Recruiting the unrecruited

[Cramulus]

Yes, that is kind of a problem.  Though Roger's advice to the n00bs (pinned, Apple Talk) is pretty helpful.

How would you suggest making a change?

The Top Ten posters, who are largely responsible for the tone and attitude of the forum, need to make a conscious effort be more welcoming and less condescending towards n00bs and certain forms of Discordia.

Devil's Advocate says: But then we'll be up to our armpits with ZOMGPINEAL23 dada bullshit

I reply: then die in stagnation. Instead of crucifying n00bs, illuminate them. But no one's gonna take us seriously because we take OUR shtick so seriously. To some extent, we have made "our form of Discordia" Sacred and the Principia, RAW, et al Profane. We escaped from the PINEAL23 cell, and now we're in this one (and its kind of lonely). Now we need to escape from it into a LARGER cell. One large enough to fit both previous cells in it.

[Cain]

I would tend to agree.  If you want to change something, you need to engage with it and interact.  While there will be a level of 23dadapinealLOL stuff, I believe it could be kept at a manageable amount, due to the inclinations of the vast base of posters we already have here.

[LMNO]

Ah!  But ah!

Some of us use the "fuck RAW, fuck the PD" exactly as a way to illuminate the n00bs.  "Don't believe anything you read" is supposed to apply to the PD as much as to the Bible.

It's the n00bs who get butthurt when they see their idols attacked.

[Cain]

Ah!  But ah!

Some of us use the "fuck RAW, fuck the PD" exactly as a way to illuminate the n00bs.  "Don't believe anything you read" is supposed to apply to the PD as much as to the Bible.

It's the n00bs who get butthurt when they see their idols attacked.

Also a good point.  I've used the tactic myself.

However, it may depend on the context in which it is presented.  If you just kind of...ignore RAW and the PD, and when they are raised, kind of go "well, yes you could look at it that way, but that was a while ago and information/the social climate has changed" then go on to explain the irrelevance, it would probably go down better than going out of your way to rubbish them when they are mentioned.  Consider my 9/11 Truther and Political Satire rants.  Doing the latter only confirms their beliefs, in most cases.

As Nietzsche said "One often contradicts an opinion when what is uncongenial is really the tone in which it was conveyed."

[Cramulus]

Ah!  But ah!

Some of us use the "fuck RAW, fuck the PD" exactly as a way to illuminate the n00bs.  "Don't believe anything you read" is supposed to apply to the PD as much as to the Bible.

It's the n00bs who get butthurt when they see their idols attacked.

yeah but sometimes someone wants to discuss Illuminatus! or the PD, and people descend on him like he's an IDIOT for liking it. That doesn't help anybody, it just makes us sound like pricks.



Edited To Add: Chaos Magic too.

[That One Guy]

I think a big part of the problem is those people that use the "AKK" approach - post obnoxious and/or dada bullshit then use the "I was just trolling/having fun! I didn't really mean it!" line aren't separated from those that really just want to throw some stuff out to a larger discordian audience in order to see the reaction.

While the first group is, unfortunately, all too common (see Z_Man_iz_eer for the most recent example), this board tends to treat everyone like that till they prove otherwise, rather than using the 50 posts to see what specifically the new poster actually wants.

We're smart enough people to figure out in about that many posts which group a given poster falls into, but we tend to automatically throw everyone into the "AKK" group and leave it to them to figure out what WE want them to say, rather than give them 50 posts to say what they want and get a feel for actually posting rather than lurking. I think if we all hold back a little bit more (only a litte - a large % of new posters DO seem to follow the AKK script after all) for the first 50 posts - which means avoiding mentioning the "50 posts rule" as that can make it seem like people have to "prove" something - then we might not run off as many people as it seems we run off.

I always thought the 50 post rule was to see what people would do with the rope they made. Some will, indeed, hang themselves, but some people have made lassos (or cones, as with Nigel for the latest example). I think all we really need to do is take the first 50 posts from new people to attempt to engage them in discussions (actual thoughtful discussions primarily - even better if they start the discussion, but that's definitely something we can actively do as well). Those of the AKK school quickly reveal themselves, and those interested in interacting with us will (probably) stick around.

