Paedantic Basterd

It is of course entirely relative, but the reality is that we ban or lose exponentially more accounts than we have join us and stay each year.

FaSho

This basically, except in regards to the music forums as well, which more and more often become filled with the type of discussion you're referring to. I've seen too many examples during my recent return of things like members commenting on one misused word in an otherwise constructive on-topic post, changing the entire subject, and inviting other posters who have no interest in the original topic to join the argument to back-up their friends and further warp the discussion.

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Janszoon

I think that's true of pretty much every forum on the internet.

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A Night in the Life of the Invisible Man

Time & Place

25 Albums You Should Hear Before the Moon Crashes into the Earth and We All Die

last.fm

sopsych

I've been saying this stuff for a very long time.

I do not have all the answers, but I think it starts with this:
Make tore head moderator (his duties determined by him) and enforce all the rules he created. For threads that start going off-topic in a hostile way, the mods need to not personally participate in that and instead quickly warn and then delete and at least temporarily lock.

Also, with the exception of tore, allow members to vote mods out, and let them vote mods in, subject to at least tore's approval.

Follow that advice, and I'm likely to resume starting (good) threads, the lack of which is helping to suck life out of the forum.

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If you have ideas or feedback for the site, visit The Musicbanter Improvement Thread.

Sequoioideae

I used to use this site for all of my music needs, but I go on last.fm, and occasionally plug with people to get my fix. There really isn't any point for me to post much on the forum anymore. Why? Because either I've already discussed the bands I like with people, or I will end up making a thread no one will ever reply to. I'm more known know about my little bitchfits about my life then what I actually listen to. As far as new members go, there was a member named Andrew that I almost instantly took a liking to, he actually turned me onto Iceage, and he was fairly interesting, but I'm not surprised he stopped showing up to MB. Facebook is also one of the reasons I don't need to come here to discuss something new in the music world, some of the groups I'm a part of always post stuff I like, notably Spacemantra and Dead TV. The more singularly genre oriented groups are wankfests though, but if you end up finding a facebook group with an eclectic group of people you will always find something. So, why am I still here? I have no idea.

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Funnel From Another Lover

God Is My Solar System

GuitarBizarre

I think there's an over-reaction to how "unwelcoming" this forum is to newcomers. There are a few people who make new members lives hard, but thats the nature of any forum since the dawn of time. The question is how prominent and important are those members and does that make it seem like other posters doing the same is approved of, when in reality it isn't, we're simply extending greater forgiveness to the oldtimers?

All of that said, I think discussing it may be a bit premature, since those people aren't problems in themselves and censoring them for some "potential" image problem that might occur should a newbie not grasp that posters character correctly - censoring them for that would just be terrible policy.

What *might* help though, is if members - NOT MODS! MEMBERS! YOU GUYS! were a bit more proactive in letting arguments happen, but keeping them from spiralling out of control. Rather than letting an argument go from 0-10 then close, it might be beneficial to try and allow a level of heated debate, and either cool themselves down, or allow the mods to attempt to intervene if it goes beyond, say, a 7 or 8 for more than a few posts. If the discussion is unsalvageable, THEN close the thread, but allow it time to ebb and flow and try and keep it from exploding. (It'd also mean a lot less people would be tempted to ever respond to HHBH when he's clearly just trying to get under peoples skin)

I think really, there is no big problem where musicbanter is *actually* not welcoming newbies - with few exceptions new members are treated fairly, and don't leave because of some personal offense, but rather because a small slight to them might have them form a negative opinion, which is probably reaffirmed by seeing how some of the drama-ish threads end up playing out between those involved - then the new member decides MB as a community isn't for them.

Admittedly, there's no reason for everyone to be nicey nice - But at the same time, letting threads go nuclear and letting people wind each other up as a routine thing, isn't making anyone look good, no matter how nice or not-nice they are to each other, or to new members, outside of that thread.

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GuitarBizarre

Hell ****ing no, if our problem is that the forum is cliquey, (and it is), then this will only result in the cliques forming voting blocs and throwing everything all to hell. We aren't a large enough group to use that method - it would simply be too easy to abuse the system.

I agree with tore being level headed enough to fill the role you describe, but at the same time I think tore is in some ways too idealistic to keep the spirit of the forum as it is, and besides which, that sort of wholsesale change in structure would have to go through more than just the mod team - Yac would need to be involved and I just don't see him being willing to change the way the forum works on that scale.

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WWWP

I am still here because I continue to have quality discussions about music with a wide array of members. The benefit of having a music forum with subsections dedicated to creative writing and current affairs, etc., are what attracted me here in the first place - we're more than just a music forum.

This place is like high school in that personalities clash, but moreso like high school because people can't look past personalities clashing. Maybe I'm one of the people refusing to see my position in the drama, but I I don't expect us to all get along and I don't expect people to bite their tongues for that cause. I do expect to continue to contribute (mostly to a journal no one reads) and to have good discussions that lead me to finding great bands, so I'm continuing to get what I want from the place.

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#DEMODFROWNLAND
#TERMLIMITSFORMODERATORS

Urban Hat€monger ?

The only problem is when we do that we get even more drama about posts being deleted. Even when we say in the thread it's gone off topic.

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Arya Stark

I feel like the drama is the same as always, it's just handled differently than it was before. Since ive joined, people have always quit or gotten dramatic and either it was ignored or taken care of. It s dems like people are placing a bigger importance on being off topic or argumentative when in the past, we had people who stayed for so long causing drama without anyone really caring.

What the problem is to me is that the placement on drama is taking away from music talk. How many good music threads have I started that are simply getting ignored, people would rather talk about dreams and women. Which is fine. I just think the balance is off now more than it was before.

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MB Journal.
Azucar y Especia. My blog.