Why do people leave ILX for good?

lots of people have come to say hi to me at my store. even posters who rarely post or who mostly lurk and whose online name i didn't remember. it's nice. they are always nice.

omg omar's married to garu g???

there aren't now because the ilx model is socially obsolete. a thread like this, even when it's interesting, is hard to read, hard to keep up with. more importantly, like la lechera says you can't cultivate followers or quantify how much people like your thoughts.

— Rashomon

I am too young to have “really” known the old internet — pre-social media. But it seems better? Even blogs were more curated spaces than self-promotion devices. There is creativity happening in places like Instagram but it’s all instantly commodified or something or more accurately decontextualized — dissolved into a thousand newsfeeds. That’s why the zeitgeist is so “loud” now and everyone sounds the same. I don’t read reddit but it seems like... hell or soemthing like it, and probably in the end bcc it is too democratic...

One of my good friends is the mod of a humungous subreddit and she doesn’t think it’s so bad so who knows.

i post on message boards because i don't want to know how few people are genuinely interested in what i have to say. i like not having the pressure to say things based on whether or not people will "like" them.
same
if not wanting to cultivate followers makes me obsolete, so be it! i don't see this changing about myself.

i would like to visit Scott's store someday

Total coincidence! She posted 2003-2006.

i would like to visit Scott's store someday

I should probably try to do this before I leave MA!

I've been bummed out by ilx once or twice but I can't imagine leaving, let alone for good. Been here for a while but it doesn't seem terribly different from when I first arrived. Yeah, a bunch of smart/perceptive/funny people are gone, but I also think it feels a little less ... cliquey? I treat it like a bunch of smart kids shouting across each other at the lunch table about everything at once, in a good way.

It seems melodramatic to think of it as "leaving ilx". But I do realize it takes that kind of thinking in order to actually tear yourself away if a break is needed.

there aren't now because the ilx model is socially obsolete. a thread like this, even when it's interesting, is hard to read, hard to keep up with. more importantly, like la lechera says you can't cultivate followers or quantify how much people like your thoughts.

and this is why i'm here - because i'm in a lot of senses an obsolete person. i post on message boards because i don't want to know how few people are genuinely interested in what i have to say. i like not having the pressure to say things based on whether or not people will "like" them.

honestly, what ilx 2018 reminds me of is ye olde days of usenet. not the end, which was spam and endless recriminations and rancor, but the early days. like ilx today, usenet was... esoteric. there's some kind of weird "seven ages of man" shit going on in my mind.

As mentioned above, the connection to Usenet is not accidental. I find this model easier to read than the over-cluttered, pointlessly complex formats of most contemporary social media, though!

Like, I use Facebook all the time but how does anyone search for and find anything there?

facebook is death and i think of leaving it all the time

xpost Very carefully.

I think there's a fine line between an ascetic Web 1.0 experience and appearing so old and busted that new users are turned off reflexively. We've walked that line for a while, but I think Google is getting tougher and tougher on places like this, so we are losing out in search rankings which means a smaller people of passersby to get interested.

On top of that, there's no doubt we're optimised for a desktop web world — and many of the people who would join a place like this are on phones now. Zing is okayish if you're already invested, but you're not going to pay up just to read a thread.

The shifting gender balance is by far the most concerning thing, to my mind, all that said. (Would be v. keen to hear any technical ideas that might help w/that)

compulsory partner recruitment

I treat it like a bunch of smart kids shouting across each other at the lunch table about everything at once, in a good way.

― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, February 27, 2018 8:45 AM (twenty-two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

OTM. There's something about feeling like the dumb guy at that table that makes ILX very appealing to me. I gotta hustle to keep up.

facebook is death and i think of leaving it all the time

― marcos, Tuesday, February 27, 2018 10:02 AM (seven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I recently defriended everybody except for my family. Had been really tired of FB for years - like you said, it's death - but didn't want to get rid of it because it comes in handy for certain things like school announcements, local events, and keeping in touch with relatives.

Everybody else was mostly just part of a 10-year-long ongoing high school/college reunion.

I was very slow to sign up for Facebook, as I was pretty distrustful of it (and dubious of its merits) from the start, and I think time has only further borne out my initial suspicions.

for me, my continued presence at the table is a demand to be allowed to sit at the table and contribute. which i do to varying degrees depending on my comfort level and the likelihood of being attacked
this is reality when you are a female/female-coded/femme person in the world (apologies if i don't have the terms correct) even if no one can see that you are a woman.

when assholism ran this place, it was more difficult and many women didn't feel it was worth their effort.
if you can make it worth their effort by offering them a seat, inviting them to return, saying "we lament the loss of your voice at the table" maybe they will come back?
just a thought

^^ I like this idea

If anybody has left because of a person(s) I'm not sure they will come back if said person(s) are still here

Most of the bullies/major irritants are gone, right? At leasr most that were mentioned on this thread. (Some, I guess, as we’ve seen swing by on occasion for drive by style attacks on the community.)

at the very least the culture of rewarding assholism has changed to a noticeable degree
the apprehension about their potential return is a real concern for me and others too i'm sure
i just have to balance the benefits of continuing to be here and realize that for now, if i retreat, i lose more than i gain. if that balance changes, i don't see why i would stick around either. i don't need that shit.
that's just me

Id like better gender diversity too, not sure that a txt with “congrats, you are ready for (a return to) ilx” will persuade.

there should be a random googler week. open the board up so that people don't have to log in. just for fun. for a week.

