Roger, it turns out you were right all along

[LMNO]

Oddly enough, I'm in total IAWTC with Nigel. 

I read the last 3 pages, and realized that ECH didn't reply to my comment.

Let me tell you, for the last couple of months, I was devoting my time to the Spider Project music, and was just a passive receptor at PD.com. And I was all pissy because it wasn't generating the posts I wanted to read. And I bitched. And then I bitched at the people who bitched at my bitching.

Then someone nudged me, asking what would be the next way to engage people after the psycho letters. I didn't have an answer, and I still don't -- but I did realize that the best way to get the stuff I wanted was to do it myself.

So, I took the "surprise me eris" thread, which had gone from the potential of a freakfest to a blogthread, and I GOT CREATIVE.

I spent the same amount of time, and the same amount of energy as I would slinging shit, and used it to show these motherfuckers how it's done. And you know what?  I'm STILL moving forward with the Spider Project. As it turns out, creativity is a renewable resource.

Go figure


tl;dr -- hike your panties up, Mary.

[E.O.T.]

ECH

          if this involves hot uniforms I'm in

[Dr. Paes]

Oddly enough, I'm in total IAWTC with Nigel. 

I read the last 3 pages, and realized that ECH didn't reply to my comment.

Let me tell you, for the last couple of months, I was devoting my time to the Spider Project music, and was just a passive receptor at PD.com. And I was all pissy because it wasn't generating the posts I wanted to read. And I bitched. And then I bitched at the people who bitched at my bitching.

Then someone nudged me, asking what would be the next way to engage people after the psycho letters. I didn't have an answer, and I still don't -- but I did realize that the best way to get the stuff I wanted was to do it myself.

So, I took the "surprise me eris" thread, which had gone from the potential of a freakfest to a blogthread, and I GOT CREATIVE.

I spent the same amount of time, and the same amount of energy as I would slinging shit, and used it to show these motherfuckers how it's done. And you know what?  I'm STILL moving forward with the Spider Project. As it turns out, creativity is a renewable resource.

Go figure


tl;dr -- hike your panties up, Mary.

Also:

[Captain Utopia]

Forums are a shit technology, but they are the best we have right now.  As they exist currently, they aren't scalable.  Imagine PD.com with 10x the number of active users, or 100x.  Even if anyone had enough time to read all of that additional content, our monkeyspheres aren't large enough to really give a shit about the vast majority of people producing it.  That doesn't bode well for any sense of community.

So I think one side is right in the sense that success is killing the forum, and the other side is right in that the community and its baggage are vital for the production of creative content.

Which is why I think forums are inherently shit - they provide content based upon a global popularity metric only, while people are most interested in reading content from people with whom they share common interests.

On a forum with a small core group of active users, those sets don't diverge significantly.  As the forum grows, different interests compete for the top 25 "unread posts".  Consciously or not, the selected threads influence the flavour of the forum.

But is there a reason why I can't give a "thumbs up" to a psycho letter I like, and in return get similar content to bubble up?  Or if I end up liking content from particular users more often, then perhaps I'd be interested in viewing the forum filtered through their collective preferences - the stuff which they give "thumbs up" to?  Then what about widening the net and viewing through a filter of friends-of-friends, etc?  The primary reason why not is that dynamic calculations like that would likely consume a fuckton of resources to filter on-demand, but there might be some caching/batching which could make it more manageable.  Amazon and last.fm can do it, but it wouldn't need to be that hardcore to be useful.

[E.O.T.]

Forums are a shit technology,

NOT

          in the year 2510

[Doktor Howl]

Fuck this.  All I know is that I understand what ECH is trying to say, and to a point I agree.  He's a rock n roller, and sometimes it's hard to read people bitching when you really want to stomp around, pick fights, and stuff shit into your system while someone blasts loud music.   It's hard to read Monday morning when you feel like Saturday night, right?

ECH would fit right in with our crew...He'd know Tucson instantly, and it would know him.  That may not sound like a compliment, in some circles, but it is coming from me.  Not everyone can handle this place.  It's simply too fucking weird, too full of horror and diseased failure.  You have to be serious about having a good time, here.  You have to eat the hell out of that cheeseburger, as the man said.  You have to be prepared, to be ready, when the weird comes oozing up through the floorboards in some horrible fucking juke joint and everything goes sideways, and Bob Seger wails from the sound system while barstools fly and teeth hit the floor.

So I can see where the blog threads would go up one nerve and down another...Sometimes I look at all the "look at me" threads, and sit and seethe in hatred.  But other times, most times, I realize that you kind of need that shit, if only for grist.  Ninety percent of my writing comes from either horrible shit I see in Tucson, or horrible shit people write in blog threads.

With that in mind, I'm gonna say this:  I think everyone is overreacting.  

[PeregrineBF]

Forums are a shit technology, but they are the best we have right now.  As they exist currently, they aren't scalable.  Imagine PD.com with 10x the number of active users, or 100x.  Even if anyone had enough time to read all of that additional content, our monkeyspheres aren't large enough to really give a shit about the vast majority of people producing it.  That doesn't bode well for any sense of community.

