Message boardsI've been posting on boards for as long as I can remember. Although with my two-week memory span, that really doesn't mean anything. Message boards are hard to describe if you're not accustomed to them. Sometimes, my attempts to describe their appeal are met with "Yes, but what's the point?" There's no answer to that, is there? Perhaps the best way to demonstrate why I like message boards so much is to provide some examples of what goes on. I reproduce here some screenshots of messages from the boards I have posted on, with illustrative headings as to why anyone would bother. __Wasting Time__For instance, I have discovered, as I mentioned elsewhere, that every actor or musician can be linked to Tom Waits in six steps or less. This usually results in long, long threads as bemused posters keep firing names at me in the hopes that I will be stumped. Good luck! This particular segment is from page three of the Tom Waits thread I posted on the board run by Mick 
__Off-topic Posting__A lot of message board posts are serious discussions about religion and politics, and it's always nice to see what other people are thinking, and learn from them. The best posts tend to come about when the subject is forgotten in the mélée of off-topic posting that occurs on any decent message board. The following exchange is from the UCC Science Fiction Society message boards, and occurred as a result of someone discussing Watership Down. Sometimes posts just beam themselves directly into my head without any intervention from the part of the brain that deals with consideration. 
__LOL Opportunities__And then, maybe once in your life, something so wonderful happens on a message board that you don't know how to answer it. The possibilities are endless. Fantastic, elaborate scenarios run through your mind. On this occasion, when someone spelled "condescending" incorrectly, I uncharacteristically chose understatement. The pink lines were edited in by me. 
__Serious business__Sometimes you can get into serious debates on message boards too, but that's good also, because you'll find that your ideas are challenged and you are forced to think about things. Thinking about things is something we need more of on this planet. For instance, this post appeared in the middle of a debate on the death penalty. 
Afterward, of course, someone made the rather mercenary counter-argument that if not for the death penalty, their tax dollars would be paying to keep a convicted murderer in comfort and style. To which I answered this, which was playing on the idea that most people who were in favour of the death penalty would also be in favour of the war in Iraq. 
__Spam__Spam is tedious, pointless posting from people who are unemployed, or too bored for words, or who genuinely have nothing interesting to say. Spam gums up message boards for people who actually want to talk about things. Sometimes it's so random it's hilarious, and sometimes it's just annoying. Nearly all message board admins are in a holy quest to find a way to end spam, a summary of which can be found in the spam section. As you can see below, I am sometimes one of the worst purveyors of this sort of gibberish. 
__Trolling__Trolling is posting in a negative fashion repeatedly for the sole purpose of annoying people. Posters who troll are satisfied when their rumblings produce angst-ridden, self-justifying, hand-wringing reams of text in response. The worst thing for a troll is to be ignored. Trolling, as they say, is an art. If it's done properly, it can be very funny indeed. However, you need to be internet-aware, intelligent, and pick your targets carefully. The ultimate objective is to annoy someone that deserves it in a way that everyone on the board will understand except the target. By the way, "deserve" in this sense doesn't necessarily mean that they've done anything wrong: you can get trolled just for being boring (as I have occasionally, with no small justification). 
__Admin bullshit__-Jim Halpert Admins are the people who are in charge of the boards. They can ban people, or re-arrange anything on the boards that they see fit. The head Admin will, of course, be the owner, and so his Admin decisions will only be as petty or enlightened as he is. Take this example from a now defunct message board hauntdobsession, an off-shoot of necroticobsession: 
Sensible words, which were prompted when I asked if it was appropriate to talk about certain things on NO. But then this happened: 
That's pretty much textbook definition Admin bullshit, and it's the sort of inconsistency that can, well, make an entire forum defunct. It's not that hard to have a few well-thought-out policies and stick to them. In other news, an Admin has to sleep sometime, and so he appoints other board users to be Admins. Nominally, this job should go to responsible people who understand how message boards work, are familiar with the atmosphere of the community, and know what it requires. In reality, it goes to whoever agrees with the Admin's decisions the most, no matter how stupid and lazy they are. Sooner rather than later, the appointed Admin will do something awful. When the obvious is pointed out, the board owner will side with the Admin because... well, it all unfolds with tedious inevitability. Annoying for some, but a source of humour for the rest of us. |