Any reason why ILM is so quiet these days?

that was not a qualitative opinion, it's all good!!

fucking

the minimal text groove of ILM is work friendly - FB is not.
hence i still hang around here.
i posted about that messageboard article on an ilm thread : very little reaction.
ned posted on his facebook page - loads of chat/responses.
the FB 'Present Listening' group that i have recently signed up to gets lots of reaction to posts etc.
and as westworld once declared 'i wanna go to where the action is .. '

I don't want to be on Facebook (and can't figure out how to read Twitter, layout never made sense to me) so I'm sad to see a lot of music forums "moving" to fb, don't see this happening to ILM anytime soon though.

Something that's cool about ILM is that its structure is a lot more open and transparent than Facebook's, and even if at some point it's abandoned it will always be a great, searchable archive of zeitgeisty discussion.

xp yeah the best part of ILM is that it's text-based and minimal and people use handles rather than real names and i don't have my IRL friends all over it.

While I'm sad at the lower activity here nowadays, I think it's most likely a result of the Google search rankings and not a cultural shift away from taking music seriously amongst teens & twenty-somethings... just look at the activity on https://www.reddit.com/r/letstalkmusic ... mostly kids but that's part of its charm.

No list threads

I despair of the youth of today

One important reason why twitter is better than ilx is that it's a lot easier to have conversations with people other than white dudes. ;)

i have trouble having conversations with anyone on Twitter. Only ever use it as a promotional tool really. I like Facebook's recent multi-threaded approach now, even if it is still a bit glitchy.

I don't use it either Tom I keep ile and ilm tabs open

I do use SNA, just didn't know SNA was called SNA.

I'd like to see more threads dedicated to individual records. The rolling threads served a purpose back when ILM was at its busiest and the genre-specific threads are great for checking out, for example, the latest afrobeats or trap tunes, but there's rarely that much in the way of discussion and when there is, it's generally the same four or five posters doing an inside-baseball thing.

xp yeah the best part of ILM is that it's text-based and minimal and people use handles rather than real names and i don't have my IRL friends all over it.

This. It's from a more innocent and exciting era of the web.

it will always be a great, searchable archive of zeitgeisty discussion.

this is totally spot on.
i spend hours digging around catching up re old bands i missed out on at the time.

I like Facebook's recent multi-threaded approach now

flag latin

I like Facebook's recent multi-threaded approach now, even if it is still a bit glitchy.

oh god no

(and fuuuuuuuuuuuck fuck fukc fuck f u c k twitter's even worse take on this. so hard to follow a thread now.)

anyone who likes multi-threading should be banned from ilx

I would like to see more posts where people boast about obscure music they love and try to win others over. Preferably in topics not dedicated to sed obscure music.

Maybe we could have obscure music by genre threads or if said genre is already obscure then more active threads dedicated to that particular genre/style that can include less obscure music

the minimal text groove of ILM is work friendly - FB is not.
hence i still hang around here.

Totally this. I'm able to ILX at work because it's totally inconspicuous. Plus I absolutely loathe Facebook and I haven't used it or Twitter in a couple of years (outing myself as an old).

Maybe we could have obscure music by genre threads---― The Once-ler

We have plenty of them already.

Rolling Afro-Latin Music 2015 and onward: Salsa, Bomba, Merengue,Reggaeton, Bachata, Latin-Jazz and more

Chitlin Circuit Double-entendre -filled Soul 2004 (and onward) Theodis Ealey's "Stand Up In It" is a song of the year

why would we have our discussions facilitated by some fly by night web megacorp when we have our own sweet DIY platform right here? greenspun forever aeon flux forever

I miss threads for new artists. Used to check new answers and after seeing an unfamiliar name enough times I'd say "oh maybe I should check out this dizzee rascal guy." Whereas now someone would've just posted I luv u to the rolling uk carpark thread or whatever.

