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Statement of intent

20:46 / 23.11.01

quote:Originally posted by Buk:
I get the impression that barbelith has taken on a life of its own that has surpassed original intentions. I suspect that it was set up as a debating site and that as membership has grown it has taken on more of a role as a real time chat site.

quote:Originally posted by mr y:
How strange - that must be why I've been posting a lot less recently.

quote:Originally posted by Tom:
At times I very much feel the same way.

We've been here before, yes?

What do people think? The board has obviously become something different than was first planned, but is this necessarily a bad thing?

If so, what do you propose is done about it?

Me, I'm saying nothing.

Ellis

09:13 / 24.11.01

Going out on a limb here but the board seems to revolve more and more around The Conversation rather than The Revolution which was always (i thought) the heart of the site but has now become a ghost town of rotted threads- everyone has their say on the matter and then the thread dies, no real discourse just soap box standing.

I miss threads which I barely understood and made me go to the library to find shit out.

But thats just me.

My god, i am a bitch tonite.

Regrettable Juvenilia

09:13 / 24.11.01

The thing is, the question "has Barbelith gone to the dogs?" has come up roughly every four months or so in the year and a half I've been here. It has a lot to do with the board's collective mood, by which I mean both the sense of ennui and the period of fluff/nonsense talking that tends to provoke it. (Although obviously when Tom voices this opinion, it's a lot more serious in some ways.)

There are a lot more people here than there used to be. Fluff/chat tends to increase exponentially the more people arrive - there's not that much you can do about that.

But it's also true that the 'serious' threads are far, far less susceptible to thread-rot than they used to be. If you look at the archives linked to in this thread, you'll find solid evidence for this. The Conversation is huge, noisy and often vapid, but it seems to be that it does serve its purpose of letting people by and large get on with the discussions elsewhere in earnest. Which they are - the Magick is always busy, the Spectacle forums full of good stuff (well, okay, Art's still a bit quiet...) - and think about it, the reason that the Switchboard and Head Shop move slightly more slowly than some of the other forums is that they tend to demand long, thought-out posts. Oh, and maybe we ought to remind anyone who thinks we've lost the plot that only a little over 2 months ago, everybody was full of love for the board for the purpose it served around September 11th - and the New World Crisis forum has been for me at least a really good source of info and space for debate about what's happened since.

It should also be said that when people who barely ever post here, let alone start discussions start talking about how they don't post here much anymore because there are never any decent discussions, my alarm bells start ringing (note: not talking about you guys or our reluctant leader)...

That being said, if Tom has his "think before your post" manifesto-type-thing that he posted up one of the times the board relaunched, I think it would be good and useful to read that again.

09:13 / 24.11.01

I'm with you on everything you said, Flyboy. I'm currently going through a bit of a fallow period: I'm not posting so much, and what I do post isn't that revelatory. Goes in phases, eh?

For me, I think I hang around so much because I genuinely love the people here. I personally think that's more important than the debates and the theorising. I check in to see how you're all doing: friendship is always more important to me than quality of reading.

Given a month or two, I'll be back into thinking mode: right now there's just too much else going on.

09:13 / 24.11.01

Ditto kids. I think some focus from Head Shop and Switchboard has moved over to the 911 forum - and there have been some excellent, informative and well-thought-out discussions there.

Also I do think it's worth noting that while there HAS been a chat-happy mentality to the board at times, I think it is needed, especially in light of the sobering reality of our current times. Now more than ever we need to have a place where we can laugh and joke and screw around a bit. While by no means would I want that to become the main focus of Barbelith, it is nice to know that there is a place for that here as well. I do think that the chatter will die down somewhat, in time. Ebb and flow, yin and yang and all that.

09:13 / 24.11.01

I'm probably pretty guilty of having my say and otherwise not contributing to a discussion in the head shop.

But to me, Barbleith is the Revolution. I think I wasn't here when Barbelith was the way people sometimes remember it.

I also don't spread out much over the site. Most of my posting is in Head Shop, Magic, or Comic Books. Occasionally, I'll make a concerted effort to hit every category. I don't ever feel much like going into the sites of the Spectacle. Does anyone else ever wish that it was a single forum?

