There's too much fuck in my head

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I'd like to also state that it isn't PD.  No, every .com forum I know of is as dead as Snooki's career.

And my guess is, Facebook will follow within a few years, when even THAT much concentration becomes a burden.  GEORGE ORWELL WAS SUCH A KIDDER!  It won't be "Good" and "Ungood", the entire human language will consist of "LIKE" and UNLIKE", as we scan the latest TRENDING shit on the inside of our left eyelid.

And THAT, ladies and gentlemen, is the FUCK THAT IS IN MY HEAD.

True story.

The world is, little by little, SHUTTING UP™.

Twitter wouldn't have lasted 10 seconds in a sane world.

But in THIS world, it's the cat's ass for people who can't handle those windy bastards at Facebook.

[Cain]

Twitter is great for two things: sharing links and on-site picture updates.  For those two things, it's amazing.

The problem is, it's marketed as a social network.  Because everything has to have Web 2.0 functionality, which means highlighting how you can talk to your friends about your life.  And unfortunately, what that means is that it inevitably devolves into "highschool" territory, among people who probably should know better, but seem intent on proving otherwise.  I've seen more journalists and academics calling in the troops over personal butthurt and social commitments than actually, you know, reporting on the news or talking about research.

And since social networking is the "big thing" on the internet for the last few years, it's lead to an increasingly socialised (in the bad sense of the word) web.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

I think that its a lot more complicated than 'people have no attention span'. On a site like this 99% of the users are users. They can interact, they can post, but its not 'theirs', they have no 'control'. On Facebook, they have a much stronger illusion of control. They can decide who can and can't see what they say, they decide who can and can't speak to them. They can create a group and control it. It is an extremely dynamic environment. Forums, in comparison are static.

Additionally, facebook provides heavy aggregation. You can hang out in one spot and interact with a pineal discordian group, a BiP Discordian group, a private discordian group, your family, other friends, people interested in some hobby, funny images and have chat/video chat capabilities with all of them in a single, one-stop shop kinda place.

It also provides an escape from interacting with people you don't like. Purpleris left most of the Facebook Discordian sites because she thought they were a waste of time. She didn't want to interact with the idiots, so she dumped them. On a forum like this, you can't do that. If someone doesn't like me, they can't escape me by going to a different thread. On FB, they can block me, or start another group and not invite me.

Is that good for examining your own beliefs in the light of people that may disagree with you? Maybe, maybe not. Some FB groups seem to be capable of debate without resorting to screaming, imagebombs etc. For the people that like that sort of environment, thats just the sort of environment they like. Other Facebook groups may encourage more direct assults and for the people that like that, well they'll like it. On a forum, you have one community, one culture, one tribe.

Twitter, quite possibly is the most sincere form of social media. It's just long enough to say "I'm here, are you there?" which a lot of social interaction can be boiled down to. It's not a place for grand debate... its a place for people to feel connected to other people. I don't see anything wrong with that (I don't really use it, can't remember the last time I even logged into it)... but for people that want that kind of connection, well they can have it.

I think that its easy to think that the Internet is for X kind of communication (debate, discussion of Big Topics, 70 page DRUGS threads and other improtant things). But, for most of the people I know... thats not what they want to use the Internet for. They want to play games, interact with friends, communicate in some way with the world and get on with their lives. i think the slow drain from forums, has a lot more to do with people finding a tool that better fits what they WANT to experience, rather than dealing with an experience that doesn't quite fit with what they want.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I hate Facebook. It's slow, bloated, stupid, drama-filled, and low-content.

[Q. G. Pennyworth]

I think .com forums have an identity crisis they need to address in the current online landscape. They're not ideal for hanging out with people you like and chatting about fluff, that's what you have fb and twitter for. They're not ideal places to find news and comment on it, that's what every news blog ever is for. And PD in particular sometimes thinks of itself as a content farm, but then it starts to have the problem Roger's brought up a lot of times, where it feels like you're vomiting into an empty space for no reason. And me? I show up and vomit here because therapy's expensive and I still haven't sorted out my insurance and it's better to vomit where at least someone can see it and say "yeah, I get the fucks sometimes, too." Which isn't really a great way to build community or anything, but no one's banned me yet.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I like forums. The format is really good for idea-building.

[Salty]

I only like this place, I enjoy it. I never enjoy other forums, and I certainly do not enjoy FB. I do my best to spread my lack of enjoyment there as much as possible, but I'm only human.

At any rate, I'll be here until it is a smoking crater, .com slump or no.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

I agree, Nigel. Forums are fantastic for debate, idea building, interacting at a deep level with a group of people. Really though, how many humans want to do that in their spare time? Probably, relatively few of us. (I also agree that Facebook is bloated and prone to crazy drama, but then newsgroups and forums have been prone to crazy drama too. I think that a more human interaction thing than a fault of the software).

A forum as a content farm, has its share of problems... the feeling that you're puking into the void (I think thats a Kabbalistic ritual) and the ease at which good stuff can get buried under tons of random chatter.

In my opinion, forums need to evolve. I've worked with some companies that are building private communities for various business/school/etc purposes. They are tending toward a dynamic community site, which includes a tightly integrated forum, but also includes wiki style tools, chat/group chat/video chat tools, publishing tools (blog or site content). One that I was really impressed with had 'content' where the comments were actually forum threads whch could be viewed at the bottom of the article AND from the forum view. Individuals can create groups within the community which are private. In the example I saw, this meant that a small group could get together, hash out some piece of content and then submit the final product as site content, which once published had a public forum thread where people could discuss the final product.

