SATCHMO

This is fairly accurate description of what this site has become for me, although at one point it was much more of a social outlet, which is ironic because it was also when Music Banter was much more about bantering about music (Who else remembers pre-lounge MB?).

This isn't a soapbox rant. MB has simply evolved into what it is, and what it is will to appeal to some and not to others.

Pretty simple actually.

DeadShotKeen

I'm new here and I think it's a good site. There's lots of plusses: looks and works great, tons of people here, great ordering and attention-to-detail re: the different genre sections etc. (ie real easy to find what you're looking for). I like the "latest comment fires thread to top" thing, which means you can have a long-running discussion and good threads don't die prematurely.

I kind of like and don't like the way all of the threads are regimentally ordered, eg "The Radiohead thread", "The Sigur Ros thread" etc. and new threads about an act just get tagged on there. Great as a source of info on a new act you're checking out but some of them become a bit overlong and unreadable as a result. I think if someone wants to start a new thread they should be allowed, the old one can always be refreshed as well, doesn't have to an either/or.

It's a terrific "source of information" site for these reasons but doesn't lend itself so well to quick banter (ironically!)

Also I'd like it if it only flagged up threads as having new posts since I last logged out, rather than if I've never seen them. There's a reason I haven't opened those threads! And the banner pic at the top (the guitar/decks/CD thing) is a bit naff I think, I'd change that just to a text logo or something.

Pros outweigh the cons though. Nice job by those that take the time to run and maintain it.

DeadShotKeen

In terms of people worrying about music elitism, negative comments etc., it's just opinion, don't be so thin-skinned. Negative commentary is just as valid as positive, as long as it's relatively well substantiated and avoids personal insults etc. there's no problem. If someone speaking ill of your favourite record is a cause of upset for you then you don't belong on a music forum, end of story.

pourmeanother

I responded to a similar 'downfall of MB' post 4 months ago to the day. In that post I said all forums go through a lifecycle, and the inevitable end is always a painful death (usually about 5 years after being created). If I remember right even you, Big3, criticized my point when I made it. This thread has the same familiar tone as that one, and nothing has changed. Even sites based around topics that have an unlimited pool to talk about (like music, sports, etc) are not immune. It's just life, baby. Let 'er die in peace...

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Life is just blah, blah, blah
You hope for blah
And sometimes you find it, but mostly it's blah
And waiting for blah
And hoping you were right about the blahs you made
And then, just when you think you've got the whole blah'd damn thing figured out
And you're surrounded by the ones you blah
Death shows up... anddd blah, blah, blah.

TheBig3

either the reading comprehension is lacking, or you didn't read what I wrote.

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mr dave

this site isn't even close to dead.

not even close to dying.

Right-Track's ideas of having a magazine style site associated with the forums is top notch but setting up and maintaining something like that is a lot more work than what people are normally willing to do for free in their spare time.

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i am the universe

TheBig3

I think Another is pushing for his/her verdict to be correct to avoid being wrong.

As far as work in your spare time is concerned, I will says its disheartening to put time and energy into something and have it get 42 views and 0 replies. Thats my personal bitch for the day.

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anticipation

You guys think it sucks now, wait till the summertime when we're all too busy drinking and getting laid to care about music.

Guybrush

Great read, Big3. You make a lot of good points and it was really well written. I largely agree with you.

To Right-Track, I think your idea actually sounds really good and it should be easy to do as well. You could move the forums to something like http://forums.musicbanter.com and then have a sort of blog/journal/mag thing on the front page with selected material from the editor's pick.

Even I could do it. You could just install wordpress and then those who want/are worthy can register there and get promoted to contributor status so that they can post their articles and reviews on the blog part of the site. In essence, you could keep the forum and add the music journal idea on top. Nothing much would change for those whose only wish is to stay on the forums.

As for other ideas for the future, I would like more community-minded stuff. Me, Anteater and Comus - although we're a tiny group of the users here - used to chat quite a bit outside of the forums and listen to Comus' radio show Good times, but it's been quite a few months. Incidentally, the last version of MSN is so dysfunctional on my computer that instant messaging with it has become a pain in the arse so I'm not on much anymore at the moment. I really wish the IRC chatroom had become more popular, but it seems just a tad too technical for most.

I'm gonna see if I can come up with some more community stuff we can do on the forums, possibly some games where members make teams which compete against eachother.

edit :

I'll send a PM to Yac and ask if they can put up a wordpress blog on http://blog.musicbanter.com or so that we can play around with.

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Zarko

I will pretty much echo sentiments provided already, but in my opinions, most of the times forums based on music, movies etc, tend to struggle a bit more because it isn't what I would really call an 'active' discussion topic, music less-so than movies. This is in comparison to sporting forums, for example, where an active season heats universal discussion. Lets be honest, music is a pretty polarising topic to post about, and naturally having such a varied base of opinions means it's more difficult to discuss. You can't really analyse music like you can sports results or whatnot for discussion, and when you have a decidated core of posters who are elitist in their opinion (No matter how much they want to suggest otherwise), it makes it much more difficult to formulate what many would consider worthy discussion. This leads to a circle effect in a way, where because it is so difficult to gain a common hold (Especially between those that are well versed in their own opinion) between each other, we trudge up the same old same old that 'everyone' loves of course, and nver has a bad thing to say about.

Interesting discussion on the 'negativity' factor that preceeds a lot of discussion around most music forums. As commented, a lot of posters react more to a bad album they have heard of than a potentially good album that someone else is pressing them to listen to. Don't really have a comment to add, I can't really be bothered posting about shit I hate, not that I spend too much time posting about what I like. 4ZZZ, the bloke that introduced me to the site stopped posting because of the overall dominating negative 'buzz' he got from the site. This was back when the 'this xxx sucks' threads were open though.

TBH I can't see musicbanter changing a whole lot if I do end up hanging around more often/less often as long as there is a solid core of posters that are willing to hang around.