I see you still have the Linux / Atari forum. And now a Product placement page to placate your sponsors, no doubt.

Can we just know why you've decided to drop this?

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I'm All Ears.

Edited by ken long (16/07/11 04:08 PM)

We haven't dropped it - it's just been merged into the Recording & Production forum.

The reason for merging forums was because we simply had too many and the stats for the site were showing that this was potentially putting off a lot of visitors to the website.

So in the interests of trying to grow the community, we 'streamlined' the forums by amalgamating and merging various forums together to try and reduce the confusion about where to post, and to try and keep things a bit tidier.

This might make people think we've removed things, but in actual fact you can find all of the vintage gear posts inside Recording & Production and you are of course welcome to post in there about vintage stuff

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SOS Web Editor, Support & Social Media
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Jennifer,

Thanks for taking the time to respond.

Now that I understand what has happened, I'm thinking it would have been much more appropriate to merge the Vintage forum with Keyboards and Synths rather than in Recording and Production which is a very very broad forum.

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I'm All Ears.

Quote Jennifer Jones:

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and the stats for the site were showing that this was potentially putting off a lot of visitors to the website.

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I can't possibly imagine how any stats could indicate such a thing?!

And what about DIY/electronics?

Some of the moderators no less often advise which-music-course-questioners to go do a electronic engineering degree.

I've always avoided the larger forums sub-sections because they're too general not because they are general

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Original artwork and unique devices inspired by vintage technology http://www.thisisobsolete.com

here's something to chew on.


there are two extreme possibilities for existence... be it of

total Chaos, or complete Order.


in both those extremes, progress cannot happen , and life dies off.

in total chaos, useful info is only as loud as the noise, and distinguishing between them with no frame of reference, is impossible, for every advance, there is step backwards


in complete order, nothing ever changes, things stay firmly in their pigeon holes, and the cross pollination of information ceases, and life and activity stagnates.


therefore, any workable form of existence, (or forum), must therefore be somewhere between those two extremes.


we are simply seeking a new balance, where the flow of information and interaction between members is somewhat freer and more involving than it has been previously, for some time.....

the trouble with partitioning everything off in to small forums, is that the potential for interaction between members becomes much more limited, and it's felt that this is potentially unhealthy...

evolution shows us that isolated backwaters lead to a stagnation of development , leaving species vulnerable to anything new....

Much the same is true of societies, isolated communities tend to stagnate, and become moribund, falling behind the wider world, and a community of audio geeks, is ultimately, a micro-society....

and by encouraging people to mingle , you encourage the exchange of ideas...

finding the optimum balancing point is not easy.... but I think we had strayed to far towards static order, and stagnation.


and so in my view, time for a shake up is well overdue... we should have done this a while back, but such things have been lower down the priorities list than is ideal... (for entirely valid reasons, there are, allegedly, SOME things in life and business that are ultimately rather more important than a web forum. )

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if you don't know who i am, i aint gonna tell you.

I'm half-amazed that it wasn't Kolakube raising this subject!

But yes, I think that the baby may have gone out with the bathwater on this one.

There seems to be far too much lumped into one 'catch-all' forum title and it could be self-defeating. I think the jumble is potentially going to put new punters off.

Just my opinion. I'm sure you guys have put sufficient stats and thought into it.

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An Eagle for an Emperor, A Kestrel for a Knave.

I have to say that I don't like the recent change. Apart from Musician's Lounge. That's OK.

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Gear List: reverse only.

Quote ken long:

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I'm thinking it would have been much more appropriate to merge the Vintage forum with Keyboards and Synths rather than in Recording and Production which is a very very broad forum.

---

Appropriate for vintage synths and keyboards, maybe. But there's plenty of other vintage stuff out there - tape machines, mixers, outboard...

I guess you discuss vintage synths in the keyboards/synths section, and vintage recording gear in the recording and production forum. Works fine for me. Certainly I prefer having fewer fora and a more liberal moderation of what gets discussed where to go hand in hand with it.

Quote The Elf:

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There seems to be far too much lumped into one 'catch-all' forum title and it could be self-defeating. I think the jumble is potentially going to put new punters off.

---

This is close to my concern, already expressed elsewhere. With many more posts going into one forum I reckon we'll see new posts quickly drop down the page and out of sight. You'll know this is happening when you start to see posts that just say something like

Bump

which are intended to bring the thread back to the top. I've seen this happen elsewhere. It definitely tends to disrupt the sense of community and leads to a more combative and generally trollish atmosphere. I hope very much I'm wrong about this.

CC

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Put the fun back into dysfunctional.
Mr Punch's Studio

Certainly, we're not saying that this new layout is here to stay.

We spent a long time deliberating the changes to be made, both at SOS Towers and within the moderation team.

Obviously if it becomes apparent that the new system is not working (i.e. once all the fuss has died down about the changes ) then we will be looking at what we can do to improve the situation for our community.

Bottom line is... we're trying to make things better for everyone, not worse. So if we've failed in that, we'll need to change tactic and we're more than happy to do so.

But it would be good to give this a go first so we know what we need to tweak.

