If you want to do some Facebook and social media stuff, I'm more than happy to throw my hat into the ring. I already run my own young men's advice page on FB, along with a local job board that I created. It would be easy to run as I'm always near a computer or a phone.
If you want to do something to help the cause, please, by all means, go right ahead. No need for permission or approval... just feel free to go ahead and do it.
I had an idea that I have been ruminating about. Are you familiar with what what a Master Mind Group is? If you aren't, it is basically a group with the sole purpose of improvement. If we are going strictly for an intellectual aspect, we talk about so much random shit we could host a random Google Talk/hangout or Skype sessions or something similar. During these talks we talk about the normal stuff here, alternative history, important current events, etc. Each week or "show" we could host a new topic and random people could call in. Or we could even talk about dumb shit too, just to make it interesting. I have some experience in the radio industry so it wouldn't be too hard to get something like this off the ground and have it edited for continuity. My only concern is I wondered if it would have legs or fail miserably. Let me know if you need any clarification. I apologize if this seems disjointed, I'm typing this from my phone. Edit: Art of Manliness did a great article on this which is where I got the idea from. I wanted to do it locally in person but online may create better accessibility. http://www.artofmanliness.com/2010/12/0 ... qus_thread
I'm one of the people that mostly lurks, and I've been around since the move from Rudius. There seems to be two main reasons I don't post that often. The first is that by the time I read through a thread if there's something I want to chime in about the conversation has often moved on. The second is that I a lot of times I'll proof-read what I've written and it doesn't seem to be conveying exactly what I want it, so I'll just delete it. I do enjoy this place, and would like to see it grow. Every time a thread likes this comes up I tell myself I'm going to post more, so we'll see if I follow through this time. Less proof-reading more spouting off nonsensically for me!
The Juice sticky note to lurkers is awesome. We should just have members, not active users or lurkers. I do not believe in separate but equal.
I too have been around since the Tucker Max forums and while more active here than I ever was there, probably still qualify as a lurker. And for what it's worth, I like what you have going in here better. There's less "cult of personality" here. I own and run a local news website/ message board and the question since Day 1 has been how to get more people involved. I have over 300 registered users but only a dozen chiming in on a regular basis, but shitloads of lurkers. Some people don't participate because they don't like the house rules which are more strictly enforced than by my predecessor, so there's less drama and I guess less entertainment for those looking for stupidity and name calling. If you figure out how to get lurkers involved, I am all ears. Interestingly, my predecessor also found himself in a cult of personality with people vying for his attention, approval, and whatever else for some strange reason. He warned me about it, and so I have tried to stay relatively anonymous and not as interesting so I don't have to put up with the shit he did. Possibly to the detriment of the site, who knows ? One thing he did tell me was when you get an idea, run with it. Maybe it will work, maybe it wont, but try it. So what's my point ? 1) Perhaps allow people to start new topics without going through the "Suggestions Thread". Maybe you'll get some shitty topics, but you may get some gold along the way, and give lurkers or new users a sense of ownership and belonging because they are contributing something new. 2) Nettdata should start getting onnoxiously drunk, act like an asshole and write stories about it. Well, maybe just #1. And to answer the question of recommending this site to friends, I have and will certainly continue to. For a place called "The Idiot Board" there have been some seriously intelligent conversations taking place here. I'll also keep a look out for new social media stuff people come up with and help if needs be. Keep up the good work.
I like that just anybody can't start a topic. Too much crap to wade through, someone ALWAYS abuses it by starting too many or too many in a row, etc. But, is there some way to have the topic get "bumped" by the users at a certain threshold or something? Like, maybe anytime somebody posts in the suggestion thread, it automatically has a "bump this thread? yes / no" poll at the top. When it reaches some number, it gets bumped. Or some other kind of voting thing. Still manually by a mod, but a mod would know people are interested. Or, maybe suggestion incentives or something. "If your suggestion gets bumped, you get 10 rep points!" or, "If you get three suggestions bumped, your TiB membership is free for a year."
Yeah, if only it were that easy. I really enjoy Reddit's upvote/downvote capabilities, but I can only imagine it would be a pain in the ass to implement on this board. I'll go take a look around and see if someone's already made a module/plugin for it, but I'm not going to hold my breath.
I like the idea of fresh meat - a lot - but no, I'm not down with sharing my bitch about work spot with the people I bitch about. For the lurkers, or the less opinionated I can see the place as intimidating but I so wish they'd just give it a shot. And I wish that those who are around when they do would encourage them to keep posting. I'm old these days and more and more value opinions from so many sources - this board challenges me to think outside what I 'know' and to round out my viewpoints. I appreciate that.
I think it gets boring because a lot of the threads tend to turn serious, and the just strictly 'let's be dicks and say the meanest things we can think of' threads lose steam fairly quickly. I have zero interesting things to say, but if you want me to write about fat retards then I'm your girl. Your fat, retarded girl.
