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Underground > Policy & Help >

Is this place alive simply because I'm vain?

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18:13 / 07.10.06

I think it's an incredibly sweet offer, but that I don't think either of those things are forms of help that I'd feel comfortable accepting. Let me think if i can find a way to work some stuff through.

18:27 / 07.10.06

(Dix, I'd not really thought of the board's money gathering potential before. Makes me a bit sad thinking perhaps we could've done something for Cop Killer)

20:11 / 07.10.06

Oh, just turn the fucking thing off and let's have done with it.

20:13 / 07.10.06

Kidding, obviously.

It would be like shutting down a favourite old boozer that has had its share of fights and bother, sometimes the ale's a bit off, and the jukebox ain't what it was, but if it was actually closed down, even though I never post any more, I might have to maim someone.

21:23 / 07.10.06

nobody seems to have mentioned my half serious comment about turning it off for a month, and it's made me wonder if it was totally ridiculous. maybe a month is a bit long.
would turning it off for a week be useful in any way?

y'know, so we might not all obsessively visit barbelith for a bit?

absence makes the heart grow fonder, and all that.

23:33 / 07.10.06

[Hand up for 19's offer]

Done the same amount for ORG, which I never visit, bumping my Barb sub every month would be a pleasure and an honour.

Anyone else?

01:16 / 08.10.06

One vote for toksik's idea, week or month. Might be a good change of pace for some posters, maself included.

10:23 / 08.10.06

I'm going to have to disagree. I don't really see the point: if you remember when the board went down a couple of years ago didn't the most, shall we say, dedicated posters just decamp to TMO and continue as normal while others (myself included) just mooched around feeling a little bereft.
If people feel they need to take a break they can always get someone they trust to hold their password for a week or so, but I'm not sure why everyone else should be forced to go without the 'lith.
Oh, and in case it wasn't clear Tom, I definitely think Barbelith should continue.

11:15 / 08.10.06

Toksik, just pretend it's shut and come back in a week.

12:18 / 08.10.06

i'm not saying i need a break, nor that i could't do so if i did.
i take breaks all the time, as i'm sure my legions of fans could tell you.
what i was talking about enforced downtime, for everyone.
maybe i'm being a pure wierdo, but it seems to me to be quite a different thing to some individuals taking time off.

16:48 / 08.10.06

I think talk about taking a break is all well and good but it distracts from more important shit, IMO.

22:09 / 08.10.06

Money is nasty tricksy stuff. It has a habit of changing relationships as it changes hands and I understand (I think) what keeps Tom from accepting Dix-neuf's idea as a goer.

However, I for one more would be delighted to give some of my illgotten gains to see the board develop (though I'm not even sure in what way). £3 a month is a bit comedy isn't it?

22:50 / 08.10.06

I'm fairly solidly with Dix-Neuf on this. Could we get some kind of estimate for how many hours' coding might be involved to make the changes we need?

07:28 / 09.10.06

I think that rather depends on knowing what the changes that we need might be.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

15:11 / 09.10.06

I'd be up for increasing my donation, whether or not that went towards coding costs. At the moment I spend less on Barbelith than on anything else I do, when in terms of what I actually get out of it, and the amount of time I spend hereabouts, that's fairly skewed.

14:02 / 06.11.06

Checking the WayBackMachine for "Barbelith.com" I get seven years of webpresence. That's not something I'd throw away. As heretical as it may sound: Maybe the place has become a... tradition, an informal institution of UK's interwebnet?

(And that to say I'd... miss it?)

00:43 / 07.11.06

For what it's worth, I'm fond of Haus' idea. If there aren't concerns surrounding others peeking at and prodding the code, this would provide a safe playground for the technically inclined to contribute to Barbelith in their own way. It seems to me, however, that there must be at least enough real content and contribution on the Barbe-spawn to facilitate testing and generate feedback. Splitting one of the fora off might provide fertile ground for this, but I'm not sure how the community might feel about that, let alone Tom.

12:32 / 07.11.06

He probably thinks this thread is about him.

14:06 / 14.11.06

Hadn't seen this until now, so will go to the original question.

Sometimes the place gets me down, the over self-policed, over inflatted presence of some people, and the seemingly anal obsession with what's the correct way to say something or other. But, at the same time, I have other places to go for the opposite of this structure, and nothing has come close to how helpful and open threading on stuff like the Temple forum has been - sometimes I just feel a little out of my depth, and sometimes I feel like I'm not in on a joke (conversation is probably the worst for this) and sometimes I've just grown disinterested in the real world that a forum relates to (comics have dropped out of my life completely, I still glance at the thread, but with little interest). I'd love more activity in some areas of the site - books is great when it's full of people recommending or helping each other, but that doesn't seem super active.

I don't think it should be shut down, simply because it obviously means something to a lot of people - there are a lot of people that are extremely active here, and a lot of names that barely seem around anymore, but it still seems to work on what it's original intention was - "The aim of Barbelith is to create an online space where the standard of conversation, discussion and debate is higher than anywhere else online and in which everyone has a say in the running and management of the board." - the standard may not be higher than anywhere else, but it tries, and in many threads succeeds.

