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Angsty reflections about the 'lith

Disco is My Class War

08:59 / 16.04.02

hello barbelitzers. it's rosa, or ex-rosa, reincarnated under a new suit, and i think i'm gonna use my new suit to whinge, if you don't mind. -- i'm lost on barbelith nowadays. i think i've lost the context, or the context has lost me. i don't get the injokes, i am *constantly* in need of a 'previously on barbelith' paragraph, i didn't have any idea that some shitfight was going on with modthree. the board seems populated mostly with new fiction suits (can we NOT call them members? what happened to 'suits'? where is everyone's imagination? below the belt, as always....) who don't know who i am and the energy it would take to get to know all you probably-lovely new people seems, i don't know, i think i've moved onto other things. or somehow i just don't have the inclination to post nearly as much as i used to, and that was not terribly much to begin with.

anyhow, this impresses a strange reality, or hard fact, on my consciousness: barbelith has changed hugely since it began, no? it's changed so much i don't think i really recognise it. and this is not a call for it to back to some mythical former glory, just an observation.

so, for the people who are in touch, i have a question -- do people feel like barbelith is a big jumbly happy community? is it healthy, thriving? do you look at its continuing future with a sense of promise and a nice sexy kick to the genitals? why or why not?

09:06 / 16.04.02

i think the concerns i have are mostly technical - i feel rather lost in the new layout/design. i have to go backwards and forwards to see if new posts have been posted, and when i add a post myself, i have to start all over to get back into the site. i don't recognise a lot of the names, i said in policy that i was having trouble with this and i still am. i feel rather 'old hat' here now.

09:16 / 16.04.02

Personally I think that it's doing well at this particular time, and seems quite thriving, jumbly etc. (I'd still like to see more Switchboard action.)

Oh, and I hate "fiction suits". I will never use the phrase, I'm sorry. It sounds unbearably pretentious to me, and I have a high pretension threshold.

SFD - try deleting your cookies and trying again, if it's logging you out after you post. A similar thing happened to me earlier but cookie deletion fixed it.

The Natural Way

12:18 / 16.04.02

I do think some of the unbridled ego/imagination/weirdness perpetrated by the Waddams and the Adonais has been lost of late. The Magick's a ghetto? Jeez, at one point the whole board resembled the Magick. I'm not sure this is a bad thing, the board has to be allowed to change, but I do miss it. Barbelith's very, ummm, *intellectual* these days and I doubt some of the out-and-out, grandiose, weird and stupid ideologies/cosmologies of yesteryear would stand much of a chance here any more.

Hey, at least my head's being stretched in new directions, though.

Less searchable M0rd4nt

15:07 / 16.04.02

IMall-but-GodlikeO, a Previously On Barbelith wouldn't be much help. Everyone has their own interpretation of events based on which forums they haunt, their personal views, and what they think of the individuals concerned.

At the moment I feel like there's some bad vibes around- hostility between posters and whatall. (This past few days are the closest I've ever come to withdrawing from this community permenantly.) I don't know how you'd go about resolving some of the problems but I get the feeling that some attempts at meeting each other halfway would help. I've also got the horrible suspicion that people are still too pissed off to do that yet.

But watcher gonna do? Don't get involved, and it feels like you're sticking your head in the sand. Do get involved and you're accused of taking sides, or of perpetuating the aggro for your own purposes.

Bleagh.

Matthew Fluxington

15:31 / 16.04.02

Rosa/Mr. Disco - please don't go! I think most people would agree that you are a valuable member of this community, and your thoughts and opinions matter a lot to many of us.

I'm not sure how to answer your questions, I think perspectives on this matter has a lot to do with how far back people go with Barbelith/Nexus etc. I've only been active here for nearly a full year, and I've seen change, but I think things are always changing. I don't think it's a case of phasing out the "Old Barbelith" or changing into a "New Barbelith", but something a lot more fluid than that. Obviously, Barbelith depends greatly upon what individuals put into it, and I think that if you put a little work into it, you wouldn't have much trouble molding parts of Barbelith into something closer to what you want out of it.

I'm pretty optimistic. I think that if you look at things in the longterm, a lot of the minor irritants and slumps don't matter so much. I think we're on the right track, more or less. We do need captains to guide us through some of the rough bits, though. I think that yr a good captain, Mister Disco.

19:15 / 16.04.02

I feel like all is well here... but possibly because I ignore a lot of things. I spend more time here than I ever have, so I feel more attachment and good feelings towards the board than before.

19:38 / 16.04.02

As long as I've been visiting Barbelith - over 2 years now - I've seen this kind of post come up again, and again. So, it's nothing new.

What I find interesting in Mr. Disco's post is hir feelings of being left out. I see no evidence that Barbelith is any less happy or more nasty than it's ever been. Like anything, it has its cycles, but they all seem to balance out in the end.

On the whole I think Barbelith seems to be working very well, and I've seen several different incarnations of the board at this point. If anything I think that points to a rather healthy situation because the board is able to change, and does, which I see as a rather natural event, but many people can find threatening.

The question I would put to anyone who asks questions about the state of the board is: "Has the board changed, or has your perception of the board changed?" Often, nothing is different other than our attitude to it, which is informed by our own life-situation. If anyone is finding it hard to deal with Barbelith, then I suggest a short break is in order. Coming back to the board with a fresh attitude might be all you need to enjoy the place again.

20:29 / 16.04.02

as always, i feel like this board functions best as a place to find out weird things and form some new ideas through discussion. it's a great place to bounce ideas into the void and see what shape they come back to you in. it's a great place to learn about music and movies and books and wildly interesting links around the net.

for many people, it seems to be a great social environment as well. i think this is a much trickier area, however, for the simple fact that you are alone staring at a computer screen and have no control over the other 1000 people. how much cognitive space does each poster have to individually perceive each one of those thousand other? not nearly enough, i imagine. yes barbelith changes all the time, but it only exists or has a personality insofar as you personally interpret the sum of text you discover at a particular time.

to take as an example the "modthree shitstorm" -- the fact is, there's about 5 or 6 people on about it in one thread, and 990 other people who don't paricularly seem to give a fuck. so it's only a "shitstorm" if you read it that way.

20:44 / 16.04.02

"to take as an example the "modthree shitstorm" -- the fact is, there's about 5 or 6 people on about it in one thread, and 990 other people who don't paricularly seem to give a fuck. so it's only a "shitstorm" if you read it that way.

Yeah, and really it is only Ierne/Kookla who has the biggest problem with ole m3, and what is really funny is that {0, 1, 2} continues to send hir out good vibes (ya' know, psychic-like). I mean, Lothar simply has given up talkin' to Z (probably on his ignore list), and really that is about it. I don't find it to be any sort of shit-storm, and in fact, I think it quite amusing that I/K continues to drag it on and on and on: feed your head / ya' are what you eat, ya? Even more, there are those of the nine-hundred or so (like ya' know four or five) who actually appreciate modthree and Zs rants, raves, and rolls ('cause if there is one thing that m3 kicks ass at it's making rolls). But I digress...

Certainly there are bits of strife but there are also bits of love: kinda' like the world, ya? Microcosom / macrocosom perhaps? I mean, there are some really interesting people around this place, and I have to second pretty much all of Wyrd's post (but then again, I often find Wyrd's remarks to jive and resonate with me). Anyhoo, Barbelith is like static on your TV: could be noise, could be the answer, but it moves and changes as you do, 'cause, after all, it is how you see it, and the patterns that you trace out over time are yours to reap! Which is to say, in my obsfucated way, there is nothing in the world that the individual does not project hir attitudes upon: reality is your own construction, build wisely!

{0, 1, 2}