ILX as home, clusterfucks, and "the balance"

I love ILX. I've spent a lot of time on boards & forums, but outside a brief stint on stonerrock.com a few years back, this is only place on the internet I've ever found that feels like home. I love the people, the culture, the design & modding, the dumb memes, the long memories, everything. One of the things I like best about ILX is that it's free of the endless, stupid trolling and bickering that seem to characterize so many other online conversation places. People here are generally smart, funny, well-informed and decent to one another. It has a certain balance.

I've noticed, however, that I'm sometimes annoyed by what I perceive as a tendency towards orthodoxy of thought. I get the impression that good ILXors are "supposed" to share certain opinions and attitudes. We should be smart but not showy about it, liberal in thought and deed, a bit snarky, and intolerant of intellectual pretension. Better to post a good "deal with it" gif than to take yourself too seriously. I respect these attitudes, as I see how they help maintain the balance, and it's the balance that makes ILX the comfortable and home-like place it is.

Still I rankle. I find myself in "clusterfucks" all the time. I'm drawn to them and I create them. I get the feeling that I'm not a balance-keeper by nature. I post in an uncool manner and break the flow. I don't mean to do this, at least not consciously, but it happens too often for the culprit to be anyone but me. I guess I wonder how other people feel about this. Not about me, but about ILX as a comfortable place and how you fit into it, the beauty and terror of clusterfucks, how to be a good citizen, that kind of thing...

just checking to see how long that was. it's long.

:(

You are part of the balance. I like that you earnestly dig into things. It sets you up as a target for a little bit of clowning but who cares? Don't change.

The discourse-clusters don't bug me. It's the petty vendetta clusters that turn me off, like the perennial case of deej v WGW.

thanks, jon. i do get a bit self-conscious abt my nerdiness...

i guess i haven't noticed u be in as many clusterfucks as of late

once a clusterfuck happens I usually bug out. not because I find them annoying, but because they update so fast I can never be bothered to try to catch up.

i guess i haven't noticed u be in as many clusterfucks as of late

― dave coolier (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Thursday, February 16, 2012 3:41 PM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

woo, you missed a good one in the "feminist theory" thread last night.

you post about music I like sometimes so I could care less

clusterfucks are part of the "balance", surely?

It could be worse Contenderizer. You could be frogbs...

Pretty sure I like ILX to be more chill and less rough-&-tumble than the average* poster likes it. It bugs me a little that the low-drama board I prefer is referred to as Cuddlestein Mountain. I don't see it that way, but recognize that perceptions differ. I don't think I need that grain of sand/conflict to grow a pearl.

*lol, like there's an average

Seriously though, ILX - like any online forum - has its own unwritten 'rules'. "Orthodoxy of thought" exists in every (online) community, and I think ILX is a place that leaves plenty of room for anyone to thread outside those waters. ILX isn't dogmatic, I think, it is flexible and as a single organism stretches itself to embrace minority opinions. That threading outside what you see as the "orthodoxy" actually attributes to the very same boundaries of this place. The only real "rule" is that however far away you thread from the "orthodoxy", you do it with some class and respect. I can't say you haven't done that. You certainly try to keep it clean of bickering or trolling.

I hope you're not of the mind I meant anything personal with my tone in that thread--I'm just especially sensitive lately to men dominating discussion in ostensibly feminist spaces (like, say, the feminist thread), and you seemed in that thread to be carrying on a conversation that your conversation partner had dropped out of, so I was trying to invite you to cool your heels and let the women speak up on the subjects they were interested in pursuing in that thread.

i first heard of ILX in a thread on another board about places on the internet to talk about music. in that thread, some women complained that ILX was a "boy's club" and unfriendly to newcomers. so i decided to check it out lol.

were they right? i mean ILX is mostly guys, and a lot of folks do get bounced. otoh, this place does seem to be pretty strongly feminist relative to other music sites.

Cuddlestein Mountain sounds awesome. Would rather ski down that then Mount Trashmore.

