissatisfied with (the oldest story in the book) and have had a bit of a whinge and moan on here a time or two just to vent.

Lateshifts I've not done in quite a while but when I did I was working five hours a day so every other week I'd be on 7pm-12am with everyone else leaving between 8 and 10 leaving me on my own, which left me with only a few hours of socialisation a day - and being on lates that was already a valued commodity. I got pretty upset on the week before my lates simply due to the build up of feelings of "nearly time for another crappy week". Luckily I've sinced moved to 8 hours shifts that start in the morning, pretty much the opposite shift with the kind of morale boost you'd expect

I post on Barbelith (and only the Barb, although there were others in the past) because I was reading a comic book by an author who's popular here. The whole place had an intellectual/analytical feel that I liked as well as being casual and laidback. The Barb allows me to talk shop/talk crap about comics and cult tv, something not many people in my real life are into apart from two friends. To not put too sappy a spin on things: if you can imagine your favourite coffeeshop as a messageboard, that's along the lines of how I feel.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

23:14 / 07.09.05

Probably- I'm very easily distracted from stuff I'm actually supposed to be doing (writing, housework, anything useful, really)- I think the nature of the medium, whereby you can chuck in a comment and just nip back a while later to see if anyone's answered- means that you can objectively spend an awful lot of time on it, while still doing all manner of other stuff. It's kind of like the difference between listening to the radio and watching TV, I guess- when I'm online at home I'm almost always doing something else at the same time.

23:15 / 07.09.05

To just add to the lateshift paragraph:- Barbelith was a pretty good lateshift filler to while away the dull hours on, coupled with being able to talk to my online-friendly real life mates through a messenger client.

23:17 / 07.09.05

fuck yeah.
way too much time.
i work at the uni for about four to six hours and always have at least one window open. i typically have three or four, sometimes up to seven or eight.
often they'll be ones i am waiting for a reply to as well as ones i am actively contributing to or reading.
at home i usually have a window open, and that's good few more hours.
its looking like between eight and twelve hours open, maybe four to eight hours interacting.

it varies massively, and i often go a few days without it.
i like going camping and getting really fucking wasted, you see.
while i wonder about emails i'm waiting for or threads i have been playing on, these times are usually PC free and i dont find i miss it.

23:19 / 07.09.05

oof can't keep up. Am sorry for rubbishness in replying. And thank you, thank you,

you can get a sneak peak into everyone else's monotonous day

Yes, I thought this when was on in the office. It made me feel better that other people were also not doing their work and were posting away. And maybe, because you know how everyone else is bored too, it makes you a nicer and better person to work with. What do you think?

23:21 / 07.09.05

I'll echo the sentiment here and say Barbelith can, totalled up, be an absolute monster of a time-sink if you post regularly and keep up with what people are saying. But, it's also a background/piecemeal time-waster in that I'll bounce back a forth between job to barbelith and home to barbelith. I only spend 5-6 minutes in each session keeping an eye on stuff I've singled out as interesting in between making the tea, filing forms, cleaning the house or a dozen other things. Barbelith allows me to touch base with a number of my core interests throughout the day in between the monotonous stuff.

23:27 / 07.09.05

if you can imagine your favourite coffeeshop as a messageboard, that's along the lines of how I feel

That's v nice indeed -- nicer than most people's offices. Picking up on Nina's temping theme, I also suppose it's good to have a constant when you're doing different shifts, or jobs or just are dead rushed.

i like going camping and getting really fucking wasted, you see
But of course, camping is the most under-rated activity ever. And I hope I've not suggested that you're all oddly computer addicted, because that's not at all what was meant.

23:28 / 07.09.05

And maybe, because you know how everyone else is bored too, it makes you a nicer and better person to work with. What do you think?

mmmnnn.....nah.
it makes me less insane, but i think if i was working in an offline job i would just draw pictures and that doesnt feel to different.
it does give me a peer group almost entirely seperate fom my real life, and that is certainly valuable in the 'making me nicer to deal with department.
the interest i dont share with any of my meatspace friends have an outlet here, and i get to talk about stuff in a way that only a couple of my many acquaintances would be into.

very few people know i am bisexual in my real life, for example.
it's no secret, but its not something i have told anyone outside a select few.
no one knows the extent of my interest in the occult except my brother for another.

23:30 / 07.09.05

Just on the time-combining thing... Posting prob takes less time up than chatting on and on to colleagues or spending hours on personal calls then?

23:31 / 07.09.05

I hope I've not suggested that you're all oddly computer addicted, because that's not at all what was meant.

nah, i just really like camping and gpoing out to get shitfaced; my two favourite activities outside of the obvious.
if anything you are bing too nice about it.
i am a computer geek motherfucker and all my mates would say the same, i'm sure.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

23:33 / 07.09.05

I think if I spent as much time on the phone (where you have to focus a lot more of your attention to the exclusion of all else) as I do on the net I'd be in big trouble.

(toksik- I manage to combine my online geekery with my getting shitfaced fairly well. Not at work, obviously. That would be... problematic).

23:35 / 07.09.05

i get to talk about stuff in a way that only a couple of my many acquaintances would be into

In what way? Do you think if they were posting on a board instead of being RL people that would be different?

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