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SOS Web Editor, Support & Social Media
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Quote Max!:

---

here's something to chew on.


there are two extreme possibilities for existence... be it of

total Chaos, or complete Order.


in both those extremes, progress cannot happen , and life dies off.

in total chaos, useful info is only as loud as the noise, and distinguishing between them with no frame of reference, is impossible, for every advance, there is step backwards


in complete order, nothing ever changes, things stay firmly in their pigeon holes, and the cross pollination of information ceases, and life and activity stagnates.


therefore, any workable form of existence, (or forum), must therefore be somewhere between those two extremes.

---

Uh... yeah right. OK dude.

Quote:

---

we are simply seeking a new balance, where the flow of information and interaction between members is somewhat freer and more involving than it has been previously, for some time.....

the trouble with partitioning everything off in to small forums, is that the potential for interaction between members becomes much more limited, and it's felt that this is potentially unhealthy...

---

Oh so its a social engineering exercise... right. Still with you...

Quote:

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evolution shows us that isolated backwaters lead to a stagnation of development , leaving species vulnerable to anything new....

---

One of the definitions of intelligence is the ability to adapt to a new environment. I must be thick then!

Quote:

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Much the same is true of societies, isolated communities tend to stagnate, and become moribund, falling behind the wider world, and a community of audio geeks, is ultimately, a micro-society....

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your point? (other than branding us geeks)

Quote:

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SOME things in life and business that are ultimately rather more important than a web forum. )

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Ah, the gestalt.

With the utmost respect Max (and I mean that), your spiel has come across as arrogant and condescending.

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I'm All Ears.

Quote Jennifer Jones:

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Certainly, we're not saying that this new layout is here to stay.

We spent a long time deliberating the changes to be made, both at SOS Towers and within the moderation team.

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But why were the regular users never consulted? Or should we just do as we're told? It feels elitist, like the forum is more for some people than others.

Quote:

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(i.e. once all the fuss has died down about the changes )

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It's not fuss! Virtual communities are no less valuable to people than physical communities and when they change unexpectedly or without consultation then it can be a big deal for some people.

My use of the SOS forums went something like

Go to SOS > Browse Vintage Gear > Browse DIY/Electronics > Browse Mac > Maybe look in on MRT but probably not as it's so busy.

So as you can imagine it's now a very different experience for me. Fortunately I have a life beyond the Internets so I'm not throwing myself under the nearest train but ... SOS feels different and I'm thinking oh ok maybe I'll hang out more on other sites that cover my specific interests.

Quote:

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Bottom line is... we're trying to make things better for everyone, not worse.

---

But what was so wrong with it before?! There was cross-pollination. Lots of people posted in different sections.

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Original artwork and unique devices inspired by vintage technology http://www.thisisobsolete.com

Quote Max!:

---

here's something to chew on.


there are two extreme possibilities for existence... be it of

total Chaos, or complete Order.


in both those extremes, progress cannot happen , and life dies off.

---

But I think you had the balance bang-on!

Busy main forums, music biz/MRT, pretty busy OS specific forums then various smaller forums catering to more niche interests.

Sounds perfect to me!

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Original artwork and unique devices inspired by vintage technology http://www.thisisobsolete.com

Quote Mixedup:

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Appropriate for vintage synths and keyboards, maybe. But there's plenty of other vintage stuff out there - tape machines, mixers, outboard...

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Indeed. And in my post today which has now descended into the ether, I asked about an Akai tape machine. I did tag it but maybe we could have a simple tagging system which reveals the posts we are seeking by filtering all the other stuff.... maybe.

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I'm All Ears.

Quote jellyjim:

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Quote Max!:

---

here's something to chew on.


there are two extreme possibilities for existence... be it of

total Chaos, or complete Order.


in both those extremes, progress cannot happen , and life dies off.

---

But I think you had the balance bang-on!

Busy main forums, music biz/MRT, pretty busy OS specific forums then various smaller forums catering to more niche interests.

Sounds perfect to me!

---

Yes, because Linux, Apps, and Atari music is so de rigeur these days... I was just curious as to how you came to decide to cull one forum and not another.

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I'm All Ears.

Quote Jennifer Jones:

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The reason for merging forums was because we simply had too many and the stats for the site were showing that this was potentially putting off a lot of visitors to the website.

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Do you want LOTS of visitors, or ones that will contribute?

OK, silly question. There are adverts down the side. You want lots. Fair enough.

Quote ken long:

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With the utmost respect Max (and I mean that), your spiel has come across as arrogant and condescending.

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Sorry Max, I'll give the benefit of the doubt here. You may be on to something. I'll play nice with the other kids...

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I'm All Ears.

Quote Exalted Wombat:

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Quote Jennifer Jones:

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The reason for merging forums was because we simply had too many and the stats for the site were showing that this was potentially putting off a lot of visitors to the website.

---

Do you want LOTS of visitors, or ones that will contribute?

OK, silly question. There are adverts down the side. You want lots. Fair enough.

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Lol!

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Original artwork and unique devices inspired by vintage technology http://www.thisisobsolete.com

Thought I'd give the new set-up a go: just had a quick trawl through a few pages looking for the gems that used to be posted in Vintage Gear...

Found zilch.

Very saddened: the SOS forum was excellent - loved the mini-communities therein.

I guess it's Gearslutz only for me from now on: I don't have the time/inclination to search one big forum - will miss finding out new stuff while hunting in the smaller sections of SOS forum.

I've been a subscriber for years, but am considering cancelling in protest...