I'm just especially sensitive lately to men dominating discussion in ostensibly feminist spaces (like, say, the feminist thread)

That thread was started specifically so everyone could talk about feminist theory and women's issues not as a place specifically for women to discuss those things so it just seemed a bit strange to purposefully start such a thread and then have people get angry at the men participating therein. Granted Contenderizer was posting quite a lot but that's his usual style afaik.

clusterfucks are part of the "balance", surely?

― seandalai, Friday, February 17, 2012 12:01 AM (29 minutes ago) Bookmark

I hope you're not of the mind I meant anything personal with my tone in that thread

not at all, HOOS. you cool. appreciated the advice, tbh. there were some people taking swipes at me there, but you didn't seem to be one of them.

(the "conversation partner" thing is weird tho. a hoy hoy described my interactions similarly in the clusterfuck thread. i really didn't think of myself as primarily talking to or with any particular person in the feminist thread - though some were clearly more inclined to respond to me than others.)

i think ilx is sort of a "boy's club" because the internet (msg boards esp) are sort of a "boy's club" - not that this excuses whatever, but i think it becomes a bit overstated and hand-wrung around here sometimes as our problem.

i first heard of ILX in a thread on another board about places on the internet to talk about music. in that thread, some women complained that ILX was a "boy's club" and unfriendly to newcomers. so i decided to check it out lol.

were they right

No. ILE isn't. ILM is.

I post in an uncool manner and break the flow. I don't mean to do this, at least not consciously, but it happens too often for the culprit to be anyone but me.

I joined that club years ago :(

like 11 years ago.

every time i kill the thread i just try to convince myself that i said something so unbelievably otm that subsequent conversation became unnecessary

zs otm

I like your approach.

how could that not be true?

ilx is currently more cuddlesteiny that at any other time i've been posting/reading imo, some ways that's good, some ways i preferred it zingier.

~hugs~

/snuggles

My daughter frequents a messageboard that, from her description, is the actual Cuddlestein Mountain. It sounds horrible, to be honest. The biggest fights are when someone reads ahead a couple of chapters in a board book club and accidentally posts a minor spoiler.

ilx is currently more cuddlesteiny that at any other time i've been posting/reading imo, some ways that's good, some ways i preferred it zingier.

this is very true. i've been posting here for 5 or 6 years, and it was a much more rough and tumble place when i first arrived. overearnest clusterfucks used to get imagebombed and andwhatted out of existence almost as fast as they could get started.

i think everyone feels like they post in an uncool manner and break the flow. loads of people have expressed the fear that they are a threadkiller. it is a thing you worry about on a fast-paced message-board, where it's easy to feel like your value as an ilxor comes about through your communicative skills, whether that's in getting your ideas across or in being a person with whom others readily communicate and who speedily communicates tp others.

everyone also thinks there is an ilxor norm or an orthodoxy of thought which they are somehow divergent from in a way that makes them at times feel proud, or awkward, or anxious, or superior. i guess a question is: if you are a person who is in that position of diverging from the apparent ilxor norm/orthodoxy, and you are in an argument against people who seem to be embodying that norm/orthodoxy, what is it you want to do with the argument? are you trying to break down the orthodoxy by sheer argumentation? are you trying to chip certain people away? are you trying to prove that your ideas are better? are you trying to explain yourself because you feel judged for diverging from the norm of a place that you find homelike?

are you conducting a social experiment?

^^ these are questions i ask myself when i am arguing, they are not particularly advice

xpost hahaha and that one especially

ilxor norms are p good but they're not unchallengeable tbh

But, in any case, c sharp minor is a rarity in that the longer her posts are the better i think i like them

and, y'know, the question might well be 'is ilx a good place, generally, to argue about things' and the answer is prob 'yes' and vs irl or god forbid the rest of the net that answer ime is 'fuck, yes'

when ilx was down i was on facebook A LOT and i started worrying that my non-ilx facebook friends were gonna start thinking that i was completely insane. i never worry about that here. hell, i'm practically normal here.

a la nabisco, contenderizer, i can't BELIEVE how much and how fast you can type sometimes. but this isn't a bad thing or anything. i might not read every word, but i read, like, every five words.

