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Geez. This is getting out of hand, and seeing as how I need to be in bed, I'll be brief. A marketplace is something akin to a flea market. All Chopin is doing is saying, "Hey, you vendors [Composers] out there, would you like me to make space for you to do something that earns you money?" People then take this to mean, "Hey, YC, go make me some money!" So, what's getting lost in translation here is that Chopin wants to make this place more business-friendly, add another dimension to the "market" (that currently consists of 'us', we members of YC) and attract composers who want to take their interests in music to a more professional level. The real question, though, is whether YC is that place. When you turn part of a school/community center into a flea market, it is bound to confuse existing members. So much change over so little time has really not benefited the YC community. Do I think the idea has merit? Sure. Would I use a marketplace? Depending on the clientèle and the opportunities, possibly. Would I expect to see this become a "part" of YC? No. I don't walk into a school looking for a flea market. YoungComposers is specific, and it makes great sense to send those within the community that are interested in becoming a vendor at a flea market to a place that is actually a flea market. It also makes great sense to send those within the community interested in buying stuff at a flea market TO a flea market, not a school. I have to say that I really like the concept, I just don't think YC is the place for it to exist. Put $10 into a domain and use your existing host and server to link up YC users to this marketplace if it ends up taking off. Otherwise, if it fails, that's just another burden on the community and on the site itself... and on you. Baby steps lead to big things. The YC community needs all of this to slow down. We need to catch up on our numbers, return to the basics of how this site and its membership interact, we need to bring some of the old members back eventually, and we need to grow in membership. It takes time, but so did Facebook. They could have made change after change looking for ways to leverage what they had, but they waited until they were about 500,000 members strong before actually leveraging their site to make money. Nearly $19,000 went into its development over several years, then they tweaked and waited for the right time and right way to leverage their market for profit. Think what we will about YC, it may never be a Facebook, but it has potential to be a strong contender in its more specialized market. The next proposal I think we should consider is how to reach out to music students and bring them to YC, one school at a time. Build the membership, let the community build the resources, and let time run its course. The marketplace is down the road, it's not a well-timed idea FOR YC at this junction. That's my opinion, and maybe it wasn't so brief but w/e.

So the benefit is to you and not the community. I see how it is.

To it's "ownership syndrome" yes? Or is it that you want to pocket the profit yourself? Because if the latter is false, then we're already a non-profit, just not officially, and you would have to pay taxes on said income.

Did you miss my post, Chopin, or just choose to ignore it?

Well it could be an idea.. but a lot of control would be needed .. 'cauase people would be putting stupid stuff just to make money .. and it would be quantity over quality .. among 10000 other problems i can see when handling money online ..

Well of course you wouldn't since you're the one paying for everything out of pocket. How about, instead of using private funds, get YC to be finded by legit educational grants instead? YC is not a business, it was never founded on such a notion. YC is a community of people coming together to discuss a common intrest they love, music, and where older composers can educate the younger ones. This site is primarily about community and education. Both of those atributes (along with advocacy) are prime examples of non-profit organizations. What's awesome about non-profit then, is you can actually, get this, PAY your staff! If we have a small but efficiant group of staff members who run YC, then they can be promoting YC and the YC brand throughout the internet, to friends, music groups, etc. Make it their part-time *job* to promote YC. Imagine the effect that would have on viewership! This place would EXPLODE in numbers. Uploads would be incredibly high. Get people to donate to YC! Get grants! Make fundraisers where composers benefit. Use connecections to proffer performances! Imagine that! Performances advocated by a non-profit group. (The New York Philharmonic education dept and ASCAP already do that!) YC has always placed education and community first. Once money and profit get in the way (which they always do *cough* University of Phoenix *cough*), YC will fall apart because its more core principle would be taken away. And then it would just be a lot of investment money for nothing. If it were up to me, this site would be "YoungComposers.org" not ".com". We need to be an advocacy group for young composers out there who love to write but aren't sure how. Maybe that would involve providing paid services (like the Auction), but the YC organization should not take a penny out of it save for optorational costs. Remember, ASCAP started with one lone composer in the 1920s (Victor Herbert) who saw a need for composers. Today, we can follow that lead in a modern marketplace.

If people are awarded for their reviewing or their favouring, I fear that would dramatic decrease the value of that review. When I review that is a service I provide. I do not want to earn something by that, except for the good-will of others to review as well. Good will should be the only currency, imho

I see that there is some merit to the token system. On the one hand, it's easier to work with than money and also pushes people to stay on the YC website after their first service as they cannot use these tokens elsewhere (unless they "cash-out" ofc). Then on the other hand, direct cash transfers are a lot simpler from a user point of view as there are no strings attached (as mentioned earlier) and there's none of this long 'get cash, contact admin, get token, trade token' process. A large negative I see is that the market place you're proposing appears to rely heavily on user to user trades. Users are more likely to buy than offer and I worry that there will be nothing "for sale" - are you planning on offering anything constant on behalf of YC? Something that will always be in stock? Something that will make the auction service look active and worth participating in? I'm all for the exchange of services between YC members, however I'm not overly keen on somehow getting a profit from it as it means somewhere along the line, someone has lost or gotten less than they deserve and that makes for an unfriendly experience. If you're really set on having the site sustain it self/make a profit, there must be other ways of going about it? Something that doesn't effect the user experience in such a large way? All that said, I would prefer YC to stay a non-profit, educational website/community.. that is the reason why we came and stayed.

I'll say it a million times over: Non-profit, non-profit, non-profit, non-profit, non-profit.

I'm pretty sure I understand your idea and I'm not too fond of it. I have seen this kind of thing before, but I don't think the idea has a lot of synergy with the purpose of YC. You're trying to find too many little extra features to buff up YC and I think if the site is run properly then it won't need any of that. I agree with the comment about the token exchange being gimmicky. Plus... people will invariably get pissed when they're denied a token or think they're not getting enough bang for their buck. There will be people who won't use them and people who might leave because of them, which isn't a great combination of possible outcomes to have to combat. Also... are we sure the auction idea will even work before you decide to revamp it? I haven't exactly seen it in action. I know I haven't been around much, maybe I've missed something?

As for the non profit organization idea, this is just not the direction I want to take Young Composers. It is important for me to keep Young Composers funded privately in favor of having 100% control over its assets and direction.

People are looking wayyy to into this. It's not a bad idea. and not that much negativity can come from it if it fails. If I'm not mistaken, this would just be a section of YC where you can hire/get hired for a music project (ie what chopin listen on page 3): Need a midi file turned into a piece with updated Vst's? Need an in-depth review of a piece? (screenwriters always pay for their script to be read by professionals, to get in- depth reviews and help) Orchestrate a piano theme? etc etc I say go for it. If you don't want to participate, don't. The forums will still be here. It will probably bring in more traffic, also. I really don't see how you can lose much if it doesn't take off. Unless I'm missing something, like a whole revamp of the site, I don't see what the big deal is. my 2 cents