The official day the fun died!

Discuss anything related to audio or music production.
jestermgee
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The official day the fun died!

Post by jestermgee » Sun Jan 17, 2021 12:35 am

Sad day :roll:
viewtopic.php?f=40&t=142730

Closing that thread is pretty much the statement of today that all the good old times of the past are now dead, the fun times started dying 5 years ago but now it's official! That thread and similar ones like it were reflections of a time when people would converse on subjects, talk, have a laugh and sometimes offend but like chatting at the pub, discuss the aspects of it and move on like humans have learned to do or eventually have their thread locked if it got too out of hand, just like the bar keeper would keep civil tone but without warning every tom about what he says all the time.

Seems that upsetting just one person these days or even thinking anything that may upset another person for whatever reason means we have to close down the city, and it is just a bland slew of noob questions now with no one around anymore to offer answers, no discussions or banter anymore, no witty remarks, just a wasteland. Someone posts something that one person may see as offensive, why not just moderate that post or at least wait a few days to see if there is a consensus on the matter. Shutting down a whole thread is just unnecessary even if the thread is mostly dead now.

I know many guys left years ago and have been dropping off because of the over moderation and lack of interesting engagements now and this is reflected by the increasing number of new users being unanswered because no one is here anymore to help and engage.

Prob a good time to move on too I guess, not sure my knowledge is needed here any longer. Has been a fun 10+ years but not an enjoyable or fun place to hang out in anymore, certainly not like it use to be anyway.

miyaru
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Re: The official day the fun died!

Post by miyaru » Sun Jan 17, 2021 9:39 am

I understand your feelings and sentiment about it........

And it is true a lot stays un-answered. I find myself shifting towards Reason 11 suite more and more every day, while it started to be the Reason Rack into Live 10 suite.

I notice also on forums and social media that people polarize more and more, and the tendency seems to be to argue angry about anything - people have no respect anymore towards others and their opinion.

You are a huge source of knowledge, and you will be missed here - for sure. But as I said before: I would understand.......

I think we are shifting humanwise into darkness the coming time, and if this is due to Covid-19 or whatever - we are so!

Jestermgee - whatever you are going to do or decide: best of luck, and hope you come around some time in the future!!!!
Greetings from Miyaru.
Prodaw i7-7700, 16Gb Ram, Focusrite Scarlett 18i20 3rd gen, ESI M4U eX, Reason 12, Live Suit 10, Push2, Presonus Eris E8 and Monitor Station V2, Lexicon MPX1,
Korg N1, Yamaha RM1x :mrgreen:

Tarekith
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Re: The official day the fun died!

Post by Tarekith » Sun Jan 17, 2021 3:13 pm

We tried to keep that thread open as a fun place to post humorous images, but recently it got revived and people were posting inappropriate images despite being asked not to many times. The mods have better things to do than spend all day deleting images and warning people to stop it over and over. Don't blame us, blame other forum users who couldn't follow the community guidelines we have posted despite being given many chances to. This is why we can't have nice things.
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re:dream
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Re: The official day the fun died!

Post by re:dream » Sun Jan 17, 2021 3:50 pm

A pity. I was away from the forum for close on a year and to tell the truth that was one of the first threads I visited :oops:

jestermgee
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Re: The official day the fun died!

Post by jestermgee » Sun Jan 17, 2021 11:39 pm

The issue with closing a thread is it cannot be bumped and resurfaced. Honestly, there were some interesting things in that thread I use to waste time at work trawling through. There were some images I did not care for but being a big boy with free choice, I just choose to click on and ignore what I do not like because not everything needs to have a tear shed over it. Now it will sink to the bottom of the forum depths to be lost forever.

My sentiments aren't specific to that thread, it's been well discussed over the last decade about the decline of this forum and lack of upkeep and modernisation and the seemingly over moderated heavy hand. By decline I don't mean amount of new posts, there are plenty of new users asking the usual new user questions over and over but what is lacking which is evident when you look back 5 years is the enthusiastic users that would chime in and help out. 10 years ago it was toted on many other forums how engaging and interesting the Ableton forums were. It's completely the opposite now.

Certainly not blaming any mod specifically, it's more a shift in the way the whole company wants to moderate and "be responsible" for everything users post and shut down even the slightest thing that could be considered rude or offensive... sometimes a bit over aggressive in decision imo. I don't see that many posts per day to be honest, i'm able to scan through most posts within 10 minutes almost daily and I moderate forums myself so it's not an overly intensive task, but always when I lock a thread a moderators answer is given so A) users know why the thread was locked and B) who made the decision to lock it. Every other forum I frequent has this same policy, rarely ever you see a thread where you do not know who or why it was locked.

