What is the point of this forum?

As I'm re-doing the charter next week, I thought we could have a chat as to what's the point of this forum?
I don't mean it in a negative way, but I'd like to know what you, the user wants this forum to be?

To me, it should be more than just a "Band members sought/offered" part of boards.ie. I want to build a community here of bands/musicians. Ideally, I'd like us to have our first beers as part of the Santa Strike Force this year.
But if it is just "band members wanted/offered, we could (hypothetically speaking) move it to adverts.ie and no-one would notice. After all, all the "Band members wanted/offered" are just ads at the end of the day.

Do you want to leave it as it is?
Do you want to have more discussion that is about the dynamics of band work?
Do you want more advice?

What do you, the user want?

Dave H

Excellent point.
Maybe if you were ad a kind of sub section,like the way instruments has playing techniques & theory and so many of the other forums have, and leave that as the musicians wanted/available section, and have the main bands & musician page as,like you said, a band community page, and have all ads & such moved to that page if they are accidentally posted on this one.

Personally I think you have a great idea in creating a band community page, I find (and this is just my thoughts folks) that there's not really a camaraderie between bands on this site, bar from the posters that know each other and their bands personally. I think it would help the likes of bands starting off to get in touch with bands a bit more established to gain knowledge, attain gigs and gain experience from each other.
I know there is a band promotion page but that's what it is, bands promoting themselves, whereas a community page would give bands a better chance to actually get to know each other.
Sorry if everything I posted is something you've already thought about but I think it's a great idea.

Owen

If you go down the road of a separate musicians wanted/availalbe forum, have a look at previous threads where we discussed having a mandatory drop down subject prefix for new threads so the county would be in the title. The mods at the time were considering it as one potential way to tidy up the cacophony of the existing ads, but never trialled it or pursued it. I still think it'd be a good idea and would clear up a lot of mess.

Ampeg

Leave as is.

If you want to add a band members want only forum that be better than moving it to adverts.

mg1

I personally tough that this section was supposed to be for "members wanted/ offered, thats what musicians & bands are for, and the "music" section for all the other topics which bands wish to discuss.
i like it the way it is to be honest but i suppose not everyone has time to kill trawling trough pages looking for different things!

raindog.promo

This could be for bands/musicians to shoot the **** as it were, get advice on getting gigs, putting press packs together, band etiquette etc. with musicians wanted original/professional/cover bands as seperate stickies?

Malice

Great idea for a thread!

Deleted User wrote: »

To me, it should be more than just a "Band members sought/offered" part of boards.ie. I want to build a community here of bands/musicians. Ideally, I'd like us to have our first beers as part of the Santa Strike Force this year.

That's a good idea in theory but in reality I don't think there are that many regular users of the forum to have enough for a meet-up. I organised a meet-up for the Rock & Metal forum in the summer of 2010 and, while it went well, I think only a small percentage of those that said they'd turn up actually did.

Although even if it was just you and we going on the lash I'm sure we'd manage to have a laugh .

Deleted User wrote:

But if it is just "band members wanted/offered, we could (hypothetically speaking) move it to adverts.ie and no-one would notice. After all, all the "Band members wanted/offered" are just ads at the end of the day.

This is an interesting proposal. Obviously moving the ads to a separate site would take them out of our jurisdiction. I wonder how the Adverts.ie mods would feel about an increased workload?

Deleted User wrote:

Do you want to leave it as it is?

I suppose the follow-on question from that is whether there is a feeling that the forum is inherently broken as-is or whether it could be much better if things were re-organised.

Deleted User wrote:

Do you want to have more discussion that is about the dynamics of band work?
Do you want more advice?

I don't think anyone's going to answer no to either of those questions. The problem is that unless the threads are stickied or very busy they will very quickly disappear off the front page.

mg1 wrote:

not everyone has time to kill trawling trough pages

That's where hopefully they learn to use the Search function.

Owen wrote:

The mods at the time were considering it as one potential way to tidy up the cacophony of the existing ads, but never trialled it or pursued it.

We did pursue it but I gave up asking the admins about it since it seemed to get perpetually pushed to the back of the queue.

