October 12, 2004
Dissensus.
I'd been thinking recently that "we" could do with a really decent "culture" discussion forum, an impartial zone, and decided to do something about it. It's pretty much established wisdom that ilm has become at once monstrous (the largest music forum on the web?) and not as fun as it once was. I for one have always been a bit timorous of posting there, it's roamed by some well-known savage egos, unchecked by the even the slightest formal beauracracy. Two recent threads spring to mind as examples of it's corruption, where individuals have been needlessly picked apart by vultures. Of course disagreement is essential, but (and call me a wet liberal if you like) ugly inconsiderate behaviour the like of which is fairly commonplace there is totally unacceptable.
There have been some sparks of inspiration let fly recently at ilm, the Kraftwerk Romance thread for one, but by and large I scroll down the New Answers column and fail to alight on anything I want to read. I went out with Tom Ewing the other night, the architect of the forum, which started life as the Freaky Trigger comments box, and he confessed he never posted there anymore (with the exception of occasional points in the Comics forum and on a recent rolling "Best of 2004" thread).
There are other forums in "our" immediate area, John Eden and Paul Meme are veterans of both uk-dance and the Blood & Fire Message board (the former of which, if not uncivilised, can become intensely combatative) but neither of which really have the simple breadth to encompass the range of topics it seems people want to discuss. Forgive me when I remark that uk-dance actually feels a wee bit anacronistic these days. It's also interesting to note that some of the bloggers who form a part of this particular network cut their teeth online on message boards, Mark Fisher played a large part in the theoretical fireworks at alt.movies.kubrick and it might surprise you to know that before I was writing solely about music I was most often found at a variety of intensely technical Digital Video Forums like Creative Cow, Postforum, DMN Forums, 2-Pop and the Newtek boards. Indeed it's my years of experience at these places which lead me to suspect that boards needn't be hell-holes, that it's possible to have a forum where people don't go around behaving like cunts to one another, rather where people can exchange ideas and information.
Without further ado I'd like to draw your attention to Dissensus. Mark Fisher came up with the name and has come on board as a joint Administrator with me. In the very loosest sense it's a WOEBOT/k-punk joint production, although I hope that doesn't mean you know EXACTLY where to go when you want to slag either of us off ;-) It's taken me some energy to set up (and a lot more hard cash!) and at the moment it looks a bit like a naff training shoe (though I'll probably streamline it in time). I'm not expecting it will be enormous, indeed I hope if it grows at all (!) it stays small and intense like a tangerine. Absolutely everyone is welcome to go there, and I mean EVERYONE, with the caveat that if people don't treat others with a certain amount of respect they will be unceremoniously struck off the register; the software's ability to trace people's IP addresses will mean they'll be unable to sidle in with another avatar. If there's anything I'm dreading it's this. Hopefully the thing will run peaceably by itself and I wont have to bother playing god, cos it's not about me. Enjoy.
Posted by Woebot at October 12, 2004 12:03 PM