Frances Farmer

09:13 / 24.11.01

Hmm.

Interesting question.

Yeah. I do remember when there was a lot more, well, ... Hmm. Headiness. Yeah, that's it. It was a bit more heady around here.

At the same time, though, the debate that occurs here is still not a substitute for what you accomplish around you. At times, I think, Barbelith gets used as more a psychic dump location for individuals who are trying to push outward to the world some of what's discussed here. Maybe not.

But this is a bit of an oasis. You know? You've got to follow your dreams, but it sometimes helps to banter carelessly (or carefully) with folks who have some loose-knit form of similarity (or not -- that's part of the fun). And a lot of good conversation still does come out of this site, one way or another.

Unless you want to argue holistically that notions of 'similarity' are pointless because we're all constituents of some larger organism.

Reguardless, though, it's true that right now there's lots of noise. Not a lot of signal. Ebbs and flows.

And to speak on behalf of the xy-page grudgefest, you know, this is a bit of a community. So, I don't see any reason to harbor skeletons in the closets. I mean hell, the most we can hope for from an experience like this is to learn something. If you learn something about how you make others feel with your behaviour, you have more opportunities to grow as a person. As long as folks actually participate in this sort of self-analysis in response to these sorts of threads, I don't see anything wrong with it. It could be a developmental tool. Maybe someone could write a 'zine article on the topic.

But, you know, I really like the 'zine idea. And I think it inspires discussion. So far, though, a lot of folks haven't showed a blatant interest (recently) in rallying behind it -- though a few articles have come in. There's some in the queue -- but the more quality articles, the more compulsion to publish the quality articles. Good discussion, good reading. That's... Well... Good.

15:16 / 24.11.01

I'm saying something.

I'm in total agreement with Fly on this one. Check out those old threads and see just how many of them got derailed - there's hardly any of that now, and even when it happens somebody will soon pull the thread back on target.

As far as I can tell, the forums in The Revolution are just as active as they've always been, if not more so. They're just not as active as The Conversation. Seeing as how that's the first forum on the board, people seem to be under the impression that it's draining the life from the others. That's plainly untrue. Again, look at the old board. The most recently active posts in the old Revolution forum go:

17-11-2000 02:22 PM
16-11-2000 12:02 PM
14-11-2000 04:58 PM
07-11-2000 10:47 PM
07-11-2000 07:30 PM
07-11-2000 01:10 PM
03-11-2000 07:02 PM
03-11-2000 04:32 PM
02-11-2000 01:21 AM
01-11-2000 01:19 PM
27-10-2000 05:25 PM
19-10-2000 08:58 AM
16-10-2000 09:04 AM
13-10-2000 09:17 AM
12-10-2000 05:24 AM

The place is silent for almost weeks at a time. Compare that to the activity in the Head Shop now (effectively the same forum under a different name) and it's clear that accusations about the Underground somehow becoming less vital are nonsense.

Also got to agree with Frances. This, like it or not, is a community. The feuds thread, ridiculously overlong though it may be, has served a useful purpose.

Threads in The Conversation can very often serve to trigger debate in another forum. A lot of people here (including myself) are more comfortable with expressing ideas within the more 'chatty' threads that they may be avoiding bringing up in, say, the Head Shop, either because they feel they haven't formed them properly in their own minds yet or they're worried about appearing thick in front of the clever kids.

I guess the reason I've brought this up here is because, as Flyboy says, claims that the board just isn't as good as it used to be (effectively the equivalent of the old "yeah, well I liked them before they were famous" line) pop up on a pretty regular basis. Maybe if it's discussed in The Core, without the 'fine, fuck off' comments that usually greet such a stance, there may not be a need to bring it up again.

And with that, Randy disappeared up his own arse. Again.

[ 24-11-2001: Message edited by: E. Randy Dupre ]

Ronald Thomas Clontle

15:36 / 24.11.01

I think that those people who feel as though the Revolution section of the site is not meeting their expectations are to fault for that - if you want to keep the Revolution buzzing, you have to start new topics all of the time, and keep them running, and exciting.

