DsotM is dead and you murdered it all by yourself
Or so it would seem.
For the past several months (more than that really, but I'm being generous here) DsotM has been in a state of near-to-complete stagnation, running on empty. I'm still not exactly sure when it started, or how, and I'll lay dollars down on the table and wager none of you are either. We can certainly identify contributing factors, but the crazed ennui that's taken hold here can't really be tracked down (i.e blamed) to any one source. If I could though, I'd put it all down on the weak and fragile shoulders of this little lady.
Eh. Probably a good idea to cease and desist with the humour for this thread, or maybe just this one post.
In any case, I'm not sure how this came about. And, to be honest, I'm kinda done thinking about the problem. It's probably time to shift the weight towards some sort of solution, try to actually fix things around this place rather than wallowing in the lost efforts of today. I'm not sure we can do that, though. Fix things. All the various factors involved in our amalgamated collapse aren't the sort of things that can be cured by a group singalong. And most of us seem to be perfectly happy ignoring the problems rather than addressing them.
Which is why this little speech here isn't about rallying the masses and storming the gates, and such. I'm not even sure DsotM should be saved. One of my only oppositional thoughts in regards to just closing this place down and moving on is the vain hope that other members might be willing to make one last go at things. So don't think of this as a "let us all join together and fight the laziness" tirade or some sort of "if we move as one against the twin armies of sloth and apathy we shall surely prevail" sort of thing. I don't have a plan, I don't have a solution, I'm not sure there really is one out there that would work. All I know is that there was a time when this place was a lot of fun, at least for me, and now it's not so much fun anymore and I'm hoping that there are others out there who feel the same way and are willing to give a damn.
Think of this as a headcount, a way of charting who else is out there willing to swim the waters. To me, it would be a shame to just leave this place to rot, but there's no sense in holding a lone vigil. If it's only me who's willing to make half-assed attempts at restarting the old japoly, then it'd be probably best to just throw things in and move on to other things. If there are others, well, let's get the lil' orange smiley-face rollin back and forth. And seeing as a lot of old faces are coming out of the woodwork, now seems to be the perfect time to check the temperature and jot down the names of those still interested in putting some life back into this ol' corpse.
Christ. Why, oh why, with the mixed metaphors?
Oh. I just quickly skimmed over what I've written so far, and I'd like to make it clear that this isn't some sort of strange blackmailing "Save yourselves or I leave Shady Oaks forever!" sort of deal. I'll probably end up hanging around, putting in the same sense-o-obligation postage, no matter what the results. Just now seems like a good time to see if we can raise the bar a bit higher for everyone, try to reinstill a bit of Ye Olde Tyme Daerke Syde o'thee Mõnkèy into our current proceedings. Or, at the very least, see who's still gonna be here putting in the half-assedness every once in a while.
Summing up, just give us a holler if you feel like doing more with this place than's being done right now. Hell, maybe we should all just talk about the disease in the hopes of putting a stopgap to our own rigor mortis (goddamn mixed metaphors!). Any plans, thoughts, or whatnot will be appreciated.
The best I could come up with between phone calls:
Well, I'll officially go on record as "here" for the headcount. On average, I'd say I check in here at least once a day, usually more. And, I usually follow that up with a stop in at Funny Pipes to check for updates. I don't think I check any other sites as frequently as DSotM/FP.
But, checking in is not the same thing as participating, obviously. And, as of late, when I do post new threads or replies they're generally not as effort-intensive as they used to be. This is both the cause of, and the result of, me un-Thundering myself back in February. And, I must admit that I'm still very much in that "spectator" mindset, although that's a gross oversimplification of my attitude. In DSotM lingo, it would be more accurate to say I'm more Yak now than Bull.
Now, that's not to say I don't appreciate the Bullish efforts stll taking place here. On the contrary, The Ray's contributions as of late have been excellent, and it's great to read. But, unfortunately, that's not enough. I think I speak from experience here. My suggestion would be to start simple and just get the chat going. Build an active community and the rest will follow. A lot of ideas seem to naturally spring from the interactions of the community itself. The Lando forum at Nightly was a great example of that (eg. the "Tabloid Specials" about active members, board-stories, etc.). But, the trick is that we need a community in the first place; People are less likely to post quality stuff if they don't think anyone is here to see it.
