(This thread compliments an earlier post I made, asking what everyone wants from the IF in 2010).


Today I feel childish, and I want to make a silly post. Tomorrow I want to make a serious post, however if you disagree with my ideas I will not care. I hardly know any of you and the process of writing and posting will be like a lazy fishing procedure.. looking for something interesting in return but not bothering if I am ignored.

The day after I am oversensitive. After making my post, I will scout for replies, and if I think I've offended you I will respond with smiley's and hug emoticons.

The day after I will ask you whether District 9 is a good movie. Even though Google or imdb could answer this question, for some reason I post here. Not because I want to know, but because I want to know how you feel.

Sometime I want to stretch, and other times I want to play.

I don't believe the medium of the forum can possibly serve so many needs, and handle so much diversity in the company of strangers, when the product (the posts we write) are static and remain there -- stark depictions of ourselves, outside time and frozen snapshots of moods and whims -- even when the moment passes and others scrutinise our ideas and wonder why we're so arrogant, stupid, or superficial. Or in my case why I live in a cannon (answer.. its better than living in a barrel).

I think many of the online misunderstandings occur from this mismatch between the eloquent, the provocative and the whimsical. For example, Christopher made a post asking why anyone likes Facebook. Google could answer this more fully than anyone. Just as someone might ask "How do I make strawberry jam". And the answer is important, but the process is also significant, as it invites participation and communication. We use this same clumsy communication tool to serve different needs and with different motivations. Questions provide the glue upon which we can build relationships. Like small-talk between friends, where the energy, the body language, the smiles are more important than the answers. But this does not function so well on the internet. And its natural that the users of a group have different communication styles, expectations. And then we have our projected selves, the archetype (or avatar) that Doggy is referring to in another thread. How can we pierce these bubbles, these layers of misunderstanding of which the temporal mood of writer and reader are some examples, and even the clumsy words we use. And then, there is the context of what we are saying in the light of our online archetype: the tone you invent for my online persona that colours all my posts. For example, I can't take anything Allan Wallace says seriously. And even if he made a series of lucid and serious posts I would wonder about the machinations of the eloquent conjuror behind the mask. Where does the performance end and the real Allan Wallace begin?

Its here that Blogs excel. The one-dimensional broadcast. Chickswithguns.com. TheObamaHateblog.com. Writer and listeners are attuned to the same frequency, the common lexicon is understood.

I remember Doggy pointed us sometime ago to the Chuck Bukowski forum. This is an example of the one-dimensional broadcast, around which a infrastructure of fringe forum believes hang. I recall reading some of the posts, and noticing some contributors writing with a Bukowski style.. terse, bare text, scavenged fragments from his prose. Like that scene from "Being John Malkovich" where the actor Malkovich enters a world where he is everywhere. Even the stale air that lives in the ether between computers tastes of Chuck in the Bukowski forum.

But this place is different. And many people visit here, stop by for support, or live here and perhaps seek escape.

What do others think (and here I'm asking this question here because considering this question is a living process that Google can't answer, only we can answer). How does everything hang together? What comes next? Is this forum too broad? Its audience too diverse, and the tool (the forum) too inadequate to deal with all the diversity? Must the forum degenerate into a board that serves a clique, that thereby limits its audience and dissuades new members from joining? Is it deja vu with Tom Hodgkinson's experience on the original idling forum?

one thing i like about forums is you can review what you and others have said, long after you said it. while this is not always good and can just be raking over the past it can also be helpful.

in Real Life everyones had experiences where you say something (important or trivial) and immediately cringe inside and think 'arghh, why did i say that?'. sometimes in Real Life you get to back track and explain yourself, but often its too late.

forums allow space for re-saying things because you and everyone else can see what was said.

likewise, everyone gets their say, if they want. in Real Life there can often be a gobshite who dominates and doesn't let anyone get a word in.

i think this forum is a bit cliquey but not too much. and so what. we try to welcome newbies, fresh blood is always welcome, it'd be nice to hear opinions and new subjects from a new perspective.

if there are any newbies or people who don't post often reading this, please, post away. offer your thoughts on anything....its all good, thats what forums are for.

I think you made an important distinction between the dedicated forum Longtail, i.e. Bukowski, which is generally homogeneous, and the kind of forum like the IF, which is very open and porous, and so is always in danger of becoming diluted and losing its original overarching 'ideology' - for want of a better word.
'Author' forums (and I include not just writers or poets, but philosophers, social theorists etc) operate more like university seminars or ecclesiastical conferences, whereby everybody has read the sacred texts and they're all jostling to find the correct interpretation which will become dogma. But the whole thing is held together by a discreet core interest, that is literally, almost 'sacred' and untouchable by default, and therefore resistant to any real criticism.

You made an important point about mood too. Yeah we all get days when we're feeling more sensitive, annoyed about something, anxious, or even seriously depressed, and our responses will reflect that.
To use a metaphor from Chaos theory, the author forum, or forums with a strong political ideology - like anarchy for example - are regulated by a central attractor, which tends to create a specific gravity to hold stuff in and enable the chaff to fall away.
When the gravity of the central idea is not very strong or diffuse, small perturbations, or large personalities can create huge iterations that destabilize the whole thing.

Then there's the social group, or meet-up aspect of internet forums. And this is related to the vagueness of the original ideology too. People may appear to have very similar interests, but in actuality, their lifeworld's, backgrounds and interpretations of what brought them together in the first place is often found to be unwarranted or confused.

Basically, there's a lot of room for misinterpretation online and this forum is no different from any other I guess.

