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

We need more bold, proactive posting about musical theory and critical analysis. My two cents. Well, two more.

challop

Euler, you definitely have my unneeded permission to start a Keith Whitley thread.

polls are fun and blaming polls makes no sense

I'm scared of ILM.

Oh my gosh but I ran into the thicket anyways.

i'm always in for a tough time trying to find something engaging, because i always consciously scroll through the hip hop threads of which there are always about 60 on the main page.

so it's probably the quality of the posters in whatever thread you're thinking of not the poll form itself

I see what you're saying but part of my point is that reviving those quality posts would perhaps spur better discussion than starting over from ground zero.

i'm always in for a tough time trying to find something engaging, because i always consciously scroll through the hip hop threads of which there are always about 60 on the main page.

-- Charlie Howard, Wednesday, June 4, 2008 11:37 PM (18 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

;_;

i think the "rolling" threads suck too. they might have tons of info on new stuff, but i never go into them. there's just too much info. you miss them for a second and you're lost. i liked it better when people would start threads on individual songs or albums. whatevs.

but you might find this (waxidermy) more your speed in your darker msg board moments.
-- sanskrit, Thursday, June 5, 2008 1:52 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Link

i tried to register a week or 2 back and they said they weren't accepting any new applicants. emailed them and they never responded. weak

the dermy is cool. also, co- sign xpost.

as a new ilm'er

a) you guys have already pointed me to loads of new (to me) music, so to me this place doesn't suck yet

b) it is a bit intimidating at times though - not so much that i fear getting flamed for saying something uncool, but that you all seem to refer to each other by first names that don't match your screen names, so it seems a bit insider-y, and i can't always follow the conversational thread - "as to what mark said, fred's much more otm and sarah - loved those photos!" who the hell is mark and fred?!?!? what photos?!?!? stop trying to be cool, you're just members of an internet forum ffs - it's pretty much a given we're all just geeks here, so stop pretending knowing "if assholes could fly this place would be an airport"'s real name makes you cool somehow, would ya? it would make conversational threads easier to follow for us newbies anyway :)

c) the reviews do tend to be a bit one-linery. i've copied this style so far just to fit in like (being new here and all) but at times it seems a bit content-low. is a multiple-sentance paragraph too much to ask for?

d) the polls are ok i guess, but i agree they tend to be a bit limiting - i mean, i'd rather hear WHY i should be interested in an old thomas dolby album (it is just nostalgia, or is this stuff actually that still that good 20 years later?) than which song on the album is best.

but, you know, whatever - overall i personally like this place (my new timewaster!) - it's worth it for the music recommendations and occasional witty one-liners.

though this britney obsession is a bit worrying.

I really don't see what the fucking problem is calling people by their real names.

That was @ stop trying to be cool... comment

like who cares if i call black beyonce "john" ffs.

now now mark

haha I was just wondering about BLACK BEYONCE, hadn't seen that one before.

xpost to new person: a lot of those names aren't "real" names, they are older usernames that people just got in the habit of using, e.g. I would maybe call electricsound "esoj".

i never get that warm fuzzy thrill if someone calls me 'charlie'

"I really don't see what the fucking problem is calling people by their real names."

the problem is that only those who already know everyone on a first name basis can follow the conversation. thus new members are discouraged from joining the thread. just saying.

the "stop trying to be cool" thing was a bit tongue-in-cheek - thus the emoticon at the end of the paragraph. please don't take it personally.

:)

if "if assholes could fly this place would be an airport"'s real name was john, i think i'd much rather type that personally

did we call him 'roger' in thread because we suspected he was 'roger adultry'?

"suspected"

"if "if assholes could fly this place would be an airport"'s real name was john, i think i'd much rather type that personally"

yeah, i admit that might not have been the best example. but if you typed "iacftpwbaa" or "assholes" or "airports" or something, well, i'd be able to follow the thread anyway... look, take my argument and replace "if assholes could fly this place would be an airport" with someone who has a screen name that's actually typeable, ok?

"the problem is that only those who already know everyone on a first name basis can follow the conversation. thus new members are discouraged from joining the thread."

just to clarify - the linear layout of the board makes this more difficult - if you're responding to something upstream, the ONLY way to let the reader know what you're responding to is by quoting the original post (whch no one ever does) or by naming the poster. which, if you use their real name/old screen name, which i dont know, means i have no friggin idea which post that rebuttal/agreement refers to. and, given the reply is often ultrashort, along the lines of "fred otm" or "george, you're missing the point - what about the synths in the song after it?" it's a bit frustrating at times trying to figure out what the hell half of these posts even mean?

but, you know, newbie here, who am i to criticize etc etc

no one cares :)

yeah i figured

BLACK BEYONCE is not a name, its a feeling.

and a name.

i think messiahwannabe is on to something here. i've been sorta feeling the same way about ILM lately, but maybe because it's gotten too familiar, too cliquey. i mainly troll the dance threads, and i really feel like i *already* know what everyone thinks about everything. sort of a lack of useful new tropes.