If Barbelith isn't quite what you want it to be, or what it was 'meant' to be, then you can lead by example. Start an exciting thread. It's that simple.

00:18 / 25.11.01

It's good to discuss it every once in a while, I think. Just to make sure we think about what we want Barbelith to be.

Ronald Thomas Clontle

00:30 / 25.11.01

quote:Originally posted by All-Loving SMatthewStolte:

I don't ever feel much like going into the sites of the Spectacle. Does anyone else ever wish that it was a single forum?

First off, I know what you mean about Barbelith in essence being defined by the Revolution section: the spectacle and conversation areas are made worthwhile and great because they exist in the context of the ideas over there.

I think that the music and comics forums are neccessary to keep separate, if just because of their popularity. It's the art forum that seems a bit redundant...that place just seems to gather dust, and it seems that the things discussed over there could just as well be Head Shop topics. That forum always makes me feel a tad bit guilty...I know I should keep up on that forum, add to it, but the very thing that keeps me well informed on the topic ---having spent the past five years in art school in nyc--- is the very thing that has me so burnt out on the subject that I'd much rather not even THINK about it unless I have to. Maybe in a few years I'll be able to get excited about contemporary art again---maybe.

00:30 / 25.11.01

Barbelith rocks. I heartily enjoy reading and posting. The content, both the fluff and the heady stuff, matches anything on the web.
The current problem is simply one of cost. The solution is very simple as well.
For my part I loved the Barbefeuds thread. Highly entertaining. It wasn't a traditional message board thread though. Rather it was a staggered chat conversation. Look at the way it grew so quickly "like something out of ghostbusters". Imagine all the people posting and then checking back for the quick reply. I posted on the thread and had a response within a couple of minutes. I don't think the interface was designed for that but it does work very well. Better than a traditional chat interface in fact. It took up way too much bandwidth though.
Content isn't the problem - funding is. The only real problem facing Barbelith is finding a feasible way for everyone, who wants and is able to, to contribute.

14:37 / 25.11.01

It's all well and good to think and talk about Barbelith as an organism and all that entails, but in fact as Buk alludes it's not an organism that feeds or cares for itself. And it's not even so much the feeding, id est the $2.50 per month that not enough people are signing up for... what about the care, the fixing of threads and the figuring out of alternative payment solutions and on and on.

I mean, I myself am fascinated in Barbelith as an organism, as something that has a life of its own... but I don't have to burp it and change its diapers, I am always aware.

But to Tom I'd say, I wish I had been the one who thought up this place. Maybe it's your destiny. You and it remind me of this woman chef and her restaurant that I know... her partner left her twenty years ago, as she says, knocked up with a restaurant. Fucking fantastic restaurant, too.

Frances Farmer

19:42 / 25.11.01

[ As far as Barbelith caring for itself.. ]

It's my impression that if we could open an alternate venue for funding, we'd have a lot more contributors. It seems Paypal is good and fine for those with VISA #'s in the U.S. and all that, but a bit more complicated for anyone who, for one reason or another, has not these things.

Figuring out some easy contribution system for the latter body would be a little bit tricky, methinks. Not impossible, though.

20:02 / 25.11.01

I've found the 'chat' aspect to make me lurk more and post less. I've found less subjects that I want to throw my two cents into.

As expressionless said, it's probably cyclical and soon enough I'll be starting and responding to threads all over the place again.

But even in 'The Magick' I'm having a hard time wanting to post right now.

Maybe it's a low 'biorhythm' period on Barbelith.

11:30 / 26.11.01

Frances, about the 'zine: there are several articles in the pipeline waiting for Tom to have the time to put them up (though given that he is thinking about re-ordering the site this may fall by the wayside) - I don't think the 'zine is lacking in support. People might be encouraged to submit if the front page of the site changed from time to time.

Or in other words, Tom, I don't wish to dig at you but it would be nice to see some new articles up (including mine, hem hem).

06:00 / 28.11.01

Good point, well taken.