The problem with this board. Please read, thank you kindly. ^_^

Karl Hungus

You know, I've been looking over this board latetly, and I've come to the conclusion that it's not all it could be.

Back in the day, this very board was all there was. Yep, there was no Rock/Metal board, there was no Jazz/Blues board, there was just this one, which was at the time entitled Music/Radio. And you know what? It was buzzing with discussion and debate. Everything was discussed, and things could get extremely interesting to say the least.

Now that there's a board for most major genres of music that's being discussed, this poor one seems to have no life left. It's just the intellectual equivelant of a drainage ditch, where all the "Best this and that" or "Your most cheesy songs lol11" type threads are posted. It's the equivelant of Big Brother; in essence, the crap music board.

I got thinking. Normally when there's a new music board suggested, I'd take a brief look in here, and reply that "Well, there's nobody discussing anything related to that genre of music, so what's the point in a whole board for it?"
Well, there was a time when that was the way things were. I mean, back in the day the Rock/Metal board was created because there was so much discussion related to those genres that it was deemed they needed a seperate board. So was the way of things, and as such, the Gigs/Events board got created because there was a lot of discussion. Likewise with Instruments, and so forth.

Boards were created because there was enough volume of discussion to justify it.

Lately the phenomena has occured where people are asking for new boards so they can discuss a certain genre of music. But I tell them, you already have a place, the Music Board! The all encompasing general board for all things music related, where you can discuss things musical, reguardless of genre. Or so you'd think...
I think it's come to the point now where I'm coming around and seeing that you really can't post squat here, as it's dominated by intellectually vapid threads, and constant "What's that song?" questioning. So much so that the discussion of any particularly niche genre of music gets very quickly drowned out.

Well, what's the problem exactly? I'm not too sure, maybe it's because all the more intellectualism was siphoned out into all the other insular communities that make up the various music boards. Maybe people are too sheepish, and once they see a couple of "What's this song?" threads, they think that's all this board is about.

Either way, whatever the reason, the results being that it engenders the idea that people need new boards in order to discuss music that isn't already catered for with it's own board. The logical conclusion to that is that we just keep on adding more and more music boards untill we've finally got one for each every conceivable genre out there. :eek:

You know, I was even thinking of suggesting a J-Pop forum. The rational being that it's a fairly popular genre with nerds, so it'd easily go down a storm here... But wait, I've been giving out to people before for asking for new forums when there's nothing already discussed, and I take a look here... yep, no J-Pop discussion whatsoever.

Considering the amount of discussion that's possible on a general music board, you'd really think this place would be just as buzzing as ever, but it isn't.

What do you think? Is this board salvagable? Can a few choice threads that stimulate discussion, and maybe a few dedicated posters turn it around? Or am I dreaming, and will vapid pointless threads dominate it forever?

Jonny Arson

I don't see much of a problem with this forum.

If people want to go for intricate discussion about music or a band of certain genre there's pretty much a forum there for them to discuss in. I agree there's no real need for anymore forums dedicated to a specific genre because the existing forums should really cover everything, too many forums isn't a good thing but if you want this current forum to be discussing all types of music then the only answer to that would be to shut down all the other music forums.

TBH this forum really should be retitled Popular Music as that what it really is.

If popular music isn't to your tastes then all is well but don't let that be a reason to bash the forum. Just because you think some threads are pointless doesn't mean that everyone else thinks they are. There's no law for forums to be intellectual and with a more mainstream forum like the music forum you should expect it to be less intellectual.

Karl Hungus

Zane from MTV2 wrote:

If people want to go for intricate discussion about music or a band of certain genre there's pretty much a forum there for them to discuss in.

But that's exactly my point, people who don't have a specific forum for such intricate discussion feel that they can't post it here.

Dudess

Yeah, while I love the naff pop discussions (and Karl, if you say you don't have any guilty pleasures, you're lying), they don't really have anything to do with music.
Time for a cheese board, methinks... Hey! "Cheese board"! That was clever of me. Seriously though, there should be a crap, naff 80s pop board - this topic is too specific for All Things Retro or indeed Music.

