But it is , otherwise they wouldn`t be here.

Isn`t the main thing that people want to be here in the first place?

Just because they don`t want to post in the music forums ALL THE TIME doesn`t make their reasons for being here any less justified.

all the time? merely some of the time would be nice.

true THAT...

but we dont want people flaming and generally disrupting either.....

I can see you`re dismissing this so here`s an example of the sort of thing I mean.

Say we have 2 people with radically different tastes in music , the chances are the way things are now it would end up in a long drawn out flame war.

Say we had another forum on , for the sake of arguement sports & both these 2 people both supported the same football team & have a discussion about it.

The next time one of them would post in the music forum they`d be less likely to flame each other due to having something other than music in common & the music forums improves as a result of it. You might disagree but i`ve seen it happen in other forums on all sorts of subjects.And not once has it detracted from the main forums that the particular site covers.

i think a big portion Stu may be because for the most part, those of us who are here alot already have discussed our musical tastes or likes and dislikes with each other. Its pretty much all been said before untill a newbie comes in with some new input. Sure the old arguments happen all over again, but not always, and alot of the times the same discussion that happend 6 months ago and is old news to us is new to them so what ends up happening most of the time is these newbs end up getting flamed for starting a new thread on an old subject (old to us, not to them) so alot of ppl just stick to the lounge now where basically anything goes and you dont have to worry about ppl complaining about why such and such band is mentioned in a certain forum. Then again, maybe music is getting stale and were all itching for something new to come out so we can all talk about how much we hate or like this "new" band. Either way, i dont see the lounge as a bad thing, it definetly takes away from the music portion of the site, but I have to agree with the way Urban explains it.

I agree with what you said, but I wasn't saying they shoud post all the time. there are certain new members who don't post in the music forums at all, that's the problem. But I do agree that the lounge kinda draws people to stay. At the same time, I agree with stu, that this is a music forum, which is the whole point.

dead on......

also, urban, if youve seen this work in other forums and you think it will work then i havent got a problem... i think we should try something at least...

you cant say that. new music and new bands are coming out all of the time and some of us (not many- but some) are actually attempting to have conversations and debates on these new artists. yet when either they die on their arse or somebody comes in and starts talking completely off topic it does become frustrating. i would accept what your saying if the spamming was solely in the lounge but its not- theres is A LOT of it in the actual music forums where we try to talk about bands and artists. im sure you wont be too hard pressed to find an example of this.

But I think the thing is nobody is saying this shouldn`t be a music forum.

All i`m saying is if you want to keep people here then have a bit more to offer when they don`t want to talk about music to keep them here.

Personally i`ve not been here much the past couple of months as i`ve been exploring sites about other interests I have, if I was able to post about them here more freely I would have also posted more in the music forums as well due to the fact that this IS a music forum and I would have been here more often than I have , you see what i`m getting at. If you want a wider range of topics & opinions in the music forums you have to keep people in the MusicBanter community when they go through phases of losing interest in music.That way with people staying & posting more, no matter what the subject. you`re more likey to keep people here.

^ i think what urban is suggesting is a good idea because we all go through periods where we lose interest in music etc... so if we can keep a few more valuable members im sure the forums will improve.... in terms of threads that die on their arse, ledzepstu, i think thats just because most of the bands you post about are unheard of and then people arent willing to make the effort of checking them out so noone posts....