I've tried to bring this to the admin's attention and suggested using a wordpress blog as a frontpage. It's easily tailored to look the way you want and it's made for multiple users with different levels/privileges. By using plugins, you can add all sorts of functionality and you (or an admin like Yac) can also update the wordpress platform and plugins with the click of a button, so it's easy to maintain.

However, I've had no real answer from Yac/admin yet and it's been quite a while now.

My guess is they don't want the basic appearance of the front page to change, since I recall they didn't want obvious and reasonable (to me) changes such as stating rules right on the MB front page at the very top...which is what another (unnamed but nice) music forum does, one with a "z" in the name instead of an "s." :p: (I'm trying to be secretive and subtle here, Tore.)

Could a wordpress blog be added as a forum up at the top of the current front page in the "MB Reader" section right above "Album Reviews"? Then those who like what this would offer could still have it available and at least in a prominent position...yet admin might be more likely to accept such a minor change?

You could also put right-track's proposed "Band Interviews" up there!! :tramp: First up, Muse! (Ha ha ha! That's for you, Urban!)

Say, why doesn't MB allow embedding playlists in profiles? This is such a nice feature of...uh...another...uh...music forum. I really like that feature...you get to hear right away people's taste in music. Did I say like? I mean LOVE. With an embedded playlist you could click on MusicBanter friends' profiles and see the playlists right away and listen listen listen to the songs they love. I'd be on this site almost constantly when I do computer work if I could listen to friends' playlists all from this one location.

My guess is they can't be bothered to have any additional input into this site than they already have.
The owners have other sites that are more important to them than this one.
So long as the money keeps on rolling in I doubt the status quo will change.
Don't expect any changes other than cosmetic ones. Superficial ones at that.

The short attention span in our culture plays a role, but whether a particular forum lasts or not has to do with the utility it provides its members. Most people, I think, use these kinds of forums to discover new music they haven't heard, or to filter the avalanche of new releases.

If it becomes about the poster rather than the music, the utility is severely reduced for the vast majority of people.

That said, some come for the arguments.

lol, I love how this points starts out about a lack of attention spans.

Even funnier when you consider the members directly above and below his post have a combined attention span exceeding 10 years.

amen.

I blame any realized attention deficit on depression medication. You don't learn memory until you learn to hold a grudge.

So the fact that you've been a member for so long means what in terms of my point? These types of forums usually decline when they become insular...the same people talking about the same things in the same way. Without new people injecting new opinions, and bringing new information to the game, they decline. It is when the members can predict what a poster will say, which band they will laud, and how they will react to a new realease, because they've heard it before, that they move on. At least that has been my experience with on-line forums.

Haven't been around this particular place long enough to know how it applies here.

well, that was my point in the original post.

But I should point out that no one made mention of how long (or short) anyone's been a member here.

Know what is even funnier? He joined a music forum and already lost interest in talking music and started posting in the Lounge - shortest attention span ever!