ILM is kinda sucking these days (boring and meta ignore not safe for work)

I suggest we list some ways to improve ILX, then turn that list into a poll, and then we all agree to abide by the winning result.

1. Ban Dom?

I actually ought to look at that World Music thread a lot more.

I haven't been here that long (two years or so maybe), but I don't see it as being that much more boring, insular and hostile to outsiders than it was when I turned up. It has neither improved nor declined in my time here. The rolling metal, world music, reggaeton/salsa and jazz threads are pretty much all I look at, because I really could give a flying fuck about indie and dance music and chart pop, plus I am pretty defiantly American in my listening habits and general musical knowledge, so much/most of this board is lost on me anydamnway. I've started a few threads that have gone mostly nowhere, but I don't care. The best thing about ILM for me has been the discovery of a bunch of amazing writers (Ned, John D., Scott Seward, many others), many of whom I have now had the opportunity to pay to write elsewhere. So for me this is like the world's most awesome version of Mediabistro, or something.

ilm has been shit for as long as i can remember, which is a very long time indeed, but all this begrudging the rolling thread people their fun is arriere-garde claptrap. the rolling threads seem more laid-back and less challops-heavy than the oldd ways.

rolling threads can of course have great stuff in them but they disregard the main strength of the ilx format which is asking questions

ilm (and ile) has been compared to various things over the years - a party (that has perhaps gone on too long), a bar, a pub. everyone has had the experience of being in one of these places and finding yourself talking to someone who isn't asking you any questions but instead just expounding on their pet subject - no matter how brilliant they are there's something dull about it

Yeah I'm not 100% hating on the rolling threads, they bring a lot of stuff to my attention that people wouldn't start a separate thread for. Also they can have a much more laid-back feel to them. At the same time I sometimes feel they suck in topics that maybe should have their own thread - albums especially.

i mean i'd go so far as to say greenspun's format (accidentally?) hit upon the very basis for philosophy and rational enquiry, a line that zig-zags from socrates through hegel and is the foundation of modern journalism: set up a question to provoke a counter-reaction, and poof - it's a new idea generator

xpost

of course if your goal with ilm is to add to your iTunes wishlist then this part is beside the point

No, if they're truly brilliant you should be spellbound, transformed, exceeded.

on ft and blogs i'd agree, dingbod (note to messiahwannabe: dingbod is also known as "marcello") but ilx's format is many-to-many (i.e. more like a party or a pub) rather than one-to-many (i.e. the radio)

i mean i'm sure the pub bore and his circle of mates also imagine they are transforming all who pass within their ambit

It needs to be more like Parliament and I don't mean the band.

It needs to be more like Parliament and I don't mean the band

Although that might help too.

I'd vote for that

"i refer the honourable gentlemen to the answer i gave some moments ago"

"ORDER - ORDER"

hmm .. it could work.

Horrendous idea. Parliament (not the band) is all about grandstanding; challops abound, trolls would fit right in.

I think it the case that any messageboard worth reading or spending time on has a necessary degree of intimidation about it.

We already have that, it's called Tombot.

Parliament (the band) is also about grandstanding; challops abound, trolls would fit right in and play a saxophone or something...

"Well, allright. Hey I was diggin' on y'all's funk for a while.
Sounds like it got a three on it though, to me.
Then I was down south and I heard some funk with some main ingredients
Like Doobie Brothers, Blue Magic, David Bowie.
It was cool,
But can you imagine Doobie in' your funk? Ho!"

Johnnie Walker keeps trying.

"your honour i move that the motion be blasted into funk orbit"

I think my main aversion to the rolling threads is that I feel like a completely frivolous dilettante and if I were to hang out with the 'specialists' they'd mock me, justly, until I cried.

Oh for the golden days of the Jay-Z/Nas rolling thread...

Which is many people's (me included) feeling on first finding ILM, oh the ironing. xp.

I've found ILM a bit sucky for a while, I must admit. It's mainly because I'm talked out on just about everything I'm interested in, and the one or two things I'm not talked out on, I'm the only person who cares about it. Or maybe just me and Gareth.

I think my main aversion to the rolling threads is that I feel like a completely frivolous dilettante and if I were to hang out with the 'specialists' they'd mock me, justly, until I cried.

