A Place for Mad Dogs and English Dudes (weirdlist.com)

Member Name: marandina

Product:	weirdlist.com
Date:	03/01/05 (75 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Navigation, Message Boards, Membership

Disadvantages: Can appear dull, May not be serious enough for some

-Introduction-
Have you ever wondered whether there is life inside your PC? Of course, the answer is that there isn’t as your PC is just a box of circuits and stuff but when logged onto the Internet you do have the opportunity to seek others out and discuss all kinds of subjects. Personally, up until now it’s an aspect I’ve shied away from. I guess it’s always been a question of time or lack of, together with the debate around not knowing whom you are dealing with. That may have all changed now.

-Weirdlist-
I’ve known about the existence of Weirdlist for some time but didn’t realise that it was the brainchild of the eponymous Alkaliguru who most opinionators will know from Dooyoo, Ciao and other forums I’m sure (we won’t mention those others as the police may be reading). Spookily, even after having been present for over 3 years on the said various forums I still know virtually nothing, nil, zip, nada about Alkaliguru – otherwise known as Keith (I haven’t read the "about the author" bit yet). Well, I know he’s called Keith and supports Liverpool; he appears to like the Marx Brothers and I get the impression he resides in this country but I can’t be sure about any of that. All is know is that I love his humour and he is an excellent writer himself. His motivation for running Weirdlist is also beyond me unless it’s part of a grand plan to make his millions and retire to a life of luxury designing websites for major corporations and porn sites.

In essence, Weirdlist is a bulletin board where folks have the opportunity to post whatever they want really. It’s a chance to mingle with others who like to look at life with a humorous slant and I’ve yet to see anything get too serious yet.

-How to join-
By going to http://www.weirdlist.com you will find the link to join. You will need the obligatory user name and password and an e-mail verification will be sent to your nominated e-mail address. Other than this, nothing else is asked for so it really is a quick process. You will then have the chance to log onto the site and put together your own profile including: ICQ number/AIM address/MSN address/Homepage/Location/Occupation/Interests/Cus tom title and signature. The “preferences” section below your profile allows you to opt as to what information you want revealed about you. You can choose you own image or avatar to go with your chosen user name with options to upload from your own PC, the web or the site’s own gallery.

-Main portal-
With a predominately blue livery, the main portal is a no nonsense summary of what’s on site. 100% text based with no GIF images or any other pictures for that matter, you’ll find the following links down the right hand: Home/Buy The Book/Contents/Most Recent/Message Board/Favourites/Personality Quiz/About/Advertising/Online Shop/Contact/Anti-Spam.

I understand Keith has written his own book called “The Bassful Loger”. It can be purchased from the site for $15 + delivery. Not having read the book, I can’t vouch for it’s contents but if Keith’s humour and writing style is anything to go by then I’m sure it’s irreverent and..erm..very funny.


-Features-
The most popular aspect of Weirdlist appears to be the main message boards. Here there are a number of threads that members can join in with. The beauty of this is that the member is in control of how long they spend on site as it’s so easy to make a post then go and do something else. Posts are acknowledged with an option to preview or go back to the forum once the post is made.

With a search option, e-mail subscription option and buttons to choose an alternative stylesheet then the simplicity of the main page is good enough to not confuse the most confuseworthy (is that a new word?) of us.

The capitalist element of the site is reflected in the clickable links whereby everything from t-shirts to caps, teddy bears to clocks can be bought at the online shop.

There is an option to contact any of the other members by sending a private message. I’m sure many love affairs have started off this way (me not included I hasten to add).

-Site Performance-
The main page loads quickly enough even for a crappy dial up speed that I have just now. Powered by phpBB (I've no idea what this stands for but then I'm thick) the site includes a decent search facility and a good FAQ section. This means that the site does cater for all forms of user i.e. inexperienced to veteran "know-it-alls". Navigation is good with drop down menus available to get the user around. Not every page has a drop down on it so it is possible to get stuck but most folks should be able to overcome this nuance. The Message Board shows both the author of the thread as well as the person making the last post which is in line with other boards.

-What’s Good-
As mentioned above, using the site is simple and navigation is straight-forward so that the various drop down menus will whisk you around the site with relative ease. I have found following threads on other similar sites tricky at times so big up to Weirdlist for making things easy.

I like many of the people that post on the site and I’m sure you’ll soon realise that they are already household names in the online world. I’d mention who they are but just think of the fun you’d have in joining up and finding out.

The jocular nature of many of the threads is fine for me. Current threads include an ongoing word association and an ongoing pome where folks take it in turns to post rhyming lines in a challenge to the death (or alternatively when one can’t think of another rhyming line of verse)

-What Could Be Better-
Well following an unfortunate hacking episode, the site has lost…well….near enough everything. Keith has had to start again so membership only numbers 13 at the mo unless some way can be found to retrieve those records. The solution is simple enough – the site needs more members!

I understand from reading other reviews that the lack of moderators has been a little problematic in the past. The occasional racist remark has slipped in there and from what I’ve seen so far, only Keith himself appears to moderate. I could be wrong but I’ve seen nothing untoward myself so far. That aspect of inhibition is something that dogs the Net in general and in the absence of seeing/hearing or both who you are talking to then the risk of people simply saying whatever comes into their head, however controversial it may be will always be there.

I do think that these bulletin boards can appear a little dull. On this particular site, it is possible to find pictures at the online shop if you start to tire of unappealing lines of text.

It may be that you prefer a more serious forum than Weirdlist can offer. Opionators.co.uk can offer this to those who want to consider more weighty matters in the scheme of things.

-Conclusion-
So far I’ve really enjoyed my first sustained contribution to a bulletin board like this. I know they’ve been popular for a considerable time and provide a social satellite for those folks who want to supplement their online writing exploits or even for those that just want to chat. In the case of Weirdlist, it’s nice and quick, pretty basic but well laid out and generally great fun. You may even become a hero overnight by re-discovering a slogan for the site.

As ever with any web site review, I haven’t covered every single aspect of the site – far from it in fact. The best way to find out about anything online is to go and explore so it’s over to you if you like the sound of this. It would be great to see more people there and I do like the concept of these sites so I may try out some of the others too. Well, you can’t keep posting opinions can ya? *Grin*

Basically - Feel free to join in!

Thanks for reading

Marandina

Note to self: Go read Keith’s “all about me”.

Summary: