Dok Reaches The End of the Road, Without YOU.

[Doktor Howl]

I see you sitting there, "viewing".  Viewing responses unread since you hit the refresh button 5 minutes ago.  Mindlessly slamming F5 over and over again, in the hopes that someone wrote something INTERESTING today, but TOO FUCKING LAZY to write something interesting yourself, or respond in a conversation-provoking way to any of the rants recently posted.

I see you conditioning yourself to hit the food pellet bar, even when no food pellets have been forthcoming in weeks.  I see you then getting BUTTHURT when someone DOES post, mostly because this place has become so BORING that any fucking chance at drama is better than the MIND-NUMBING SLAMMING OF THE REFRESH BUTTON. 

Oh, yes, The Spider lives here, too.

Well, I've got some news for you, Sunshine...The reason nobody is talking is because NOBODY IS TALKING.  Imagine a great big room full of really smart people, all standing around for WEEKS waiting for someone to say something.  That's what you have here.

The fucking place is dying.  I think everyone sees that...The only question is, should we let it die?  Should we all just go back to our offices or our cubes or our housework or whatever it is why came here to escape?  Because at the rate things are going, YOU MAY AS WELL.  Find another hobby, find another religion, maybe get around to counting the flowers on the wallpaper like you've been meaning to do.

Anything but staring at the fucking screen, mashing the F5 button, and getting more and more depressed because the ONE PLACE you used to be able to hang out with weirdos has become the internet equivalent of one of those corner "loser" bars, where aging barflies sit on their stools all alone in a room full of other barflies, drinking and staring into the mirror, and wishing SOMEONE would talk sports.  And carefully ignoring anyone who does, because hell, they'll all be here tomorrow night, too, right?  We can talk then.

Well, maybe you've noticed that the "who's online" list is getting pretty small these days, and maybe you've noticed that half of the people on it AREN'T really on it, they've been "viewing the index of principia.com" for 4 hours.  Their computer is logged on, but they're not there.  The fucking place is a waxworks, a museum visited only by those of us who haven't yet broken the conditioning that tells us that AMAZING THINGS used to happen here.

And maybe you've noticed that a whole bunch of our weird friends haven't been around in a really long time.  Remmy, Semaj, Iason, etc...I could go on for a page or more.  People USED to come and go, here, but now they just GO. 

Why?  Easy.  While we rightfully say that "weird pulls in more weird", it's also true that "nothing pulls in more nothing".  And yet here we sit, viewing.  Sort of like people viewing the television.  Or viewing the grass growing, paint drying, or listening to the sound of your breath wheezing in and out of the corpse you've become.  Anything but start – or continue – a conversation.  Fact:  CoG is back up, and they have damn near as much actual traffic as we do.  Laughing at TSC's lack of traffic, were you?  Having a giggle at the morgue that TCC turned into?  Ho ho!  It's like watching Johnny Cash's corpse laughing at John Wayne's. 

We've turned into a room full of spectators, with nothing to watch.  A Neilson Family in front of a teevee that plays only reruns.  And we have only ourselves to blame.

I'm not going to continue like this.  It's just too fucking depressing, and whatever fun mood I was in at the beginning of the day has invariably soured by 9AM, because instead of too much traffic to follow after a meeting or between scheduling work assignments, I come back to find things exactly the way I left them.  Frankly, I spend half of my time here wishing Poptard would raid us again, just so something would HAPPEN.

So, no, I'm going to bugger off and find something else to do, maybe check in at lunch each day, to see if anyone has written a rant or posted something funny in the politics section, and to see if any admin functions need to be done...At least as long as even THAT makes sense.  I'll still be posting rants, I suppose, but only because I must RANT OR DIE.  But as far as coming here for conversation, what's the fucking point?  I'll just hire a temp to hit the F5 button for me, and I can sleep in my office.

You finally killed me.

Okay forever,
Dok

[LMNO]

I admit, I instantly got defensive when I read this.  But then I was like, well, yeah.  Maybe he's right.


You know one thing that might be hurting us?  The so-called "art of the quip".  That one liner, kind of snarky, a bit clever, that's usually meant to be a finishing move.  We love using it, we love honing the skill of skewering a conversation with a handful of letters.

But they're designed to stop converation.  That's their purpose.  They don't put a new idea out there, there's nothing to get a foothold on, and the attitude of the quipper is, "End.Of.Thread."


So, let's try to make a strong suggestion to stop doing that.  You can still be snarky, but use your wit to add to the conversation, not end it.

You fuckers.


LMNO
-is still vowing to add content at least once a day.

[Freeky]

I agree with LMNO, the quip is a killer. 

[Nephew Twiddleton]

I will be reacquiring my desk tomorrow morning, which will make reading and typing more comfortable.

As of right now my laptop is on a metal folding chair next to my mattress, which incidentally, no longer has a box spring or a frame.

[LMNO]

I agree with LMNO, the quip is a killer. 

Zang!




Just kidding. 