Rigsby

Personally, I'd be inclined to leave things as they are. The name of the forum i.e. "Bands and Musicians" implies, and rightly so, that the forum is for all aspects of this subject.

As for having a "community," it is a great idea in theory. However, I have come across lots of posters looking to join/start a band, who may have joined "Boards" years ago, but may only have one or two posts. Granted there is nothing wrong here, I am just saying that the ingredients for a "community" are not there, as lots of people only post if/when they want to join a band. Also, we all know how hard it can be to get potentially interested people to manifest themselves by meeting up. I am not tarring everyone with the same brush here, but generally this has been my experience.

To sum up, you are still going to be dealing with the same pool of people so I don't see how changing the forum will make much of a difference. If it is not broken ( and I dont believe it is ), then why fix it ?

First off, I was a little worried about starting this thread as it could imply that something is broken. I don't think it is, and the fact that this post actually got responses tells me we already have a little community thing here. So, thanks

I like the idea of "band members sought" sub forum. And having this as what raindog said, "This could be for bands/musicians to shoot the **** as it were, get advice on getting gigs, putting press packs together, band etiquette etc. " There's a myriad of things that we can talk about that involves band stuff that's not really covered by other forums.

Duke Leonal Felmet

No other forum seems to cover the topic of being a musician in a band (or solo).

I'm not sure how to break the cycle of this place being a noticeboard, though. I think a 'members wanted' sub forum is probably the best step.

Rigsby

Deleted User wrote: »

I like the idea of "band members sought" sub forum.

I'm a little confused here I was under the impression that this forum catered for that, among other things to do with bands. If the sub forum was set up, what would be the function of this forum.

I answered that the sentence after

This forum would be, "Bands & Musicians" for people to, as raindog put it "This (forum) could be for bands/musicians to shoot the **** as it were, get advice on getting gigs, putting press packs together, band etiquette etc. "

The sub forum to this would be for musicians wanted/offered

Rigsby

Duke Leonal Felmet wrote: »

No other forum seems to cover the topic of being a musician in a band (or solo).

I'm not sure how to break the cycle of this place being a noticeboard, though. I think a 'members wanted' sub forum is probably the best step.

Nothing stopping anyone starting a thread about being a musician in a band on this forum, is there ? There is nothing to specifically say it is a notice board, just that it is generally used as such. As I said earlier "Bands and Musicians" can, if you want it to, cover a multitude.

Rigsby

Rigsby wrote: »

Nothing stopping anyone starting a thread about being a musician in a band on this forum, is there ? There is nothing to specifically say it is a notice board, just that it is generally used as such. As I said earlier "Bands and Musicians" can, if you want it to, cover a multitude.

Nothing stopping people at all, but when notices are being bumped or responded to, it drops down discussion threads to sometimes page 3, so a worthwhile discussion might not get seen by people who would like to respond.

I actually quite like

Bands/Musicians (Parent forum)
- Bands/Musician noticeboard (Sub forum)

This is still all hypothetical at this stage.

Rigsby

Another reason I'd suggest for keeping things as they are is that people who are posting just to get a band going would see the "off topic" thread and maybe get involved, contributing something useful in the process. Where as otherwise he/she might not even bother to look at the sub forum.

Well, they'd have to get into the main forum first, to get into the sub forum (where the ads/notices will be). So they might see some of the discussions and get involved.

Rigsby

Deleted User wrote: »

Well, they'd have to get into the main forum first, to get into the sub forum (where the ads/notices will be). So they might see some of the discussions and get involved.

Fair enough. I have pointed out why I think things should stay as they are. If the majority want a sub forum though, then so be it.

Cheers Rigsby. I just want to suss out the general mood and want to hear all suggestions. As I say, this is all hypothetical at the moment.

Malice

Deleted User wrote: »

Well, they'd have to get into the main forum first, to get into the sub forum

Maybe I'm not imagining it correctly but if it's going to be setup in the same way that say Playing & Techniques & Theory is a sub-forum of Instruments then there is no requirement for the parent forum to be clicked-through first.