Don't think this is at all true of the punk, metal, indie or dronenoiseetc threads

huh i was just wondering about this, I hardly ever post to ILM anymore. it's been a conscious decision, like Pashmina I felt like I was talked out and starting to repeat myself, which is already one of my bad habits.

and for me the rolling threads -- more than the polls -- were a turning point. some of the jazz polls led to good listening/rediscovery , most I just ignored. somewhere in 2006 ILM got seriously balkanized.

this nails it:

Never read Rolling threads, seem too clannish and exclusive to me

-- Tom D., Thursday, 5 June 2008 09:49

The rolling metal thread isn't really clannish at all. It's also pretty much zing free. And whilst some of the albums/bands do have enough crossover appeal for separate threads (Mastodon,Qotsa,High On Fire, Isis,Boris, Sunn0))) etc) , most would just clog up ILM with 5 new answers if they were lucky.

I did some of those jazz polls but gave up after people complained I was doing too many polls.

Sometimes I just get too enthusiastic about things and go a bit OTT. But sometimes music excites me and I can't help it.

I read the rolling punk thread. And occasionally the rolling metal thread, but that does move quite fast. I've never found either of them to be clannish or exclusive though.

I've jumped into the metal thread with my foot in my mouth a few times, but I've never felt like I was infiltrating a clique or anything.

As an aside, I think the key to following the rolling threads is to bookmark the crap out of 'em; I used to lose my place all the time.

(I've never used a bookmark!)

I love the rolling threads, and they're all pretty-much zing free. They seem to be places where people can talk about music without the need to make jokes. There are occasional fites, but they seem to be about stuff, rather than personalities, unlike elsewhere. If you feel you don't have anything to contribute, they're great for lurking (which is what I mostly do). Poll threads on the other hand are completely tedious to read, on the whole.

I suppose the fact that I'm not particularly interested in any of the genres covered in the Rolling Threads has some significance

And in conclusion: everyone should be like me and not worry. Uh.

Even then, don't like the idea of them (xp)

ILM has gotten pretty slow. I miss the album and song threads. I hate polls. I don't have time for Rolling Threads and also find that they can be too clannish.

most would just clog up ILM with 5 new answers if they were lucky

i think this is a clue

not that the bands or subjects are lame, but that you're asking the wrong questions about them (or not asking questions at all)

The question is why is a question about ILM stultifying incorrectly marked not safe for work meaning that those in offices can't reply to it during their ILM hours?

Uh, because that was a joke by Scott, who put that in the subject line when he started the thread?

Yeah, it's not a proper red warning.

Raw P: It is still in the title.

Ned: I don't see it in the subject line. This would not be the first time I have missed this kind of joke. Appreciate your 'Uh' by the way.

This is kind of why ILx is down in the dumps.

i.e. people missing jokes.

still blamin the polls, it took em a year or so but they gradually replaced good discussion (I know, poll-defenders, there are some poll threads that are exceptions, but the notion that music discussion = ranking things worst to best is a pretty closed system)

-- J0hn D., Wednesday, June 4, 2008 9:11 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Link

when I start my album polls I really don't care about the polling itself I just want to talk about the album

The year-by-year polls about Pazz & Jop albums and singles last year (and some of the subsequent year-by-year ones about NME etc Brit polls)actually generated a lot of good, interesting discussion. Otherwise, I really have nothing against polls; they're easy enough to ignore, and no more boring, in general, than those ancient OPX sorts of things.

Rolling threads make a lot more sense than individual-record threads (which I've almost always ignored, though the Ashlee and Vampire Weekend ones weren't bad) in my book; records happen in a context with other records, after all, and the rolling ones let you get the big picture. Plus there are so many interesting records out there that devoting so much energy to just one of them almost never makes sense. The most interesting threads on ILM in the past few years have mostly been rolling threads. But yeah, they're not what they used to be, either; only one I post on myself these days is the country one (and occasionally the hard rock one), and since I'm writing way more outside ILM this year, I'm nowhere near as obsessive on even those as I used to be. (Some people would probably say that's a good thing.) Metal one I barely post on at all anymore, though that probably has at least as much to do with me being really bored with metal and unable to get inspired by it these days than with anything on the thread, which still seems to be alive and kicking.)

xpost to DK: There aren't enough hours in the day for me to get half the jokes in this place! (Although during last week's cross-board dramas, I did try quite hard. It was all quite cumulatively engrossing, in a rubbernecky/sleuthy kind of way.) In which case, I'm personally quite glad that a corner seems to have been turned on the hitherto increasing dominance of meta-zing culture, as clever as some of it was.

* Pause, as I assess the chances of this being copy/pasted into a rolling zing thread on some board that I never read. Oh, whatever. *