Verwirrung Blog roundtable discussion

[Cain]

Excuse me, but is has NOTHING to do with motivation.  It has everything to do with having a wife and a 5 year old daughter at home. 

I'm not trying to have a go.  Really.  I'm offering possible reasons as to why anyone, you, me or someone else may not want to do this.

I also mentioned a timetable, if you took the time to notice, and actually had you in mind when I said that.

Jesus Christ, why does everyone think I'm suddenly trying to troll them around here?

It is the phrase "We'd rather people who wanted to put in the sort of effort above to volunteer themselves..." implying I don't want to put in the effort.  That is what is pissing me off.  It's not about wanting it's about availability of time.   So if it was a wrong choice of words, fine, but you are generally a person who is very precise in his wording so you will understand why I'm suspicious.  

I'm writing a research proposal, have three blogs and am applying for several jobs.  Every single day.  I'm sorry I don't have the time to word everything perfectly so everyone can understand me clearly and precisely and perfectly, I simply don't have the time.  See, I'm even repeating myself.  if people want to see insults and snide comments in my every single remark, then so be it, but they're looking for something that doesn't exist.

And yes I am kinda pissed off, but only because your the third person in the past week or two to accuse me of this when I haven't been looking for a fight and didnt mean any malice.  being the bad guy for everyfuckingbody on this forum is pretty dull.

[Iason Ouabache]

I'm willing to take the religious watch theme.  I'll have to learn how to bite my tongue though.

[Cain]

I'm willing to take the religious watch theme.  I'll have to learn how to bite my tongue though.

Cool, I thought that would interest you.  I mean, you can poke fun at them and stuff, that is what religion is for, I just didn't want to go down the whole God is not Great route, by keeping it quirky and humourous.  But I'm sure you can do that very easily anyway.

[Cain]

Payne, how would you feel about covering internet culture?  This would basically be thieving cool stuff off of ED and SomethingAwful and ItsOver9000 and stuff.  If you don't want to, its cool, I just thought if you wanted a specialist subject and didn't know what to go for, then that could be one that is both easy and interesting.

[Payne]

Payne, how would you feel about covering internet culture?  This would basically be thieving cool stuff off of ED and SomethingAwful and ItsOver9000 and stuff.  If you don't want to, its cool, I just thought if you wanted a specialist subject and didn't know what to go for, then that could be one that is both easy and interesting.

Yes, I could do that.

I will work on something later on to see if I can do something interesting with it.

[Cramulus]

Payne, how would you feel about covering internet culture?  This would basically be thieving cool stuff off of ED and SomethingAwful and ItsOver9000 and stuff.  If you don't want to, its cool, I just thought if you wanted a specialist subject and didn't know what to go for, then that could be one that is both easy and interesting.

Yes, I could do that.

I will work on something later on to see if I can do something interesting with it.

If I could make a suggestion, mainly because this is a topic I'm really interested in--

Though "mainstream" internet culture is far more relevant to the randomblog audience, I'd be really curious to see a column written from an "internet safari" point of view, exploring different forums and ideologies. In particular, I'd love to read an expose on various "discordian" websites, and what's going on there. I don't mean 23ae and myspace, where nothing much seems to get done, but moreso about s23.org, the discordia wiki, and chaosneverdied, where there still seems to be a few sparks of creativity.

[hooplala]

I wish I could volunteer for something but I seem to have hit an extremely dry spell lately... I haven't posted anything of note on my own blog in a LONG time... I will try to get my shit together and do something soon...

[Cain]

I'd also add if there is something you are passionate about and want a platform to talk about it, then you should use the blog too.  The only thing I would suggest is to have something of that future/new/impact viewpoint when talking about it.

[Payne]

One of my first thoughts was to actually go on a one-man Safari to the same kind of model as we did the first one. Spend a couple of weeks on fairly obscure forums, get a taste for what they're like, and write up a post on the good and the bad shit as well as the interesting and weird, link them back to their review and then move on.

Which leaves everything fairly wide open as far as content from blog-post to blog-post goes, and I could maybe find some really good shit out there.

[AFK]

One of my first thoughts was to actually go on a one-man Safari to the same kind of model as we did the first one. Spend a couple of weeks on fairly obscure forums, get a taste for what they're like, and write up a post on the good and the bad shit as well as the interesting and weird, link them back to their review and then move on.

Which leaves everything fairly wide open as far as content from blog-post to blog-post goes, and I could maybe find some really good shit out there.

I think that is a really good idea. 

[Cain]

I think that sounds pretty damn cool.  Payne, modern day anthropologist of the WWW.

[Payne]

The One-Man Internet Safari.

An attempt to discover more about the hidden knots of community in the web-o-sphere.

Aims: To explore the hidden depths of the internet. Obscure message boards mostly, the places that no one knows much about, if anything. I hope to find the differences and similarities of disparate groups and pin down part of how their "community" works, through a basic select list of criteria. Then using this information, I will post regular reports on Internet Culture in the manner of an anthropologist. Except probably a very inept and lazy one.

Forum choices: Any forum will do, as long as it is fairly active and isn't VERY specific as regards content. If it has a General Discussion board, it's in. If it's only about the Honda Acura and nothing else, it's out. I may also attempt to find some kind of connection between one and the next (a rival board, a sister board, anything the members of a forum refer to often). I don't want to visit huge boards, where it would be impossible to keep track of even a small selection of content. By the same token, I don't want to visit slow moving small boards where all the content can be observed in days.

Rating Criteria: Forums will be rated on simple criteria that should be common to any thriving community. Identity, creativity, originality, administration and sustainability (a function of the first four, usually). This is subject to change at whim and as circumstances dictate. Any other interesting things that crop up can be covered in the write-up.

Memes: Particular attention will be drawn to the use of common internet memes, as an attempt to "draw" a picture of a particular memes impact. There will also be an attempt to discover more about local "in-joke" memes as part of an attempt to discover more about the forums creativity and originality. Memes are a good way to get a short-hand "glimpse" at the culture of a community in a short time.

Time Scale: 2 to 3 weeks per forum maximum, or until banned. Plus the time it takes to write up a report and any following up required to investigate Forum rivalry/wars or other similar things.

Persona: I will play it straight. I don't want it to come across as a troll unless the board warrants it, in which case their reactions to trolling could be an interesting angle to take in the write-up. I won't disclose the nature of my presence unless directly asked or as I feel circumstances dictate. Post-Safari, I will endeavour to inform the board of the nature of my presence and if anything interesting comes of that, include it in a follow-up. I will be using the name "Payne" for all of my adventures, so it should be possible to track back, or to follow my progress in the future.

Any other things I should think about, anything I should change, other awesome ideas?

Also, I'll tend to keep my mouth shut about where I'm hanging out because I don't want it to end up in mass boardings and trolling and shit.

[LMNO]

So, uh, should we be getting to it?

[Cain]

Sounds good to me.  Can't think of anything to really disagree there in methodology at all.

I was thinking, when do we want to start putting in these changes to the blog?  Right away?  Or should we build up a good repository of information and sources first (including the network we want to promote ourselves through) and then launch it all in a couple of weeks, once we know we have most of the stuff for it in place?

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Sounds good to me.  Can't think of anything to really disagree there in methodology at all.

I was thinking, when do we want to start putting in these changes to the blog?  Right away?  Or should we build up a good repository of information and sources first (including the network we want to promote ourselves through) and then launch it all in a couple of weeks, once we know we have most of the stuff for it in place?

From my experiences, having the content first always seems like a good idea.