State of the QBN 2019
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- 98 Responses
- MrBixler2
I’m a lurker. I lurk in the hope that Carver or Wendell might show up again.
- a grand aimFax_Benson
- Take out and trap the chief of me!BonSeff
- ayport10
I really enjoy QBN. I've considered it a healthy inspirational distraction from work for quite a while. I do enjoy it most when design and coding topics pop up in the list. I think the last time I contributed was 10 years ago. I'm sorry. I would hate to see QBN go, but I would love to have a revival of the overall design conversation. Back then, QBN kept me thinking on a higher level when it came to new ideas with most of the work I did out in the world.
I really do miss the old homepage. It showed the latest and greatest in current thread topics as well as design news.
- BonSeff3
I miss the old days when we had fun engaging each other with "type connect" sessions and "print exchange," FMT and what nots.
My take is that those days were rad because we had no myspace, facebook, twitter etc. to bounce around.
I wish the younger generation would think up fun activities like that, but there is just too much out there nowadays to hold interest like we used to do.
- i_monk-1
If you don't have a problem with the way things are now, then you have no problem with the steady drop in posts and regular users and relevance and the eventual (but sooner than you think) shuttering of the site.
If that's the case maybe your opinion doesn't matter. To anyone. Certainly not qbners worried this'll be gone in a year. You'll still be here, posting on QBN 4.0, or you won't, and that won't matter to you either.
- is anyone listening to what we might have to say about running an internet forum?renderedred
- Maaku4
- lolBennn
- "hidden" or "private" threads are a good idea in my viewrenderedred
- We can also just make the NSFW "private", for logged-in users only. It ain't much but it's honest work.Maaku
- much better idea than the delete police :)renderedred
- Well that is just the perfect gifRamanisky2
- Do we have the budget to hire a consultant to tell us what to do?misterhow
- This is Twittercannonball1978
- hans_glib-3
it's about time qbn allowed embedding of more than just youtube/vimeo (and vimeo took enough lobbying).
i'm sure this is the real reason people leave
- deadsperm-4
- www.qbndied.com ?hans_glib
- Do your thing.
The sky's the limit.deadsperm - www.qbnpro.comrenderedred
- hahaGnash
- Ianbolton0
Are we becoming old and boring, feeling a need to make QBN reflect (y)our conservative nature?
- autoflavour5
This fucking thread again..
Eye rollHow about we delete everything that doesn’t strictly have to do with Helvetica and be done with it.
- You kind of precipitated it with your post y'day!Nairn
- ^ That's a fair point.Continuity
- I like comic sansBusterBoy
- LOL.. oh shit, didn't even return to that post in the blog.. 92 comments.. FIRE
loopsautoflavour - Out of interest, Auto - do you not use the 'feed' view here? I only discovered it a couple of years back. Game changer.
For the worse... :)Nairn - ( https://www.qbn.com/… )Nairn
- aint no one got time for that.autoflavour
- but yes, do know, but dont useautoflavour
- Bennn-6
I still think that if QBN is now a closed community, the website should be accessible via a password and be closed to the public.
I dont understand why we should make a show for all those lurkers.
- I like fucking with the curtains openautoflavour
- agree with this, its like a feckin zoo.kingsteven
- Lurkers will all Downvote this for sure lolBennn
- Lurkers can still have qbn memberships but not post, you know. Can't stop someone from logging in and just looking.i_monk
- we surely have a LOT of lurkers without any account who just visit QBN to scroll content.Bennn
- and its impossible to create new accounts, if havent seen the info, i_monkBennn
- Nairn0
My literal only suggestion for 'improvement' is a couple more mods - I presume Jaline's totally offline these days, leaving only one, perhaps two as far as I know.
If there's one distinction between QBN of today and NT of yore, it's that there was a stern mod policy which we used to play around.
if we could have two more fairly active mods, perhaps one in a different timezone to the states, then membership could risk being opened up a bit.
Actually my other suggestion would be some none-automatic way for new members to sign up after recommendation by existing users - via email or something. Again, that requires some active moderation, and a hammer if the suggester's abusing shit.
Whatever though.
- btw, not to say 'whoever' is still modding here's not doing a good job - I know I wouldn't have the patience for dealing with the likes of docpoz's shit.Nairn
- Have we agreed to bin off the NSFW and COTD the threads? Keep the NSFW button on the posting bit though. Still relevant for some things obvIanbolton
- zarb0z0
I’ve had a think, and I’d like to share.