[Cramulus]

cool, I think everyone ITT is on more or less the same page here.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

If you guys hadn't been a bunch of assholes I would totally have left.

But seriously, I think this is a productive discussion. I think that in order to get newbs to stay we do have to engage them, and not alienate them... by 50 posts, we should have had at least one thoughtful conversation with them about their interests. Instead of ignoring posts by new people, or assuming that they're trying to impress/outweird us, maybe some of us should look at their first posts, figure out what they're saying they're enthusiastic about, and try to pull that out so that it's a real discussion about it instead of a display of peacock tail feathers.

For instance, I'm pretty sure that one of my first posts, about larding, came across very pineal23fnord. But early posts are bound to be awkward... I was thinking, "huh, I don't know these people, usually I just type endless inanities but it seems wrong to introduce myself by joining in the banter since I'm a total stranger. Oh look, here's a section on mind fucks. Larding is a sort of mindfuck... maybe these guys would find it interesting."

That conversation went OK because it turned rapidly to inane banter smattered with mild abuse, which happens to be my comfort zone. Another newbie might have thought "These guys are dissing my pet project and making fun of me, and I don't even know why! What assholes!" and left.

On the other hand, I feel as if this board is a good fit for my personality... and it might not be a good fit for people who get offended and leave. It all depends on what kind of community we want here. Do we want more people and a greater diversity in humor styles, which inevitably leads to people posting shit that other people think is lame? Or do we want a close-knit group who tend to agree on what's lulz and what's lame?

I personally tend to gravitate toward people who are more like me. I suspect everyone does. At the same time, I would prefer less uniformity and less agreement on the board... and the only way to obtain less agreement is to be more agreeable.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Some of us use the "fuck RAW, fuck the PD" exactly as a way to illuminate the n00bs.

Iconoclasm can work, but if applied with too big a brush, it might seem more like graffiti than anything else (see "ripping up a picture of the Pope on stage"). The Zen Master's "Stick To The Head" can be very beneficial, but only when the student is in a frame of mind that can accept a new imprint (otherwise, they just have a headache). The Master doesn't pull the stick out and start whacking people on the first day, or even the second... only after the student has begun down the path of learning that particular map, does head whacking come into play, the groundwork has been laid, the student is primed for new imprints...  Sometimes, it seems like we're less aligned with a Zen Master and more aligned with the instructor teaching "Getting Hit On the Head Lessons" in the Python skit... some Pinealist sticks his head in the door and *SMACK*. 

Are we really "illuminating" the n00bs? I'm not sure how I feel about that, I love to use 'enlightenment' in parables, but is the BiP any more enlightened than the PD... are our merry band of misfits more enlightened than those over at 23AE?

"Don't believe anything you read" is supposed to apply to the PD as much as to the Bible.

Yes, but "Don't believe anything you read" seems to me, like a far different proposition than "Fuck *Insert anything you read here*". I see a difference between a dogmatic belief of something and considering something a good idea or  useful tool (Yes, you can make jokes about "useful tool"). That is, while Fnordlings can be annoying... and some can even go as far as to take the PD or RAW as Gospel and Prophet, most of them seem to have simply not widened their repertoire of gags, maps, metaphors and memes (or at least not widened them in the same manner mosbunal of us seem to have). Most of the Pinealists I know don't 'believe' the PD is an actual holy book, or that a flying monkey did really appear in a bowling alley, or that Eris is a really real goddess ('cept some of the pagans, but alas, what can ya do?). They may quote it a lot, they may promote the idealism and optimism (sometimes in a very naive way) found in some of the classic sermons. For the most part, though, the Fnordlings that piss people off here,seem to be the ones that just make the same old jokes about 23 and 5 and Pineal Glands... though that's not to play down the risk of stagnation on their part. Personally, I think this could be considered as an education/scope of experience issue, rather than an issue of blind belief. With rare exception, I have found that most 23 spouting Discordians leap on other opportunities, memes and jokes if it fits with a reality tunnel <i>that they can grok</i>. The eternally optimistic ("I'm OK, You're OK" personality type) may not get the BiP, because the BiP, in my opinion, paints the same territory as the PD, but as a darker, more angst filled map. The current feel of PD.com appears to me as straddling the fence between the traditional sects of Our Lady of Discord in a good way. We have some of the Happy, Hippy Optimism that's usually associated with Erisians, we have some of the jaded joking, somewhat sardonic pragmatism common among the less hippy, more punk Discordians and we have cynicism and fatalism of the best sort that JR "Bob" Dobbs can offer. For many of us, here... we can deal with these multiple maps in multiple colors with multiple interpretations of what the territory looks like. However, for many young Children of Eris (or ones that never happened to spend time in those other models), think about how jarring and weird that might seem... especially if you were introduced to these other maps through getting whacked on the head with them rather than someone rolling it out and saying "Hey, have you seen this and how it complements the other maps?") Maybe that's the thing I feel is missing from our anti-Pineal ways... rather than saying "Fuck the Map you know" maybe we should be saying "Use moar Maps!! They complement each other!"

