The forum, its present and its future

Jimbro66

munckee said:

No idea who Drew is but apart from the perma ban crimes which make perfect sense I don't think you need to ban anyone. You can ignore them if you don't want to discuss with them. 

I didn't realise you joined only just over a year ago @munckee, it seems like you have been here forever (I mean that in the nicest way). In that case you would have thankfully missed a low point in the history of the forum when some pretty unpleasant trolling was happening that was hard to ignore. That culture has more-or-less gone in the past year and the forum is much better for it.

scrumhalf

If Flouncerella returns I trust his behaviour will have changed. If not, video experience or not, I trust he will be subject to the same censure as anyone else.

Modellista

Good, good, good and good. 

I like the positive spirit and optimism, Lee.  There could well be a tFB-shaped space on YouTube, I’ll be keeping my eyes peeled for how to get involved in that. 

Thanks for for your efforts, and your optimistic plans for the future

Fretwired

We could take on Andertons in the review stakes ... ;-)

digitalscream

Dominic said:

I think you should charge a flat fee to post a Classified advert.I'm guessing that about 40 adverts are placed in various categories per day ........I'm sure nobody would begrudge a £3 tariff per advert posted.This would generate a reasonable little revenue stream to enable the promotion of the Video channel and it's still a very cheap way to advertise items for sale.
  £3 is a nothing when advertising a £1000 item to a target market.There must be an automatic software gatekeeper that only posts the active advert as the fee is paid on-line .

As I said in the original post - I'm not going to take functionality away from the membership and then try to sell it back to them. I've always bitched and moaned about Sky et al doing that, so it'd feel a bit hypocritical

As far as is humanly possible, you'll always be able to do what you can do now for free (with the obvious caveat that I can't see the future).

manicguitarist said:

I for one welcome our new overlords! Also - Lixarto- what happened there (or shall we just leave that scab unpicked?). I was looking forwards to sparring politics with my old communist buddy

That was a particular low-point, back in the early days. Not really appropriate for this thread, but I'll PM you with the story later if you want

scrumhalf said:

If Flouncerella returns I trust his behaviour will have changed. If not, video experience or not, I trust he will be subject to the same censure as anyone else.

Everybody will be subject to the same rules as everyone else.

digitalscream

Fretwired said:

We could take on Andertons in the review stakes ... ;-)

This time next year, Rodney, we'll be famous...

Strangefan

Yes yes yes! I'll def be coming  back to the forum in a proper way now! 

digitalscream

guitars4you said:

Are you having an FB stand again at the Brum show 

Yes - I've got next week off, so I'm going to be ringing round everyone to see what the score is. Broadly-speaking, I'm aiming for very little to change from the plan Tony put in place.

SRich

All sounds like really positive stuff.....YouTube channel will be a great plus.

Onwards.......

stonevibe

Sounds good.

 I miss Drew and his knowledge/skills and input are always welcome.

If you need any help with anything feel free to ask and I will see what I can do.

gringopig

.

tone1

All sounds good to me....

Gassage

This is rather like hearing that Corbyn has moved Abbott to Shadow Chancellor.

Deijavoo

So basically this is now a dictatorship? Marvellous news. That's how we got shit done in the old days. 

All hail Chairman Lee.

digitalscream

Oh, and just one thing - as you may imagine, I've had a lot of PMs since I posted this thread (most of which are offering help, which is most appreciated!). Please bear with me, I've got a reasonably busy morning...I'm not ignoring you, and I'll get back to you all as soon as I can

p90fool

dindude said:

No problem with Drew returning, but this forum is a worse place when you get a few who dominate, so don’t give him too much power, eh

I actually think the opposite. If he has a real stake in making it work via involvement with a YouTube channel, promotional work and a general feeling of usefulness he will probably be less of a dick. 

Drew can be a great guy, but a bored, depressed Drew is a loose cannon.

spark240

Dominic said:

I think you should charge a flat fee to post a Classified advert.I'm guessing that about 40 adverts are placed in various categories per day ........I'm sure nobody would begrudge a £3 tariff per advert posted.This would generate a reasonable little revenue stream to enable the promotion of the Video channel and it's still a very cheap way to advertise items for sale.
  £3 is a nothing when advertising a £1000 item to a target market.There must be an automatic software gatekeeper that only posts the active advert as the fee is paid on-line .

Loads of Ads dont sell , I suspect a fee would mean the classifieds would become none existent, the exposure isnt big enough on here for a fee IMHO.

Possibly for items over a certain amount.   

Handsome_Chris

p90fool said:

dindude said:

No problem with Drew returning, but this forum is a worse place when you get a few who dominate, so don’t give him too much power, eh

I actually think the opposite. If he has a real stake in making it work via involvement with a YouTube channel, promotional work and a general feeling of usefulness he will probably be less of a dick. 

Drew can be a great guy, but a bored, depressed Drew is a loose cannon.

@p90fool , I'd say that Drew was more of a "man on the edge" rather than a "loose cannon".  Saying that  Drew is now more likely to be a "man who plays by his own rules but gets results, no matter what those pen pushers in the DA's Office say" type forum member.  

Sassafras

I for one welcome Drew's return. This place was becoming too warm, welcoming and friendly without him 

Even though I can no longer play guitar,  I still enjoy spending time on here so I'm glad to hear you've got plans to take the forum onward and upward,

darcym

@digitalscream

Can I ask for clarifications on some of the interesting and potentially exciting new plans in your vision going forward.

are you going to be the sole owner of the forum now and as such the only decision maker / vision for the forum ?

The forum is a raging success it's filled a huge hole left by music radar, hugeracks, and a few other niche forums eg: bareknuckles etc. I take on board the critique of Vanilla and the problems it causes, but is there a risk of creating a brand new forum stack and the requirement to fund and maintain it (think security and responsibility for protecting peoples data) actually going to benefit the forum, the core functionality is there and works (although I don't know the effort it's taking to maintain it) and will this not put the forum into a financially dependant state (more than it is now) as it will move from hosting bills to hosting, development, maintenance, which people should be funded for but will it not raise the risk and dependency on money, which the current model has done well to keep to a minimal risk.

Bringing Drew back - I don't have a problem with this as his knowledge on certain topics was both useful and interesting, but it is it "he's coming back same as before" or "he's coming back and he's been told to stop the behaviour that got him banned".

The forum has been a mostly nicer place without - but it's also lost something in terms of the music industry knowledge that he's part of, but I'd personally not trade that for a youtube channel and the return of the total dick behaviour and aggressive attitude he brings. If he can park that at the door and bring the nice bit back without the problem I'd welcome him, but I'm concerned, I've personally left the forum for a while due to him being on this forum (at the same time I've had some amazing information and some great tips and tricks based on his posts and direct interaction).

I'd like to feel comfortable personally that if someone who received a ban is coming back he understand what behaviour needs to change, I'm asking as this will impact my personal choice of how I use the forum going forward eg: just use it for classifieds sales, or continue to post / read other parts).

Thanks