Come for the gently falling blood, stay for the high class of clusterfuck.

haha Scott otm, Contendo is fast

and, y'know, the question might well be 'is ilx a good place, generally, to argue about things' and the answer is prob 'yes' and vs irl or god forbid the rest of the net that answer ime is 'fuck, yes'

― beware of greek bearer bonds (darraghmac), Thursday, February 16, 2012 6:57 PM (6 minutes ago)

ha, yeah

aw, dmac <3

(not gonna lie, my first instinct was to make my next post a massive textbomb)

i always feel like: no momus no clusterbility

I left for a long time and then came back because I missed the TV threads. I haven't found anywhere else that talks about television properly. Okay, I haven't looked very hard, but still, my point stands, dammit.

well its like if you are lucky enough to talk with a group of people in the real world (or a person) and you suddenly realize that you don't have to explain every damn thing out of your goddamn mouth. they know what you're talking about. its a great feeling. cuz a lot of time in life you will find the opposite. you start talking about a show and they are all: what's that? who's that? no, i've never seen that. what's that about? it's tiresome.

I'll be honest, contendo: I don't follow you down every discursive wormhole that you find yourself in, but I def think ypu are part of the balance and character of this great site and a terrific knowledgeable poster besides.

"I keep trying to get away from ILE/ILX...and they PULL ME BACK IN"

Contenderdude if it helps, I've often found your posts quite enjoyable, if only because (and I don't now know if you intended this!) you are often a kind of devil's advocate on a thread. I'll find myself reading it thinking "I want to disagree with a lot of this but I am too inarticulate/not well read gaarrr" and then you'll express something I'm thinking and do so better than I ever could have. So for that I for one appreciate yr posts.

...which makes it sound like I hate everything everyone else says haha, I dont mean to imply that, but it is sometimes v hard to participate on ILX if you didn't get immersed in academic culture. The academic obfuscation thread is a spot on example of it. That kind of discourse make me shudder with frustration because it feels so *exclusionary* to me.

tl;dr lol I am dumm.

you are often a kind of devil's advocate on a thread.

which is funny, cuz i feel that too, and it's not like i really meant anything in choosing my username, but...

There is nothing wrong with dogma or orthodoxy of thought.

I don't really want to participate in this thread, I don't want to have a clusterfuck about clusterfucks, I have grown to be deeply suspicious of meta, because meta about processes can be helpful, but meta about *other people* is a loaded weapon.

The thing to remember about "orthodoxy" is how situational it is. That what looks like "I'm so edgy and challenging the orthodoxy" from one angle in one place, looks like "I'm reasserting the hegemony" from another angle.

And also another thing to keep in mind is that, when dealing with some issues, especially ones like race and gender and sexuality, for you it's "playing devil's advocate" but for other people, this is stuff that affects the material quality of their lives. That being challopsian about, say, Pulp lyrics, is a cute and fun game. But the beliefs that people hold about things like gender and race have real-life tangible consequences that might not be immediately visible to someone who has never been on the receiving end of them. These things are not just emotive for no reason.

xp holy shit :-(

hey, WCC, if you want to discuss the science behind my arguments, check the "gender" thread, where i've posted some stuff. would love to discuss it further, with you or anyone else. otoh, if you just want to insult me, then maybe you could write me a PM or something? cuz, seriously, this is getting gross.

and, uh, just as helpful-type hint, if you want to go slinging words like "patronizing" around, you might want to proof your posts for the things you're accusing others of. cheers.

so tell me: am i glad i have images off at the moment?

Here we go again. Like I said, you want to come in here, and have everyone pat you on the head, and reassure you that you're still a ~nice guy~ while you continue to do exactly that same behaviour that caused all the problems in the first place.

Read that post. Read that post, understand that that is what many women on the internet have to deal with every day, and then tell me again that you were so terribly insulted in the feminist thread.

I have nothing more to say to you, and this is solving nothing, it's just making me more angry and you more defensive. I'm out.

the reason I post on ILX is that we don't (normally) have sick folks like that guy on that aphex board. IDM fans must be living in a world even more fucked-up wrt gender than our already fucked-up-wrt-gender world.

