A new policy we are considering

how about NOT restricting the posting of pieces by newcomers, but rather, restricting WHERE they can post their pieces?

I think that people who might come to this forum for help can learn much from posting a piece and getting feedback on it. And I don't think everyone is necessarily comfortable with giving their own feedback on others' work when they themselves are but beginners. This would, as has been noted above, create the habit of posting" nice work, great theme, keep up the good work" type posts just to get the requisite number of posts.

So a suggestion might be to limit the various sections of the forum for newcomers, allowing them to post in some, but not all forums. I don't know if this is possible with the present forum tools. But it's an idea.

ill try not to be too annoying by repeating what others have said being i havent read the entire thread but i think a newbies thread is a good idea and maybe when they register they could be directed to that thread. i also found a while ago on another forum a nice quote regarding this that i rather like:

Asspats/Asshats/Suxposts: These posts are (as explained previously) spam or flaming. Asspats/asshats are posts which consists of a positive comment that doesn't elaborate (Posting "That's great" and only that). These are considered spam and will be given a warning, continual abuse will result in a ban at the discretion of the moderator. Suxposts are similar to the Asspat, except they are negative ("That sux" without any follow) and will be banned, without warning for a duration to be determined by the moderator based on severity.

i think it sums up chap posting nicely (if not a little harshly for a place like the YC) :w00t: but maybe only for the posted works forums...

why not make a 'Newbie Composition Thread' where members with less then 20 posts can put their works and designate some members to evalutate the pieces or have the new members rate eachother. kind of like a kindergarden or a training ground for new members where they can learn the ropes

...or something :(

EDIT: ^^ what he said. but who's to say that even then they'd get evaluated. seems like a catch 22.

why not make a 'Newbie Composition Thread' where members with less then 20 posts can put their works and designate some members to evalutate the pieces or have the new members rate eachother. kind of like a kindergarden or a training ground for new members where they can learn the ropes

I don't know really how productive that would be. A single thread devoted to newbies' music? I don't know, it seems like a crazy idea to me and maybe not something people would so much enjoy. As people have been saying, newbies tend to be very unpredictable. The possibilty of secluding newbies to only post on one thread seems like a train wreck. Following the same idea though, if newbies had a discussion group that was designed for them, but without excluding them from other groups, then newbies would have a comfortable environment with other newbies but they wouldn't have to just post there. I don't know. Just expanding on her idea a little. (Forgive me if I sound stupid, but I'm reeeaaally tired. :w00t: )

Btw, when you refer to me, instead of calling me Indiana, you can just call me by my nickname: Indy. Its just a little more informal and shorter.

i never said theyd enjoy it :w00t: i was feeling rather sadistic and counter-productive. but why do they need a group? why not a designated thread? and it seems that the newbies who become more active members are the ones who take the initiative to start threads of their own. i think if theyre worth the effort they'll take care of themselves.

i agree with the setting of a minimal number of posts before they can post in the standard compostion threads because the "one night stand" members can get annoying. why not group all the one night stands for people who would like feedback but dont intend on membership?

wow, im full of useless ideas ;)

I feel really uncomfortable with these ideas of restricting the site to "newbies". It's coming across a little bit like "This is OUR site, this is how we run it, and if you don't like it you can walk!" Putting up too many restrictions would limit the interest in this site. I, for one, was nearly run out of this site from day one, and very easily could have left and given up the idea of composing all together. Whether or not I am as productive as some is yet to be seen, but we were all newbies once. I think what we need to be doing is to accept newcomers with open arms and a helping hand. Laying down laws and restrictions will only turn people away.

Sean Christopher Stork

Nightengale Incorporated

poor Nightengale...

jks. :ninja: naw, we love you Sean

I strongly believe that a policy of requiring a minimum number of posts prior to sharing one's own music will be bad for forum participation overall, particularly with older composers. You're going to get older, more experienced composers here who would otherwise be quite willing to participate and offer conversation, but when they see this rule, they're going to get the impression that the site is too geared towards young people for them.

I have no interest in posting any of my own compositions - composition is not my primary interest. And frankly, I don't really care which way you go with this. But in my old-person opinion, I think this has much greater potential to slow your growth than to increase it.

On another note, I think that getting to hear a newcomer's compositions gives other members insights into that person's compositional style and skill. QcCowboy recently joined and posted a recording of an excellent symphony. Right away that gave me a clue that his posts might be particularly insightful. Also, giving positive feedback right away to a newcomer's compositions is a great way to encourage them to become part of the community. People tend to stick around places when they feel they are valued. Finally, hearing another person's compositions is a great way to recognize common compositional interests and provides a great topic for initializing forum communication.

