Minor board reorganization and Songcrafters' philosophy/direction.

[T.C. Elliott]

BTW... This site's focus has always been Home Recording, first openly Boss Recorders, then maybe not so openly. Songwriting and original compositions was never the primary focus, no matter how much some would like to think it is.  

I've been sympathetic to Sai's point of view in this thread. And I agree the focus in our discussions and in encouragement has been home recording. BUT, when we, as a community, relegate backing tracks and guitar added recordings to secondary status (even well meaning or with sound legal practice) and we encourage the DIY to be only members and only if you play all the instruments, it becomes closer and closer to a songwriting site. I know it's not really. I'm probably overstating it a lot. The covers board seems to get a lot of traffic. I merely meant to say the emphasis is shifting more in that direction, at least from my point of view. But then again I'm terrible at visiting the covers board. Probably because I don't post many. I've kind of lost my passion for posting music at all this year. I think song a week kinda ruined me in a way. Of course I wrote 31 songs in February, just didn't feel most of them were worth sharing. *ponder*

I actually like the fact that this here site is a hotbed of Boss knowledge. But then I use a Boss recorder. And like Tony W I came here through my search for help on Boss recorders. I definitely think it should somehow be known that this community is knowledgeable with the Boss brand.

All that being said, I still think the changes will work. It's up to us as users to make sure the place stays as welcoming and inclusive (or more so) as it has in the past. And hearing 64's explanations definitely eases most of my concerns. But it doesn't eliminate them.

Still happy to be here.

[Gnasty]

Me dumbfounded! I`m starting to drink now.

I`ll come back to this thread when i get some time and some glasses

[Gnasty]

Okay this is just all my fault for leaving the site for a week but that won`t end for me in my busy life right now.

I just wanna say i`m in agreeance with the agreeance and all the disagreeance.

Why not just try a demo or simulation and see how it works and go from there.

The one thing that i`m grateful for is just to make and post songs and for whatever category it goes i won`t complain.

[Flash Harry]

Chilean red.

it makes my day pass sweetly.

[Tony W]

The spirit of this community is in the support we give to each other.

Honestly, that's how I've always felt, and don't think it could be stated in a better way. That is the biggest draw to this site, plain and simple.

Look at the home page, Welcome Friends... Followed by Geir's lovely song about friends. Who could ask for a better mantra.

You wonder why I'm frustrated? Dave you're contradicting yourself in this very thread. It certainly appears you're arguing just to argue.

]I agree with this.  The way I see it this site is all about "Home Recording", not specific to what the recording is done on, but done in a home studio environment.  Recording on Tascam or Boss or any interface that links to a computer DAW (as the latest BOSS machines do) doesn't matter.  What matters is that we are all Home recording folks, not professionals, using what ever tools we can afford to get good quality recordings for our pleasure and sharing with our friends on this site and with friends in the non-cyber world. 

I would like to think the primary focus of this site is songwriting and original compositions.  But that comes from my experience, so it is the way I see it. 

You've focused in on Sai, for whatever reason. I can't stress enough to look at the good of the community, and focus in on the board restructure.

[Saijinn Maas]

Saij, You make strong arguments for what you believe in, I admire that.

Songwriting and original compositions was never the primary focus, no matter how much some would like to think it is.  

I am one of the ones that you are referring to here, I would like to think the primary focus of this site is songwriting and original compositions.  But that comes from my experience, so it is the way I see it.  From the moment I got my Boss microBR and then found this site, the very first thing I did was write, compose, record an original song, it was my first thing posted on here.  I found this site, discovered Greeny and all his wonderful songs, and said to myself, "I wonder if I can do that".  I had never written a song before in my life, only ever noodled about on my guitar to backers and such.  From that point on I have had that as my focus, songwriting, original compositions, getting better and better at playing and recording so I could get better and better at writing original songs.  That is the rose-colored glasses I wear when I view this site, I always see the focus on songwriting and recording original songs/compositions as the primary goal here.  We all see things the way we do.  My way is not the best, or the only way, it is just how I see things.

For the most part, I don't even entirely disagree with you. My goal too is to do originals. To continue getting better and writing music. But even I see that we all found this place due to wanting to learn how to record and use our shiny little boxes. It still gives no justification in how some view the others here. I will not give myself a boost at the cost of others here. I would be just fine never listening to a country western song for as long as I lived... I still would not advocate moving them to another board just so that they didn't interfere with what I perceive to be MY goal here.  

I feel it IS tied into the restructuring because by allowing it to stay segregated for some arbitrary reason, little will change. BTW... My wife says I DO argue just for the sake of arguing.   I told her that people losing the argument usually think that. 

I didn't want to write all this out, but I feel it may be the only thing to accurately explain my thinking. Sorry for being tedious.  

Game Theory principles track what we know about the environment, and introduce what we know about how these factors affect this environment. If you have enough information about the goal, those involved, and the possible outcomes, you can accurately assess the most likely outcomes when combining these factors.

First, the factors in question are a General Board and a DIY Board.
What we know... Boards with similar enough aspects will not have the same level of activity. We know this by seeing what happened to the previous changes that separated the boards in the first place.
Given that, we know that the only realistic outcomes are:
1. The DIY are hugely successful, thus relegating the General Board to the same status of low activity some board are currently in.
2. The DIY are a failure, thus causing the General Boards to be the main successful board and making the DIY unnecessary.

If 1 is the outcome, we have changed nothing
If 2 is the outcome, we have alienated yet another group of members and have made the DIY unnecessary (which is the prediction in the first place)

The only way to fix this, is to make the change that stands a greater chance of benefiting the most members.
Given that the very nature, and rules, make DIY unusable as an only choice, we are left with one... A General Board whose very nature is to benefit the most members.

The whole "spirit on songcrafters" becomes nothing more than a factor added for the sole purpose of influencing  other factors. A manipulating force who's sole focus is to tweak the factors in a particular way. We used to call this "The Unknown". When you couldn't find a real world reason to change factors to cause particular outcomes, the Unknown would do so without explanation.  

This is how I came to the conclusion that the DIY is unnecessary and that the way it was illustrated was ill conceived... though it is understood that it may not have MEANT to be condescending.

Whoa! Okay, now it was my turn to be pretentious. But it was the only way I could think of to accurately reflect what I was thinking and how I view the situation.  

[Oldrottenhead]

Chilean red.

it makes my day pass sweetly.

and a pepperami yum yum

[Tony W]

Wow Sai. That was compelling. I was not really in favor of rejoining the boards completely. Sure I would like to see backers get a little more attention, and I have felt it was relatively unfair that loops and samples were allowed on the upper level boards for various reasons.....

With that said, from a logical standpoint, I really can't argue the points you've made in the above post. It's really intriguing, I'm rarely at a loss for words.

[rich2k4]

hw about adding a rule in covers and originals that states that for every song you post, you must comment on 2-4 songs by other people.

I'm guilty of not contributing back to the site with critiques.  I think a rule like this would prevent posts with 0 replies, and it would give everyone an equal chance.

[Tony W]

^ I've tried something similar Rich. I've sent PM's to people who post songs yet do not provide feedback for others (on a different forum). Sadly, some people are fairly self-serving and will not provide others with the same courtesy they come to expect.

Maybe I'll try a wall of shame next....