"What are you listening to right now" Threads Question
 

Does anyone else think that these "What are you listening to right now" threads might be stunting discussion?

I ask for two reasons:

1. I rarely go in the thread because its either a pithy one-off sentence or a youtube video.

2. I see them bumped a lot.

Do those threads (this is a "your opinion" question) prevent a band thread from being made or an existing thread from being elaborated on? I get the impression that they were created at the height of the "Being on MB with nothing to talk about" craze and they've carried over.

I'm not saying I'm right - I'm asking - but it seems to me we'd be better served by getting rid of them.

I don't like them, I think all chain threads are a waste of time but others don't.

I definitely think they're usually just spam threads, but on occasion they do foster some discussion. Not so much the main "What Are You Listening to Thread" since their are so many posts a day and they're all posts of such different music, but the other ones tend to have a bit of discussion here and there.

But I also have to say that if you're posting in one of those threads, then you probably don't particularly feel like making/contributing to a more in depth thread about the band.

They serve a purpose and I rather keep them. I always go into them and listen to some of the songs that people post and regardless if they said anything about it. I might come across something new that I enjoy. I don't need to have commentary along with a track to decide whether or not I want to listen to something. Just like you said you can avoid it and unsubscribe from it but I definitely get mileage out of that thread and others like it.

I'm against getting rid of them and that's the bottom line. If people did want to really discuss a band/artist then they would create a thread about it anyways but most people realize that you won't get any new posts in said thread. You may only get a few views and that's about it.

But whats the argument for them? People are too lazy to find the thread devoted to the band?

From my perspective, I only click "New Posts" and go into what strikes me as interesting. If I were to go into a "What are you listening to" thread and they just posted a youtube video and some non-descript comment, I have nothing else to go on. If its in an actual thread about the artist(s), then I've got a little bit of an idea of whats going on already.

I just feel like these threads are the lowest common denominator and more over, discussion that happens in those threads actually hurts the thread about the band because a piece of the discussion is now disjointed. I'm not burning with a passion to seem them removed, but I don't see what positives they give us.

I just broke down the positives that they give us. Well that they give me, they probably don't give you any positive because you want to see a well worded discussion about the track prior to listening to it but I don't need that. Sure, it can be a bit spammy and a bit of a dumping ground but I do listen to some of those and I end up finding artists/bands that I wouldn't have listened to on my own. Forcing people to create a thread about each band that they post about and having them do a write up is a negative in my opinion. Sure it may foster better discussion but in my experience they are normally avoided and you don't get much response from them.

I agree also in that I find them a little pointless, a few times I've gone in there and commented on others' videos and tried to start discussion about things that have been posted but rarely does anyone reply... It's usually just a sentenceless video post.

I don't get the reasoning behind "oh it's pointless so instead of me skipping over it, we should get rid of them"

Because its actively damaging the existing threads for those acts. We benefit from consolidated discussion.

Consolidated discussion isn't going to magically happen when those type of threads are gone.