For years I wondered why Ableton doesn't have a forum on their website, and today I used google to find it...
hidden Forum?
hidden Forum?
A quite silly question, but why is the forum "hidden"? I don't see a way to get here from https://www.ableton.com/de/.
For years I wondered why Ableton doesn't have a forum on their website, and today I used google to find it...
For years I wondered why Ableton doesn't have a forum on their website, and today I used google to find it...
Re: hidden Forum?
I am not sure about ‘hidden’. You can find it by choosing ‘Join the User Forum…’ from the Help menu in Live.
MacBook Pro, macOS Sonoma 14.4.1, 2.3GHz i7-1068NG7, 32GB – Live Suite 12.0.1, Max 8.6.2, Push 2, Scarlett 4i4
Re: hidden Forum?
years ago there were no forum moderators, or rather there were a few sequentially and they were given the instruction to not hamper free speech at all.
The forum was very popular back then, and it was a thriving place full of community advice. Eventually it became the victim of its own success and random brain-bent people would log on from their cubicles and launch huge political tirades, vaguely funny in jokes, and anonymous attack pieces. Even though the forum at its very worst was 90% great user content and 10% total crap, it's like having a turd in a swimming pool. Nobody but the lunatics enjoy swimming any more.
Ableton tried to reason with the lunatics, but amazingly they didn't see sense. Ableton decided to try a different approach and launched "Answers" which attempted to leverage the users knowledge in a more clinical and joyless way. At that time they hid the forum from view, linking instead Community->Answers Naturally this failed. Answers was as much fun as a dry wake.
To help calm the grave of the forum two moderators were hired, and actually given the power to block and ban infringers. By this time Ableton had grown out of the free-for-all Berlin approach and the era of social media had begun. The new strategy was "Let the marketing dept. handle social media, and present a shiny face".
So ironically, the competent moderators were left to patrol the burned out ruins of what was. The ancient city, abandoned now. Just the zombies wandering through the shells of threads. Necrobumps rule the wasteland.
When asked about it, the Ableton Digital Marketing team issued a statement
" Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away."
The forum was very popular back then, and it was a thriving place full of community advice. Eventually it became the victim of its own success and random brain-bent people would log on from their cubicles and launch huge political tirades, vaguely funny in jokes, and anonymous attack pieces. Even though the forum at its very worst was 90% great user content and 10% total crap, it's like having a turd in a swimming pool. Nobody but the lunatics enjoy swimming any more.
Ableton tried to reason with the lunatics, but amazingly they didn't see sense. Ableton decided to try a different approach and launched "Answers" which attempted to leverage the users knowledge in a more clinical and joyless way. At that time they hid the forum from view, linking instead Community->Answers Naturally this failed. Answers was as much fun as a dry wake.
To help calm the grave of the forum two moderators were hired, and actually given the power to block and ban infringers. By this time Ableton had grown out of the free-for-all Berlin approach and the era of social media had begun. The new strategy was "Let the marketing dept. handle social media, and present a shiny face".
So ironically, the competent moderators were left to patrol the burned out ruins of what was. The ancient city, abandoned now. Just the zombies wandering through the shells of threads. Necrobumps rule the wasteland.
When asked about it, the Ableton Digital Marketing team issued a statement
" Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away."
Re: hidden Forum?
Yes, I remember the forum getting a bit out of control, I didn't visit it for along time and I forgot about it. In the meantime it "disappeard"... 
I don't see the forum link in the help menu, therefore I asked. Maybe it's missing in the German version of the Ableton website and you can see it, or I'm too stupid to find it... but I used ctrl+F...
I don't see the forum link in the help menu, therefore I asked. Maybe it's missing in the German version of the Ableton website and you can see it, or I'm too stupid to find it... but I used ctrl+F...
Last edited by p8guitar on Mon May 18, 2020 7:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Re: hidden Forum?
The Help menu in Live, not the Help menu on Ableton’s website.
MacBook Pro, macOS Sonoma 14.4.1, 2.3GHz i7-1068NG7, 32GB – Live Suite 12.0.1, Max 8.6.2, Push 2, Scarlett 4i4
Re: hidden Forum?
LOL Angstrom that was actually a brilliant little summary, really enjoyed that.
