Quote:
Originally Posted by Lisnaholic
^ I think this is clearest answer to the OP question so far.
^ A thread like that would be very welcome, Gavin B, because you are a very knowledgeable poster, but I´m not sure about the last bit that you wrote. Firstly, people do use this forum. Oddly enough, they are people who are interested in country, folk and world music. There may not be many of us, but who is to say if that is a problem or a blessing?
^ Strictly speaking, country music is in a forum called Folk & World Music. I think MB´s world music forum is for music from anywhere in the world that retains some regional element, so that when you initially hear it you think, "Ah! That´s Russian!" before you think, "Ah! that´s jazz!" To me, especially given what Sir Cactoos says, this forum is a logical place for country music. For many of us, country music comes from a foreign country and is immediately identifiable as being American.
Paradoxically, the term "international music", that you use, could be thought of as referring to the very music which is excluded from this particular forum; music that has so little regional content that it could come from/be popular anywhere in the world. In this sense, the other MB forums are full of international music; electronica, pop, even jazz now that it´s broken out of it´s regional cradle.
^ After mentioning how this forum doesn´t get much traffic, it seems a bit unwise to suggest dividing it down even furthur.
^ At last there´s something I agree with! I think there´s a really strong case for including all the Ska and Reggae threads in the world music forum, which might help to boost activity here.
However, although the names "No Depression" and "Outernational" sound really cool, they won´t be as clear to anyone as the present forum title is. It would be like calling the electronica thread "Morganspaziergang" because that´s the name of a Kraftwerk track.
Finally, Gavin B., I´d like to apologize for being so picky about your post. I´ve read with great admiration some of the things you´ve posted in MB and the last thing I want to do is to scare you away from contributing to this section of MB. What I´d love to see is you starting your thread here, and with the reputation that your name carries, anyone who is interested will follow the thread. The bottom line is, as you know, that threads should be located according to topic, not according to how much attention they might receive. 
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If you read my post carefully I think we're both saying the same thing. I completely agree that it's appropriate to have country music in the same forum as folk music but other forms of unique roots music like rural blues (pre-WWII folk blues), bluegrass, Celtic music and other regional music should be included. I'm actually arguing that the genre content of this forum be expanded.
You're right, international music is really the odd genre out in this forum. And we both agree that it could be remedied by merging it with the reggae music forum. I don't think reggae music should be moved into folk/country/international forum, however. It would be a lose/lose situation. Adding reggae music to the mix would really confuse readers about the nature of the country/folk/international forum.
As it currently stands the country, folk and international forum has become a catch-all forum for musical forms that aren't that popular with the masses... or at least the masses who participate in music forums. If I ran the zoo, there would be a single forum titled "Reggae and International Music."
The total sales of country music (
55.8 million units in 2012) makes it the fourth most popular musical genre in the world but apparently country music fans don't participate in music forums. In fact country music sales were up 42% in 2012 compared to 2011 sales figures. That makes country music that fastest growing genre of music in the world... if you measure success purely on economic terms. Apparently few of those devotees of country music have found the Music Banter forum. Maybe country music fans don't read or write about the music they love.
It would be easy enough for me to post my proposed Outernational music thread in the Member's Journal fourm of the MB Reader section, and reach a much larger readership there. There's nothing wrong with me wanting to post a thread in the forum that receives the most number of views by MB members... but I currently have misgivings about starting a second journal in MB Reader section, especially since there's a avid competition for readership in the Members Journal forum which I'm reluctant to participate in.
My proposals were ideas to increase the readership of one of the lesser trafficked forums at Music Banter. Yes, you are being prickly but so am I. Neither of us should have to apologize for having passionate ideas on how to increase readership in the Music Banter forum.
I really do believe that each forum can be packaged in a manner that increases readership and a lot of it has to do with the stylistic presentation of each forum, not the content.
I'm going to go ahead and start my Outernational thread in this forum but I think it's out of place in a forum that includes country music and folk music.