DOGBREATH wrote:
I think you made an important distinction between the dedicated forum Longtail, i.e. Bukowski, which is generally homogeneous, and the kind of forum like the IF, which is very open and porous, and so is always in danger of becoming diluted and losing its original overarching 'ideology' - for want of a better word.
I don't think the IF is in danger of losing its ideology. When I log on here I know that nobody gives a toss about my employment status or the fact that I am skint, will not ask what I do for a living, will value many of the same things that I do. That gives me an enormous sense of wellbeing and makes this forum a great place for me to hang out, whether or not I'm actually involved in threads of an anti-work nature on any given occasion.

The point is that by being an idler (for our purposes here we can define that simply as not working or not ascribing much importance to job/career stuff) we can see ourselves as being part of a loose group and gain some kind of pleasure from the idea that we are able to spend time with others who have that in common. Whatever we discuss, the same will apply. If someone goes to a working men's club, say, or a gay bar, they don't have to spend time discussing the fact that they are working men, or gay, for the community of which they are a part to feel cohesive.

People may appear to have very similar interests, but in actuality, their lifeworld's, backgrounds and interpretations of what brought them together in the first place is often found to be unwarranted or confused.
Yeah but that's the thing about this place, isn't it? We've got a central idea - idleness - but it is so loose that it's tough even to come up with a definition of idleness that all members would agree on. People have stumped off in a huff because they didn't like the way we defined it (remember the bloke who thought it was outrageous to post here if you had a job?) but almost invariably we see our inclusive nature as a strength. After all, I have met quite a few people from this forum and have found them more interesting and compelling people than the average person I come across in real life, by a country mile. Why? Because there is something very powerful that brings us together here - I put it to you that the "gravity of the central idea", as you put it, is really quite strong, just difficult to put down in a paragraph. Which I think is pretty cool.

I find this a really involving thread, along with several others along similar lines.
I love the questions posed and Mr L's, in particular, response.

I would also urge a little caution with regard to viewing the forum as an entity that needs shaping (to what end, for whose benefit?). I would put the focus more upon ourselves...

As Mr L says, this forum has a fairly strong ideology - glue/gravity - that keeps many coming back time after time for more. It represents a side to us that is often not recognised by others in our real lives, and this we can share here with others. It does not represent who I am, but it does represent a part of who I am. Likewise, I will choose real life friends who may fulfill another part of me.

The part of me that is drawn to this site evolves (as does every other part of me). I know myself that I have come and gone over the 3 years when I first discovered the idler forum. Sometimes the site suits where I am and what I am after, sometimes it does not. When it does, you will see me here lots; when it does not, you won't see me for a while.

Longtail wrote:
What comes next? Is this forum too broad? Its audience too diverse, and the tool (the forum) too inadequate to deal with all the diversity? Must the forum degenerate into a board that serves a clique, that thereby limits its audience and dissuades new members from joining? Is it deja vu with Tom Hodgkinson's experience on the original idling forum?

The forum is what it is. It also evolves but, I feel, is greater than the sum of it's parts. It is for the diversity to find in it that which sustains it. If it does not suit someone at any particular time, maybe the individual is just at a place in their life where other priorities must take precedence.

Is it cliquey? Yes, it can be. I felt it keenly a year or 2 ago. In my case, I used the forum for inspiration only as I grasped for a lifeline to help me find my way. The inane chat left me cold. I couldn't get into that side of things and so felt left out. I just wasn't ready for the style of interaction that would help me feel more involved.

But that wasn't the fault of the forum, that was 'my stuff'.

I haven't read every single word above ^ - but when I was out of work for a long period in the 80s I dreaded being asked, 'What do you do for a living?' Few people had the social skills to approach me in other ways, though the truth was I was dying for that to happen. Eventually it did, and my mentor was a woman.

It's possible to over analyse things - the idea of paralysis by analysis - and if this happens it curtails meaningful activities. Forums like this are great for supplementing our everyday experiences, but nothing in this world can provide us with all that we require.

I think online communication is limited, but that is true when we are offline. When we meet people we infuse our verbal transactions with our personal history, culture, hang-ups... You name it! People are 'funny' and if you can find a true friend in this world you are lucky. Some people never do.

What the man in the hat said.

I think it goes a bit further than what Longtail says, though.

When he talks about THE Internet forum, is he talking about the internet forums (fora?) in general or talking about this forum in particular?

I use different media for different things. THE IF Forum is one that I use and when I am here I use it for it's intended purpose. I respond to posts like this in this particular manner. I might add one or two words to a different thread, I might add reams of nonsense to yet another thread. What I won't do is write and respond this way on a forum that I belong to about research into domestic violence and murder. It's pretty much for the same reasons that I won't send my mother a birthday card with a pussy cat on the front any more than I would send my daughter a religious card asking god to bless her on her birthday. It's appropriate things for appropriate places and people.

I think with IF we have a variety of appropriate places to respond, and even if we don't respond in a way which others might not think is appropriate in a designated place most of us are pretty tolerant. And it doesn't really matter if nettiquette is broken. It might feel uncomfortable while your computer's switched on, somebody putting a silly response in a 'serious' thread might get your back up but it's not a life rule, no laws have been broken and nobody's died.

But on the whole we do have a common interest, and we have all been drawn here because of that common interest. It's might be too loosely based on 'idling' for some people and for others it might be too pedantic about the definition of 'idling'. But I don't think many of us have stumbled upon this site accidentally. We may have been looking for other things which might have linked us to this site but on the whole, we'll have had some kind of philosophy or agreement that made us join up and participate.

That's good enough for me. I don't think IF needs to compartmentalise any further. On the whole, I like the way it flows and evolves and then self-regulates and occasionally implodes and protects.