― scott seward

cosigning this, sounds fun

then don't send them a text like that
there are ways to approach this if you are serious. if you want 100 reasons not to do it, i can come up with those too
i am reminded of this https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/12/opinion/real-men-might-get-made-fun-of.html

I know there’s pressure not to be a dorky, try-hard male feminist stereotype; there’s always a looming implication that you could lose your spot in the club; if you seem opportunistic or performative in your support, if you suck up too much oxygen and demand praise, women will yell at you for that too. But I need you to absorb that risk. I need you to get yelled at and made fun of, a lot, and if you get kicked out of the club, I need you to be relieved, and I need you to help build a new one.

Bullies do more than just bully, the rest of the time they might be interesting, intelligent, entertaining - whatever you want an ilxor to be.

I feel like there was a year or two where there were so many faps and people all really socialized a lot off board. That died away, people kept some friends, went to friendster/myspace/fb or not. I was a late fb joiner and never used it until Trump got elected and I felt a need to connect more online because I was also traveling a lot and didn't have permanence. That has kind of led me back to ilx.

Other people often like the bullies and overlook and excuse the fact that they are arseholes.

yes, there have been many bullying enablers.

welcome back yerac. there used to be a lot more irl socializing but i chalk that up to age/major life changes. i still prefer to see people/socialize irl but this will do in a pinch.

Yeah, everyone got old and tired. I look back and think it was kind of odd that ilxors went out every weekend together. But it was fun.

Other people often like the bullies and overlook and excuse the fact that they are arseholes.

― Video reach stereo bog (Tom D.), Tuesday, February 27, 2018 9:37 AM (sixteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Otherwise decent posters tittering at assholery (presumably at least in part because they don't want to get hit with the asshole stick themselves) is one of the more disheartening trends I've seen on the board. But just human nature, I guess.

I'm not shy about calling out even posters that I like when they pull a dick move.

Lookit

Sometimes windbaggery is arseholery sometimes hobbyhorsing is arseholery sometimes soapboxing is arseholery sometimes naivety is arseholery
Sometimes zinging is arseholery
Sometimes tho it might be good

No hard and fast rule but rly again the wounds should be well licked by now if the zing era hit anyone that hard

then invite them back!
that's my idea.

idea: if you're a male and you want to increase the ratio of men-women on ilx but you don't want to invite women to come post maybe just stop posting yourself that'll help the ratio w/ a minimal amount of effort on yr part

Well yeah

As a 99.9% ILM poster I really like the plug.dj room and I’d love it if it was populated 24/7.

oh it's definitely time for a return to the plug room

Bullies do more than just bully, the rest of the time they might be interesting, intelligent, entertaining - whatever you want an ilxor to be.

― Video reach stereo bog (Tom D.), Tuesday, February 27, 2018 7:35 AM (one hour ago)

and they're not always the same posters, too! some grow into it, others grow out of it. It's obvious (with a few exceptions) from the large number of posters and posts on this thread, that we're not even thinking of the same people as "bullies" ... not that the thinly veiled "we all know who is a horrible" discussion is particularly "nice" either, considering it could easily be read by the persons in question. Both tendencies are kinda shitty to be on the receiving end of ... not that I haven't been on the giving end as well. This place can be a challenge to act like a decent person.

it's always a little jarring to see siegbran post on ILE. siegbran and gottpunch the only people i look to on ilm for music recommendations. which is why i'm not there that much.

I would like to invite roxy and JBR and tehresa and tokyo rosemary and some others back to more regular ILX posting but i also can understand that maybe they all left for reasons that also included wanting to break free from habitual posting on a website.

i want MAX to return!

Max, the guy, that was responsible for treating people like shit irl and getting paid for it -- you want that dude back?

MAX couldn't handle opposing viewpoints.

i think positing that ppl leave ilx bc it's mean is giving ilx way too much credit. the internet is far crueler. ppl leave ilx bc it's boring and has little original insight to offer. this is partially bc posters w/ original insight have abandoned the site and the posters that have remained are excellent at writing punny trump nicknames - a skill that, alas, is not in high demand as supply is at historically high levels. if you really like breathless takes on every twitter politics update of the day tho ilx is at least one of the top 50 sites for such content.

Lookit #2

If we're going to start a weighing up of individual named posters good and bad:

1: give each their own thread at least
2: max is a loooong way down the list on a positive/negative analysis

Nonsense, ILX is freer of Trump puns than most of the internet - you mostly just have to never click on the rolling US politics thread, which is a good idea anyway. xpost

what does down the list mean though

i think positing that ppl leave ilx bc it's mean is giving ilx way too much credit.

It's not even that

It's a misdiagnosis

Seen through a very narrow lens of ilx now

Which isn't as good but isn't zingy

But it's kind of ridiculous really to continuously repeat the assertion