Karl Hungus

Dudess wrote:

(and Karl, if you say you don't have any guilty pleasures, you're lying)

I have no guilty pleasures, because I'm never guilty about listening to anything. Be it cheesy 80's pop music, or whatever, it's all a pleasure, never guilty.

honru

Perhaps some serious modding is in order.

First off, there should be a Sticky for any "what's that song from the x advert" threads as these are the kind of posts that are flodding the board at the moment and they hardly lead into any interesting discussion.

"Lists" threads should be banned.

There also needs to be some modding with regards to Off-Topic threads... seems to be quite a few threads that should go in Gigs/Events, Bands/Musicians, etc.

Dudess

Would you admit to liking hair metal?

Rockerette

im a bit of an outsider to this particular section of boards, but i do browse and read, but rarely (if ever!? ha.. cant remember) post.

im not sure why i dont post much... music is my one of my favourite things in teh world. but.. i dunno, this forum here doesnt have a very good "feel" to it i suppose. and (i know for me) its because of all the music sub-forums for genres.. music is music.. i like to float between trad, to jazz, to cheesy pop, to rock, to slow acoustic, to whatever.. but i dont like the way its "split". i know it makes sense, but i just.. i dunno..
say, i love a bit of trad, but would feel out of place in the trad forum, cos im not that dedicated..! i dont have a "speciality"..

in thoery being just the "music" forum, it has a lot of potential.
but.. then it seems to end up with a lot of the dead-end threads.. that dont fit in anywhere else. and unfortunately, they seem to be the "faovurite whatevers" or "whats this song..?" as you mentioned.






so in short.. i dont know!
its not as good as it could be.
but i dont have a solution either!

i know i dont know anyone who posts here, so maybe thats also why i dont post very often.. - i feel like a tourist

Karl Hungus

f®eak s&#169 wrote: »

Perhaps some serious modding is in order.

First off, there should be a Sticky for any "what's that song from the x advert" threads as these are the kind of posts that are flodding the board at the moment and they hardly lead into any interesting discussion.

"Lists" threads should be banned.

There also needs to be some modding with regards to Off-Topic threads... seems to be quite a few threads that should go in Gigs/Events, Bands/Musicians, etc.

Agreed. The Song ID thread in Dance/Electronic worked wonders over there, so it's a plan.

Dudess wrote:

Would you admit to liking hair metal?

Define Hair Metal. You mean stuff like Poison or Motley Crue?

BuffyBot

people who don't have a specific forum for such intricate discussion feel that they can't post it here.

And who's problem is that?

Dudess

Karl Hungus wrote:

Define Hair Metal. You mean stuff like Poison or Motley Crue?

Oh yeah. And Skid Row.

Karl Hungus

BuffyBot wrote:

And who's problem is that?

As I've already said, it's fairly up in the air as to who's problem it is. Why, who's problem do you think it is?

Dudess wrote:

Oh yeah. And Skid Row.

Yeah, well it wouldn't be my favoured style of music, but I don't mind it at all.

DerekD Goldfish

I have been a user of boards for a number if years as well as a number of other message boards.
I find the problem is there is to many boards on other boards I use there is far to many forums particulary in a subject like music if I want to make a post I have to think which of the forums to put it in and the number of respondants is limited to those people who view that forum.
one single music forum would have a far more vigorous disgusion of a vide range on genres.
for example I hate modern punk so I rarely if ever visit that forum if it didnt exist and punk threads where posted in here I would repond to the ones I had an opinion on.
sure it may result in people missing threads because having one board new threads could run over a page before people saw them and people might be put of by a number of threds that do not interest them but I believe this would bee preferable to the current situation music is very hard to classify properly and the seperate forums have stiffled discusion in my opinion there should be one or at least limited to a few (Music,Bands/Musicians/Instuments, Gigs/Events)

honru

Having one dedicated forum for music would be too heavy on the traffic for my liking, though I do like the thought.