If you feel that there is a problem with newcomers not participating, perhaps there are other courses of action, such as a warm welcome that tells them which places on the forum are generally most active, where they can go to listen to compositions and share their own, etc. Having forum members make contact with a new member is likely to be a more effective means of encouraging involvement than by imposing an immediate probation period!

Interesting insights, all.

I wouldn't suggest shepherding all the newbies like me into a pen and telling us to play just with each other; our own development would become agonizingly slow. We don't know what to review, many don't even know what a composition 'should' have in it, and unless we can get reviews from the real experienced, upper echelon of this forum, then the ignorance of the uninformed will just perpetuate itself. I'm not saying that every newbie's post has a right or a need to be reviewed like a Major Work, but there are charitable, generous people in that upper echelon that are good enough to come look at a newbie post and really get them started on the path towards progress.

On the other hand, what happened to me was that yes, I realized that in order to be worthy of any reviews for my own compositions, I needed to review those of others and aid the community, and so I did, but I don't have any real deep musical knowledge; I just play in the band. I can't identify form, resolutions, anything outside of rhythms, chords, and pitches. I did post a few comments on various pieces, and if you've seen any of them, you know how pathetic they were. All I could really do was say whether I liked it or not. I felt that my posts to any serious composer would be an irritation to someone who wanted a real review. So I stopped commenting. I thought to myself; I wouldn't want my own opinion, so why would anyone else? Finally, I did post a composition or two, and while yes, the replies did say that my compositions were pretty elementary and extremely simplistic (which I anticipated, because I knew they could only reflect my experience and knowledge of composition), it was extremely valuable to me because those replies indicated to me how to progress. I also found that the replies that made me feel a little better were the ones that just said, "I liked it."

I draw two conclusions from my experience thus far:

1) Any comment, any genuine reaction to a composition is worthwhile. Even if it is just to be ignored in the long run by the composers that are only interested in analysis, I think everyone should somehow be encouraged to give their sincere reactions to a piece, no matter how elementary your observations might be.

2) It is critical for the health of this community and the advancement of the elementary composer such as myself that newbies be able to freely associate and participate in the community. The community will be greatly benefited from the unmitigated and unpressured interaction between different levels of composers; the lower levels get many obvious gems of advice and help, while the higher levels gain perspective on the musical development of the less mature composers which could have a large impact on themselves, not to mention that the faster the amateurs learn about and are assimilated into the community, the faster they start putting out better compositions.

I assume that anyone who has the wits about them to compose music has the intelligence to realize the supply-and-demand of this forum; that to be worthy of reviews, one must contribute to the community. Spammers and self-centered individuals will never be dismayed enough to actually go away; they will always find a way to get around the system. The proposed idea, in my mind, would attack the innocent bystanders in an attempt to shoot the criminal, who would avoid it anyway. I think it would be better if we just understand that there are these people in the world, and we don't have to get all upset about it.

If what I have said here is ignored, or if I am disdained for voicing my feelings in an important topic because I am a newbie, then I have a major misconception about this community's maturity.

Newbie or not, you seem to have grasped entirely on the purpose of this community. I agree and support all that you just said, and that kind of attitude will make you (has made you) an invaluable member of this site and composer/musician in general.

Sean Christopher Stork

Nightengale Incorporated

Here's my take on this (yes, with the power of all 30 of my posts):

I actually feel reluctant to comment on music from others, as my knowledge and skill is close to none. I visit YC everyday and listen to a lot of the pieces, but I usually don't "review" it because I am not qualified. I then realized that for MY work to be reviewed, I would need to earn some recognition, or in other words, post more. Using a requirment limit will also lead to spam. There will be "it sounds good" or "it sounds ok" replies everywhere, especially from those who realize that they are not qualified to review a piece (like me).

50 posts is definatly too high. It's like making a user review 10 pieces, with 5 posts in each thread. Post count is both good and evil, and one way (though very radical) to fix this problem is to NOT show user's post count. Then only those who participate will be known. One problem with this is the fact that a user with a noticable avatar or signature will be morｅ "known" than others that don't even upload one.

Bottom line is: let them (or should I say "us"?) post their pieces! If they're not going to contribute to the community, then don't give them a reivew! =)

That's already the direction I'm heading in out of self-preservation, regardless of what comes of this idea. My reality is that I don't have time to hear and comment on everything, so feel I need to be selective. There are plenty of people here already that I know contribute, and I'd rather spend what little time I have on their stuff. I suppose I wouldn't be so inclined had I not had several bad experiences giving detailed reviews and suggestions for improvement to people who never darkened the door again. Until I know someone will be back, I'm going to spend my time where it will be well spent.

