There's really not much point to this, anymore.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

EBG now has such enlightened questions as "Trayvon Martin, Murder or No?", posters from TCC and borked software (also like TCC).

Of course the poop forum is doing better.

Yeah, I saw Dark Magus there.  Which leads me to believe that TCC is even deader than EB&G.

For a second I thought you meant that Dark Magus was on the poop forum, which made me 

[Elder Iptuous]

there's a forum dedicated to 'poop'?
i mean, i guess i'm not really surprised,
but...

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

Yes, and it's not about colon health, or scat fetishes, or anything, really.
Just...poop.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

there's a forum dedicated to 'poop'?
i mean, i guess i'm not really surprised,
but...

Google "Resurrection Poop" and ye shall be answered.

[Placid Dingo]

Over time my interests and the forum have stopped aligning.

I add to conversations when I feel it. I still cross post some stuff when I want feedback or discussion. The 'defence of power' conversation was really useful- I pretty much ended up on board with the problems pointed out, and enjoyed the conversation. Recenty though I think I don't really contribute anythig people really find interesting, and I don't find a huge amount o the content here really pulls me in. That's not a problem- I'm in flux and so is the forum and sometimes well align better than others.


The last few internal spats haven't been encouraging exactly, but I've never outright left for that sake.

[AFK]

Another nobody is posting thread?

And I don't know that ragging on EB&G, again, is going to really get the traffic flowing again, but maybe it will.

But, allow me to be the wet blanket here. 

Posting on the internet is not important.  Not when people have jobs and other life obligations.

I will further submit, again, that lack of posting doesn't mean lack of Discordia. 

I am quite confident that the Payne's, the LHX's, the Iason's, the Cram's, and the DJ Rubberducky's of the world are out there subjecting meatspace to all kinds of wacky and weird shit.  I have no doubts whatsoever. 

And I think that is good.  Yeah, it sucks when it means lack of traffic here.  But that is the way of things.  Things have life cycles, they evolve, that includes internet communication mediums. 

I just don't think any amount of "why aren't people posting?" threads are going to change that.  I think we should just make the most of the traffic we do have now.  I think the fast and furious days of 06 and before are more or less behind us. 

[Doktor Howl]

Another nobody is posting thread?

And yet here you are, clicking on it.

It's a fantastic thing that you don't do anything like this.

[Scribbly]

It feels like PD.com is going through an identity crisis.

I've been trying to think how to respond to this for a little while now so I'm just going to stop second guessing myself and throw some stuff out there.

Basically, PD.com has always been most successful when it has felt like a community. That's my basic premise. When I came here many years ago, it felt like I was introducing myself to a group of friends. A large part of that was the casual air.

Which comes down to 'facebook for weirdos'.

The thing is, Facebook is fundamentally poisonous. It is an echo chamber in which you (like Nigel said) basically become your own TV channel. It is not a format which encourages long conversations, or communal projects, or anything like that. It is used 'in the now' to blurt out the details of what is in your head right this second or what is going on in your life right now, and that's it. Bang done move on.

Forums scratch a different itch, and I think part of what set even Open Bar apart from facebook and personal blogs was that you'd have people come in and tie together streams of thoughts and engage in discussions over several days.

The other thing is that it is 'for weirdos', which is to say, anyone who posts here. Facebook is (for the most part) a far more controlled environment in which people will control their audience far more carefully. You also don't need to worry about your boss, prospective employer, or ... well, anyone IRL, knowing about who you are here if you don't want them to (for the most part). It is a different communal space, and I think that is very helpful.


Basically, I think it was good to experiment with trying to cut down on the 'facebook for weirdos' thing. I think we can all agree that the atmosphere of the board has changed since it happened. Now I think there's a few ways we can proceed:

1) Try to encourage people to post moar content through this kind of thread. Which doesn't seem to be working, and, for my part, just makes me feel a little irritable.
2) Try to establish some communal projects to give the board a new focus. Luna's project was a great idea and I'm sorry I haven't been able to contribute. Now that I've lost my job and am in Amsterdam collecting photos I will probably try to get in on it when I am back home. But again, just one project doesn't seem to have electrified the board and cured the 'nobody is talking' problem. Maybe more would help? I'm not sure.
3) Bring back open bar and see what happens - don't know if it would encourage more posting in other threads but I think Dok may have a point in that it gets people typing, and I genuinely think that 'facebook for weirdos' can be attributed with some of the success in establishing PD.com as a creative environment.

