Minor board reorganization and Songcrafters' philosophy/direction.

[Greeny]

I wish a lot of regulars weren't so obviously trying to avoid being a part of this discussion. No matter which side they fall on, I think it would go a long way to better clarify whether or not it really is the majority who would prefer that the member only content be separated from the non-member only content.

Considering myself a regular, I've been watching this thread with interest. I've even started writing some further thoughts and replies down, only to scrap them due to the realisation that I haven't really got anything new to add. I think every angle and argument has already been eloquently (and passionately) voiced.

For me, I'm here to make music, get inspired, collaborate with others, listen to some great songs, converse with my musical 'family', and try to make my working day bearable. Pretty simple, huh? I don't really care how things are sectioned or categorised, because it wouldn't fundementally change why I'm here. I'm lucky in the fact that 80% of my stuff is original and solo-performed using real instruments (albeit with a little help from my songcrafters friends sometimes), so I kind of know where I belong. But I do understand that:

1. Others with less clearly-defined / pigeonholeable (is that a word?!) contributions are worried about being marginalised through a re-org.

2. Because of the huge range of technology at our disposal, there are all sorts of grey areas around what constitutes self-performed and computer-assisted music.

3. Member versus Non-member is another difficult and grey area

All I can say is that I trust 64guitar's judgement 100%, and his ongoing commitment - along with the admin team - to maintaining THE very best music community on the web. This thread alone proves that we have a supportive, 'listening' democracy here. Most websites would just make the changes and say 'if you don't like it, f*ck off'. Not this place though. But I'd guess that 64guitars is wondering why he opened this argument up now. I don't think anyone could have forseen the venom and passion that's been awoken. And I'd really, really hate to think we've pissed him off enough to wonder what the hell he's doing here. After all, he's the glue that holds this place together. We would be SO lost without him. Let's never forget that little fact.

So... where are we?

Is this now boiling down into an argument on whether we go with a 'members only' rule?

Perhaps we should have a vote on it 64guitars / Admin team?

Personally, I think that we should TRY to encourage people to join the site, but not make it mandatory. Therefore, anything with at least one member appearing on it is eligible for posting. We're reasonably smart people - if certain members start taking the piss or bending the rules too far, we'll be onto them.

I'll probably regret posting this in 30 seconds. Oh well.

[Blooby]

I wish a lot of regulars weren't so obviously trying to avoid being a part of this discussion.

I have been trying to stay out of this, but I will chime in briefly.

I am confident the administrators will work toward what they think is in the best interest of the site. It won't make everybody happy. It may not make me 100% happy, but that's life. One of the strengths of Songcrafters is its eclectic nature, and as long as there is some place on the site for everybody to post, life is good. If a particular thread doesn't get as many views, so be it.  That is merely a reflection of the interest of the members here.

Mostly, I would like to see this divisiveness come to an end. If changes are afoot, let's sally forth and stop the endless conjecture. As most of you know, change may be a bitch, but the anxiety leading up to it is usually much worse.

I'm not willing to get worked up over this. My feeling has been and will be that regardless of what transpires, the sun will still rise tomorrow.

Blooby

[henwrench]

let's sally forth

       Hey, now there's a phrase I'm not familiar with!!  I like it. A lot. And the sentiment behind it. Well said Mr Blooby. 'Let's sally forth....'. Enough said, everyone?

                                                                             henwrench

[Oldrottenhead]

for the record 64guitars speaks for me and all the admin team.

[Gritter]

I think this song sums up my feelings.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4SOnBDe7qs

[64Guitars]

Ian: I agree with your point but it's just too hard for us to manage. So I'm afraid it has to be all or none.