These are currently popular genres and/or warrent the traffic imo:

Alternative/Indie
Dance/Electronic
Rap/Hip-Hop
Rock/Metal(/Punk)

Then:

General Music

...with heavy modding in order.

metrovelvet

I think you have a really interesting point. Though I too am guilty of the "whats that song? " thread now and again. Most of what is on the music forum is fairly superficial and vapid. One of the most fascinating facets of talking about music is that you have to push language, and if people really got to it you could have some really good reads, but you dont find that here.

How would you propose they be divied up, if at all?

I've read through several of the genres, and I find them confounding, particularly in the punk forum, which seems to collect the most confused listeners. Someone needs to guide the kids!

Basq

Hmmmm.. some good suggestions here. Don't have time to comment on them really right now as i'm off to work in a moment.

But i do agree that both 'Music' and the very slowly dying (and practically dead) 'Music Reviews' need a complete and utter overhaul. And i plan to draw up a new charter at the weekend.

But i do feel like we're getting a few more useful threads as of late. Yes, the genre-specific Boards are always going to get more traffic due to a poster's taste in music and is the reason the board is clearly not as popular as it once was. But it's still other Boards than plenty of forums out there, as there is still such a thing as a non-specific (in terms of genre) music post.

So i'm gonna take all your suggestions under consideration and take steps towards rescurrecting it. Possibly by looking to the general side.. maybe with such sticky threads as "Music Quiz / Trivia" and "What's the song in that thing with that person thread?"

And if we're still getting a gi-normous amount of crap in let's say 4 - 6 months time, i'll take a vote prompting users to decide whether it should be shut down so keep suggestions coming in.

Karl Hungus

First of all, I say an absolute no to the trimming of some of the less popular music boards. That's far too arbitrary an action, and in my opinion would only go as far as to cut off discussion, as it doesn't address why people feel they can't post in this forum.

I think some action from Basquille, just a few dedicated posters who'll spark of some more interesting threads, maybe rename it to "Music General" or "General Music" and everything else will fall into place.

It really is a shame considering the possibilities that we don't have more cross-genre discussion here. This board could perhaps be used partly as a point of convergance between all the genre boards.

Now all we have to do is think of some interesting threads and start posting.

pbsuxok1znja4r

TBH I just think that the other genre-specific music forums siphon off the traffic that would otherwise be coming through here. There just aren't that many bands etc that don't fit into any of the other genres that are listed when you hover your cursor over the 'music' tab. What could be done is something like this, whereby the specific genre forums sit inside the base music forum. I dunno, it would increase the amount of activity but not necessarily the quality. The many genre-specific forums just have it all covered, really. Anything else that goes here is bound to be filler.

Karl Hungus

scouser.tommy wrote:

TBH I just think that the other genre-specific music forums siphon off the traffic that would otherwise be coming through here. There just aren't that many bands etc that don't fit into any of the other genres that are listed when you hover your cursor over the 'music' tab. What could be done is something like this, whereby the specific genre forums sit inside the base music forum. I dunno, it would increase the amount of activity but not necessarily the quality. The many genre-specific forums just have it all covered, really. Anything else that goes here is bound to be filler.

The problem here on boards with sub-forums is that people don't recognise the parent forum, they just see it as another heading in the drop down menu. It was like that with films when we had Film Reviews as a sub-forum. People would just hover their mouse over the Film board in the navigation bar, out would pop Film Reviews, and people would think that's all there is. The amount of off-topic stuff we got in that board was unreal, and it kept being moved, but people still didn't cop on to the fact that there was a films board.

Of course, once we got the film section re-ordered now that now it is just another menu, I don't think there's been a single off-topic post in Reviews, and the main films board is a hell of a lot more active.

I think what you propose would kill this board dead.

honru

Karl Hungus wrote:

First of all, I say an absolute no to the trimming of some of the less popular music boards. That's far too arbitrary an action, and in my opinion would only go as far as to cut off discussion, as it doesn't address why people feel they can't post in this forum.

The reason I suggested the idea was because the Music section currently feels quite daunting to move through, and may benefit with less forums, as DerekD pointed out.

scouser.tommy wrote:

What could be done is something like this, whereby the specific genre forums sit inside the base music forum.