So, I guess my only suggestion -- as well as my only "promise" -- is to yak it up a bit more than in recent months. I'll try to contribute to the bullish threads too, but it really is tough to find time and energy for that lately.
To Pepper, I'd even go so far as to suggest reuniting Yak & Bull into one forum again; The separation, while a good idea when we first came up with it, now seems to magnify the creative slump we're in. Combining the forums might reinforce the idea I just described (that creative efforts often emerge from a chat community). But, that's really just an aesthetic detail, and not a proposed solution to the problem.
Edited by: Old Toby at: 9/19/02 12:15:11 pm
half-assed is my middle name
let me tell you first of all that i was quite upset when things ran down hereabouts. second i suppose i'll tell you i think i was pms'ing at the time. regardless.
thirdly, i'll confess that i tend to be in awe of the whole thing, busy or not. i visit a lot, but i don't think i'm of the caliber to really participate. more so than before, maybe. i have been hanging around for a while..
lastly and fourthly, since i'm running out of fingers to count on... mr. ray, this seems such an unlikely kind of, as you'd say, "navel-gazing" post on your part that i'm amazed you took such an initiative. exploring the unexplored cavernous reaches of your vestigal physical connection with your mom is something you should do more often, even in this projectory fashion. after all, it's probably the only such connection you'll ever have with a member of this species.
whichever species that is.
dsotm is dead. long live dsotm.
Re: The best I could come up with between phone calls:
Quote: Well, I'll officially go on record as "here" for the headcount. On average, I'd say I check in here at least once a day, usually more. And, I usually follow that up with a stop in at Funny Pipes to check for updates. I don't think I check any other sites as frequently as DSotM/FP.
I feel like an ass for not keeping FP more active after reading that. Thanks for the faith. I think DSotM is potentially alot more fun than the one-way pipes, so I think here's where I'll stay and play, if others will too.
Re: The best I could come up with between phone calls:
I could spend an hour telling all of you about the total crappiness of my personal life and the effect of that on my creative initiative lately, but all it really boils down to is that I have been really mentally tired lately. But I do still come by here if not every day, then every other day. And seeing new posts always makes me want to cheer. Even ones from the Ray.
After reading his post, I consider myself kicked in the butt, and hopefully I can now put some effort into being an active member.
(except for next week, I'm on vacation then, dammit! I don't know if there are even internet connections in deepest darkest Maine)
_____________________
All of us get lost in the darkness
Dreamers learn to steer by the stars
Quote: I could spend an hour telling all of you about the total crappiness of my personal life and the effect of that on my creative initiative lately, but all it really boils down to is that I have been really mentally tired lately.
The weird synchronicites involved in all of this continually astound me. How the hell did EVERYONE have this sort of artistic midlife crises at nearly EXACTLY the same time? Are we all swimming along the same wavelength here, do these things come in cycles, are sunspots responsible?
I'm sure the imaginary zeitgeist-persona of Lady Palpatine we've all built into our own internal pysches would chime in with the answer. Something along the lines of "the mass consciousness of the cylindrical amalgamated artform that makes up DsotM's cultural milieu has been dealt a blow to it's participation in membranous fashion" or maybe "flowers pretty, Jesse funny, Sandman nice".
Yes, yes she would. If she were here. Which she is not.
Which brings to mind the question of where the DsotM lurker crowd is in our time of need. I'm talking to you, Ryn, and Darth Caesar, and Gin Skywalker, and Natar. Andorus and Absolut DA. Otanku, Antilla, ArbiWan. If it seems like I'm merely tossing out names in an effort to get some response here, like throwing spaghetti to the wall to see if it'll stick, you're damn right. Damn shit hell damn!
Seriously, give us a wave if you like DsotM and want it to keep swingin' through the trees. At best, it'll add a fair dose of morale to the pot and maybe entice you lot into posting a wee bit more. At worst, the token effort will add yet another notch to your increasingly devalued self-ego and the inevitable broken promise of community participation will send you into a spiral of depression and drug use fit for a VH1 (or should I say TS1?) Behind The Music special.
See? Nothing to lose.