Before Bob died, his last big meme focus was on Model Agnosticism and Maybe Logic. Maybe Logic seems pretty straightforward, rather than IS/Is Not, we have /Is/Is Not/Maybe(or ? or Mu or whatever the symbols is for 'Don't fuckin know' in your personal lexicon). Model Agnosticism though is a bit more complex. It describes the thought processes of someone who is agnostic to the map being used. A Model Agnostic can (in theory) pop between using the model favored by Religion/Faith based people, using the Pinealist model, the BiP model, the physics models, the model favored by Atheists, the model used by ritual magicians, the Liberal model, the Conservative model and any other philosophical model that the individual can wrap their brain around. I think that Bob would be pretty happy with the group here, because we have started poking other maps... however in being excited about a new map, we (like all the other damned humans) seem prone to dissing the old map... thus compromising the Agnostic stance toward the models. For me, I plan on working on the opposite (that is, I don't find the BiP to be quite as useful a model as the PD... therefore I think I need to stretch my brain some more). Perhaps if we pushed new concepts on n00bs as expansions, rather than replacements... it would work better. I don't know.

The SubG's are famous for the line "If they can't take a joke, fuck 'em." However, in more recent years, Stang has also added another meme, this time directed at SubG's, not Pinks: "If they can't tell a joke, Fuck 'em." He's ranted a number of times that some people still seem to be getting confused. Some take the joke (the CoN, the Pinks, the Slack) and forget that its a joke... they really think its Us vs. The Pinks. They think that "Bob" (aka being a SubG) is really enlightening... they think that they have escaped the CoN... they think that they Get The Joke... but sadly they've quit laughing and started taking it seriously. Sometimes I wonder if that mindset doesn't shade our views... we can use metaphors all day long about Prisons, Tunnels, Greyfaced Hunchbrains, etc etc... but, at the end of the day, do we see them as jokes, or real and serious? Have we in some sense made the same damned programming error that primates tend to do? Us vs. Them, our Enlightened Tribe of Prisonbreakers vs. their backwards Tribe of Pinealists? I don't know if this metaphor works or not, but its something I thought of last night when I happened on one of Stang's rants.

[Cainad (dec.)]

Warning: This post contains early morning ideas. Ignore if necessary.

Perhaps we should account for the very thing we're trying to convince people to understand in their real lives: unpredictability. N00b behavior is often typical, but if/when they become regulars their real personality becomes more evident. We have to consider that beneath some n00b exteriors there are individuals who will react differently to how we treat them, and we can't know ahead of time what those reactions will be.

Therefore, I propose we triangulate our efforts, so to speak. The "N00b Conversion Chamber" we seem to be gravitating towards should not be a single bottleneck that every newcomer gets forced through. People will instinctively spend more time in the forums that they find entertaining and worthwhile, so let's give them a couple options.

Here are two examples of possible venues for n00bs, just to get ideas moving:

Fnord Central: No, we won't actually have a forum section called "Fnord Central," that would be retarded. But it's a place for dada-lovers and absurdists to goof around and get their fix of Discordia-flavored and Miscellaneous-flavored nonsense and weirdness. Plenty of us like a little dada now and then, so this is where we lasso 'em in and show them that not everything has to have a fnord in it to be funny or cool.