ONLY NICE THINGS

15:58 / 14.11.06

It's nice that you decided that this would be a good place to slag people off, Benny. Very kind of you. I imagine that was what Tom was hoping for.

16:32 / 14.11.06

over self-policed

If you've got a serious point there, make it in one of the relevant threads hereabouts. That's if you're prepared to try and back it up and weren't just hoping that you'd get away with throwing out a random bit of moaning bullshit.

17:01 / 14.11.06

over self-policed = 'Thinking'?

I dunno...

I must say that, since making a decision to actually participate in this community, rather than just lurk (though a lot of time is still spent lurking), i have become aware of how much fun this place is.

I'm quite excited about the current work towards a Head Shop reading group. The documentary project seems ve' cool. I'm in love with the Barbelith mix CDs that have been made. I love the feeling (perhaps just personal) that there is a movement towards increasing interaction and creativity in this place. This makes me happy.

I am glad this place is here. I have never been a part of another message board, and am glad i have found myself a part on a board that makes it hard to fathom the appeal of many other boards 'out there'.

Barbelith is Good. Any fool that says otherwise is Bad. This shall be the new morality.

19:28 / 14.11.06

meh.
me,not so much.

barbelith is good, and barbelith is bad.
it's good when the kind of fun you want is the kind of fun you get here, it isnt when you want something else.

saturday night fun?
clearly not.
tuesday afternoon fun?
more so.

I'd love more activity in some areas of the site - books is great when it's full of people recommending or helping each other, but that doesn't seem super active.

you'd love more activity?

dude, go start a thread.
i mean it.
right now, go and take a book of your shelf, one you read this year, and tell us all about it.
if not... well, i think you know where this is going.
there are a few hundred active members on barbelith, and you are one of them.

be the change, see the change.
if not, plus ca change, mate.
plus ca fuckin change.

06:30 / 15.11.06

It's nice that you decided that this would be a good place to slag people off, Benny. Very kind of you. I imagine that was what Tom was hoping for.

Haus, if what Tom was hoping for was one big love in, everyone saying I love this place I wouldn't change a thing, then I'd say Barbelith has failed miserably. What he asked for was opinion, as far as I can see, which is what I gave. There is a certain bullishness by some posters who feel that they have more weight to what they say for what ever reason, in my opinion. I've only had one instance when I felt this from you personally, the thread to get the post off of the front page way back, but for the most part I find that you tend to question things that need questioning, I mention this, partly in response to the sense that you and S Zed are implying that there isn't weight to what I've put, and that it is just an excuse to moan.

Do you guys still enjoy Barbelith - my reply was mainly pertaining to how I feel about this place, and what enjoyment I still get from it.

And toksik, you're right, starting threads is the best way to get active. When I first came here I felt a bit worried about starting a thread and watching it die, but I still perceveered (check the number of threads started stat, and I'm still pretty high up, despite not being as active for the last year or so).

Over self-policed - might be the wrong word, but the key here is 'self'. Sometimes I feel like it's not me that's writting, sometimes I sit and follow a thread and want to contribute, but after the third of fourth attempt to find a voice in reply I'm still struggling. Perhaps I should have said over self-policing or over-self editing. Sometimes I feel outside looking in unable to communicate clearly what I intend, which adds to the sense of being out of my depth, wich isolates. That is what I don't like, the sense, sometimes that it's a club and you're either in or out.

ONLY NICE THINGS

07:38 / 15.11.06

Ah, well, if you meant that you feel that you are policing yourself too much, that's another thing entirely. I was confused by the way you said:

Sometimes the place gets me down, the over self-policed, over inflatted presence of some people, and the seemingly anal obsession with what's the correct way to say something or other.

Which seemed to be presuming that you could get inside other people's hot little braincases and see how their minds work. If you just mean that you're not confident that you, personally, are adding value to Barbelith and as a result find yourself not posting... well, best of luck with that. But "there are people, who I will not name, doing stuff that is bad, but it's just my opinion off ground no touching" stuff like:

There is a certain bullishness by some posters who feel that they have more weight to what they say for what ever reason, in my opinion.

Is at best going to slow your journey to self-actualisation.

07:43 / 15.11.06

I agree the wording and structure was off - it was writen quickly as I'm in a new job.

As for the thing about other posters, I guess what I mean is that there are times when a thread becomes derailed by those people wanting to cross argue with each other, which often pushes my interest in the thread off if they lose sight of what the thread is about.

08:18 / 15.11.06

I took no offence in Benny's comments and in fact agreed with many of them - not in terms of functionality but in terms of how we handle problems, and I think we're all aware that some of the ways that we handle problems are extreme reactions a sa consequence of the software not working brilliantly. Actually rereading Benny's piece I think he was generally pretty flattering and I thank him for his comments.

ONLY NICE THINGS

08:29 / 15.11.06

Well, to avoid that, let's agree that sometimes there are more important things than the subject of the thread which sometimes need to be discussed in a thread, but that people's opinions on what those may be sometimes differ.

Congratulations on the new job annnnnd.... back ontopic!

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