Yeah, sorry my bad!

I kind of meant that when you go into the parent forum i.e. instruments, you see playing techniques and theory is on the top of that page.

So someone *might* click on bands/musicians to place an ad. Then see that the ads are actually in the noticeboard section, but in the meantime, see what threads are actually being discussed on the parent forum.

I think I've made this clear as mud

Malice

No that's grand, I understand .

Bootsy.

Deleted User wrote: »

Bands/Musicians (Parent forum)
- Bands/Musician noticeboard (Sub forum)

+1

I definitely like this idea anyway. I always thought it should be like this tbh.
It would make it a bit tidier and also I think that by taking the focus off 'wanted ads' it may actually encourage more discussion threads in the main forum.

Duke Leonal Felmet

Pappa Dolla wrote: »

I answered that the sentence after

This forum would be, "Bands & Musicians" for people to, as raindog put it "This (forum) could be for bands/musicians to shoot the **** as it were, get advice on getting gigs, putting press packs together, band etiquette etc. "

The sub forum to this would be for musicians wanted/offered

Exactly.

Duke Leonal Felmet

Rigsby wrote: »

Duke Leonal Felmet wrote: »

No other forum seems to cover the topic of being a musician in a band (or solo).

I'm not sure how to break the cycle of this place being a noticeboard, though. I think a 'members wanted' sub forum is probably the best step.

Nothing stopping anyone starting a thread about being a musician in a band on this forum, is there ? There is nothing to specifically say it is a notice board, just that it is generally used as such. As I said earlier "Bands and Musicians" can, if you want it to, cover a multitude.

There are too many notices to facilitate normal discussion. It's like the Sky News ticker, things just fly down the page. That off topic thread disappeared within a couple of hours. No one saw it.

guitarzero

Well I'd be up for a Xmas meet up. Btw, im a bit drunk and havent fully read all thats been posted. I think its good to keep this post forum up, other than gumtree what else is there?

Angel L.

leave it as it is

Duke Leonal Felmet

Angel L. wrote: »

leave it as it is

Can I ask why you are opposed to a main talk forum and ads sub forum? I don't see what it would take away from the ads forum, personally. Maybe I don't see it.

Rigsby

While I agree it is a good and interesting idea to "shoot the *****" ( as raindog promo so elegantly puts it ) why the sudden need or want to do so. I am just curious. There has not been a non "band members wanted" thread posted on this forum for quite a period time, apart from the "bands paying tax" thread. I could understand people wanting a sub forum if there were lots of these type of threads on this forum every day, and people were missing them because they were dropping down through the page too fast.

As I said, I am merely curious at this sudden surge of "community spirit".

Duke Leonal Felmet

Rigsby wrote: »

While I agree it is a good and interesting idea to "shoot the *****" ( as raindog promo so elegantly puts it ) why the sudden need or want to do so. I am just curious. There has not been a non "band members wanted" thread posted on this forum for quite a period time, apart from the "bands paying tax" thread. I could understand people wanting a sub forum if there were lots of these type of threads on this forum every day, and people were missing them because they were dropping down through the page too fast.

As I said, I am merely curious at this sudden surge of "community spirit".

You'll never know whether there is true demand for a forum until you actually make one. I have seen some forums opened here with lots of plus ones in forum requests, yet when it opens, it's a ghost town. So maybe you will be right, maybe you will be wrong.
Personally, I would like the opportunity to chat with other musicians on the topic of being in a band, to hear about opportunities with gigs, promoters, etc. I don't believe the current format can facilitate that. Way too much ad traffic, and that puts me off from starting threads.

As for having a sub forum, I don't see what it has to lose. It will be just as easy to locate it either on Google, or on the dropdown menu, when you hover the mouse over 'Bands and Musicians'.

So the only real risk is having a chat forum where there are too few posts. Big deal, after six months if it hasn't work they can just change back.

I don't see the issue.