You can lock whatever you like, it's your playground, but while someone looks at an image and may be offended by it, I look at the actions that are taken using enforcement based on the immature actions of just a few and happen to take a bit of offence myself that a whole thread that many considered interesting can be shutdown without reason for the actions of a seeming couple of users.... Basically allowing just a few users to ruin hundreds/thousands of other users time.... That is the kind of world that personally offends me when it is just "easier and more convenient" to shutdown the whole place rather than discipline the few eggs that are being rotten. Just like music festivals that get cancelled because one stupid teenager thinks taking 15 pills is a good idea and ends up on life support. Some people are just idiots and it irritates me to no end that we have to constantly cater to that lowest denominator all the time.

The newbies are the ones that have really lucked out in this tho because they miss out on what was a thriving community 10 years ago where one could really learn to up their game just reading the knowledgeable answers of their peers, that's how I learned so much and have always felt I should help to give that back too because I found it so very helpful myself. Hate to say it but even the NI forum is far better a playground these days and I spend more time helping people out there than here. Just a bit sad is all.

Anyway, point made/taken i think, and i'll leave it at that.

Tarekith
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Re: The official day the fun died!

Post by Tarekith » Mon Jan 18, 2021 1:05 am

The thread was already buried, it's not like we locked something that was even getting used anymore. It hadn't been posted to since 2018 until just the last couple of weeks when people started abusing it to post politically-biased and offensive images that are clearly not allowed here and never have been.

The early days of the forum were a free for all fun time for sure, and there's definitely been a lot of times I miss them too. But it got out of hand and started making it so people couldn't have legitimate discussions about Live without being sidetracked or ridiculed, so things had to change. Every time we've tried to relax the moderation again a little bit, people start abusing that and we're back to square one with the forum not serving the purpose Ableton wants for the forums: People talking about making music with Live.

I've said this countless time since then, we do our best to be fair and as relaxed as possible with the moderation here as long as people follow the guidelines (the fact we even have a Lounge anymore is proof of that). We will never please everyone with how that ultimately plays out, but luckily there are countless other avenues online for people to discuss topics that don't belong here.
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fishmonkey
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Re: The official day the fun died!

Post by fishmonkey » Mon Jan 18, 2021 12:09 pm

Tarekith wrote:
Mon Jan 18, 2021 1:05 am
Every time we've tried to relax the moderation again a little bit, people start abusing that and we're back to square one with the forum not serving the purpose Ableton wants for the forums: People talking about making music with Live.
moderating forums is a pretty thankless task.

I've said this countless time since then, we do our best to be fair and as relaxed as possible with the moderation here as long as people follow the guidelines (the fact we even have a Lounge anymore is proof of that). We will never please everyone with how that ultimately plays out, but luckily there are countless other avenues online for people to discuss topics that don't belong here.
it's a tricky balance though as a vibrant forum needs to be able to provide space and enjoyment for a community of people to want to hang out here and be social. not many people are going to want to loiter just to answer questions.

Tarekith
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Re: The official day the fun died!

Post by Tarekith » Mon Jan 18, 2021 3:24 pm

I agree, but until some people can stop openly flaunting the rules to try and egg the mods on or push the limits of what we will allow, it will have to stay the way it is. The average user here doesn't see the majority of the stuff have to delete or deal with to keep this place even slightly focused on music making.

We have over 152,000 registered users on the forum. If only 1% of them are troublemakers, that's still a LOT of people we need to potentially interact with.
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dustboxednorth
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Re: The official day the fun died!

Post by dustboxednorth » Tue Jan 19, 2021 3:36 pm

aw man D:

[jur]
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Re: The official day the fun died!

Post by [jur] » Tue Jan 19, 2021 6:02 pm

I do miss the good ol' days too...
But I obviously can't forget why and when moderation started, and it was already way after the "good ol" days"...
We got many complains and people leaving (and not the ones you'd like to see leaving first...) BECAUSE of the "unfriendly" mood around here. I actually think the forums should have been properly moderated sooner.

These were also the days of a very different internet... with no social media.
The Live community is sooo large, even without counting the social media: many "power users" started their own channels, created places and services were they could interact but also get users/followers to become clients; got older with less time to spend on forums, or just got less time to spend on forums, or just got older :lol: And yeah, the knowledge can now be a source of income, and it wasn't seen this way back then.
When I look at the forums I used to use daily 15 years ago, I can see the same evolution has this one here (I've never been a Gearslutz users, but the constant fight and "i-know-it-all" vibe seems to be constant over there, though!). Better off talking less, but talking relevant.