I don't intend to lock this topic. I think we've got enough feedback and the admin team will soon get back to discussing it privately and making our final decision. But in the meantime and even after we've made our decision, I think people should feel free to voice their ideas and concerns. I'll continue to read all of them and take your points into consideration, but I probably won't be able to reply much more. To the people who want this topic to end, I say "Why?". I understand that you may be tired of it. But why can't you just ignore the topic and let others have their say? You're not obliged to continue reading this topic. Please, just got to the next topic if you're not interested in this one.


Andy: Thanks for your comments. You've made some good points in all of your posts and I'd like to reply to all of them but I just don't have time.

I'm glad you brought up the exclusion concerns and that you understand nobody is being excluded from Songcrafters. When the admin team took over Songcrafters from Pedro, one of the very first things we discussed is that we want everyone to be welcome here. I was so glad to hear that the rest of the admin team felt the same as me. It gave me great hope for the future of Songcrafters and reassured me that we had the right admin team. But saying that everyone is welcome is not the same thing as saying that all posts should be guaranteed the same number of views and comments. That's not possible. People have different interests and they're going to view the posts which interest them while ignoring the rest no matter how we organise the site. So we have to organise the site based of member interests. Since the biggest member interest is recordings performed by members, this should be the main focus of the site. Everything else is still welcome, but it will never get the same number of views/comments no matter how we organise the site.


A lot of people have said that they want their posts to stay on page 1 for as long as possible to get the most views/comments. They feel that once the post goes to page 2, it no longer gets any attention. These same people want to post in the most popular board because they feel that more visitors means more views/comments for their posts. But what everyone seems to be overlooking is that the more popular a board is, the less time your post will be on page 1. So the most popular board is not necessarily the one where your post will get the most views/comments. With this in mind, perhaps some of you will be less concerned about which board your posts go in. As long as the board is at least moderately popular, any reduction in the number of visitors to that board is offset to some degree by the fact that your post stays on page 1 longer. You might find that you get more attention in a different board because your posts are on page 1 longer. You might find that it makes little difference. But let's not assume that the board will become a ghost town like Backing Track Jams. That was a different situation. We have very few members who are passionate about backing tracks and they mostly left instead of staying and trying to make their board more popular. But we obviously have a lot of members who want to collaborate with non-members or who play in bands. So I fully expect the new board to have more than enough participation to make it a success.

Another point to consider is the Latest Songs jukebox. I think that quite a few members use this feature to check out the new songs instead of actually going to a board and viewing posts. Well, the Latest Songs jukebox pulls songs from all of the Post Your Work boards. So it will make no difference which board your song is posted in. If the listener wants to comment on your song, they can click the Comment link in the player which will take them straight to the topic where your song is posted, regardless of which board it's posted in. The same is true of all of the jukeboxes (On This Day, Member Jukeboxes, festivals, etc). For those of you who say you just come here to listen to good music and you don't want it categorized in any way, why not use the Latest Songs jukebox instead of browsing the boards?

[Saijinn Maas]

I don't really know why it matters to me then.

I've spent so much of my time, since I was 15 fighting for others, I guess old habits die hard. The injustice, perceived or otherwise, was just something I couldn't let go. 

What's funny, is that should the re-org go ahead exactly as suggested, most of what I do would end up in the members only board anyway. I wonder if that is why so many think it doesn't matter, since in the end, they will not be directly affected anyway.

I had felt a part of this community and would have stood up for any one of you if I had thought anyone was singling you out. So I apologize to anyone who thinks I am making a mountain out of a mole hill. I wanna apologize to 64g especially. I know I can be an ass... Not wrong, mind you  , but an ass just the same.   Still wished you had taken the time to actually understand what I was trying to say. But that doesn't excuse my demeanor. So, unless anyone asks me about it directly, I have no reason to keep trying.

All I know, is that if this board was divided by "member only" and "not member only" content from the beginning, I never would have joined. Guess we'll just have to see what we'll see.

Good luck to everyone. It's been a blast.

