Music Conference Administrivia

Mar 24 19:22 UTC 1998

The conference has slowed down again recently.  Is the burden of 18 months 
of items too great, or do people like having it as a convenient archive?
 
Is a conference restart in order?

response 2 of 73:

Mar 24 22:10 UTC 1998

(no problem with the number of items. many of them deal with music that
I either have no interest in, or deal with music of which I have little
knowledge [I tend to lurk in these items]. as Ken has lamented before, I
haven't really been able to discuss my specialty [hip-hop]. most of the
groups that I can discuss are pop acts from the past 10 years; if it
charted in the top 10, I should know something about the group.)

(I guess part of my problem with discussing music is, while I'd love to go
into the details of why LL Cool J featured Canibus on a remix, but dissed
Canibus not only on the record, but also left him out of the video, which
prompted Canibus to release a song entitled "Second Round KO" which
basically tears LL a new anal cavity, I'd much rather listen to the music,
and _feel_ the music.)

(hmm... in the process of writing this response [and struggling with it],
an idea popped in my head: would anyone be interested in a listening
party?)

response 4 of 73:

Mar 24 22:25 UTC 1998

...and I'd be up for one.

response 6 of 73:

Mar 24 23:12 UTC 1998

(that's the dilemma I have. few people seem interested in the history
of Eazy-E and NWA, or what Debbie Gibson has been up to, but, hey, if
you're willing to listen to the music first, and let me explain later...!)

(...but a listening party doesn't directly affect what Ken sees as
a lack of activity in the music conference. [it might indirectly, if
it encourages people to try out new music, and then those people begin
to discuss the music.] I don't really have an answer for that problem,
or even really good suggestions; the music conference is certainly
more popular than any conference I've fairwitnessed for the past four 
years, and the people who do take care of the conference do so well; the
music conference was the first conference that I discovered after Agora;
it even had the first response I'd ever entered in PicoSpan, once upon
a time!)

<carson thinks he's used too many semicolons in one sentence, and
hides from the grammar police>

response 8 of 73:

Mar 25 02:56 UTC 1998

I don't really believe in conference pruning myself.  What harm is the 'dead
wood' doing?

response 10 of 73:

Mar 25 06:12 UTC 1998

  I can't recall, does Picospan have a special file that it shows you
  the very first time you join a conference (as opposed to the normal
  conference startup msg)?  If so, wouldn't it be helpful to put a
  little note about the "read since" command for first-time visitors?
  I know when I was first bouncing around many years ago I was quite
  put off by many conferences where it seemed like there was a huge
  body of stuff from ages back -- small, active conferences were much
  more attractive.

response 12 of 73:

Apr 1 02:05 UTC 1998

This conference has continued to have a LOT of potential-- I was one who
worked hard to get the ball rolling and have people think of myriads of topics
concerning music.  (I'd like to hear more on music ed, music in the schools,
etc., etc. but most aren't educators.)

While the conference seems cumbersome, I think it's well organized,
categorically.  People can always come back with new information.  Perhaps
I am inclined to see this partly as an archive.

response 14 of 73:

Aug 30 23:35 UTC 1998

Thanks.

response 16 of 73:

Aug 31 05:00 UTC 1998

  I'm not looking forward to the gory details in the next chain letter
  I get.  "A public access conferincing fairwitness broke the chain and
  the next day his CD player began scratching his irreplacable import-
  only folk music CDs.."

response 18 of 73:

Sep 1 08:46 UTC 1998

  augh..  did I actually write "conferincing"?  my brain's almost totally
  shut down after the past couple of weeks, which doesn't bode well for
  back-to-school.  wherever did I get the idea that summer was supposed to
  be a time of mental recuperation?

response 20 of 73:

Dec 9 23:19 UTC 1998

I'll kick this item.  In party, mziemba was arguing that it was time 
for housekeeping, that the conference was too confusing to newcomers,
and there were too many duplicate items -- numerous soundtrack 
items, for example.  Take it away, Mark...

response 22 of 73:

Dec 10 05:11 UTC 1998

There is really no way to prevent duplicate items.  You can't force 
people to do a 'browse' before starting a new item, and you can't 
force people to use clearly descriptive item titles.

response 24 of 73:

Feb 9 02:25 UTC 1999

  If others feel they're appropriate I'll put up with them but I'm
  a little tired of the item links from the auction conference.
  Rather than a profusion of limited-time items linked into the
  music conference (which will then stick around and clutter the
  conference until doomsday or a restart, whichever comes first..)
  couldn't we just have an item where people could enter references
  to appropriate items in the auction conf?  That way those of us
  who aren't interested could forget it and have it stay forgotten..