Quote: i'll confess that i tend to be in awe of the whole thing, busy or not. i visit a lot, but i don't think i'm of the caliber to really participate. more so than before, maybe. i have been hanging around for a while..
Oh, shut up you. Elitist tendencies will only take this herd so far. You've earned your right to frolic amongst the silverbacks just like anybody else. You've flung your share of feces at random noises from the bush, you've scoured for ticks in the chesthair of your fellows, and you certainly deserve more than a shadowy spot in the dark side of the monkey.
You rock, you. And I think this is proof enough that the splittage of Yak & Bull had no effect in relieving so-called "performance anxiety". Hell, perhaps it even increased it. Toby's suggestion of reuniting the two boards back into one definetly has merit on this point alone. Or, heck, why not do it simply for the sake of random change? Couldn't hurt, probably'd help.
Quote: mr. ray, this seems such an unlikely kind of, as you'd say, "navel-gazing" post on your part that i'm amazed you took such an initiative.
Yeah, it took a lot of courage to finally face up to the fact that I had a problem, that there existed the hope of a cure, and to admit to myself the nature and requirement of a higher power in which to instill hope of a better future. Alcoholic's Anonymous is the best thing that ever happened to me.
Seriously, though, that's what Monkey Business is for. Right?
Quote: ...unexplored cavernous reaches of your vestigal physical connection with your mom is something you should do more often, even in this projectory fashion. after all, it's probably the only such connection you'll ever have with a member of this species...
My mommy could beat up your mommy and your daddy and your other daddy and his mommy too. My mommy will kick the stuffing out of every living member of your family, and thanks to her voodoo rituals, most of the dead ones too.
On a final note, I think Old Toby's idea has quite a bit of merit, especially that of reintegrating the two boards back into a concentrated whole. It'll reinforce the community aspect from which so much creative material is drawn from (the Lady Palpatine dominatrix personality gags and such) while also blurring the lines between creative works and regular discourse, with topics moving equally back and forth between them. Some of the funniest and most well-read pieces of DsotM history are from conversations, at least to mine eyes, wheras a lot of the Bull efforts tend to remain alone and forgotten. This'll allow us to cuisinart the both of 'em, pooling our collective talents together on all fronts, uniting for a mass orgy of titty titty cocoa puffs.
In conclusion, the answer to our prayers lies in the hands of one man...
god is modest, and is apparently missing fingers
paranoid daisy, I must second The Ray's "shut up" comment towards you; You're unquestionably one of the most valuable members here, and have been for some time. And, for this reason I say "shut up" to you now. Just shut right on up.
And, I too sensed the presence of our old enemy in your post: the dreaded "performance anxiety". This was always the greatest obstacle for Pepper and ThunderDroid to overcome in the backwhens. I'd been assuming that the main problem here was just good old fashioned lack-of-interest, but maybe that's being amplified by the shyness, if you will. I don't know if something like that can ever truly be eliminated at any messageboard, but if we can at least reduce that feeling, particularly among our core members, we'll be in good shape, I think. So, again I echo The Ray's sentiments: You rock, you.
Right on!
So does this mean I can post any old crap that pops into my head?
_____________________
All wired up with no-one to kick but myself in a cell and an ape with a
stick who's bigger than me and complains that he's sick of my story.
Yeah! Pointless displays of enthusiasm ROCK, man!
Isn't that what you've been doing all along?
To be serious, well, yes and no. Feel free to indulge in ANYTHING, as long as you find it funny and there's even a chance someone else might too. But feel equally free to stay the heck away from the usual message board routine, seeing as DsotM has always been about the belly laugh first, actual human interaction second. There's a plethora of suitable online venues for such, a gigantic mess of Wizard's Domains and Exile's Islands making up the huge melting pot that is the Nightly.net offshoot community. Most of which can be reached from here, if I might add.
Ooh, look at me being all with the administration duties and everything.
If I use enough emoticons, no one will notice how vastly underqualified and incompetent I am! ROTFLMAOLOL! PLZ R33FLES! L0L L0L L0L!
Edited by: The Ray at: 9/23/02 10:52:01 pm
DsotM is dead and you murdered it all by yourself
The best I could come up with between phone calls:
half-assed is my middle name
Re: The best I could come up with between phone calls:
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