Rigsby

Duke Leonal Felmet wrote: »

You'll never know whether there is true demand for a forum until you actually make one. I have seen some forums opened here with lots of plus ones in forum requests, yet when it opens, it's a ghost town. So maybe you will be right, maybe you will be wrong.
Personally, I would like the opportunity to chat with other musicians on the topic of being in a band, to hear about opportunities with gigs, promoters, etc. I don't believe the current format can facilitate that. Way too much ad traffic, and that puts me off from starting threads.

As for having a sub forum, I don't see what it has to lose. It will be just as easy to locate it either on Google, or on the dropdown menu, when you hover the mouse over 'Bands and Musicians'.

So the only real risk is having a chat forum where there are too few posts. Big deal, after six months if it hasn't work they can just change back.

I don't see the issue.

There is no issue. As I said earlier, if the majority want a sub forum, then that's alright with me. My point was that if this "community spirit" is as strong as people are saying, then surely there would have been at least some attempts at starting such threads on the current forum, regardless of the facilities or lack there of.

Duke Leonal Felmet

Rigsby wrote: »

Duke Leonal Felmet wrote: »

You'll never know whether there is true demand for a forum until you actually make one. I have seen some forums opened here with lots of plus ones in forum requests, yet when it opens, it's a ghost town. So maybe you will be right, maybe you will be wrong.
Personally, I would like the opportunity to chat with other musicians on the topic of being in a band, to hear about opportunities with gigs, promoters, etc. I don't believe the current format can facilitate that. Way too much ad traffic, and that puts me off from starting threads.

As for having a sub forum, I don't see what it has to lose. It will be just as easy to locate it either on Google, or on the dropdown menu, when you hover the mouse over 'Bands and Musicians'.

So the only real risk is having a chat forum where there are too few posts. Big deal, after six months if it hasn't work they can just change back.

I don't see the issue.

There is no issue. As I said earlier, if the majority want a sub forum, then that's alright with me. My point was that if this "community spirit" is as strong as people are saying, then surely there would have been at least some attempts at starting such threads on the current forum, regardless of the facilities or lack there of.

I'm not sure what the community spirit thing refers to, I just reckon there might be demand for it once it's up and running. If not, nothing is lost.

Rigsby

Duke Leonal Felmet wrote: »

I'm not sure what the community spirit thing refers to, I just reckon there might be demand for it once it's up and running. If not, nothing is lost.

The community spirit I'd imagine is something similar to the quote below. I agree that nothing is lost, so why didn't Papa Dolla just go ahead and do it anyway. Instead he looked for feedback. Hence this thread.

raindog.promo wrote: »

This could be for bands/musicians to shoot the **** as it were, get advice on getting gigs, putting press packs together, band etiquette etc.

Duke Leonal Felmet

Rigsby wrote: »

Duke Leonal Felmet wrote: »

I'm not sure what the community spirit thing refers to, I just reckon there might be demand for it once it's up and running. If not, nothing is lost.

The community spirit I'd imagine is something similar to the quote below. I agree that nothing is lost, so why didn't Papa Dolla just go ahead and do it anyway. Instead he looked for feedback. Hence this thread.

raindog.promo wrote: »

This could be for bands/musicians to shoot the **** as it were, get advice on getting gigs, putting press packs together, band etiquette etc.

But that quote could describe any forum, it's what most forums are about. Observe:

raindog.promo
This could be for hikers to shoot the
**** as it were, get advice on good climbs, putting
hiking packs together, group etiquette etc.

Almost every 'technical' forum has this type of thing, what is the point of having such forums if people don't discuss the topic at hand? So why the community spirit in inverted commas?

Are you simply disagreeing for the sake of it? I reckon people are too used to seeing this as nothing but a noticeboard. If that changed, people would see some other uses for it. Who would have thought a mustard forum would work, for example? You never know until you try it.

raindog.promo

All it takes is for a couple of posters to stick up band mate wanted ads for a topic (ie discussion) thread to disappear off the first page. You're not going to really look up more than 3 pages of topics unless you're very bored mostly (in my experience) and the way some discussion topics keep reoccuring shows that some people at least are interested in discussion on certain subjects.