The last thing I'd like to say is that 'we' collectively need to decide what the point of PD.com actually is. I mean, if it is pointless now, that implies that it had a point to begin with, right? This is where the identity crisis thing hits. I think we've talked Discordianism as a subject to death (or at least feel like we have), and we may even have reached that point with BIP.

There's a few subjects I'd like to talk about spurred on by recent discussions here...

I want to talk about what it means to be a walking glitch (The Laughing Man was shot one at that. Didn't quite work. Must Try Harder)
I want to talk about what it means to be a citizen.
I want to talk about where we're going and what that's going to look like. Because conjecture is fun.
I want to repeatedly slam my face against the wall -- I mean, continue to track and be surprised by political developments, and talk to you folks about them.

And I want to listen too, because I feel like you guys put me to shame when it comes to pretty much every subject under the sun.

So, yeah. Part of the reason I haven't already started talking about the above is lack of time. Part of it is paralysing stage fright. I'm starting to understand that the worst thing that can happen is that I'm not interesting and I watch my stuff slide off the screen. Well, that's not too bad. Alternatively, I could put my foot in my mouth and wind up being torn a new one. If that happens, at least I'll learn something in the process.

So consider this a mission statement and some thoughts on the subject. I don't know how swiftly I'll be able to get to work on this stuff, but I owe a lot to PD.com even if I've spent the majority of my time lurking, and I'm going to start trying to give something back.

[Doktor Howl]

1) Try to encourage people to post moar content through this kind of thread. Which doesn't seem to be working, and, for my part, just makes me feel a little irritable.

Yeah, my bad.  I was feeling bitchy about the whole thing.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Over time my interests and the forum have stopped aligning.

I add to conversations when I feel it. I still cross post some stuff when I want feedback or discussion. The 'defence of power' conversation was really useful- I pretty much ended up on board with the problems pointed out, and enjoyed the conversation. Recenty though I think I don't really contribute anythig people really find interesting, and I don't find a huge amount o the content here really pulls me in. That's not a problem- I'm in flux and so is the forum and sometimes well align better than others.


The last few internal spats haven't been encouraging exactly, but I've never outright left for that sake.

"my interests and the forum have stopped aligning". The active posters are who define what interests the forum aligns with. If you are expecting other people to provide discourse that aligns with your interests, you've become a spectator, not a participant.

I think that the problem is that there are too many passive users hoping to be spoonfed, and not enough active posters making the board what THEY want it to be.  Don't see a topic on your interests? START ONE. It's interactive; that's the whole point.

[Doktor Howl]

Over time my interests and the forum have stopped aligning.

I add to conversations when I feel it. I still cross post some stuff when I want feedback or discussion. The 'defence of power' conversation was really useful- I pretty much ended up on board with the problems pointed out, and enjoyed the conversation. Recenty though I think I don't really contribute anythig people really find interesting, and I don't find a huge amount o the content here really pulls me in. That's not a problem- I'm in flux and so is the forum and sometimes well align better than others.


The last few internal spats haven't been encouraging exactly, but I've never outright left for that sake.

"my interests and the forum have stopped aligning". The active posters are who define what interests the forum aligns with. If you are expecting other people to provide discourse that aligns with your interests, you've become a spectator, not a participant.

I think that the problem is that there are too many passive users hoping to be spoonfed, and not enough active posters making the board what THEY want it to be.  Don't see a topic on your interests? START ONE. It's interactive; that's the whole point.

Very this.

PD is never going to be exactly what you want, but if you want anything from it, you have to make it happen.  Waiting for someone else to come along and post exactly the things you're interested in is not going to work.

[LMNO]

So the question arises:  What am I interested in?  What do I want to talk about?

I'm not sure.  Biases.  Behaviors.  I had some fun in the Religion thread.  Dare I say it, philosophy (or at least the principles behind beliefs).  But I'm not sure I have many insights of my own.  My posting history shows that I'm fairly reactive -- when someone brings up something to think about, I do well.  But self-motivating topics aren't my strong suit.

[Cain]

I reckon if you tried to get a discussion or workshop going on some of the Less Wrong stuff, sequences for Discordians or something, it would generate some interest.  I can think of at least five semi-regular persons here who share that broad range of interests.

[LMNO]

That's a good idea.  And now that the sequences are in an ebook format, that should help.  I'll see what I can do about that.

[Doktor Howl]

So the question arises:  What am I interested in?  What do I want to talk about?

I'm not sure.

Same here.  I have always enjoyed the weird shit (your 30 days of Eris is still the best moment ever on PD, for me), of course.