Other forums?

Just wondering what other online discussion boards you all frequent? We all know about P.ie, but what else?

The first forum I started visiting on a regular basis was RevLeft.com (http://www.revleft.com), a discussion board for revolutionary leftists (which I was at the time). I still post there, but am now restricted to posting only in the "Opposing Ideologies" forum. You can get some pretty good discussion going on there from time to time.

I've also started posting on PoliticsForum.org (http://www.politicsforum.org) after following a link from this site. It's pretty good I guess. It is very well moderated and the mods and admins ensure that standard of debate is very high, much higher than P.ie. One-line posts are not allowed, for example. However, one thing I have noticed is that there are a lot of extremists there. Though they aren't trollish extremists like you might find elsewhere, it is still frustrating because you have to go fairly far back to find a common premise in any discussion. I'd say much of the board's membership is very young.

How about you guys?

I don't post on the Property Pin but I like reading it now and again. Politics.ie of course and now and then I use boards mainly for humour but there's everything there of course.

I used to like the forum worldpoliticsforum.org or whatever it was called - the name is impossible to remember - but it closed.

The odd time I go to Cael's IRBB forum for a look.

Searching for Democrats...

I look at P.ie and very occasionally the Pin. Good fora are hard to come by, because it is so much easier to blog than to build a forum.

There are so many brilliant blog sites out there...

This is interesting stuff on Palin.

http://spacetimecurves.blogspot.com/

I only post here now. Apart from a rare one on P.ie.

I posted a few times on JCSkinners blog which I love and am subscribed to, and will read to the end of my days. Or his. Whichever comes first. His probably if he doesn't calm down.

I read cedarlounge regularly, it's a huge mine of golden discussion. I like to pick an old thread at random and scroll through it.

But I think I am coming towards the end of my natural posting life, if such a thing exists. So this is my posting endgame I suppose.

Jesus EVM you're not leaving are you? You sound very resigned there. Still I suppose there's only so much posting anyone can do. Look at smiffy - he had to stop at 20000 posts on p.ie but FT lives on.

I know you like Skinner's blog but I don't know it. How would you describe him politically?

I think I'm finally getting into the thing of blogs - I really like Ecogeek I think I'll send him a valentine's card next year - he's an obsessive in his field and that's what blogs are about - obsessives who can communicate through the written word.

I also like to read archiseek from time to time but there is something that should be more immediate about it or any forum - something on the portal where you can get a flavour or rough picture of the forum from a brief enough glance, well ... know what I mean? I think Archiseek is good quality but it's hard to know how deep the forum goes ... have they political leanings, those architects? Are they into exploring themes like politics and buildings? Do they have an agenda they would like to explore/push? I'm convinced it's worth doing though maybe people just don't want that ...

I don't think I could frequent a site where nobody was trying to push their own agenda. It just doesn't make sense to me.

Regarding blogs, I too have started to get into them (especially after discovering KDE's house-brand RSS aggregator, fantastic invention). That said, I prefer single-issue blogs on areas like law, politics or sub-categories of the two. I don't see the appeal in blogs that are essentially some random guy's take on life, the universe and everything (though fair play to all those of you who have those blogs). Maybe I will come to love them. I have actually often contemplated starting my own blog so I could talk about legal stuff from a student's perspective as well as rant about political issues, but I doubt it would get enough hits to make it worthwhile.

Well by pushing some agenda I mean an angle at least - maybe you like it a bit green or your man is pushing for social justice or he has an axe to grind or something. A Crusade is what I like. I'd say the likes of Hermes here who had a blog would blog like that as might youngdan - the assassination of Magic Arse or Little Prince High Heels... youngdan has an agenda and a good style of writing that I like so his posts here are like a blog in a way.

But that's me - I like a bit of structure or an angle or I like to know from which side they're coming (so maybe you can watch your back).

So that's it - would you rant in your blog with structure or structurelessly? I'm a sucker for it - purpose, goals, hacking towards some end, progress, etc. etc. I'd like to say that this forum has the goal or I have a goal for it to get some good round knowledge of certain subjects - I'd love to know how certain things work - mechanical objects as well as political mechanisms and then find a way to present them here in some form of readable format... via the portal or whatever. We kinda tried it with the Lisbon thing and the EU I suppose. That's my thing though - I really like purpose and a theme of some kind that hangs it all together. The Property Pin is obvious though there is often an overwhelming tone of gloating there that doesn't make you want to stay. The lads know or appear to know, shitloads about the financial systems of the world though. They are systems people to some degree too.

I also use ubuntunforums.org though only for help. Did you say something about KDE and RSS? Is that linux KDE you're talking about?

I lost a post on this thread.