Tinfoil Hat Supply: This would be where we use the image of "The Man" to our advantage. Conspiracy theories, politics in general, and examples of censored news stories are all things that loads of people will gobble up. The Black Iron Prison is another example of what goes here; essentially this is where the seemingly "darker" side of Discordia gets put on display.

In theory, newcomers will get comfortable wherever they darn well feel like it, and with time they will spread out into other regions of the boards once they start to realize that there is more to Discordianism than what they once thought. For example, I came to PD.com believing that trolling was what degenerate asshats did for fun; later on I was a sideliner at the Free Thinker's Forum raid, and I realized that it didn't matter if trolling was for degenerate asshats or not, because it was hilarious.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Warning: This post contains early morning ideas. Ignore if necessary.

Perhaps we should account for the very thing we're trying to convince people to understand in their real lives: unpredictability. N00b behavior is often typical, but if/when they become regulars their real personality becomes more evident. We have to consider that beneath some n00b exteriors there are individuals who will react differently to how we treat them, and we can't know ahead of time what those reactions will be.

Therefore, I propose we triangulate our efforts, so to speak. The "N00b Conversion Chamber" we seem to be gravitating towards should not be a single bottleneck that every newcomer gets forced through. People will instinctively spend more time in the forums that they find entertaining and worthwhile, so let's give them a couple options.

Here are two examples of possible venues for n00bs, just to get ideas moving:

Fnord Central: No, we won't actually have a forum section called "Fnord Central," that would be retarded. But it's a place for dada-lovers and absurdists to goof around and get their fix of Discordia-flavored and Miscellaneous-flavored nonsense and weirdness. Plenty of us like a little dada now and then, so this is where we lasso 'em in and show them that not everything has to have a fnord in it to be funny or cool.

Tinfoil Hat Supply: This would be where we use the image of "The Man" to our advantage. Conspiracy theories, politics in general, and examples of censored news stories are all things that loads of people will gobble up. The Black Iron Prison is another example of what goes here; essentially this is where the seemingly "darker" side of Discordia gets put on display.

In theory, newcomers will get comfortable wherever they darn well feel like it, and with time they will spread out into other regions of the boards once they start to realize that there is more to Discordianism than what they once thought. For example, I came to PD.com believing that trolling was what degenerate asshats did for fun; later on I was a sideliner at the Free Thinker's Forum raid, and I realized that it didn't matter if trolling was for degenerate asshats or not, because it was hilarious.

"ZOOOoooooom!" goes Cainad's really cool motorcycle!!

(see, Doppler effect...)

[LMNO]

Observation:  Many pinealists are attention whores; they don't post things about Eris stuffing their underwear with trout because it's self-satisfying, they do it to get a reaction.  Usually, they expect that recation to be of the "LOL, you're so outlandish" variety.

So, if anyone is willing to take on the role of "unequivical back-patter", please raise your hand now.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Observation:  Many pinealists are attention whores; they don't post things about Eris stuffing their underwear with trout because it's self-satisfying, they do it to get a reaction.  Usually, they expect that recation to be of the "LOL, you're so outlandish" variety.

So, if anyone is willing to take on the role of "unequivical back-patter", please raise your hand now.

Well, I'm gonna disagree LMNO. Mosbunal people in the Internets seem to be attention whores to sombunal other people... hell, I imagine a lot of the victims of HIMEOBS think that the weirdos that crashed their server were attention whores. Further, I don't think we must provide them with the reaction they expect, I'm only advocating that we don't necessarily continue with our current reaction standards which usually involve thwacking people on the head. Surely there exists some options between a pat on the back and a thwap to the head!

[Cain]

Wouldn't attention (positive or negative) in such a case be enabling behaviour anyway?

[LMNO]

Well, we can always ignore them until they say something interesting...

But, much like a 6-year-old when you ignore them, they tend to ramp up the annoyance until they get a reaction.



Also, i didn't say that the rest of us weren't attention whores, I just pointed out that people who post "bizarre" stuff do so to be recognized for it.