Few additions to categories

AlanRatcliffe

The recording forum is getting busier these days, so I added a new "Gear" category for the discussion of... well... recording gear. :-[

I've also added in a separate "Clips for review" for the clips that have been popping up in both "Recording" and "General discussion". Also gives me somewhere to move the clips posted by our more "promotionally-minded" members, some of whom only come here to post clips.

If anyone has any comment or other suggestions, feel free to voice them here.

Ray

I was wondering if it would be feasible to have a separate category for acoustic guitars.

AlanRatcliffe

Possible, but I don't know if it's the best idea. Most electric players have a nylon or steel acoustic (or both), and often vice versa. There's so much common ground... Do you feel it's neccessary, and why?

Keira-WitherKay

hi Alan, maybe Ray has a point,

cos as an exclusive acoustic player , and i speak for myself now... I would find it easier to access all posts on acoustics or acoustic related gear ....

maybe make it for all things acoustic related not just acoustic guitars possibly even advice and lessons but all must be acoustic related and include gear such as dedicated acoustic amps ect or acoustic effects ...

since in reality i have nearly missed a few threads on valuable acoustic info , cos it's interlaced with electric related info ...which i have no interest in....and often gloss over

it would definitely make my life easier if i wanted to access acoustic info... not to have to sift through everything to get to it....

but hey just me

peace and light
Keira

Bob-Dubery

Alan Ratcliffe wrote: Possible, but I don't know if it's the best idea. Most electric players have a nylon or steel acoustic (or both), and often vice versa. There's so much common ground... Do you feel it's neccessary, and why?

I play acoustic only, but I think there's too much common ground to split "acoustic" off completely. There may be threads that would pertain to the acoustic world only, but I think that would be a small subset.

And then once you have an "acoustic" category you'd need an "electric" category as well (or would have to rename an existing category).

I think it would complicate things too much.

AlanRatcliffe

Bob Dubery wrote: I play acoustic only, but I think there's too much common ground to split "acoustic" off completely. There may be threads that would pertain to the acoustic world only, but I think that would be a small subset.

And then once you have an "acoustic" category you'd need an "electric" category as well (or would have to rename an existing category).

I think it would complicate things too much.

This sums up my feelings on it pretty well. Seeing the bigger international forums which do this, things tend to get a bit "cliquey". Also, by labelling a forum as "acoustic" or "electric", you may keep some folk with solid knowledge that applies to both away from one or the other. So for now I think we keep it as it is, but if the forum gets really busy, we can take a look at it again.

Keira-WitherKay

yeah Alan but surely it's more a case of filing it in a different folder heheheh cos i still read various catorgries... not just one... so i just see it as kinda making all acoustic info handy and easy to find but by no means would that mean ignoring the rest of the forum .... we all guitar junkies.... and i might not want to know every detail but still love looking at the les pauls or strats...

Bob-Dubery

Keira WitherKay wrote: yeah Alan but surely it's more a case of filing it in a different folder heheheh cos i still read various catorgries... not just one... so i just see it as kinda making all acoustic info handy and easy to find but by no means would that mean ignoring the rest of the forum .... we all guitar junkies.... and i might not want to know every detail but still love looking at the les pauls or strats...

There's nothing stopping people putting the word "acoustic" prominently in the subject line if they want to post something that might not be attractive to shredders and other plugged-in types ?

My forum management technique is to use the "show unread posts since last visit" and mark them all read every two days at most when I know I've read everything that interests me.

Ray

Well, I have come across cases where someone will start a thread talking about his electric guitar. A few pages down the line and he or some other poster is talking about amplifiers or effects or something. For someone who is pretty interested in browzing everything acoustic it's not so lekker wading thru pages of elec stuff before coming acrioss an acoustic thread. For me I like to read everything so I do wade thru lots of stuff. Just recently we have had guys joining interested only in acoustic and even more specifically, nylon acoustic. I am sure that if there was an acoustic category they would go straight there and page thru all the posts. And they have asked questions that have been asked and discussed before. On the Acoustic Guitar Forum they have seen fit to create a category "Electrified" which I think may be regarded as a bit sacrilegious by some of the die-harders there. You know, there are many guitar forums on the internet that are very niche specific. In SA I think that this is the most popular and certainly the only one that I know about. How any local classical or any other acoustic guitarists have paged thru the posts and decided that this is no home for them because the vast majority of posts tend be be elctrified. Jeez, that was a bit long winded hey.

NorioDS

Definitely with Alan and Bob here. The forum is quite young still to be separating into Electric/Acoustic and it will almost certainly separate the community a bit. (A tiny bit but it will)

Gearhead

+1 don't split. One might think of expanding on the 'list all unread' thing and show 'list all unread acoustic' and 'list all unread electric'. Might.

NorioDS

Just got an idea that would cater for this quite nicely without changing the forum much. "tags". So if a thread is about acoustic guitar, you can "tag" it as "acoustic". Then folk only interested in acoustic stuff can filter based on tags. Never done it before with a forum but hopefully a module like that already exists.

Ray

Yip Norio, your last suggestion would help. Not that any of the arguments against make sense though. Anyway, not too serious. I notice that there arent too many other suggestions or ideas for separate categories. Maybe the okes are worried about whay response they'll get? Probably everything is just cool and groovy.

AlanRatcliffe

Ray wrote: I notice that there arent too many other suggestions or ideas for separate categories.

??? Or it may be that we already cover what they need. ?

Maybe the okes are worried about whay response they'll get?

Do you feel we're being unreasonable? I did consider it seriously and remained open to the possibility, which is why I asked for your justifications for wanting to do it. I also waited for Bob and Keira to weigh in as the other most visible acoustic players.

I honestly feel that splitting into separate instruments will detract from both boards if it's done to soon. I have seen it happen before - look at the "Bass Guitar" board. When the forum starts getting more acoustic discussion, it will be worth doing, but I don't believe that time is here yet.

Ray

No, I'm not feeling passionate about the thing. Just in my mind it seems logical. But then again, the forum is not my personal filing cabinet. There must be some or other overhead cost for such a mod to the site and I am not in the position to evaluate if it would be feasible for the admins. So, I have discussed it amongst myself and decided that I can live quite comfortably with things as they are. But I still think that this could become the home of many more guitarists or potential guitarists. Sorry if wound anyone up.

FatBoy

I think tags could work well, could implement one of those tag cloud thingies as well. Not too phased by any of this just yet though.