I also think the engagement and way people interact has changed, new generations, new ways of communicating, the needs for "instant" answers packed into a limited amount of words and topics that are selected for you by an algorithm, videos (this one's a big one imo)...
When I read how people "comment" and talk to each others on social media I'm happy that's not the kind of discussions we see here.
I'm also pretty sure that even what we use to browse forums had a huge impact: how painfull it is to read and participate to a good'ol forum without a screen large enough and a physical keyboard that allows you to type in "long" answers, and scroll the topics!

Also, the knowledge around Live has been build and is very strong for quite some time now, which wasn't the case 10 or 15 years ago where we would spend hours discussing and finding how to utilize Live in ways it wasn't designed for, tricks, hacks to connect esoteric controllers and so on...

Anyway, we could discuss this for hours, and all that's been said in this thread is totally relevant.
If any of you have ideas on how to make things better, please let us know (and that'd be way more cool than seeing you leave Jestermgee, btw). The only rule is to keep the place respectfull (which unfortunately is quite a tricky one!).
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stringtapper
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Re: The official day the fun died!

Post by stringtapper » Tue Jan 19, 2021 8:06 pm

I have always had a big problem with people not being civil online, which ironically manifested in letting myself become even more vitriolic as a way to sort of police people by shocking or shaming them into behaving back in the old days of this forum. Of course this rarely worked and usually just ramped up the animosity and probably made me look like a complete prick.

I have changed a lot in the past ten years, but I think [jur] is right that the changes in how people use the web have been a big factor in forums like this one looking completely different from what they once were.
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[jur]
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Re: The official day the fun died!

Post by [jur] » Tue Jan 19, 2021 8:26 pm

stringtapper wrote:
Tue Jan 19, 2021 8:06 pm
I have always had a big problem with people not being civil online
I was wondering for a moment if my memory wasn't a bit distorted :lol:
Just kidding of course!
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stringtapper
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Re: The official day the fun died!

Post by stringtapper » Tue Jan 19, 2021 8:48 pm

[jur] wrote:
Tue Jan 19, 2021 8:26 pm
stringtapper wrote:
Tue Jan 19, 2021 8:06 pm
I have always had a big problem with people not being civil online
I was wondering for a moment if my memory wasn't a bit distorted :lol:
Just kidding of course!
I originally started that post by saying "I blame myself." :lol:

I was one of the worst, for sure, but somehow always skirted the line and never got banned. I shudder to think of going back through all of my old posts. :oops:
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Tarekith
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Re: The official day the fun died!

Post by Tarekith » Tue Jan 19, 2021 10:37 pm

Don't worry, we have already flagged them for review and possible deletion. :lol:

8)
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jestermgee
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Re: The official day the fun died!

Post by jestermgee » Wed Jan 20, 2021 12:39 am

I for one enjoy some of the more unfiltered and direct engagements, a little bit of interest. Problem is snowflakes (can I even say that without being reprimanded) these days on the internet haven't gone through the ringers of learning that what is said and posted on the internet can easily be ignored and passed over if you do not like it... This is no fault of Ableton or the mods but it seems now we have to pander to the lowest denominator so if 10,000 people seem to enjoy something but one silk sheet is offended by it then guess who gets the cheese.

I think of forums like a pub, you can have your banter, argue and disagree but when someone begins throwing a punch then that's where the bartender steps in to calm things down. Problem is it seems the bartenders step in as soon as a voice is raised here so we don't get to have the conversation and try not a few things out "just in case" someone gets over hyped...

The locked thread, not a case of when something was last posted. It is a case of seeing it revived even after 2 years brings a glimmer of hope that one of the older folks is back and maybe we will see some interesting conversations. It's also something that shows the casual side of things round here that new users can also contribute towards and maybe, one of them will stick round and help others for 15 years like I did.

I am sure moderation is needed but like most other things nowadays that are all PC and "responsible" it sucks the actual fun and engagement out of things if it is too heavily done. Half the reason I use to click on daily and why it's still part of my morning routine while i check emails and other forums is because I was always interested in what discussions would be on today, who would be making some noise and who would be sinking their own foot up their ass and maybe also learn a new tip on compression or mixing low frequencies along the way. With all that banter gone, only so many times you can read "Is Ableton compatible with big Sure Yet???!!!? When FFS????"
[jur] wrote:
Tue Jan 19, 2021 6:02 pm
Anyway, we could discuss this for hours, and all that's been said in this thread is totally relevant.
If any of you have ideas on how to make things better, please let us know (and that'd be way more cool than seeing you leave Jestermgee, btw). The only rule is to keep the place respectfull (which unfortunately is quite a tricky one!).
I've suggested a number of things over the years but it is pretty clear the forum is probably never going to be properly updated or improved in any exciting way. To reiterate some of the suggestions and thoughts I have had over the years:

- Images need to be able to be posted on the forum easily. Posting a link from a separate host is archaic and while I have no issue with how it is done, most new users have no clue about this and it is detrimental to fast assistance when you have to save an image, upload it somewhere and then link it compared to most forums where you can print-screen then just paste like in a document. It also has the second benefit of the images still being there in 6 months when someone googles the question. I do not buy the excuse of copyright and inappropriate etc.. Everywhere allows images to be posted and copyright claims are a simple takedown request if warranted so you take it down. Simple.