I mean I get the desire to discuss artists in context or just the friction of starting a new thread.

eh rolling threads are kinda meat grinders

okay, how about we have one thread where we discuss our favorite finds and old flames?
I feel like no one notices when I bump a thread for 'obscure band ____'

i think people probably notice but if they're not interested there's not much you can do!

i like to bump clarke's metal faves thread for that but it always takes me like 10 minutes to find the damn thing so i tend to just let it go

eh rolling threads are kinda meat grinders

way i read this you're agreeing with me? rolling threads mean that the new answers page isn't a useful guide to anything except which scenes people are following.

i think people probably notice but if they're not interested there's not much you can do!

^ This. I mean Louis has been trying to get us all to listen to the Cardiacs for about 8 years to little or no avail.

do you guys like Haves & Thirds? i love this video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BHC3YrXUuU

^ This. I mean Louis has been trying to get us all to listen to the Cardiacs for about 8 years to little or no avail.

haha.
indeed.
i did check some of the bands out as per nudged on that thread, but, nah, not for me ..
i am in two minds re the rolling threads.
on one side, they can provide a great quick dive into a particular scene/sound, but on the other, if you are not invested and up to speed with the detail, then the thread becomes a bit of a closed shop and can end up being too intimidating for genre scum surfers like me.

i tried to watch a couple of cardiacs videos because of him. didn't get far.

I remember someone liking the Cardiacs but maybe it was the art bears
what's her face

The minimalist and anonymous thing is a big draw but then again I started with Usenet and BBSses.

ILX has 88 threads about dizzee rascal

way i read this you're agreeing with me? rolling threads mean that the new answers page isn't a useful guide to anything except which scenes people are following.

yes; i was just adding that the 'context' provided by a rolling thread seems pretty minimal/notional.

I mean

but there's rarely that much in the way of discussion and when there is, it's generally the same four or five posters doing an inside-baseball thing.

what other form would discussion take on a genre thread

I like the Cardiacs fwiw

I like art bears

i like big butts

I like art bears

Best prog band of all time imo

It's not impossible to imagine that ILM will outlive Facebook.

Facebook is just such a miserable experience

And no fucking way is Twitter better than ilx. Everything on there washes away so quickly, there's no way you can get a substantial exchange going unless you're riding the app all day long. Everything just disappears.

This is the only place/app/whatever that doesn't make me want to kill myself

^^ otm

i have tried asking questions periodically, but i think a lot of the conversation that used to keep ilm (specifically) alive was fueled by discovery and people learning about stuff from people who had more expertise. i don't enjoy personality-driven sniping or argument wrt music honestly, mostly i have used ilm to ask questions and to discover new stuff. also, it afforded people like me the chance to talk about music with only words to identify me. i never would have attempted to do any number of things if it weren't for the freedom of being text on a page. i hope this isn't a death knell (but even if it is, i can't say i'd walk away empty handed)

I've only got one thing to say, Can we be shown weirdos + Mike Love?

Usually music news these days is super depressing. Like I just read something that makes me want to crawl back in bed.

Also maybe think-piecing things to death has had an effect on discussions. Music/video drops and you've heard it and read an article/headline about it and by the time you get into a ILM thread there's all this meta baggage it's already been discussed to death and Twittered about and everyone has probably read slightly different takes on it and now you are dealing with all of these invisible browser histories that you have no idea of.

This leads sometimes to threads where people are arguing against arguments that don't exist on the threads themselves but on external websites. Which is fine and good but kind of confusing.

It's a small issue but one thing I've always liked about ILM is if you make a misstep, you don't get an instantaneous beat down from some gatekeeper hard man, more snark or gentle steering in the right direction unlike some more specific forums on or off FB where hair trigger peeps go from zero to apoplectic in one exchange.

Damn. I'm not sure I've ever had that experience.

But I think ILM has mellowed a bit (aging? music taste isn't so identity defining?), still loads of snark and sarcasm of course.

still loads of snark and sarcasm of course.

which apparently scared a lot of posters away

I don't see much of that on ILM tbh.

There's a lot of snark but very little actual RAGE, which I occasionally see on other boards.