(granted I know the internet has a horrifyingly immense capacity for misogyny, racism, homophobia, and misanthropy in general but mostly against those who have already been knocked-down, I'm just saying IDM messageboards could possibly be even worse)

Guys on that IDM board also didnt really care for a bunch of naked RDJ pics suddenly appearing everywhere on their board, but I guess thats different.

(sorry I cant sit back and see all of that forum get slandered like that, theyre mostly good people. Unless we'd like to hold ILX to the same accountability because of Calum?)

(and I have nothing else to say on that or this topic)

tell me again that you were so terribly insulted in the feminist thread.

i don't think i said i was "terribly" insulted. i said i was insulted. i was. this is a simple statement of fact. you called me a variety of names. it's not a big deal, and i wasn't in the least offended by any of it.

i'm still not even sure what part of my "behavior" you're objecting to, exactly. if it has to do with my views as expressed in other discussions, i'd really rather talk about it in the appropriate threads. and if it's more personal than that, again, i think you should PM me. this discussion has moved beyond board-appropriate disagreement, imo.

Trayce otm x 1000

since i have images off, i'll ask again, a bit more directly this time: does this thread now need to be marked NSFW?

FWIW when people feel unwelcome on ILX it's usually because some people are making them feel ~not very nice~ about their opinions and not because people are flinging sexual abuse at them.

xp no

contenderizer you can look at the image, it's kind of central to the argt in question, no wangers

"wangers" hee hee

sorry to be so immature, I need to find better outlets for my daily quota of using the word 'wanger'

As someone who has copped direct sexually-based leering and come-ons and abuse from ILXors via IM and email I can't say I agree ILX is completely blameless in regards to this stuff.

But thats veering off topic possibly.

(and also wasnt in public, in fairness)

thanks for the tips, abbbs. christ, that is disgusting. my sympathies, WCC.

xpost true. didn't mean to imply that ILX doesn't have its own terrible abusive history.

it does. i've said some stupid shit from time to time myself (nothing like that, but you know).

Anyway this thread's gone in a bit of an ugly direction, best if this topic is dropped maybe.

"a bit"

"trolling" = you disagree with me

i do!

i am sorry that my "diagram of morbius" got lost in the hateclot

:*(

this thread needs more cuddlestein, less puddle of muddlestein.

currently accepting: hugs

(hugs) for all ilxors

Guys on that IDM board also didnt really care for a bunch of naked RDJ pics suddenly appearing everywhere on their board, but I guess thats different.

i'm not familiar with the board in question so maybe i'm missing some nuance..but this statement REALLY troubled me. there is a VERY real difference between something like nude image bombing, which may be distracting/offensive/sexually aggressive in a generalized way, and graphic sexual remarks targeted at a specific individual with the intent to harass/defame/frighten, what have you.

IDM fans must be living in a world even more fucked-up wrt gender than our already fucked-up-wrt-gender world.

http://www.wikizic.org/1-043-043739-Aphex-Twin.jpg

it's like, i wasn't a huge fan of NewGod porning up the place a few months back, but it is wildly different from someone targeting me with lewd descriptions of my genitals, and trying to lump them into one category of "bad behavior" feels really icky to me.

I by no means meant to defend anything as gross as what the person posted in that img had said, it was disgusting. But again, I want out of this conno right now.

hey, you're not the only one

Time for an intermission. Everybody hug on 3.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sn1UqbbbqQ

let's all take acid and look at bugs

squeeeeaaaurgh!

not huggin on no pianopede

i agree with what ryan and goole and horseshoe said

ill just add that if ur posting style is going to be "challenging ilx orthodoxy of thought" you should just own that and be aware that it will make people dislike you. the only thing worse than challops is challops + handwringing.

challops + handwringing + broccoli is the worst

yeah, probs, but i'm a little surprised at this point that my posting style is the thing ppl are taking issue w itt

just saying

xp

i did not see this outcome coming.

ile is the worst!

worst what?

worst thing to read on the internet

i'd suggest you need to read more internet, but that would be terrible advice under any circumstances

ILE: providing a service since whenever

The measure of a board is not that it gets abusive postings like that one, it's how everyone else reacts to it.

yeah, that's how i figure it