If these discussions were grouped together, people may come back to them more often. I have a feeling that someone needs to find out about (for example) booking gigs so they make a post about how do i book gigs? others may give advice and then the original poster, having got what s/he wants leaves the forum until they want something else again without contributing to other discussion threads. Maybe if they were grouped together, there would be more contributers.

As has been pointed out, there's no harm in trying it and if it doesn't work, changing it back 6 months down the line.

Malice

Rigsby wrote: »

There has not been a non "band members wanted" thread posted on this forum for quite a period time, apart from the "bands paying tax" thread.

Actually I started a thread on songwriting last month and also the off-topic thread. Both of which have become victims of getting bumped back a few pages and subsequently forgotten as a result of not having a daily update.

Rigsby

raindog.promo wrote: »

All it takes is for a couple of posters to stick up band mate wanted ads for a topic (ie discussion) thread to disappear off the first page. You're not going to really look up more than 3 pages of topics unless you're very bored mostly (in my experience) and the way some discussion topics keep reoccuring shows that some people at least are interested in discussion on certain subjects.

If these discussions were grouped together, people may come back to them more often. I have a feeling that someone needs to find out about (for example) booking gigs so they make a post about how do i book gigs? others may give advice and then the original poster, having got what s/he wants leaves the forum until they want something else again without contributing to other discussion threads. Maybe if they were grouped together, there would be more contributers.

As has been pointed out, there's no harm in trying it and if it doesn't work, changing it back 6 months down the line.

Malice wrote: »

Actually I started a thread on songwriting last month and also the off-topic thread. Both of which have become victims of getting bumped back a few pages and subsequently forgotten as a result of not having a daily update.

Fair enough lads, you have convinced me. To be honost, I had not realised that threads fall so fast down the page.

Does anyone have a decent name for this hypothetical sub-forum?

MilanPan!c

Deleted User wrote: »

Does anyone have a decent name for this hypothetical sub-forum?

May I suggest '"hypothetical" sub-forum'?

Rigsby

Deleted User wrote: »

Does anyone have a decent name for this hypothetical sub-forum?

The best I can come up with at present is "Musician's Chat Room".

Malice

If it helps we've already discussed and dismissed "Musical Notes", "The Green Room", "Shop window" and "Backstage".

The hierarchy we're looking at is as follows:
Bands & Musicians Community

---

> Musicians Available or Wanted

so potentially we could rename both forums if a suitable pair of names presented themselves.

Duke Leonal Felmet

Malice wrote: »

If it helps we've already discussed and dismissed "Musical Notes", "The Green Room", "Shop window" and "Backstage".

The hierarchy we're looking at is as follows:
Bands & Musicians Community

---

> Musicians Available or Wanted

so potentially we could rename both forums if a suitable pair of names presented themselves.

I think that sounds fine as it is.

Esy

Malice wrote: »

If it helps we've already discussed and dismissed "Musical Notes", "The Green Room", "Shop window" and "Backstage".

The hierarchy we're looking at is as follows:
Bands & Musicians Community

---

> Musicians Available or Wanted

so potentially we could rename both forums if a suitable pair of names presented themselves.

The primary forum should be the musicians wanted part as I would have thought that's the main reason the vast majority of people visit the page for the first time.

I've had experience with this before with the "No Drama" forum. We were getting bogged down with chat and threads that didn't have a lot to do with theatre. We created another sub forum with the intention of using that for the off topic chat. It didn't work. The main forum still kept getting bogged down with chat/off topic threads, whilst the other forum died off.
What we are talking about is re-organising and re-prioritising the bands/musicians forum. If we have the discussion as a sub forum, we won't get as many people using it. So we put our heaviest traffic (wanted/available) into a sub forum, so people will possibly spend more time on the parent forum.

Apart from deleting spam and cleaning threads, one of the jobs of a moderator is to foster a forum. I personally think we can change some of the things in this forum to make it more accessible for all, instead of just a bloated "bands ads forum"

Esy

Well, from what I can see, the vast, vast, majority of threads on the forum are wanted ads. If that's what most people want, that's what most people should get. Just like a business, it should be the market that dictates any changes and the "market" are here for the ads. I really don't see what the problem is anyway. So what if a thread goes off on a tangent for a post or three? I would have thought most people are intelligent enough simply to ignore posts that have nothing to do with the OP just like most people will ignore threads that are of no interest to them. The only reason I can see for splitting the forum is purely aesthetic and that's not a valid reason from where I'm sitting anyway.