As an experiment, I am going to attempt, when I don't really have a good point to make, to try to ask a question in all my responses.  And not one of those "Ask me anything" questions -- I mean one based on the thread content.  At the very least, it begs a response, and might open up an interesting door of conversation or thread-drift, don't you think?

[Freeky]

I agree with LMNO, the quip is a killer. 

Zang!




Just kidding. 


As an experiment, I am going to attempt, when I don't really have a good point to make, to try to ask a question in all my responses.  And not one of those "Ask me anything" questions -- I mean one based on the thread content.  At the very least, it begs a response, and might open up an interesting door of conversation or thread-drift, don't you think?

Sure.  Is better than nothing happening all day.  Also, insightful thread drift can be very thought-provoking.

[Adios]

I'm working with Cram on a project at another place right now.

[LMNO]

It's harder than it sounds, to be honest.  Kind of like holding up both ends of the conversation.  But it's also one of the simpler ways to go about it, even if you run the risk of repetition.

But it also get you thinking about the topic a bit more deeply, and you have to spell out your thoughts, rather than IAWTC.

Can anyone think of any other relatively simple ways or tricks to expand the amount of conversation/content?

So far, I've got:

-Post at least one bit of content a day.

-Try to ask a question in each resposne.

Add to the list as you see fit, people.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

Avoid responding with just

[Adios]

Avoid responding with just

[LMNO]

Thank you for giving us an example of how to kill the whole thing.  I hope all of you take this as an informative lesson.

Another way to keep things going is to piggyback.  Take a previous post as a starting point, and start writing polemics, or an object-lesson, or jump head first into metaphor.  That's kind of how a lot of the cooler group efforts got started.

[P3nT4gR4m]

PD has hit the wall again. It happens, there's a lull in the creative, the discussion grinds to a halt this is nothing new but maybe, lately it seems to be happening more often. Is it because all the regulars know each other so well? Is it because a whole fuckton of subjects have been covered now. All of us know pretty much where everyone else stands on a lot of issues. Maybe we're running out of things to argue about?

What keeps me coming back is the creative side. the Nessie thread wasn't a one off. Shit like that happens around here from time to time and it's a buzz, everyone gets caught up in it but then, after the storm comes the calm. And it's depressing. One minute you can shoot forked lightning from your fingertips and the next ...

Back to quips and one liners. Knowing all the while that you can be so much more. It's a kick in the teeth but I've lived with it all my life. The creative streaks, the artistic blocks. Even at it's most unproductive, this board helps because someone always sparks a fire and suddenly it's a creative dogpile and it brings me out of my funk a long time before I'd get there on my own. In the meantime I hit F5, waiting for the storm to sweep me up again. Hell, sometimes just knowing you fucking freaks are out there takes the edge off.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

Sorry to end up providing an example. A little difficult to write something in depth from a phone. Something that would probably be good for me is to figure out how to more effectively post from work. I wont use the computers there while working so i'm fairly limited there. I dont have a cubicle just a table with a computer on it. What do you think lmno - try and avoid posting on my phone? I suppose i could try and work five to one and wait til i get home...

[Adios]

PD has hit the wall again. It happens, there's a lull in the creative, the discussion grinds to a halt this is nothing new but maybe, lately it seems to be happening more often. Is it because all the regulars know each other so well? Is it because a whole fuckton of subjects have been covered now. All of us know pretty much where everyone else stands on a lot of issues. Maybe we're running out of things to argue about?

What keeps me coming back is the creative side. the Nessie thread wasn't a one off. Shit like that happens around here from time to time and it's a buzz, everyone gets caught up in it but then, after the storm comes the calm. And it's depressing. One minute you can shoot forked lightning from your fingertips and the next ...

Back to quips and one liners. Knowing all the while that you can be so much more. It's a kick in the teeth but I've lived with it all my life. The creative streaks, the artistic blocks. Even at it's most unproductive, this board helps because someone always sparks a fire and suddenly it's a creative dogpile and it brings me out of my funk a long time before I'd get there on my own. In the meantime I hit F5, waiting for the storm to sweep me up again. Hell, sometimes just knowing you fucking freaks are out there takes the edge off.

Amen Brother P3nt, my creative juices are dryer than a 200 year old vagina right now. Too many other things IRL happening. I suspect that once the weather turns cold things will pick up.

[LMNO]

Sorry to end up providing an example. A little difficult to write something in depth from a phone. Something that would probably be good for me is to figure out how to more effectively post from work. I wont use the computers there while working so i'm fairly limited there. I dont have a cubicle just a table with a computer on it. What do you think lmno - try and avoid posting on my phone? I suppose i could try and work five to one and wait til i get home...

No, you don't have to write paragraphs of text to keep a thread going.  You can be provocative, ask a question -- hell, if you can write a haiku that addresses the situation, that still works.

Or, depending on how smart your phone is, write text on your work comp, mail it to your phone, then copy the email and paste here.  Ok, that takes some effort, but it's how I've been able to look at and post all the pics you fuckers post.