- The User Help Exchange should be reopened or a new sub forum created!. It is a User to User exchange and the only reason it was closed initially is because "Answers" was someones bright idea as a better solution which never worked because it did not easily allow for discussions (or images) nor did it allow the experienced users to easily browse and engage in topics. Having it locked and also the "buy/sell" thread makes the place look tacky and broken IMO. If buy and sell isn't ever going to be a thing, just remove it. No need to be able to search that forum

- Better moderation of where things are posted. This place is a mess. People are just posting questions in every orifice of the place. Tips and Tricks should be for actual informative tips and/or tricks to assist people... Things should always be a statement of something, not a question. Anything that is a "how do I do this" should be moved to the suitable forum. Again, allowing all these posts all over the place completely negates the reason we have sub forums and makes it appear neglected. Issue we have currently is there is no actual general forum for people to ask questions except "music and production" which should just be the new UHE area

- More modern look. The reskin done a while ago that was mainly due to making the forum mobile compatible did nothing to improve the appeal of the forum. A new engine is needed or some major updates to allow things like giving users likes, being able to see what license type a user has, having system specs as a users account easily viewable etc. Maybe even the option for an avatar because for a DAW that offers such colourful interface and hardware options, the forum is drab and uninviting.

- Housekeeping of stickies and announcements. Currently on the Music/Production forum there are 12 stickies and announcements. Issue with too many is people (like me) just gloss over the whole section automatically because it is "too busy". some of the threads can be deleted such as the maintenance announcement.... Add it back when there is maintenance so you notice a new announcement. Some can be consolidated into a single thread that covers "Current Live / Beta version" and simply detail both the current release and beta version. The "Post your most obscure Ableton Live knowledge" could be moved to the "Tips & Tricks" section.... Lots of things like this make it appear the place is neglected and impressions matter.

- If it is too hard, Just set the current forum as a searchable archive and create a whole new forum to coincide with a new Live release. One of the issues I know is finding a new solution that can still utilise the past content but that is quite a task. It would be possible, it's all just SQL data and a guru could get things setup but it seems the desire to invest isn't there although I cannot understand why as it has been said, there are over 150,000 registered users (tho how many are active I would bet is less than 3% of that number). Forums can be a great way of increasing sales through engagement so seems bizarre that this isn't any kind of priority.

- Locked threads need a reason doesn't have to call out a user or anything, just a reason as to why it was locked so others know what caused it because often the offending post that got the thread locked was deleted. Most other forums I visit the offending post and user are left in place unless it is absolutely unacceptable and almost always the mod states the reason for the lock. this helps to educate others and show where the line is that was crossed and also who the troublemaker was.

Feeling has been for years the forum isn't a place for the modern world and not a place Ableton like to really manage. While the efforts of individual mods are appreciated and this was never a dig at anyone individually, you guys do a great and fair job, it's the way it has been managed and neglected as a whole while most other companies have pressed forward in this area, it just doesn't appear as anything important to spend time on and so that is now reflected in the shell of users we now have who don't feel it is a place they should spend time on either.

I'll always be around but I have cut the amount I post way back and only spend a few minutes here each day (this is the longest I have bothered for months). It's just the constant nails in the coffin that really make it less interesting for me to be bothered with my own time when I get nothing out of here anymore and i've even been warned a few times of late for offering blunt answers on things which I feel, need a blunt answer. RTFM is a valid reply when asking something that is covered clearly in the manual.

Also if someone wants to say "why the fuck is this fucking shit so fucked" I should be able to say "Fucked if I fucking know mate" without being called out as inappropriate and having the post deleted (while the original post is left as is). The guidelines say nothing about using swear words, only "If you wouldn’t say it in person around people you don't necessarily know, then don’t post it to the Ableton forum.". I'm Australian and if a dropkick was banging on like that even if I did not know him, I would answer back in the same way because it either A) demonstrates how much of an idiot he sounds or B) gets a laugh and you have a beer and become mates.... Neither happens if Joey keep calm steps in and suggests we have a sideline powwow and discuss our feelings in a more mature manner. We are adults and can swear if we want and this isn't something I would usually do if the context of the conversation did not govern that, like most I adapt to the situation appropriately... some haven't a clue on this.

I was young once and received these kinds of blunt replies myself and it forced me to spend a bit of time and actually detail what I had done so I didn't get that next time. Tough love is still love and even a blunt answer is sometimes better than no answer at all.

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