also we haven't had any big revitalizing projects for a while (think rough guides or cover connections) to get everyone excited about ilm again

messiahwannabe just sorta stick it out. you could start a spreadsheet of names as you figure them out, maybe add relevant personal info if you think it would help. also i think there's a thread called "nu-ilx name rollcall" or something like that.

it's not just ILM necessarily either ... seems like the noize board is also really dead these days?

that one's kinda obvious

the one-line review aspect youre talking about messiahwannabe is hardly enforced - do whatever the fuck you want. its just the way some people have either A) established sort of an already well-known vibe because of their proclivities being well known or B) the way some people tend to post in general. as long as getting chopped to bits by someone who doesnt agree with you doesnt get under your skin, have at it.

xpost: yeah noize board demise has really bummed me out, but i think that nu-code and limited mod powers really had a lot to do with that (not to get involved in that argument again)

also maybe a bit of infighting and banning and crying and bitching?

yeah well i know but i didnt want to drag any of that out again

still, a few yellowcards and a few reversible bans and EVERYONE ADMINS EVERYONE CAN ADD ADMINS might have saved the day - or maybe not

also not to bring this up again but lots of lol-intended threads are being made on 77 c.f. cankles' jugaloo thread

anyway, a quick look at the number of under double digit new answer threads on ILM right now is a little disheartening, esp since the only explodo one i see is the worst 90's UK band thing, which would be great if i cared or knew anything about it

on the other hand, even though that Residents Duck Stab/B&G thread is short and a poll, there have been some great posts on it. proof that passionate weirdos of whatever listening stripe are still doing stuff worth reading here.

i think messiahwannabe is on to something here. i've been sorta feeling the same way about ILM lately, but maybe because it's gotten too familiar, too cliquey. i mainly troll the dance threads, and i really feel like i *already* know what everyone thinks about everything. sort of a lack of useful new tropes.

so true...you'd swear we were all being held hostage on those dance threads.

a lack of useful new tropes

If you stick aeround you get to know everyone's names pretty quick. Plus probably a ton more about them than you'd ever wanna know.

Messiahwannabe should def. go for some Jagz (soz Just Got Offed) style word overload. The board needs it.

WHO IS B.B.??

john justen

I can't be bothered to read this whole thread but I'm blaming ROLLING THREADS. In times gone by if someone heard just one amazing track they'd go 'OMG OMG and start a thread about it', now amazing tracks and entire albums get buried away on rolling threads only read by a handful of people.

That's why 'there's loads of good stuff happening right now' (or even crap stuff, at least it's talking about it), and 'there are hardly any good threads on ILM' crop up in the same post.

I agree with Matt DC, I think - certainly in that I never really look at the rolling threads, and so am presumably missing lots of things I might otherwise look at.

I think some polls can be quite interesting / fun. The Britpop stuff over the last week has been fun, if, I guess, not that informative / richly intellectual, just because it was a lot of reminiscing rather than engagement / theorising.

I also think that, while there's been quite a lot of music this year that I like, there's not been THAT much for people to get excited about on a wider, cultural scale - the things I like this year are more solipsistic than ever before, perhaps - Elbow, Spiritualized, etc. I'd have loved people to get excited by The Do, and though people would, but it didn't happen.

I also think that... perhaps ILM did finally just get old, in a couple of ways. Firstly, the forum itself is now nearly 8 years old, and many regular posters have been around for most of not all of that time; a lot of wider 'idea' discussions have been had already, often many, many times.

Secondly, and more importantly I suspect, while the average age of ILM posters has posters has probably stayed much the same as newer, younger posters have joined, the posters who've been here a long time are now 8, 7, 6 or so years older than they were when they joined. People have mortgages, families, more responsible jobs, and a) simply don't have time for dicking about on the internet so much as they used to, and b) have probably mellowed in their opinions and their need to voice those opinions. Newer posters see the 'old guard' posting short pithy replies (partly due to net speeds these days as discussed before, and partly due to the above) and that's how they learn the vernacular of the board.

I think the rolling threads originally worked in a 'let's unclutter ILM so it doesn't have eight Kompakt or dancehall threads going at any one time' but they've now uncluttered the boards to such an extent there's not much new music there, just really big albums or polls or discussion of music that's ten years old. Not that there's anything wrong with the latter but I kind of miss 'one song' threads.

Considering now all you need to do is start a thread, post a YouTube link and people can go 'wow' or 'fuck this shit' or something more verbose, the last few years should have made this sort of discussion easier but strangely it's gone the other way.

Yeah, I'd love to read the Rolling Metal thread but have convinced myself that it's 50% things I don't care about and 50% things I must buy, and with a couple of thousand posts or whatever that must mean $$$$$$.

Rolling threads do stop revives on albums and tracks if people discover them six months late or whatever. By the time I've cottoned onto something it's 300 posts upthread and it seems rude to bring it up.

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

This thread is sad but true. Hope it's just a temporary lull.