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This thread is probably going to be entirely superfluous, because the things it’s talking about are already being discussed elsewhere, but what the hell… Here’s my idea on what to do with the Collective/Zine/all things Barbelith that aren’t the Underground:
Why not put it all together? I’m mixing up ideas from Jack and Tom and others in my head here by accident, and I apologise, but why not go for the columnist idea, and find five different Barbeloids who are willing and able to write a short piece to go up on the site once a week, a different one every day between Monday and Friday, for – say – a six month stint. The columns could be tenuously about a specific subject (Rizla about pop music, Grant about weird but cool shit that no-one ever hears about, whatever), but have the ability to go wildly off-topic or up its own arse as happens sometimes. These columns could be linked from the front page so that they wouldn’t be cut off in their own little sections (as the Collective seemed to become), but also so that the Zine is seen to be constantly updating?
Add to this the reviews that people have been talking about before (which could even be as simple as links to threads in the Underground where bands/films/books are being discussed, in some kind of “This week, Barbelith has been listening to…” shenaniganning?), and links to some of the more interesting threads in the Laboratory and Switchboard, all of which get updated every couple of days or so (is there some way to automate this, so that there would be links to, say, the three most recently updated threads?).
The zine, as far as I see it, should be the public face of Barbelith, putting forward new theories and forgotten or unknown stories to people who wouldn’t otherwise find these things elsewhere. It should be approachable and educational and entertaining, but without the… I don’t know, the cliquishness of the Underground itself, if that makes any sense. The zine should be the thing that makes people think “This is fucking fascinating, I want to join the messageboard and be part of this kind of conversation”, you know?
I don’t know. How does everyone else see the whole thing working, in their own perfect little worlds? |
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