Duke Leonal Felmet

Esy wrote: »

Well, from what I can see, the vast, vast, majority of threads on the forum are wanted ads. If that's what most people want, that's what most people should get. Just like a business, it should be the market that dictates any changes and the "market" are here for the ads. I really don't see what the problem is anyway. So what if a thread goes off on a tangent for a post or three? I would have thought most people are intelligent enough simply to ignore posts that have nothing to do with the OP just like most people will ignore threads that are of no interest to them. The only reason I can see for splitting the forum is purely aesthetic and that's not a valid reason from where I'm sitting anyway.

As has been discussed extensively in above posts, how do you know if there is a demand for such a forum when the current format does not adequately facilitate chat because any such threads gets bumped away immediately. As a consequence, it is likely that people don't bother posting chat threads in this forum for that reason, and because when they see this forum they assume that it is for ads only. The split will solve all above issues, and will not damage the noticeboard in the slightest. Far from being for aesthetic purposes, this is actually based on pragmatism and experience.

Finally, you seem to be confusing the issue entirely. This isn't about threads going off tangent, it's about discussions flying into oblivion because so many ads are posted every day. Chatting in this forum cannot work under this traffic.

Thanks Esy,
You're right, the market does dictate what happens. I have been mod of this forum since 2007, and when I started we would have on average one discussion thread every couple of months. It was here to serve as a place where people could form bands and seek out other musicians.
Over the last year we have had some really good interesting threads on topics as diverse as "How to get yourself a deal", "publishing" "CD duplication" "problems with promoters" - these are just from the top off my head. What I have seen happen is these discussion threads that start off as good, informative discussions end up on page 3 while ahead of them is 40+ ads looking for musicians and more often than not, the last post on these is "bump".
It is clear to me as a moderator that we need to address this, so I put it out to the community. They have suggested the creation of a sub-forum that will address the ads, and we can have more discussion on the parent forum without fear that the threads will end up on page 3 after 24 hours. So it's not just aesthetically pleasing, it should serve a purpose too. Those who are placing ads won't be put off, and musicians have somewhere to talk about the stuff that can't be covered in songwriting/instruments etc.

Malice

Esy: You make some fair points but I think this is key:

Duke Leonal Felmet wrote: »

This isn't about threads going off tangent, it's about discussions flying into oblivion because so many ads are posted every day.

Grolschevik

Malice wrote: »

Esy: You make some fair points but I think this is key:

For example:

Apart from the ones stickied at the start of the first page, here are some examples of potentially useful and interesting threads from just the first couple of pages (and just the last couple of days) that are in danger of being consigned to the dark depths of the forum by the sheer number of 'musicians wanted’ ads.

So I agree with the suggestion to segregate those ads out into a sub-forum.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056423779

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056420446

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056395189

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056421595

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056416760

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056285982

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056421578

And I’d keep this:
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055979703

This: http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055844512

And this on the main page:
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055711711

While may be moving this (or duplicating it there?) to the ‘wanted’ subforum:
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055668840

roast

I tend to browse this forum quite a lot. In the past, it was to find musicians, but now that I'm in a band, I generally browse it for all the other threads. I don't post an awful lot, but there's some interesting reads nonetheless. It'd make a lot of sense to switch the classifieds to Adverts, but I still feel this forum could be strong based on all the other types of threads located here.

Malice

roast wrote: »

It'd make a lot of sense to switch the classifieds to Adverts

Why? It makes no sense to me to do that but I'm open to being convinced.

roast

Malice wrote: »

Why? It makes no sense to me to do that but I'm open to being convinced.

Well, in my opinion it's best to keep classifieds with classifieds. And seeing as there's already a platform in place (adverts) to do this, I reckon it might be easier. Probably not enough to convince you, but in my head it makes sense. :pac: Either way, I like the current format.