So I think one side is right in the sense that success is killing the forum, and the other side is right in that the community and its baggage are vital for the production of creative content.

Which is why I think forums are inherently shit - they provide content based upon a global popularity metric only, while people are most interested in reading content from people with whom they share common interests.

On a forum with a small core group of active users, those sets don't diverge significantly.  As the forum grows, different interests compete for the top 25 "unread posts".  Consciously or not, the selected threads influence the flavour of the forum.

But is there a reason why I can't give a "thumbs up" to a psycho letter I like, and in return get similar content to bubble up?  Or if I end up liking content from particular users more often, then perhaps I'd be interested in viewing the forum filtered through their collective preferences - the stuff which they give "thumbs up" to?  Then what about widening the net and viewing through a filter of friends-of-friends, etc?  The primary reason why not is that dynamic calculations like that would likely consume a fuckton of resources to filter on-demand, but there might be some caching/batching which could make it more manageable.  Amazon and last.fm can do it, but it wouldn't need to be that hardcore to be useful.

SMF includes a "Karma" system. There are addons for it, such as Advanced Reputation System that we could easily use if we needed more functionality. But for now, try just enabling karma. Now, for filter-like stuff I honestly think Slashdot does a good job. You can mod posts from -1 to +5, random users get moderator points, and the more good posts you make the more you get to moderate. You can set friends & foes, and their posts get a modifier to your view accordingly. Etc, etc. Slashcode clearly isn't appropriate to this site (no image posts, for one), but such a system CAN be implemented and can be done without consuming a huge amount of resources.

As for myself, I'm not really a writer. I'm dysgraphic. Most of the other creative stuff I do isn't relevant here, so I don't post it here. If I think PD.com needs info on how to make high-voltage pulse capacitors I'll post things like that, but I don't see absurdly high voltage stuff being our main focus. Thus, I tend to respond more than I create.

As for being nice to people, if you don't want to, DON'T! Look at how much we get from Roger's rants. Hell, the whole "Or Kill Me" section is based off of frankly rather rude and angry ranting. Yet it provides perfectly good content, clearly better than the "Fluffy bunnies & flowers" section we don't have.

[BADGE OF HONOR]

Karma systems are shitty.

[Doktor Howl]

If Karma is enabled, I will puke blood all over this place.  And I'll neg rep everyone, all day, every day.

[PeregrineBF]

Oh, I dislike Karma too. But it's there if we want it, there's no technical limitation or anything keeping it from working.

The karma system I'd like would be a bit like google searches now: thumbs-up is private to you, but makes it show up first/more clearly/etc when you view the forum. There's new reply notification, but that gets spammy fast.

[BADGE OF HONOR]

No.  I know how a karma system would work here.  Everyone would just focus on the karma and fuck around with it until it broke.

[Doktor Howl]

No.  I know how a karma system would work here.  Everyone would just focus on the karma and fuck around with it until it broke.

Pretty much.

Also, done in IRC for a while.  Burns and Idem can kiss my ass.

[Captain Utopia]

SMF includes a "Karma" system. There are addons for it, such as Advanced Reputation System that we could easily use if we needed more functionality. But for now, try just enabling karma. Now, for filter-like stuff I honestly think Slashdot does a good job. You can mod posts from -1 to +5, random users get moderator points, and the more good posts you make the more you get to moderate. You can set friends & foes, and their posts get a modifier to your view accordingly. Etc, etc. Slashcode clearly isn't appropriate to this site (no image posts, for one), but such a system CAN be implemented and can be done without consuming a huge amount of resources.

I hate Slashdots karma system.  Too easily gamed by parroting popular opinion.  And besides, an "objective" global rating on a users "quality" is meaningless as what matters is the subjective opinion of the individual requesting new posts to read.  Someone may hate the psycho letters but want to read more posts about shoes or something - why shouldn't they be able to participate however they want?

[Doktor Howl]

SMF includes a "Karma" system. There are addons for it, such as Advanced Reputation System that we could easily use if we needed more functionality. But for now, try just enabling karma. Now, for filter-like stuff I honestly think Slashdot does a good job. You can mod posts from -1 to +5, random users get moderator points, and the more good posts you make the more you get to moderate. You can set friends & foes, and their posts get a modifier to your view accordingly. Etc, etc. Slashcode clearly isn't appropriate to this site (no image posts, for one), but such a system CAN be implemented and can be done without consuming a huge amount of resources.

I hate Slashdots karma system.  Too easily gamed by parroting popular opinion.  And besides, an "objective" global rating on a users "quality" is meaningless as what matters is the subjective opinion of the individual requesting new posts to read.  Someone may hate the psycho letters but want to read more posts about shoes or something - why shouldn't they be able to participate however they want?

FP...What the FUCK are you jabbering about?  The problem here has nothing to do with the technology being used.  Goddammit.

[Captain Utopia]

Technology can help with filtering out stuff you're not interested in, and bubbling up content you want to see.  Technology can enable communities to scale and support more members while allowing for increased specialisation.

If technology isn't part of the solution, then maybe I don't understand the problem.