Ideas for ILX

(Last updated in 2013.)

Begun: January 29, 2001 (twenty years ago)

"It reassures them that the natives are friendly."

Are they?

Thanks, Aimless, for understanding the core of what I was getting at.

There is no beginning (not sure about there being an end). You don't look for the start when you enter a pub and hear the ongoing conversations around you either. You just join in, or you don't?

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

― A Scampo Darkly (Le Bateau Ivre), Wednesday, February 24, 2021 10:53 AM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

A frankly dismissive and snotty response. Perhaps you don't care that many potential users turn right around after being confronted with this site that has an outdated FAQ, no path toward understanding what it's about or its history, and a current user base that skews toward people who've been on the site on-and-off for upwards of a decade, but I can imagine it might be a little alienating to potential new ilxors.

I'd like to see the user base expanded, and I don't think your response does much to help with that issue.

Snotty, really?! We'll have to agree to disagree. I didn't mean it in a dismissive or unhelpful way. But like every community, ilx has its own codes, ethics, language, history etc. It wouldn't hurt for a newcomer to dip their toes in that themselves instead of showing them "a path forward". We've all been there, we all found our way. I'm not opposed to an updated faq or introduction-thread or whatever, but ilx is ilx, a community is a community. Wouldn't hurt for people to find their own way; it makes for better users imo. But no harm meant.

I tell people I'm pitching ILX to to just lurk SNA and click on interesting threads to start with, but I do think we could use a better intro and FAQ

Faq #237: what is a sleep viking

#746: what does it mean to be sonned in a beef

#952: WHAT is so not gonna happen

#999: who is this brodie person?

hi my father very root with me what can i do?

Interestingly ilx is already question-based, so one fears that eventually the faq just becomes the site itself

77 of what?

Why is dave matthews band so bad&hated?

how is babby formed

#562 Why?

A: because she look intersting

New posters should have to pass an exam

Upon passing they will the stand accused of being an old poster under a new name

How nimbly they manouevre from there decides their fate

apprentice --> journeyman --> master poster

------> ??? mittel european puppetmaster hivemind ???

Like the last line of the end game script when you complete an NES adventure game

As a fairly new poster, I actually found the experience of joining to be pretty chill. I lurked for a little bit, posted some stuff, experienced the high of my very first otm (thanks, James Redd and the Blecchs!) and was hooked.

The trigger for me was having an obsession that I didn't want to bore my friends with.

Who were u before tho

Who were any of us before ilx?

belle

Lily Dale is purely on the up and up as ye well know

Thanks for being a character witness, Aimless, I appreciate it!

*notes: probable aimless sock*

Folks it's 10 pm ET time for weekly dn swap

Done

Who am I now, I’ll never tell!

Im gonna try keep posting in deems style and see how well i do

Guld nögle lukker alle Döre op uden Himlens.

Nu komt de aap uit de mouw

would things be different if the permanent username was first and the temporary dn was in parentheses?

Karl Malone (Zach_TBD)

just throwing out there. it might have changed things if it started out that way, butterfly effect style

yes imo

under the alternate system, i'd always think "sick, what sic's display name is". but right now, i think "whatever sic's display name is, sick."

i don't know if it's better or worse, but it's different

jol out

deems can I have my account back now?

sincerely though -- I think that so many of the existing "introduce yrself" threads are full of in jokes and trolling that if we were to have a sincere "welcome new users" thread, it would have to be new. I agree with table that having new users would be good, esp. friends of his.

Otm

"welcome new users thread - definitely not a prank this time"

but one question before you post: what do you think of "throw momma off the train"

I agree with table that having new users would be good, esp. friends of his.

cosign

we could actually have fun and nerdy discussions on the anarchism and activism threads ...

display names are for n00bs.

I agree with table that having new users would be good, esp. friends of his.

Oh, yeah, if there's one thing ILX definitely needs it's a flood of hair-trigger leftier-than-thou types.

When we could just have more pleasant people like you ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

I think the "here it is, figure it out" lol on-boarding process served us OK for a long time because it acted as a decent if exclusionary filter: if you were familiar enough with the forum/lists world of yore to figure the place out you were likely to be able to participate on its own terms and not just moan about avatars not working.

That world is far enough in the past now that it's too high a bar for a lot of potential posters, especially 20-somethings, to cross. Worse still if you're on mobile. We got an entertaining reason-for-registering from a new poster recently, which was "i like signing up to dead sites". And you can see how they get that impression, since the landing page is the Board list rather than SNA, and the aesthetic is hella win 3.1. The people most likely to be familiar enough to cross the bar now are redditors, and they already have reddit. Or, christ, channers.

I've been meaning to do something of a first-time-user tour/page/help thing for a while; I'll bump that up the list. Pinning threads is also on the list, and that would allow us to pin welcome-type threads for boards too.

"i like signing up to dead sites"

https://i.imgur.com/SFQtyFg.gif

the landing page is the Board list rather than SNA

I know some regular users don't like Site New Answers, but I'd suggest making that the landing page instead of the boards page. SNA shows what's going on here at any given moment, while most of the links on the boards page are cryptic and inactive.

Yes, I agree

I agree with table that having new users would be good, esp. friends of his.

Oh, yeah, if there's one thing ILX definitely needs it's a flood of hair-trigger leftier-than-thou types.

― but also fuck you (unperson), Thursday, February 25, 2021 5:53 AM (fifty-four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Tbh, most of my friends would probably be more interest in ILM than anything else. I made the stupid decision of posting on ILE many years ago, and have regretted not confining myself to ILM ever since.

Also, is there a reason you seem to single me out in these little tantrums of yours? It's getting a little old, and I thought we were being cordial to each other.

i don't consider table 'leftier than thou' either. I know we've had a disagreement or too but I enjoy tabes posts

*tables

people call me tabes, it's cool Neanderthal!!

:)

I thought we were being cordial to each other

Oh, we are. It's just that politically speaking, I file you alongside map, Left, and milo, as folks whose perspective is a) frequently counterproductive and b) way over-represented on ILX already. So, more of that? No thanks. (N.B. I'm not saying we need Republican posters — we absolutely don't. But the assholish infighting of the politics threads is already beyond tiresome.)

Addressing the main question, I don't know what could be done to make ILX friendlier to a new person. Every time I stare at the front page of Reddit I find it completely baffling that anyone could work up the nerve to make their first post. It would be like spitting in the ocean. I imagine to us this place feels like a shelter, while to others it looks like a seamless concrete wall. Perhaps if there was some sort of referral system, where a longtime denizen could say, "Hey, this new person is coming in - I vouch for them based on X, Y and Z." Not that they could be voted in or out, but just so they wouldn't arrive and immediately be accused of being a sock...

i like the SNA-as-landing-page idea. it's small, and something i never think about, but it makes total sense that it might draw in at least a couple people a year, who might otherwise have skimmed across the surface of the Boards page and left.

but if SNA is the front page then there's probably other stuff about that "front-page experience" that sorta hides how the site works and the ways to dig in. like if you're at SNA, do you have any idea that "ILE" and "ILM" mean anything? this might start to get visually messy, but maybe they should be spelled out... and next to those two links, in the same dark blue color, could be non-link text reading Main sub-boards: ? just throwing things out there.