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@Luderart: perhaps you deserve a congratulation for writing 20 reviews through your almost 8 years as a site member, clearly showing how much you're interested in reaching out and helping others. BTW, I've written over a thousand reviews since joining in late 2011. And, as most active members can assess, I always try to be as constructive and provide as much help as possible, not even expecting as much as a review of any work of mine in return. Perhaps that's what you attempt to scorn when referring to me as "the 'ever-polite' Austenite". I have also been very vocal about the need of mutual respect among members, often calling out rude behavior, so I don't think you're in any position to lecture me about manners. But make no mistake: being polite doesn't mean being hypocritical. Whenever reviewing someone else's work, I've made a point of stating clearly what needs to be improved in my view - no matter if it sounds harsher than it really is. If this site is to survive and keep thriving, members should be encouraged to openly say what they think and to share their knowledge and opinions (even if there are sharp disagreements), provided that they do so aiming to help fellow members towards a common goal of growth as composers. And to keep in mind that we should regard each other as a fellow. But by ignoring others and discouraging criticism, we're not doing the community (or ourselves as composers) any favors. Although perhaps that might go beyond your will, since you've built a reputation for yourself as being too easily "scathed" and overreacting to even the slightest criticism (the latest two posts being shining examples of this). So let me be even clearer: I'm not calling on you to leave YC - I'm calling on you to go beyond yourself and get truly involved in cooperation and feedback. It's up to us to keep this alive and healthy.

I have a ridiculous number of old CDs that I really need to put on my laptop before it dies and laptops no longer come with CD drives. For anything that I don't have a copy of, I find it on youtube. We still have a few really good independent radio stations here that play interesting new, small bands and obscure old blues.

When it's possible, I go to concerts here, but they are very scarce... I have tons of music files in my computer and many CDs. Some times I just stop everything and listen to some of them. Youtube is also a great place for me to give some breaks from my life^^ Less often, I also play music on my piano :P For me, listening to music is essential for my life!

Go to concerts when I have time, Spotify when I don't. I don't think music is a necessity so much as an addiction; if it all stopped tomorrow, it would not be a catastrophe.

I agree with many posters that the new format is a change for the worse. You can't even see the profiles of the composers properly. And you can't send messages to them. Also, there is no rating as many have noted. The comments/reviews on the uploaded pieces have no information on the date and time like they used to. I suggest that this thread be used to make criticisms and suggestions to improve the site. Later we can agree on the most important points and present them to the administrators. It seems that Austenite prefers the site completely dead to some members regularly posting pieces, complaining as he is: "And there is also this member who, while remaining technically "active", does nothing else than upload his own stuff every few days, completely oblivious to any feedback he receives or (even worse) to the fact that other composers might also want feedback for their stuff." I wonder if he is jealous? Or is he looking to brew up trouble? Is he perhaps longing for the days where they would as a group all gang up on me and pile up abuse against me and my music. Finally those days seem to have passed, with the major offender Sorjar having seemingly "retired" from his "duty" and I seem to have started to garner some respect as a composer. And suddenly, I look behind me and spot the "ever-polite" Austenite trying to identify me as the problem of this site? How much lower can he get, I wonder? I have, trying to avoid friction with bullies, tried to keep a low profile by as much as I can, limiting myself to only posting my pieces (as a way of "publishing" and not trying to fish compliments or abuse, mind you). And he criticizes even that!!!!! What nerve!

Really? Like who? That sounds like a very broad assumption with no bases behind it. You are aware that Schoenberg wrote a text book on functional harmony and at the end of his career wrote tonal music, that Ligeti was a master at tonal counterpoint, Pendereski began and ended his career as a tonal composer, even John Cage has a tonal piece or two. In fact most, if not all, composers who primarily write in a non-tonal fashion have roots in tonality; and you have to be write non-tonal music and to even understand it. Unless that statement was directed to amateur composers on this site or others, to make the statement that "atonal composers tend to be objectively unable to compose music which appeals to anyone outside academic circles" is an egregious assumption that comes from mainly from pure ignorance of 20th century music history. Its akin to the assumption Picasso didn't know how to paint through merely looking at his later paintings. And again, I make the point that this is a debate kept alive by those who are 90 years late to the discussion. Many of these composers are long dead, and their music and influence has proven to withstand the test of time. In the professional plural-stylistic music world, the atonal v. tonal debate is long gone and the verdict has been rendered; both tonal and non-tonal styles are equally valid. One can see this to be true as many professional composers of the 21st century are neither one or the other. The only ones who are still bent out of shape by this are those composers who have failed to either understand the real world we live in as composers, or have failed at their own compositional goals and proceed to blame one style for turning away their potential audience.

Maybe we can convince the admins to revert the site to the old format?

Well, I think it's now safe to say that this new layout has been an epic blunder. With a particularly bad timing. I've heard about a lot of sites which turn users off due to changes in their appearance - but not to such a degree that they actually cause the whole site to implode. Until now.

Did you hear about the time Michael Jordan married a Bangkok ladyboy? It was a black-Thai event.