I wasn't going to say anything, as I privately voiced my concern, but this post and the current girls thread has motivated me. I think part of the issue with posters is that we have become incredibly non-offensive. Take the girls thread. There's a page or two of some funny stuff then BAM - the obligatory 'I'm not sure we should be doing this because it's not nice' then the justifications and clarifications and blech. It reminds me - and probably some of you - of the corporate culture that many of us are stuck in on a daily basis (or have been) and are trying to escape for a few minutes. I'm not directing this at any person specifically, as it's become quite endemic to the culture around here. While there are definitely things about today's board I like much better, one of the things I don't like is that any time someone isn't politically correct, they get descended upon. Sometimes funny is offensive. Rox's point above is well made in my humble opinion. This place has lost it's edge and at times has become a contest to see who can be more morally and politically enlightened. That rarely leads to fun or funny. Now what I'm not talking about is personally vindictive posts about one another, I don't think that's fun, but Jesus Christ people, if we can't make fun of fatties, transvestites, girls, women, boys, gays, straights, purples, blues, the probably Canadian, or anything else, then I have to ask: What the fuck are we doing? I like serious threads too, and think that's an improvement, but Goddamn people, let's not be so fucking politically correct all the fucking time. Just my 2 cents.
I tend to agree with what Roxanne and VI have said. I've been around since the first inception of Tucker's board - as a matter of fact I was actually a mod (a quiet one, but a mod none the less) on the second iteration of his board. What attracted me there at the time was the fact that I had two girls in college and needed some incite into their worlds. I learned a lot and was able to understand better what they were going through in college life. For the most part I like the direction the current board has gone as far as good, intellectual conversations - but we have lost the edge that made it initially attractive. I think that there can be a better balance between where the Tucker board originated from to where we have progressed too. I don't post much - not for a lack of desire, but I do have a business to run and I don't take the time on evenings and weekends because of family/life obligations. I don't like to interject or start a conversation that I can't finish. I think there is a solid group of people here - but in order to attract others we may want to rethink how we can gain an edge.
I feel exactly the same way. I have made mention several times that I miss the way the old board/s was run. I'm not saying we need to go all SLF but, I do think we tend to pussyfoot around a bit and people to take shit WAY too seriously. When something big, for lack of a better term, goes down the whining begins. That's the same shit that was never tolerated on the formers. If it did happen it was only for a second until the ban hammer fell with a boom. Sometimes I feel like we've fallen into the same thing we've talked about more than once, the pussification factor. You guys obviously have some say in how this place is run. I know several of you prefer the way this place is far more than the way Tucker and his team ran his but I have to ask you, if that was the case then why did you keep going back?
For me personally, even though I didn't 100% agree with the way the TMMB was ran/moderated, it was still 1000x better than almost any other board I've ever been a part of; the exception being this place, or a niche board that was so small that it was very easy to keep people reigned in. And I was on that board from almost the absolute beginning, first joining back in 2002. (The fact that I've spent almost 13 years of my life somehow involved with a version of you people is staggering...) I'll also echo the sentiment that, at least from my point of view, this place has gradually become more and more reactionary to almost anything even slightly un-pc. Obviously anything specifically directed towards an individual member should have a closer eye laid on it, but it seems that almost as soon as someone makes any sort of off-color joke or remark, the PC police are right on them about how they're being too insensitive, hurtful, etc. All that being said, I still would say this is one of the best boards I've been a part of, with the minor exception of all of the damn superfluous U's you hosers toss aboot.
The thing I liked about the old board were the stories. Almost every day three threads were bumped that encouraged story telling. This place only gets three main types of threads: lists, current events, and drunk threads. It almost has a family feel to it. The people that remain and post regularly probably enjoy it. The people that used it to read and write hilarious stories, not so much. I liked the moderation because it prevented the circle jerk. If you want people to come here and post more we need to have content that encourages people to post things. A random person stumbles upon this board he is going to see 5 people posting in the WDT, and a small discussion about why it is ok to be racist. I'm not sure that really attracts a lot of people. The same thing happened on Freak Safari. They used to have crap tons of posters. If you go back through their last three months, I think only 2 people have posted, and it is in their equivalent of the WDT. I feel like this place lost its edge because when you only have 10 regular posters you really have to worry about pissing them off and not coming back. And with that I will stop bitching, because for the last 3 years I have been warning of this. You've all heard it before and no one cares.
It's not bitching you hit the nail on the head. For more topics we need more than a few suggested threads a month. The suggestion board used to have 5-10 a day. If it's good it gets bumped, if it's not it won't. It's that simple. But the mods can't just keep coming up with new threads on our own every week. The ones that have been sitting there for a while? They sit there for a reason, but those shouldn't discourage you from throwing more in there. If it doesn't get bumped it's not personal. And if you think a thread that's not getting bumped should be, then let us know.
Note to self... start being more "fuck you and knock the sand out of your vag" #LikeAGirl It's funny, because I've tried to make a concerted effort to be more understanding and considerate of people... who would have thought that people actually don't want that.