board creation request

dear mods of ilx

following this exchange between myself, acoleuthic, ismael & masonic — New: "I Love Writing" — would it be possible to create an 'i love writing board', de-indexed, maybe initially with myself and lj as moderators?

much obliged

I, for one, welcome our new writing-loving overlords.

Precedent we can all get behind.

can the soccer people finally get their own board, too?

would kinda seem crazy for 'writing' to get it's own board before 'football'

soccer ppl don't want their own board iirc

i thought football ppl didn't want their own board

oh? huh

i think a lot of them just read ile and felt that a sub-board would like reduce visibility or something

it was kind of a 50/50 split IIRC and a good number of pro sub-board people were folks who wanted to banish soccer talk to its own ghetto

I am kind of conflicted on the idea of an I Love Writing

Soccer really needs it's own board. Good god.

Writing! ooh.

i'm all in favor of banishing soccer talk to its own ghetto - but like irl ghettos, they are an imperfect means of containment

soccer talk already has its own ghettos---they are called COUNCIL ESTATES and they are in ENGLAND

hahaaaa

Are people really offended by "soccer"? Are there that many "soccer" threads or just a few very active ones.

dont you ever wonder why ppl leave the room when you start taking about the OTHER "fergie"

I would like to request separate boards for women and vegetarians

i think matt dc is the main anti-football board person*, and he is king of the football posters so.

* not a board about anti-football

we already have "i love style"

Maybe we can just change I Love Everything to I Love Everything But Football/"Soccer"

lol can ppl really not avoid the football threads?

they're EVERYWHERE

like women and vegetarians

lol at this thread turning into a football thread. it's everywhere.

there are "football" threads that you don't know are about that until you open them

strips, kit, and balls

hmmmm that looks interesting

we had a vote on football board, it was comprehensive, mods got shook, people got hurt

You can't let everyone have their own board.

That would lead to anarchy.

http://cafedarkness.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/marie_antoinette_a_la_rose_1783_oil_on_canvas2.jpg

Let them eat caek?

Caek don't post to the board it's a trap

was gonna go there but tbh there's no way not to frame that a little bit sexily.

i am a little bit sexily so that's fine

I am kind of conflicted on the idea of an I Love Writing

― Fee Fie Fo, FUNFNFUINFLFF! (HI DERE), Tuesday, July 13, 2010 8:09 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

any particular reason?

i promise we will play nice

or at least play entertainingly

nah it's cool we're doing it for the creative commonweal

It has nothing to do with the subtopic and more to do with a desire not to have too many sub-boards. I think it's a very good idea but I don't know if it would be utilized enough to justify its existence.

I kind of miss the old Usenet RFP process here (shockingly).

repurpose i love cars imo

yeah seriously

the church

Could we do something like rename I Love Books to I Love Books and Writing... or I Love Literature or something like that?

(i asked a car q a couple months back, just on the off chance it gets answered on fine day)

are there code/server issues with the proliferation of boards?

i feel like using ILB would be a bit of a mis-step; i figured an ILW would have threads with initial poster's piece and feedback request at the top, and then reactions, which would kind of clutter up ILB. we could have a rolling thread and share stuff via mail, maybe

also, how did this stuff work on usenet?

can someone clarify what exactly the purpose of having it deindexed would be?

probably to prevent intellectual property theft by googlers I'd guess

what exactly would they be googling?

*shrug*

Could we do something like rename I Love Books to I Love Books and Writing... or I Love Literature or something like that?

― emil.y, Wednesday, July 14, 2010 10:50 AM (20 minutes ago)

I really like this idea.

actual massive lol there JJ

jj the de-indexing was just something someone suggested as a midway point between it being private and public

my personal preference would be for private, except that i think a non-public board would probably die off quicker

there could be a 'gateway board', or maybe a 'foreplay board' indicating further pleasures

also i would be more into this idea if there was some assurance that louis wouldnt be allowed to post

yeah, i agree with emil.y - i'd participate whether it was private or public - also, I Love Books is fine as it is

I Love Books is good, but it isn't 'fine as it is'.

i feel like using ILB would be a bit of a mis-step; i figured an ILW would have threads with initial poster's piece and feedback request at the top, and then reactions, which would kind of clutter up ILB.

There isn't enough traffic to clutter up. As an ILB-er I wish there were a lot more threads to read, and ultimately an ILM level of traffic. Shame that some of the 'death of literature' thread you get on ILE doesn't actually turn up on ILB instead (as i interpret it, because this kind of thing is too big for the board).

I see this request for the reasons Ismael gave on ILB's discussion of this. Totally understandable.

ILB has posters who initially post there and have gone on to other parts of ILX, and others still who have stayed there. And that is how I always seen the satellite boards, as a tool to isolate the subject so you can get new voices that are (at first) interested in that subject but can migrate around if they choose. Otherwise it could have really all gone on ILE. But for books it sorta of works as it attracts a range of people who are interested in different things, whereas 'I Love Film' never worked as people wanted to talk about a smaller range of stuff. Not sure why that is.

So ILW's main problem is new blood. Energetic reviving of the ILW on ILB every now and then as 'advertising' might be a bit of a chore.

i think ILB has a decent amount of traffic for the first time in ages! new blood to thank for that imo (GR, woof, ppl i am forgetting)

and site new answers obv

Well, at least those are my impressions of ILF. Today is the first time I've checked in 3-4 months. Ton of film discussion on ILE and that seems to be enough. xxp

Yeah, of the satellite boards I've been interested in the past (Cricket, film) ILB is by far and away the best one.

I'm thinking decent traffic in terms of new threads, which is why I wanted to see the 'why are there no more good books' - type of stuff on ILB.

who is the mod of ilb?