This is my only QBN account. I say this to call attention to my faults and flaws; investigate. I speak quickly, sometimes harshly, and I own every word—I have to, or I am nothing. Sometimes, the little chav in me feels randy, and sometimes the gentleman wishes to pop round the shops for no good reason at all. Those extremes show in my posts.
I like to think I contribute, but I confess it’s likely just in a participatory sense of community. The design work I do is all CAD, FEA/CFD usually, and there’s an incredible overlap between the (PC) tools I use to and the tools a DTP artist uses, but we share almost no software (that I can discern).
The conversations around COTD, NSFWotD, etc? Those affect me, for that’s where I “contribute” most. Otherwise, you’ll catch me commenting on POTD, or putting Yevgeniy in exceptionally unsafe conditions.
That said, before I vote for the removal of COTD (et al), I want to point out one small but glaring flaw in the logic of removing questionable comment:
Cocks gonna cock.
Tossers post trash, so when that avenue is closed, they’ll post trash where it doesn’t belong. I, for one, do not wish to expect a “clean and sober” QBN, only to find some bellend has sabotaged the POTD thread with a goatse.
So I vote for the sanitation of QBN...under one condition: there MUST be a way to quickly remove shitposts, shitposters, and troll accounts. There must. If there’s no way to stop that, then the you-know-who-you-are’s of the world will just destroy what we vote to create.
As far as diversity, I think there’s a possibility of abusing that too. We could easily find an untoward moderator asking for “proof pics” of female potentials to give them priority. We could see a lot of things. What management system does QBN have in place to make sure the ship stays on course?
Finally, there are not-so-obvious subjects to tackle. We have a “shooting of the day” thread. Why? Do we need a constant reminder that the USA’s media is literally obsessed with showing how tornadoes only strike caravan parks? There’s no equal time for such hot-button topics. And, if there becomes one, we’re no longer a Design Community, yeah? Isn’t there enough of that Elsewhere?
We have a Donnie Drumpf thread. Why? They have that in the States, it’s called “Fox News.” Who gives a toss about foreign governments buggering themselves?
We have a Cat of the Day thread. Why? There are countless websites, subreddits ad nauseum for cats, going all the way back to hieroglyphics.
We have threads so abjectly disconnected from Designing Stuff that, as Bennn said, it really hasn’t been a Design board in quite some time. Would we like it to be? Then those seemingly harmless threads have to go too, as much as I personally would not like to see that.
Finally, for those who’ve been in this game long enough to remember USENET, there used to be a system where, if you wanted a newsgroup called, say, rec.autos.makers.tvr, you would have to post your proposal to REC's RFC thread, get it voted in by the body politik, and THEN it would be approved. I close my rant with a suggestion that something similar be considered, or something where certain “karma” or “upvotes” or whatever participation-trustworthiness-me... means your posts go through immediately, otherwise they are held for approval (whereupon you get a point when it’s posted). Get rid of ALL the non-Design threads, have a rapid-response team to kill off the trolls and the NSFW content, and limit the methods by which the column on the left gets populated.
“I say we take off and nuke the site from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.”
You see, Yevgeniy, site for anonymous not productive for dreams of ink and motion. Use QBN. Is nice.
- Let's just say that the high-and-mighty of us work or aspire to work on efforts to encourage a better society.canoe
- As designers we're not sworn to that often overlooked oath that journalists have which is to promote the truth.canoe
- Maybe and tangentially, that's the reason why the $5 BS is a part of our collective challenge.canoe
- But to equate COTD and political discourse is beyond comprehension...canoe
- Can someone summarize?robotron3k
- @canoe, if the argument is that QBN is a Design Community, then any thread that isn't design-related needs to go. If that's beyond comprehension, I can't helpzarb0z
- < best response yet.MrAbominable
- I think the threads are all organic and putting too many restrictions will be severely limiting. Otherwise we go for a more organised system...Ianbolton
- Like here are the 10-15 places you can post now and leave it at that. No more new threads? Sounds limiting to me though.Ianbolton
- If you don't think COTD backs into politics you may be out of touch. Women are people now too, you guys.i_monk