EvotingMachine0197 wrote:

I lost a post on this thread.

You may now use the draft function

Quote :

Well by pushing some agenda I mean an angle at least - maybe you like
it a bit green or your man is pushing for social justice or he has an
axe to grind or something. A Crusade is what I like. I'd say the likes
of Hermes here who had a blog would blog like that as might youngdan -
the assassination of Magic Arse or Little Prince High Heels... youngdan
has an agenda and a good style of writing that I like so his posts here
are like a blog in a way.

I'd agree with that. I guess it's just a round-about way of saying I like political blogs, because that's what most political blogs tend to be. I prefer blogs where someone with some liberal/conservative agenda analyses events from his or her point of view, to a blog where someone writes about the pretty flowers they saw while taking a walk today.

Quote :

So that's it - would you rant in your blog with structure or
structurelessly? I'm a sucker for it - purpose, goals, hacking towards
some end, progress, etc. etc. I'd like to say that this forum has the
goal or I have a goal for it to get some good round knowledge of
certain subjects - I'd love to know how certain things work -
mechanical objects as well as political mechanisms and then find a way
to present them here in some form of readable format... via the portal
or whatever. We kinda tried it with the Lisbon thing and the EU I
suppose. That's my thing though - I really like purpose and a theme of
some kind that hangs it all together. The Property Pin is obvious
though there is often an overwhelming tone of gloating there that
doesn't make you want to stay. The lads know or appear to know,
shitloads about the financial systems of the world though. They are
systems people to some degree too.

Well I don't know if you are familiar with my posting on P.ie or here, but the views I express there are the views I hold so I guess they're an indication of what I would post on a blog (though I would post a lot more and more in-depth if it was my blog and I thought that people would actually read it). I tend to attach myself to a single issue and focus most of my attention on that issue for a while. So while there are many issues I feel strongly about, I do not tie myself to any one ideology - so rather than one over-arching agenda being pushed, it would be a number of smaller agendas which may be connected by a number of core values, like human rights, or the rule of law for example.

Regarding purpose and theme, that's what I mean when I talk about more specific categories of blogs. Be they academic blogs which generally focus on a particular area of academia (and the authors of which tend to look at different issues in a consistent and characteristic way), or political blogs which will either push some ideology or at least weigh conflicting political interests with a preference for certain core values like the ones I mentioned above. If I were to have a blog it would probably be a mix of politics and academia (more politics at first, with the academia creeping in as I learn more).

Quote :

I also use ubuntunforums.org though only for help. Did you say
something about KDE and RSS? Is that linux KDE you're talking about?

Yup.

I'm not at all familiar with your posts on p.ie and not here yet but a forum isn't a bad place to start a blog - you get a small audience at first, you get feedback of all different kinds and you get the practise of writing.

I can't understand the regularity and discipline that bloggers must have to persist not having that discipline myself - fair play to them. And I do feel that certain subjects lend themselves to blogging - for me anyway - those disjointed ones I can't follow and I don't understand how anyone can. Fair enough you blog about all sorts of x, y and z and how's your father but your main theme is that you are a musician getting an album produced or you are an artist getting an exhibition together or you are doing some project - maybe even travelling so you have a travelblog - but I don't understand the stream of consciousness thing - unless you are such an avid blog reader that you like the novelty. I suppose Grandad on www.headrambles.com is like that and I'd read him ...

Are there any decent free blog providers around? Wordpress perhaps? What about the one down the bottom left corner here, is it any good?

evercloserunion wrote:

Are there any decent free blog providers around? Wordpress perhaps? What about the one down the bottom left corner here, is it any good?

I went on a one day Wordpress course and yer man made it all sound very easy. Haven't tried it since. Wordpress is very elegant I think. lostexpectation is interested in blogging. If you tracked him down on p.ie he might know more.

I would use blogspot.com or something similar. There's loads of them. I would not use the one in the corner.

EvotingMachine0197 wrote:

I would use blogspot.com or something similar. There's loads of them. I would not use the one in the corner.

Blogspot = Blogger.com?

evercloserunion wrote:

EvotingMachine0197 wrote:

I would use blogspot.com or something similar. There's loads of them. I would not use the one in the corner.

Blogspot = Blogger.com?

It does, blogspot appears in Blogger's url.

Ah cool, I might give it a look see. I just think that being motivated to post my take on issues that interest me would be good for me, improving my writing and arguing skills etc. Even if nobody reads it it would be beneficial.

(Actually, that last bit was a lie. If nobody read it I would stop writing and be slightly frustrated.)

evercloserunion wrote:

(Actually, that last bit was a lie. If nobody read it I would stop writing and be slightly frustrated.)

Tsk tsk, the youth of today!