My concern is that if a newbie knows this, and isn't really motivated to give detailed reviews, but wants his or her own work reviewed, he or she will just post things like "nice job" or "good work". It doesn't take much to reach 20 posts, so spamming like this is most likely to occur.

You know, sometimes that's all the review I give. I like the work, improvement may be a matter of taste if there is nothing really awkward or offensive about the piece to me, and I'm not getting bored with it for some reason.

Sometimes people like to know that there work was enjoyed by someone else without a bar by bar analysis and critique that is often merely a description of the style, how it fails to live up to the style or follows it too exactly or whatever. And sometimes a bar by bar critique is appreciated, depending on what's said.

I think that it's also important to remember that we all have our "musical heros" and they are certainly different, and that will come out in some reviews. But if the composer has different musical ideals than his reviewers, sometimes those reviews will be somewhat meaningless.

If a person get's a "well done" or simply "I enjoyed this music" why is that spam if it's sincere? I recently gave such a review on a set of variations that I very much enjoyed. What exactly, is expected? A bar by bar analysis? A redudant description of the style? Glowing or dark adjectives applied to this or that section?

We're composers, but we're consumers as well. People applaud when they like something, and that's usually all that is expected if they enjoyed the music.

First off, I gotta say, LOTTA awesome stuff in this topic dudes!:)

I definitely agree with PaulPoehler - who doesn't enjoy it when someone applauds them for their performance, or when someone compliments them for their piece? Sure, "it's good" is spam, but if they elaborated more and said something like "I really enjoyed it, especially the bridge and how you..." would it still be spam? Or even if they did just say "I really enjoyed it, but I can't really explain why" - would that still be considered spam? Some composers will only be capable of giving advice of that caliber.

Secondly, I am a self-taught/untrained composer, so the only words I USE myself are measure, beat, note, pitch, chord, rythm, melody, percussion, bass, intro, verse, chorus, bridge, outro, interlude, and a few more. I have no clue what the poop you guys mean when you say wind, pipes, etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc.!! The most I could do for a critique is some sort of sincere encouragement to continue composing because I believed it was well-composed or at least showed potential based on what I've learned through my composing. I definitely can analyze and evaluate music (I do it all the time, drives me nuts), but I know if I did critique it I'd say something incorrectly - because I have no idea whether I'm using the words I am using correctly or not.

And I COMPLETELY agree with EVERYTHING andersonalex said here (which is also what Nightingale was saying):

.

"I strongly believe that a policy of requiring a minimum number of posts prior to sharing one's own music will be bad for forum participation overall, particularly with older composers. You're going to get older, more experienced composers here who would otherwise be quite willing to participate and offer conversation, but when they see this rule, they're going to get the impression that the site is too geared towards young people for them.

I have no interest in posting any of my own compositions - composition is not my primary interest. And frankly, I don't really care which way you go with this. But in my old-person opinion, I think this has much greater potential to slow your growth than to increase it.

On another note, I think that getting to hear a newcomer's compositions gives other members insights into that person's compositional style and skill. QcCowboy recently joined and posted a recording of an excellent symphony. Right away that gave me a clue that his posts might be particularly insightful. Also, giving positive feedback right away to a newcomer's compositions is a great way to encourage them to become part of the community. People tend to stick around places when they feel they are valued. Finally, hearing another person's compositions is a great way to recognize common compositional interests and provides a great topic for initializing forum communication.

If you feel that there is a problem with newcomers not participating, perhaps there are other courses of action, such as a warm welcome that tells them which places on the forum are generally most active, where they can go to listen to compositions and share their own, etc. Having forum members make contact with a new member is likely to be a more effective means of encouraging involvement than by imposing an immediate probation period!"

.

What this all really boils down to is that many of you have wasted your time in the past writing long, detailed, explicative critiques for n00bs, then regretted it because they left the site without even saying goodbye (so to say). I know I sound like the badguy and it's a harsh thing to say, but get over it. You've learned your lesson and you won't do it again, right? Problem solved. If you don't want to write critiques for new YCs, feel free not to, but don't try to prevent the rest of the YCs from doing so by turning away tons of new members by what will be perceived by many as an elitist system.

PS: Note how I phrased it: "perceived by many as." I'm not saying it is an elitist system, just that it will seem that way to many.

PSS: I know I'm new here, but the reason why I understand this so well is that the same thing happens over at the programming forum(s). A n00b comes and asks for help, then someone (me a few times) posts a very long, detailed, precise, exact how-to, then regrets doing so because the n00b leaves the forum(s) without even saying goodbye (so to say). It's the same exact thing, but with programming instead of composing, which programming is actually, well, I won't go into that!:P

This was what I was suggesting from the start! Make some sort of upload/post quota to encourge more people to post more comments and critiques - maybe you can even set a minimum words per post limit for the composition forums to deter quick responses too.