I was thinking something along those lines too... but then when you actually look at their General forum, they seem to have the exact problems we have here.

Not even getting to the navigational problems you'd have on this site.

herbieflowers

Some of the sub boards seem pointless and/or dying. For example, I post on the Jazz/Blues froums yet there is probably, on avaerage, one post a week. What's the point in that? Wouldn't it make more sense to combine it with the other dying sub froums (or something similar)?

As for havng too many forums in one (ie if Rock/Metal etc. were combined) I don't think it would be too big a problem as regards space and threads. AH or even the Soccer forum are probably as popular as all of the music threads combined if not more so.

another thing is that the categorisation of music on boards has stopped many newbies to that particular genre of music from participating in it (for various reasons already mentioned). There are plenty of groups and musicians whom I'd recommend to fans of other genres but these people are not being exposed to them!

Karl Hungus

I wouldn't worry about some of the Music boards that don't have as much volume as other boards. I look at it as quality over quantity. I mean, look at the Horror board, it's fair unpopular, but there's usually some great discussion to be had about some extremely niche films, and as such if they were just posted in the main films board, a thread that might flourish on the Horror board could easily be drowned out by a higher volume of other posts.

So what if AH is probably more popular than all the music boards combined? AH is not a good example of an interesting board. Christ, try to post anything interesting in there and it can end up 3 pages ago in a matter of moments.

I'd say less popular boards give their specific topics the kind of breathing room that a parent forum simply couldn't.

Anyway, as for people finding boards daunting... Why?

honru

Observing the first pages... the majority of threads from Classical, Jazz/Blues and Traditional could easily go in Bands/Musicians, Gigs/Events, and/or Instruments. Soul/Funk/R'n'B is pretty dead.

I use Punk alot and most of the threads there could go in Gigs/Events.

Karl Hungus wrote:

Anyway, as for people finding boards daunting... Why?

The size of the place, combined with a constant flow of new forums on pretty niche topics such as Lego and Sleeping.

metrovelvet

Additionally you would have more collaboration from people who have different areas of interest or knowledge and people would learn more and be exposed to different areas of music. Wouldnt it be interesting to hear the perspective of a jazz tune from someone with a trad background or vice versa? Just as an example.

Maybe you could have something like a song/album weekly discussion? Like a book club but for a song or album? Maybe Karl - you pick the first one, people talk about it for a week or so and then you designate the nest person to choose.... and it goes on and on like that?

I dont know if it would work but its just an idea to invigorate the music fora.

pbsuxok1znja4r

And God knows where I'm supposed to put my annoying emo and post-hardcore threads! (Punk invariably chokes on 'em or spits 'em back out sharpish!) But then again, if the fans of the genre aren't here then I guess they're just not here.

TBH I'm not 100% sure what the supposed problem with the gen. music forum is...we have the other genres covered in the other forums; miscenaneous/filler stuff is all that's left over; all that can be expected here. I personally have always seen it as the reject forum for whatever doesn't fit the specified genre of other forums. That and pop music. I don't think a scarcity of threads on pop music (you know the sense of the word I mean it in) is anything to be worrying about.

Meh, I have no solution so I'll shut up. I like the idea of cultivating some inter-genre enlightenment, though.

herbieflowers

Karl Hungus wrote:

I wouldn't worry about some of the Music boards that don't have as much volume as other boards. I look at it as quality over quantity. I mean, look at the Horror board, it's fair unpopular, but there's usually some great discussion to be had about some extremely niche films, and as such if they were just posted in the main films board, a thread that might flourish on the Horror board could easily be drowned out by a higher volume of other posts.

So what if AH is probably more popular than all the music boards combined? AH is not a good example of an interesting board. Christ, try to post anything interesting in there and it can end up 3 pages ago in a matter of moments.

Anyway, as for people finding boards daunting... Why?

It's a good point about the quality/quantity but I haven't come across an interesting thread in these "niche" forums. More exposure to users who wouldn't usually use these niche threads may open them up a bit more, but that's only my opinion.