My take:
These forums have definitely changed a lot since I joined in 2005. Jeebus, that's a LONG time ago now that I type it. Someone is born and ready to drive a car in that same time frame. Its definitely a little weird at times to be one of those "managing" the forums now, after so many years of partaking in the random antics back in the day. There were some really good conversations, lots of ideas shared, and a lot of shit talked too. A lot of shit talked actually
It was fun, but as times changed and the Live user base grew, it was just getting out of hand. Like you said, the more people who starting using Live, the more bored and f*cking straight up crazy people started using Live. And they slowly started hanging out here
The free for all nature of the forums started being known in a negative context, and we knew a lot of younger and newer users were being driven away.
It had to change, though it was certainly a weird transition to go through for those used to the previous chaos.
I think a big part of it is that the nature of online interactions changed too. Facebook, Instagram (same *cough*) and like certainly took over, and less and less people looked to forums for interaction. Hell, after talking to some people here it's their first time EVER using a forum, just so they can solve some weird Live issue they think they have.
Personally, since I've been a forum admin I've always tried to balance the forums being a fun place to check on music related stuff, and needing to keep things a bit more on track. I like seeing the the familiar user names check in now and again, and there's still some decent topics that come up now and again too. It's a shame some of the more knowledgable types here can't share advice without scathing criticism (browser *cough*[ I agree]), but it is what it is.
We're always thinking about how we interact with our users, so who knows where we go from here?
My take:
These forums have definitely changed a lot since I joined in 2005. Jeebus, that's a LONG time ago now that I type it. Someone is born and ready to drive a car in that same time frame. Its definitely a little weird at times to be one of those "managing" the forums now, after so many years of partaking in the random antics back in the day. There were some really good conversations, lots of ideas shared, and a lot of shit talked too. A lot of shit talked actually
It was fun, but as times changed and the Live user base grew, it was just getting out of hand. Like you said, the more people who starting using Live, the more bored and f*cking straight up crazy people started using Live. And they slowly started hanging out here
The free for all nature of the forums started being known in a negative context, and we knew a lot of younger and newer users were being driven away.It had to change, though it was certainly a weird transition to go through for those used to the previous chaos.
I think a big part of it is that the nature of online interactions changed too. Facebook, Instagram (same *cough*) and like certainly took over, and less and less people looked to forums for interaction. Hell, after talking to some people here it's their first time EVER using a forum, just so they can solve some weird Live issue they think they have.
Personally, since I've been a forum admin I've always tried to balance the forums being a fun place to check on music related stuff, and needing to keep things a bit more on track. I like seeing the the familiar user names check in now and again, and there's still some decent topics that come up now and again too. It's a shame some of the more knowledgable types here can't share advice without scathing criticism (browser *cough*[ I agree]), but it is what it is.
We're always thinking about how we interact with our users, so who knows where we go from here?
tarekith
https://tarekith.com
https://tarekith.com
Re: hidden Forum?
Heh, thanks.
I've been here an embarrassingly long time, but then I always liked forums as a medium though I prefer a nested/threaded tree variant.
The way people interact has certainly changed from the Jurassic era 1998 - 2008 where everyone had a PHPBB forum. The migration to massive social media platforms seemed obvious, but perhaps misguided for a company like Ableton who had a massive and enthusiastic online "fanbase" already. It seemed a strange thing to surrender. I guess they have a "mailing list" but "engagement" is the name of the game these days and perhaps an app-based reddit clone which affiliated with one of these online music / remix sites might have been a better fit.
Leverage the consumers, allow them to sell stuff to each other (create User profile pages) create a legit "remix/pack store", do a deal with m4l.com and allow sales, and skim a percentage off the top of all sales from the consumers to the consumers. Community & store. It would require policing, but it would be revenue generation.
But that's just what I'd have done, so it's certain to be the wrong idea!
I've been here an embarrassingly long time, but then I always liked forums as a medium though I prefer a nested/threaded tree variant.
The way people interact has certainly changed from the Jurassic era 1998 - 2008 where everyone had a PHPBB forum. The migration to massive social media platforms seemed obvious, but perhaps misguided for a company like Ableton who had a massive and enthusiastic online "fanbase" already. It seemed a strange thing to surrender. I guess they have a "mailing list" but "engagement" is the name of the game these days and perhaps an app-based reddit clone which affiliated with one of these online music / remix sites might have been a better fit.
Leverage the consumers, allow them to sell stuff to each other (create User profile pages) create a legit "remix/pack store", do a deal with m4l.com and allow sales, and skim a percentage off the top of all sales from the consumers to the consumers. Community & store. It would require policing, but it would be revenue generation.
But that's just what I'd have done, so it's certain to be the wrong idea!