Scott, I think?

seward iirc .. xpost, yes

none of this is relevant in the site new answers era

not completely true, it's useful to have a gathering place for threads, i still check ilg and iltrmb. and people who really hate books or writing can hide the board from sna.

yeah, the site new answers era is less about finding and reading things, and more about hiding things you don't want to read

I still feel a bit bad about putting my books poll on ILE rather than ILB, but it needed the traffic. Don't know if Site New Answers was around then or would've made a difference (I rarely use it). It worked too - while I enjoy the ILB threads, they can get a bit list-y without prompting much discussion. That's a risk of ghettoisation I think. How to get the critical mass becomes a bit chicken-and-egg in those circumstances.

I Love Writing I'd expect to get far less traffic than ILB, but I'm more than happy with that. I at least wouldn't want to use it for the traffic - I'd be looking for a ghetto basically through shyness*. In essence, I don't have a social circle any more that I could use as a writing group, nor do I want to go out and find one right now. ILW might fill that hole rather well.

* the plagiarism concern is a real one, if maybe a touch insanely-overambitious, and to an extent probably cured by having everything marked date & time. Plus like anyone with the drive and commitment to write a book is going to be cribbing from a thread here!

did not know you could hide stuff

anyway, the whole 77 thing has muddied the water on invite-only boards

so can I put the suggestion out there that a private mailing list might be a better forum for this than a public message board, particularly wrt concerns about privacy and idea theft?

(ultimately, as a moderator on this site I don't want to be pulled into someone else's plagiarism dispute)

I have realised that I have actually misunderstood the purpose of this proposed board. I thought it was going to be more discussion of "do you have any tips to inhabit your characters more fully?" and "do you ever find you have to rewrite the first chapter of your story by the time you've reached the last, because you changed vital points?" type questions.

I'm kinda less keen on a whole "I am a sensitive flower, please beta read my work I am too shy to actually post in public" type discussion - in my experience, these things don't work well in a public setting. People can get really butthurt if you give actual criticism, no matter how constructive, and that can lead to real badness.

the potential for butthurtedness, in general, cannot be underestimated

ok everyone who joins has to swear an oath to be a keen receiver of criticism

It's kind of like producers' forums whereby, if you post a WIP, it's understood that people will comment with the idea that it is *in progress* and you are asking for *helpful* criticism on how to make it better - but at the same time, one has to realise that 1) not everyone is going to like it, and you have to roll with the punches and 2) that some people do bear grudges against individuals and seem to enjoy taking that out on their work in a way that has little to do with its quality and is generally not pleasant.

A couple of posts on the ILB thread that spawned this discussion just reminded me of that, and made me realise I probably wouldn't post WIP writing on ILX. But I've got a couple of good beta readers I trust already.

well nobody here is going to savage anyone's work sans consideratio without looking like a complete berk

right this second a mate of mine is criticising a poem of mine on gchat but he's possibly the best poet of my generation that I've read so this is always welcome - flattering, in fact

we can't promise the same kind of authority but I don't doubt it'll be cordial

tbf it's not like there's a rigid idea of what this board would be like, other than 'it would be called I Love Writing'

dan, would you be opposed to a private ILW board on those grounds? or are invite-only boards being considered iffy at the moment?

Don't think any more hidden boards are a good idea, tbh.

To clarify - by shyness I'm not talking about being a sensitive flower, it's about not getting in the way. Last thing I want to be doing is posting where it's not welcome or where people aren't interested, and just getting snarks back instead of engagement.

Hence why thinking somewhere out-of-the-way would be best for this. I'm not being prescriptive, I'll go with the flow whatever - just thought it might be useful to add my tuppence worth before it gets off the ground.

what about a public board that doesn't show up on site new answers?

i would like a unicorn that runs on diesel gas and poops flowers

everyone who joins has to swear an oath to be a keen receiver of criticism

Obviously this has to be the rule or it isn't worth doing - but the counterpart is that criticism has to be done properly. Anonymity, offhandedness and malice are the enemies of that, and less likely in a backwater.

i agree with kate

writers workshop/writers group boards are kind of tedious i think

no rules against tedious boards, but no-one is going to moderate a board for too-harsh criticism

maybe we could compromise and create a "I Love Reading Other People's Writing" board

I think the thing that I'm really specifically into in a big way deserves its own board

c'mon I'm "pitching softballs" here

"Scott, I think?"

i was ilb mod until nu-ilx. then i lost my superpowers for some reason. i made chris p./causistry a mod, but i don't know if he still is. or even if he posts anymore?

ilb never really needed much moderation though. civilised lot.

I really hate reading the stuff of people I know. It's weird, but true!

I realize that's an inaccurate thing to do on a message board where the only form of communication is reading & writing. What I mean is, if someone writes a creative thing, I really tend to not want to read it.

"a creative thing" = fiction & poetry, unless it's their erotic fiction, and even then only if they are a coworker or someone & not an actual friend, like I consider the people on ILX to be in a way

wait so you want to read your coworkers erotic fiction

am i not parsing this correctly or

who wouldnt??

i dont want to read anyones erotic fiction

Haha sort of, when I used to work at Kinko's, my shift had four or five bear dudes, and they all wrote erotic fiction. So when they found out I liked to read, they all wanted to show me their stuff. I figured, they won't want me to critique it because it's all about gay sex, so no harm done. Some of it was actually pretty well-written. It gave me a window into a culture I'd known nothing about before, and they liked that someone outside their audience appreciated it. Thinking about this in retrospect, that's not really normal..

also i work with my dad so

"I still feel a bit bad about putting my books poll on ILE rather than ILB, but it needed the traffic."

it made total sense to put it on ile. and you did a really good job with it.

what about a public board that doesn't show up on site new answers
This is possible.

oh it is? i take back my unicorn request then