You know, sometimes that's all the review I give. I like the work, improvement may be a matter of taste if there is nothing really awkward or offensive about the piece to me, and I'm not getting bored with it for some reason.

Sometimes people like to know that there work was enjoyed by someone else without a bar by bar analysis and critique that is often merely a description of the style, how it fails to live up to the style or follows it too exactly or whatever. And sometimes a bar by bar critique is appreciated, depending on what's said.

I think that it's also important to remember that we all have our "musical heros" and they are certainly different, and that will come out in some reviews. But if the composer has different musical ideals than his reviewers, sometimes those reviews will be somewhat meaningless.

If a person get's a "well done" or simply "I enjoyed this music" why is that spam if it's sincere? I recently gave such a review on a set of variations that I very much enjoyed. What exactly, is expected? A bar by bar analysis? A redudant description of the style? Glowing or dark adjectives applied to this or that section?

We're composers, but we're consumers as well. People applaud when they like something, and that's usually all that is expected if they enjoyed the music.

This has nothing to do with your post, but I didn't know you joined up these forums!~! How's it hangin'?

I give full support.

I meant moderator approval for posting works, not for joining the forum.

Then it becomes a question of man-power. Do the staff have the time to approve every single piece posted?

I guess an easy way to do it would be to make it so that a user cannot start a new topic in any of the Upload and review threads untill they have reached a certain number of posts. It's not perfect but it's easy to implement and manage.

i think what Nico's saying makes a lot of sense, I'd like to draw upon an example.

Some of you may know of the member bob the sane, who is a relative new member. His first piece, however, gets loads of views and lots of comments, I think that this is because upon joining, he joined the conversation in the shoutbox and began contributing to the site immedietely. I belive this, as opposed to his subtle and otherwise spamming of his work :) is the reason he got so much interest. Other 'noobs' however join, post their piece and get largely ignored because no-one knows they exist. thus, i think some sort of system already exist, albeit unofficially, but it should be made known to newcomers that they will have a much warmer reception if they join the community as well as the forum and contibute as well as expect help.

You guys aren't getting it.

Not moderator approval for every thread in the upload forums, but moderator approval for the privelege.

IE, after someone gets the approval they don't need to get it again. Instead of using the post count, a largely arbitrary number, use the staff as a judge as to when someone has contributed sufficiently.

Now I don't know how well the software would lend itself to this though...

This is possible, but in the end undesirable given the extra work it would entail and the problems inherent in judging whether or not someone has contributed sufficiently (i.e. has "earned the right" to use our facilities).

I think my position on the general issue has already been stated in this thread, either by myself or by others. There are way too many variables involved for arbitrary post count promotion to be a viable option, and in the end, the issue is largely sociological, so best addressed sociologically.

If someone arrives and wants to contribute, that's great. If someone arrives and wants to leech, that isn't great, but you won't necessarily be able to distinguish these two theoretical individuals through their post counts, and I personally would not be comfortable with the notion of promoting people manually either. It is a nifty idea, but not one that I'd like to implement, at least based on my current perception of it.

I think the mod approval would be a good one. If its a question of manpower maybe they should look at getting in some more mods? Not necessarily with all the admin powers, but then the mods can review the pieces and send the odd PM saying "Yo, give this guy privelidges." You wouldn't necessarily have to give the new "mods" any actual power with the site at all.

Just a thought, soz if I was rambling a bit.

I'm against anything like this, really. What we have is fine as it is. People eventually learn how the site works (ours isn't really different from other sites like it), and they fit in. But I think doing anything on top of that will just create problems. It would be more of a hassle to try to fix something that maybe presents a problem here or there (like a random member joining then spamming his music all over the place - who cares?). I vote we take action as a problem is presented, rather than 'prevent' these problems, only because the prevention could possibly lead to more problems. And if the prevention isn't entirely necessary, then we're just creating problems for no reason!

Isn't it best left up to members to form their individual policies re reviewing? Just as they decide whether to post works or not.

No one has to review anything but if posters want their work reviewed, they have to respond to others' work. Sometimes I'll review new members' work if it shows genuine effort or enquiry (in my view) even if that member hasn't reviewed anything.

I won't review anything like "I threw this together this afternoon in half an hour, what do you think?" I won't review "this is my first composition" unless a score is presented and where "tutorial" comment is invited. Unless the person is an outright genius, there's barely justification for showcasing one's first work. That's just my view though.

For those reviewers who are no longer students, there aren't enough hours in the day....