So the community site becomes whatever the user wants, based on how they choose to interact with it. A forum, a content site, a reference tool, a place where you can hang out with private groups or the whole community, or a chat room/IM tool. I think the .coms that continue to have success with forums will have it because they've evolved in that kind of direction.

Of course, there's the question of 'focus'. If you want to get down and dirty debating Discordianism, then the PD forum is the place to be. I just think maybe, many Discordians prefer to live their life in whatever 'Discordian' way they think is good for them and don't really care for the deep debate. In fact, I think that is the biggest difference between the Discordians I interact with here, and the ones I know in real life. The Discordians I know IRL, tend to be whatever it is they interpret as Discordian and they don't really debate about it. When Discordian forums were the only way to hang out with Discordians, then maybe people suffered through debate. Now, maybe more of them would just prefer to post jokes, pictures etc, because debating the philosophy of a system thought up by a couple hippies on acid isn't their trip

All in all, I think thats a good thing. 10 people that want to interact at PD in the PD style, is probably better than 100 people, where 90 of them wish they didn't have to wade through pages of drugs, anarchism or debates about the lameness of pineal jokes... they just wanted to chill on the roof at the pool with some hoopy froods and giggle. I don't think thats necessarily a wrong/bad/not really Discordian view, but its probably not a view that will fit in well here. It is a view that Facebook will support very well (at least until they get trolled by PD ).

I think its a false dichotomy to think one tool is superior to the other... they're just different tools for different people who want different things.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Um, Rat...We have an ignore function now.

Just saying.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

And I don't want forums to evolve.  The evolution you propose means they become Facebook, and Facebook is like allowing 20,000,000 deranged & atavistic family members out of the attic and into your living room while you have guests.

Facebook doesn't support shit, except the ability to launch a page without knowing how to use BBS software.  And while that has its advantages, it also means anything worth seeing is drowned in a sea of racist pictures and unsolicited personal advice.

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

I never had a conversation of any kind on twitter, not even a stupid facebook Discordian level one.
If I see a link to something interesting, or if I happen to notice a friend promoting something, I'll retweet it. That's the whole extent of my twitter activity. Sometimes I don't even check twitter for months.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

And I don't want forums to evolve.  The evolution you propose means they become Facebook, and Facebook is like allowing 20,000,000 deranged & atavistic family members out of the attic and into your living room while you have guests.

Facebook doesn't support shit, except the ability to launch a page without knowing how to use BBS software.  And while that has its advantages, it also means anything worth seeing is drowned in a sea of racist pictures and unsolicited personal advice.

Facebook supports the idea/perception/illusion of control for each user. Thats what most people seem to want. Believe me, I've sat through so many discussions, reviews, customers that have researched this shit... and it always boils down to dynamic control.

I disagree that it means they become Facebook. They become a dynamic site... you lose nothing from the forum world, you just have lots of new ways of accessing the information, displaying the information and interacting with the other site members. Several months ago when I put together the simple aggregator, I was thinking it would add the visibility for content, without a major overhaul.

Think about it this way.

www.principiadiscordia.com/zine becomes a online content site, maybe it looks like a magazine, maybe it looks like a blog, whatever... its a place where anyone can go read finalized content. If they comment, the comment is posted in a forum thread. other users can respond via the comment tool, or within the forum.

Within the forum, if a couple people want to collaborate, they create a private group, do the collaboration and their final product gets published on the zine, and (simoultaniously) a forum discussion around the content. Next the embedded wiki... any words or concepts that are unique to PD.com... stuff n00bs wouldn't understand (BiP, Barstool, The Machine, etc) become links to a wiki page tha describes the concept.

There's nothing Facebooky about it. You could interact with PD exactly the same way you do today. It doesn't allow everyone to post anything as front end content, unless thats what you want the site to do.

Today, if some random person wanders in, they can start reading threads... maybe catch on, maybe miss some of the awesome content thats buried and may have no idea what the hell we're talking about when we use terms unique to our community.

Technology is moving is some seriously crazy directions... like NoSQL and HADOOP... everyone is trying to figure out how to interact with information while no longer being constrained to relational databases and static interfaces. This will trickle down to everything... just like Forums are 'better' than Usenet, the next generation will be better still, without falling into a Facebook like hole of little Signal and Big Noise.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I agree, Nigel. Forums are fantastic for debate, idea building, interacting at a deep level with a group of people. Really though, how many humans want to do that in their spare time? Probably, relatively few of us.

Yes. The ones I want to spend my time with. The rest of them can have Facebook.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

And I don't want forums to evolve.  The evolution you propose means they become Facebook, and Facebook is like allowing 20,000,000 deranged & atavistic family members out of the attic and into your living room while you have guests.

Facebook doesn't support shit, except the ability to launch a page without knowing how to use BBS software.  And while that has its advantages, it also means anything worth seeing is drowned in a sea of racist pictures and unsolicited personal advice.

And this. Exactly this.

I don't WANT to hang out with those people. That's why they're THERE and I'm HERE. I check Facebook once every other day or so to see if I got any messages or have any upcoming events I need to attend, or sometimes to troll if I'm done with my homework, but otherwise it's a sea of useless boring fuckers who think they're all on Yahoo Answers whether you asked a question or not.

Except that one guy. I wish that one guy would come here, he seems smart and insightful and like he might enjoy some of the deeper conversations we have here. David Beasley. He's a smart one and I like him.

[Sita]

I use Facebook for the games and the endless random pictures that come across my feed. Oh, and keeping in touch with a couple family members.
Occasionally there is some (mostly gaming) news that slips in.

For anything else, though, forums are best. Especially if you aren't able to check for a few days, you (likely) won't miss anything important.