The point I was making about AH was that it was a continually changing board with a high turnover (for want of a better description) of threads. A sole Music thread could survive imo (or something along those lines)

Daunting forums? I don't know, I wouldn't feel wholly comfortable posting in the Punk or Rock/Metal thread, I have done and I've been chastised! Haven't gone near them since! But again, that's only personal opinion.

pbsuxok1znja4r

wrote:

Daunting forums? I don't know, I wouldn't feel wholly comfortable posting in the Punk or Rock/Metal thread, I have done and I've been chastised! Haven't gone near them since! But again, that's only personal opinion.

Agreed. There are a myriad of bands I'd post threads about in punk or metal if I only thought the posters there'd recieve them agreeably. But like I said, if the fans aren't there, they're not there.
Meh.

Karl Hungus

metrovelvet wrote:

Additionally you would have more collaboration from people who have different areas of interest or knowledge and people would learn more and be exposed to different areas of music. Wouldnt it be interesting to hear the perspective of a jazz tune from someone with a trad background or vice versa? Just as an example.

Maybe you could have something like a song/album weekly discussion? Like a book club but for a song or album? Maybe Karl - you pick the first one, people talk about it for a week or so and then you designate the nest person to choose.... and it goes on and on like that?

I dont know if it would work but its just an idea to invigorate the music fora.

I think you're right on the ball there metrovelvet.

Infact, I think I've some ideas for interesting threads already. Not sure what song or album to suggest for a weekly discussion, it would have to be something people are familiar with. Maybe a video from youtube? Hmm...

scouser.tommy wrote:

TBH I'm not 100% sure what the supposed problem with the gen. music forum is...we have the other genres covered in the other forums; miscenaneous/filler stuff is all that's left over; all that can be expected here. I personally have always seen it as the reject forum for whatever doesn't fit the specified genre of other forums. That and pop music. I don't think a scarcity of threads on pop music (you know the sense of the word I mean it in) is anything to be worrying about.

I thought I outlined the problem fairly well in my original post. Indeed, we do have other genres covered, but miscellaneous as you put, doesn't exactly seem to fit. People do feel that they can't post seriously in here.

Anyway, I've said it all previously. Just look at how many requests for new music forums that start off "There's nowhere to post about this stuff" and once the music board is suggested, it's usually "Oh but we can't post in there!". There's your problem right there.

Another problem is as you say "All that can be expected here." Why is that all that can be expected? People have a forum about music that isn't restrained to any particular genre, so why can't we expect more!? WHY? There's your problems!

scouser.tommy wrote:

Meh, I have no solution so I'll shut up. I like the idea of cultivating some inter-genre enlightenment, though.

Well then, if you like the idea, then don't shut up!

metrovelvet

I don't think it would have to be something everyone is familiar with at all. If you want to cross polinate the discussion then people have to be willing to expose themselves to something new or something they havent heard before.

Its not practical to require that everyone be familiar with it. And its limiting also. The whole point is that you can be exposed to things you wouldnt ordinarily be exposed to.

Why dont you start out by picking a song? Maybe from that band that you were talking about on AH? The one that crosses genres? Im sure an MP3 ifile is obtainable.

Karl Hungus

metrovelvet wrote:

I don't think it would have to be something everyone is familiar with at all. If you want to cross polinate the discussion then people have to be willing to expose themselves to something new or something they havent heard before.

Its not practical to require that everyone be familiar with it. And its limiting also. The whole point is that you can be exposed to things you wouldnt ordinarily be exposed to.

Why dont you start out by picking a song? Maybe from that band that you were talking about on AH? The one that crosses genres? Im sure an MP3 ifile is obtainable.

Indeed.

How about we select a band that has a decent selection of mp3s available on their site, or videos on youtube, so that those that are familiar with them and those that are not can both be involved. Hmm... Better than saying "This album" which would be constrained to those who already own the album.

Anyway, I seem to have sparked off some interesting threads so far. My plan is a success!

metrovelvet

Well hop to it karl! Lets get it going.