I've tweaked my suggestion somewhat and will edit my first post as well with my updated suggestion. The biggest tweak is an additional music forum specifically to discuss releases, like upcoming album releases or album reviews. I've also divided the general discussion forums into two separate secions (music and off-topic).

My amended suggestion is as follows:

Musicbanter forums

• Music section
  • Artists corner - For discussions on music production, equipment, songwriting, etc.
  • General music - For general discussions related to musical arts and artists
  • Releases forum - For threads relating to specific releases like album reviews, etc.

• Off-topic section
  • Media corner - Discussions on non-music media like books, movies & video games
  • Philosophy - For discussions on religion, morals, science, the nature of reality, etc.
  • The Lounge - For general discussions that would be off-topic in the above forums

• Community section
  • Introductions - New members can introduce themselves here
  • Member journals - Members can create their journals here

• Admins section
  • Announcements & feedback - Mods and admins announcements and members feedback
  • Archive - Threads that have been locked down

It does for people who aren't logged in.

Haha :laughing: Alright, I can go with that.

Or sitting on a log.
Or at loggerheads.
Or dropping a... I'll just leave it there, shall I?

Get rid of all the music sections

Personally I like having a lot of sections divided by specific categories because if it was all dumped into one section it would be a lot harder to find specifically what I'm looking for, if I'm looking for a thread related to a specific genre that has a specific section I know where to find it and yeah it probably won't be that active but at least the threads I like and participate in won't quickly be buried by a much of newly created threads I don't care about.

I'd rather have a bunch of dead sub-forums than a few that are so busy that potentially good threads get buried before they even have a chance.

I think a problem with dead subforums is they kinda tell you you're probably not gonna get much response to whatever it is you write in there, so it's an incentive killer. It indicates the lack of interest and placement in a forgotten place won't help your thread get noticed. Also, as someone who listens to a variety of music, I don't mind discussing artists from different genres in the same forum. If it's too active so that things get buried, sure that can be a problem, but it's one you can then deal with when (and if) it becomes relevant.

Also it is possible to curate threads or, if we could update MB and expand on its functionality, perhaps use tags or other ways to sort things besides keeping these genre oubliettes gathering dust.

It was nice back in the day when it felt like MB was in a little way made up of smaller communities, like we had our prog lovers gang and kinda ran the prog subforum for a while. But that's a lot of members ago and MB isn't like that anymore.

I dunno I think if you post in a dead thread that will usually bump it if a forum is active enough because we can all see which threads have new posts and that usually gets our attention.

I think this forum should have SOME form of genre categorization, if we can find a way to do that while downsizing the number of subforums then I'm fine with that.

Gotta admit I'd like to keep the prog and psychedelic rock subforum because I was one of the people that aggressively campaigned for it, but if we really have to merging it with the classic rock subforum wouldn't be the end of the world I guess. :(

I agree with the incentive killer bit personally. I posted a couple of songs in the spam thread recently and on the first one I said straight up the reason I'm not posting this in like the world music section or whatever the **** is because the place is a ****ing graveyard. Even the hip hop section is worthless. You could honestly probably get rid of all the non rock oriented music forums or at least lump them into one forum.

Yup. The only other dude who engages in the electronica subforum (Fantomas or whatever) basically is just another K Addict who only posts links to videos. Besides you, it's basically only me and Mindfulness that engages in the rap subforum.

My main worry here is that, if we close down unused sub-forums and people are posting in them, will they then get trapped in there? Has anyone considered that? How do we mount a rescue operation to get, say, poor Mindfulness out of the rap sub-forum, or our lonely video-poster whose legs are now crushed and pinned under the collapsed walls of the electronica forum? These are questions that need to be asked, and I think a sub-committee should go on a fact-finding mission to see how these things are accomplished in forums in countries like, oh, I don't know, top of the head - Brazil maybe? Seychelles? Ibiza? All expenses paid of course. For research, sir! For research!

:laughing:

I read that post in Keir Starmer's voice.

That balloon will never get into the small confines of the rap sub-forum. You haven't really thought this one out, have you?
https://i.gifer.com/25iQ.gif

I'm really not very good at things.

lol

Balloon.

Also, welding it to the chimney of your house and covering it in concrete is hardly going to help the aerodynamics, is it? I'd be surprised if I got off the ground.

You wouldn't know it's the most popular genre still based on how much it's discussed on this forum these days.

I was disappointed to find out the K Pop thread is just one person constantly posting videos there's no point in me trying to strike a conversation.

Well, if it's any comfort, I posed the theory to others here that said user (K Addict) was a bot, given their general lack of engagement besides posting videos. But I actually managed to elicit a response from K Addict. And based on that response, I don't think K Addict is a bot - so some kind of conversation could possibly be had - but yeah, besides that user, not a whole lotta love for K Pop around these parts.

Nah the bots are just getting smarter.

No, I've talked to K-Addict too, albeit briefly. He's real all right. A little obsessed maybe.

Queen Boo could be right though. Bot are getting smarter. I mean, I bet nobody suspects that I'm a bot, placed here specifically to ... ERROR! ERROR! PROJECT IN JEOPARDY! SECURITY BREACH! SEAL ALL EXITS AND BEGIN DECONTAMINATION AND DELETION PROCEDURES!

They don't respond to childish trolling anymore but it was a fun couple days.