[64Guitars]

If we do separate by member vs non-member, does that mean we need the same set of boards for both?
Post Your Work
     General Originals
     General Covers
     Member Originals
     Member Covers

I don't have any objection to dividing the General board into Originals and Covers, or whatever other boards people want. However, a couple of people mentioned that they didn't think child boards would be a good idea, and I suspect they may me right, though I'm not sure why. But the hierarchical structure of boards with child boards is generally a useful aid to better organisation. One way we could have that kind of hierarchy without using child boards is to have multiple categories. Currently, we have only one category ("Post Your Work") for song posts. We could replace Post Your Work with two categories and create boards within each of those categories.

For example:

Member Songs

• Originals
• Covers
• Collaborations

Non-member Songs

• Originals
• Covers
• Collaborations
• Backers/loops/midi

The board names are just examples. We can work on figuring out what the boards should be later. But does this division into two categories make it any better for those with doubts/objections? Just a thought.

[Saijinn Maas]

I don't have any objection to dividing the General board into Originals and Covers, or whatever other boards people want. However, a couple of people mentioned that they didn't think child boards would be a good idea, and I suspect they may me right, though I'm not sure why. But the hierarchical structure of boards with child boards is generally a useful aid to better organisation. One way we could have that kind of hierarchy without using child boards is to have multiple categories. Currently, we have only one category ("Post Your Work") for song posts. We could replace Post Your Work with two categories and create boards within each of those categories.

For example:

Member Songs

• Originals
• Covers
• Collaborations

Non-member Songs

• Originals
• Covers
• Collaborations
• Backers/loops/midi

The board names are just examples. We can work on figuring out what the boards should be later. But does this division into two categories make it any better for those with doubts/objections? Just a thought.

Just have a question about non-member collabs? Isn't this criteria the reason they'd be in general board anyway? I mean, if they had collab'd with other members, they'd be in the member board anyway? Might have just confused myself.

Oh yeah...

What about that Collabs in general are not a Post Your Work board? Since it is a board to discuss and set up collaborations in order to get a final version posted under the qualifying (original or cover) board. Also, since to the only reason to post lyrics is for feedback or to find a collab, do lyrics necessarily qualify as a "Post Your Work"? Lyrics without music is just poetry... nothing wrong with that mind you. Just thought it could be condensed is all.

Sorry... keep thinking of other things to add...

Not sure why people are against child boards either, but if you named them similar to what I had:

Member Orginals
Member Covers
General Originals
General Covers
Backer/Loops/Midi

They wouldn't need to be child boards.

[Kenny B]

Another point to consider is the Latest Songs jukebox. I think that quite a few members use this feature to check out the new songs instead of actually going to a board and viewing posts. Well, the Latest Songs jukebox pulls songs from all of the Post Your Work boards. So it will make no difference which board your song is posted in. If the listener wants to comment on your song, they can click the Comment link in the player which will take them straight to the topic where your song is posted, regardless of which board it's posted in. The same is true of all of the jukeboxes (On This Day, Member Jukeboxes, festivals, etc). For those of you who say you just come here to listen to good music and you don't want it categorized in any way, why not use the Latest Songs jukebox instead of browsing the boards?

I think this may be the key to people scanning and listening to what they prefer.

Wanted to ask this a while ago and forgot ... about The Latest Songs and On this Day Jukeboxes.

When I discovered these as a new member I noticed that they didn't show which
board they were on as I was listening to a cover and thought it was an original.

Then I started going to the On This Day jukebox and saw  June '08, June '09 etc.  Is there a way
to pick or scroll to different dates and what was happening in March 2010, Etc?

This is a fantastic site and I don't mean to be the PITA end user ... just wondering
if I missed something ... 

It would be cool to bring up  a jukebox for MM/DD/YYYY and see all the new songs:

Song1      Member        Description       04/12/2010       Board Name
Song2      Member        Description       04/12/2010       Board Name
Song3      Member        Description       04/11/2010       Board Name

Sorry ... I have too much time on my hands today ... 

kb