Dear ILE - a plea

i'm aware this is a virtue for some

but it's already happened with many subjects and should happen with many more

i dislike this halfway-house situation as it stands. I Love Most Everything more like etc.

Nobody ever posts on it.

Oh, I get it.

but it's already happened with many subjects and should happen with many more

Tell us why?

This really proves my point.

I mean, I'll be perfectly honest about why I started mine own little Balkan - because I was being repeatedly and focusedly bullied on a variety of threads by very specific individual(s), which was killing those threads. A single thread to corral my chatter also had the result of the ability to ban bullies focused on a person.

Maybe others are more localised for localised chatter that would bore/clutter the rest of ILX, but I would venture to theorise that much of the "Balkanisation" is an indirect *result* of bullying and "Fight Club" Culture, not a cause.

as with 'reg-only' and killfile i'd like it to at least be TRIED so we can actually see if the pros outweigh the cons in practice. yes there are drawbacks but imo none significantly worse than status quo (lol)

it wasn't too long ago that anyone had the ability to set up their board. presumably this option is never coming back.

anyway, i think ilx is at its best when it sticks to ANSWERING tHE QUESTION (you know, the bit at the top) and goes off course when it becomes about talking about other posters. The good posts in this thread are about the topic. The bad ones are about poster x and whether or not they are y.

i've got half a mind to ask mods to remove any personally directed posts on the main boards, at least for a bit. Unless the thread is about a particular person, natch.

attack someone's ideas, not them.

-WDYLL?

-can't say

A ban on off-topic might be nice, but then, off-topic can be fun. Oh, I don't bloody know.

Why is there no going back, particularly on the boards that could by now fit into one thread? What's the moral force behind 'should' there? I just don't get your viewpoint.

I haven't been posting much because I haven't noticed many threads that make me think or capture my attention or make me want to write a post longer than a few lines. I don't know if others feel the same.

I think the result of that is the shorter more smart assed post, which can be funny.

Some of the recent fights have been kind of insane I guess, but I'm not sure are they actually more ramped up than before, or, and this is crucial, are there just more layers to the onion that is the board now. What I mean is are people so disconnected from whatever idea they have of ILX in their heads, and are there so many posters now, that these huge fights appear even crazier because they don't know those engaging in them, or they seem distant.

Sometimes I think I get this, all of a sudden everyone is all "louis jagger wtf" or yesterday's row, and you think "right then...hmmm" and have no real idea what to contribute.

x-post some posters were so beautiful that god had to call them back to his arms

-WDYLL?

-can't say
1. That's talking about yourself, which is surely OK. Posting on a WDYLL "you're an ugly shite" == not OK. And also, like I said, you can talk about someone when they're the subject of the thread (eg "What do I do about my X?")

um hello what is the "topic" of the local/clique threads exactly?
um, hi, part of the problem is that because people are too wary to use the open thread they're clustering into the fucking cliques! But, surely the topic of the DC thread is life as lived by the people in DC, no? I mean, the local threads (that I've read) are almost free of vicious attacks on other people in the thread. Which is presumably partly why they're so popular.

millions of xposts and Laurel OTM

The Natural Life Cycle of Mailing Lists

Exactly, that's the flaw in the argument. And making them exempt wouldn't work cos a rule with exeptions is no rule at all.

I would be in favour of a "DON'T BE A DICK" rule, but one person's dickish behaviour is another person's valiant defender of truth and honour.

Maybe an "IGNORE THE DICK" rule. If someone's being a dick, ignore them. No-one likes being ignored, and so the horrible people would go away and the nice people would stay being nice. How's that?

Unless there is some kind of way a majority can register their support to have the under-subscribed boards ditched, and then Stet or whoever can act on that, it seems an irreversible process.

And why are you assuming that just because I wrote 'should' I feel I have the moral high ground?

What do you actually think should happen? Leave things as they are? If it is broke don't try and fix it as you'll only end up with a different kind of broken?

even if dom puts a pic up?

Unenforceable, unworkable.

You can't really do that but not direct it at somebody in particular.

And as OTM as Laurel may be, it's asking a lot of moderators to police the boards for anyone talking about ILX, tho i guess meta threads could be zapped easily enough.

What if people who love books or cooking or whatever just start posting their threads on ILE? Why does it need to be so official?

A personal attack on an annoying dick isn't going to make them shut up or stop, it's just going to increase the amount of bickering and insulting on the boards!

xpost
And as OTM as Laurel may be, it's asking a lot of moderators to police the boards for anyone talking about ILX, tho i guess meta threads could be zapped easily enough.
Yeh, talking about ILX is probably OK, if a bit dull. Talking (shit) about other posters isn't.

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/170/381843130_1b9c23ee39.jpg

(And don't say that there is one on Firefox, blah blah)

xpostx2