A request for the administrators here

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#1

I know this is an off-topic section, but I’m wondering if there can be other off-topic sections that do have a connection with music.

Since coming here, I’ve grown fond of interacting with the members on this forum and has made me want to come here and ONLY here whenever I have question or comment about music or playing guitar.

For example, I’d like to see a self-promotion section, a luthier section, and a music section (talking about new bands you have found or something really general).

is this possible?

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#2

Everything is possible - we didn’t want to “over-forumize” at first because we just didn’t know what things people would want. If there’s enough interest in other categories that’s fine with us.

How would you distinguish ‘gear’ from ‘luthier’ or would you just rename gear to something like ‘amps’ and then have others for ‘repair’, and ‘recording’, and so on…

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#3

Thanks for the suggestion, and great to hear you’re enjoying the forum so far! We’ll definitely keep this in mind as the forum grows. To echo Troy we think it’s awesome to see all sorts of conversations here and we’re open to adding extra layers of organization as the need arises, just want it to happen slowly / organically.

We do have one category, #general-music-discussion, that I think can be a good place (at least for now) for some of the examples you gave like talking about bands you’re listening to, sharing your own music, etc. And I think currently the volume of new posts is low enough that any new posts (regardless of category) will be viewable near the top of the homepage for at least a day or two.

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#4

Shitpost everywhere, force the mods to sort it out! Muahahahahahah! :wink:

Seriously though, considering the volume of posts here, I wouldn’t hesitate to post anything as long as it’s in good faith. If you put it in the wrong place, I expect the mods would just gently nudge you into the appropriate place.

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#5

Hehehe we’re keeping an eye out for troublemakers like you @Frylock! :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

But definitely yes to this ^^^

We can consider the existing categories fairly porous…and the best signal for us that we may need to create new ones is if we start seeing lots of posts in an area that we a) haven’t yet concretely identified and b) want to explicitly encourage more of.

For example we recently added #harmony-theory because even though we only had a couple topics for it so far, we realized it’s important enough to merit its own space and we want to signal that we like to see discussions in that area. In general we’re happy to consider anything that people feel might improve the forum as a community space and learning resource!

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#7

So you’re saying you don’t want to learn how to make 1000s per week helping people lose weight and cure their erectile dysfunction? What’s this world coming to, man? :upside_down_face::stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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#8

what about sharing your own YT channel that is music related?

#9

Another good question :slight_smile: We haven’t laid out super specific guidelines yet but I’ll take a stab at some general, provisional ones:

Sharing specific stuff you think others on the forum would enjoy or learn from: great! Overtly promotional stuff like “buy this” or “please like and subscribe”, especially without context: not great.

If active members (like you!) want to share things you’ve made on YouTube, I think that’s fine so long as it doesn’t feel like it’s crowding out other discussion i.e. don’t only post links to your own stuff or be like that spammy person on Craigslist who posts the same thing 10 times in a row to maximize clicks ‘n’ views :wink:

In general we’ll give you the benefit of the doubt if we recognize you as someone who’s been here for a while and consistently participates, as opposed to someone who shows up out of nowhere and starts spewing links all over the place. I also think if you write a bit about why you’re sharing something, that’s always helpful in actually starting a conversation around that thing.

So far we’ve been pleasantly surprised with a distinct lack of forum spam. I believe any user can flag any post if you think something crosses a line, but so far we really haven’t had much of that sort of thing to moderate. Knock on wood!

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#10

I think what @uglijimus is asking, if I understand this correctly, is whether or not there should be a forum specifically for promotional activity. Some forums have a ‘product announcements’ forum where it is somewhat more ok to promote things like hardware and software product releases that you’re selling.

There are probably some things I’m probably fine with users promoting and others I might not be. Some those things might fit into existing categories, and others might fit better into a category specifically designed for it - like general music stuff that a user has written or recorded. I haven’t really thought about this in any kind of detail. @uglijimus what kind of things are you interested in sharing, or is it just YouTube music stuff?

#11

I’ll send you a private message, thanks.

#12

I think this could be a good addition to the forum. I’d like to see:
An amp section
A guitar section
A repair/luthier section (this May more easily fall under the amp/guitar section)
A pickup section
A pedals section

Maybe some of those things and not necessarily all, depending on what other members are interested in.

Personally, I’m less of a fan of a “promote my YouTube channel” type sub forum. Maybe that’s just me though.

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#13

We do have a #gear category which is where we encourage discussion of all the above!

https://forum.troygrady.com/c/gear

Currently I don’t think it gets a volume of posts that would warrant breaking it down further into subcategories for guitars vs. amps vs. pedals, etc. Though that’s definitely something we can consider for down the line.

Agreed I don’t see a need right now for a section specifically for self-promo type stuff. I think it’s always best to prioritize specific and substantive discussions so I’d rather see someone post a video they made in a category where it fits topically, including commentary / questions to actually start a conversation around it, as opposed to e.g. just linking to a channel and asking people to subscribe.

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