New MB Community Site

[Dr_Rez]

Seriously though Im sure if some amount of money for a yearly site was needed, I dont doubt Musicbanter'ers would (myself included) cough up some scrilla to make that happen. Although one of the conditions being Papa RTrack would have to restep up as mod.

[Scarlett O'Hara]

And Urban. And Big3. And Bulldog.

[Gavin B.]

I'd like to see an upgrade of site content which would require a volunteer staff of editorial writers and/or reviewers who wrote regular reviews and essays. Most of the forum threads are haphazard and I do most of my reading in the Editor's Pick and the Music Journal section where you can find some fairly knowledgeable well written reviews & essays. I really don't like the site design and it's in dire need of a face lift.

I'd like to see an expansion of a by-invitation-only music blogs at Music Banter and a less space allocated for the forum which is mostly "my favorite band is cool" type of posts. I'd rather see the forum topics developed and moderated by people with some knowledge of music instead of the current "start a thread on anything under the sun" method which usually develops into a free for all discussion that goes completely off topic by the 4th or 5th reply posting.

For example the reggae music section contains very little discussion about those producers, musicians and bands that built reggae music in the 70s and 80s. Many of the bands discussed in the reggae music section aren't even reggae music musicians at all.

On the other hand, there a number of MB members who have a commanding knowledge of the blues and I was shocked to discover how many MB members know a lot about some of the more esoteric delta blues musicians. I think MB has enough collective musical knowledge among it's core membership to discuss nearly any genre of music under the sun but frequently this forums best contributors are underutilized.

The most interesting participants in MB are the musical generalists who have broad interdisciplinary grasp of several genres of popular music and along and understanding of the traditional music folkways. Generally the only people with that sort of broad musical education are either musicians, music journalists, music retail store owners or employees, radio or sound system deejay or serious music collectors.

[Dr_Rez]

Originally Posted by Gavin B.

For example the reggae music section contains very little discussion about those producers, musicians and bands that built reggae music in the 70s and 80s. Many of the bands discussed in the reggae music section aren't even reggae music musicians at all.

Thre are a few forums like this. Psychadelic rock/metal/reggae are all part of it. I stopped posting bands I like in there that people may not know about because more than half the time noone even posts in the thread.

[Howell]

Originally Posted by Gavin B.

I'd like to see an upgrade of site content which would require a volunteer staff of editorial writers and/or reviewers who wrote regular reviews and essays. Most of the forum threads are haphazard and I do most of my reading in the Editor's Pick and the Music Journal section where you can find some fairly knowledgeable well written reviews & essays. I really don't like the site design and it's in dire need of a face lift.

I'd like to see an expansion of a by-invitation-only music blogs at Music Banter and a less space allocated for the forum which is mostly "my favorite band is cool" type of posts. I'd rather see the forum topics developed and moderated by people with some knowledge of music instead of the current "start a thread on anything under the sun" method which usually develops into a free for all discussion that goes completely off topic by the 4th or 5th reply posting.

For example the reggae music section contains very little discussion about those producers, musicians and bands that built reggae music in the 70s and 80s. Many of the bands discussed in the reggae music section aren't even reggae music musicians at all.

On the other hand, there a number of MB members who have a commanding knowledge of the blues and I was shocked to discover how many MB members know a lot about some of the more esoteric delta blues musicians. I think MB has enough collective musical knowledge among it's core membership to discuss nearly any genre of music under the sun but frequently this forums best contributors are underutilized.

The most interesting participants in MB are the musical generalists who have broad interdisciplinary grasp of several genres of popular music and along and understanding of the traditional music folkways. Generally the only people with that sort of broad musical education are either musicians, music journalists, music retail store owners or employees, radio or sound system deejay or serious music collectors.

Could have not put it better myself..

There is definitley a great opportunity to get some reviews, news items, gig alerts etc. going on this website and again we can assign certain MB members to cover them, I 'spose it would be more of a 'magazine' type thing but it would be mainly down to:

Who is gonna be the "head editior' who will post the news,reviews etc on the site

Certain sub editiors for like the News, Reviews section

The writers (and they will be assigned certain roles to write on)

It's a also a good way to help people who do wanna get into the music journalism world who can put it down on their CV which will definetly attract the employers eye in my book

[music_phantom13]

http://www.musicbanter.com/members-j...r-gazette.html

I just think, outside of GavinB and a few others here, most people will lose interest in a project like that based on previous posting history. I hope it works, I'd love to read something like that, but I was really excited for the MB Gazette as well as a lot of the journals I've seen pop up and die in a matter of days or weeks, so now I'm not getting my hopes up. I know I'd have a hard time doing it.

[cardboard adolescent]

I think the grass is plenty green over here.

[djchameleon]

I was wondering what's the status on this site. You can send it to me in a PM if need be.

[Guybrush]

Originally Posted by djchameleon

I was wondering what's the status on this site. You can send it to me in a PM if need be.

As far as I know, there is no current development .. although not being a mod anymore nor having my finger on the pulse of what goes on here in general, I could be out of the loop.

I've reconsidered after a long hard think. Musicbanter is about music, all kinds of music. That means we're not all interested in the same thing. That leads to the problem that even with a new site with a nice blog frontpage etc, if you write f.ex an album review on John Zorn, it's a very small minority here who will care. However, if you wrote an article on John Zorn in a community dedicated to him or at least his flavours of avantgarde music, a larger portion of the community would care about it.

The problem then is that if it's only a very small portion of the community that cares when you write about something, then chances are you won't feel "rewarded" for the writing you do. I thought a front page and so on could change MB into a place that rewards writers, but I'm now sceptical that it will. It might for those who write about things the majority care about, but not for the nicheists. If you want to write about or discuss a particular niche style, genre or scene, then it may be better to do that in a community dedicated to that sort of stuff. Most of my efforts and interests in MB have been nichey and now I'm thinking that I I'll take those interests elsewhere and just use MB for discussing my "other" more general musical interests.

I'm done trying to change MB and will try to just enjoy it for what it is in the future.

[djchameleon]

See the thing about writing reviews and journals is that you should write it because you love the artist/band you are reviewing.

Not because you wanted to rewarded or have people actually read it. If you are writing a journal/review just because you want others to read it then your source of inspiration to write about it is a bit flawed.

I read a lot of the journals but I don't post in them saying that I have read them. I don't feel like the writer of the journal needs their ego to be stroke or w/e. They should be writing about things that interest them and if some others find value in it that's nice and if they don't, then they don't.

You can't really force people to read and be into something that they don't like basically.