Where is Lubbock’s best online forum?
I’ve been posting regularly at the Avalanche-Journal’s Lubbock Online Discussion Forums, and it’s been a great experience so far. A few of the regulars there have made their way to Lubbock Left as well. Thanks, guys! :)
With this post I am basically thinking out loud about where the best online public space in Lubbock is to be found. The Lubbock Online forums are pretty good. KCBD and El Editor each have discussion forums, but they are not regularly used. I have found a few messageboards over the years dedicated to clubbing, live music, various religious groups, small groups of friends, and so forth. None of them, not even the Lubbock Online forums, fit my vision of an open virtual space dedicated to citywide, countywide, or regional community discussion.
Social networking sites like MySpace, Facebook, Friendster, etc offer some sense of community, but they are not well-suited to debate and discussion. Blogs are limited to how large their readership is, which is either a function of how well they self-promote or of how many friends the blog author has.
Messageboards are not hard to set up, and they are cheap to maintain. Would you support a city-run or county-run messageboard that is open to the public?
Also, please post a comment if you have encountered an interesting online community based here in Lubbock. I know there are places I have missed in my search so far.
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September 8th, 2007 at 12:24 am
I support writing in chalk on the ground as a kind of message board; it is a project I have engaged in a lot, though mostly on the walls of the crappy university. If you try it, you will see that more people would read what you have to write than if you just post stuff on the ‘net.
Personally, I don’t see a need for any more message boards about Lubbock; folks here have already pretty much made up their minds, I believe. The LOL space is a pretty good web space, but like every other public thing here it is pointless to try and raise objections to whatever obstinate, obtuse position that has been labeled “common sense” in the minds of the forumites there. The best posters there are the racist trolls, because at least they are entertaining to read– everyone else has a kind of Eichmann esque banality in their writing and anti-arguments.
The only community I have found in Lubbock is the real face to face community of people I have met while living here, and so while I spend a great deal of time online, it is mostly spent gathering facts that have little to do with the local population
If you need any indication of how much community can be found online, try inviting a few people you meet– even people that probably live a couple of blocks away from you– over for a cup of coffee or a beer. Maybe you’d have better luck than I, but the Lubbockites I’ve met online would cross the street if they recognized me walking in their direction in public.
September 9th, 2007 at 3:00 pm
Lefty
I learned about you on LOL. I also learned about Counsellor Carol and Robert Pratt.
I prefer “Forumonians” to “Forumites”
I get long belly-roll laughs out of most Trolls and gentle giggles from your posts. You’ll have to be less serious in the future. Lighten up a little lefty baby - Life is short.
September 13th, 2007 at 9:57 am
I haven’t found much as far as Lubbock goes for intelligent debate on forums in the past, so I gave it up as I became a regular on Crooks and Liars, No Quarter,etc. My main forum has been with co-workers, friends, family, and other dinner-table, barroom debates that can sometimes degenerate into arguments. But I’ll give the Lubbock Online forums a go on your recommendation. In order to reach the people in Lubbock (a herculean task) I found you have to keep at it. They don’t like to give up their preconceptions easily.