Are we getting a music section any time soon? I know HA.org had a poll a while back and I don't know what happened from there! Theres soooo many things we could talk about regarding music itself! So whats the pause for? Is it gonna happen or not?

word up, yo!

seriously tho, it'd be cool to have a place to talk about music.

Yeah, as long as it doesn't end up to be a Pink Floyd section!

The poll is here: http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....showtopic=11454

Feel free to participate in it if you haven't yet. Personally, I share Gecko's view:


It would also be nice to get some sort of Admin response to the poll; so far it looks abandoned.

I'll bet the admin's are working on it. If it's not implemented yet it's more likely because they're busy than because it's been abandoned. I'm assuming that a 2/3 "yes" vote will mean a "go" for it, unless specific issues come up.

Or maybe they're waiting to get more total votes in the music forum poll than the number of replies to the "What are you listening to right now?" thread.

Current score:

527 Music poll total votes
1466 "What are you listening to right now?" replies

B)

I never understood why anyone wonders what anyone else is listening to, I think most people's taste in music is awful!!

A short definition of Hydrogenaudio's main discussion:



Enough said. IMO a music/artist discussion is completely irrelevant and it would bring to our little scientific discussion community a new kind of users whose purposes and motivations are not similar to ours.
I really hope if this kind of discussion doesn't bring disorder to HA. (let me remind you about the off-topic discussion about war which lead to an active and very useful member to leave HA).

Unfortunatelly, roughly 2/3 voted yes... Let's hope admins know what they're doing.

I agree with Emtee. I feel that music discussions would be useless here, especially considering the technical orientation of this board.

So to speak up for the other 2/3. I think it would be nice for those who want to talk about music to have an area to do so. And those who don't want to or can't handle it don't have to read it. Like the way the foobar forum is handled right now...

I could set it up in 5 minutes, but there are few things:

1. First, the initiative came from Dibrom, I'm not personally so enthusiastic about this type of forum, so I've waited if Dibrom proceeds or says something about it.
2. Some undecided things, like should upload be allowed (people could upload short clips of favorite music), and should the topics be visible or invisible in "active topics". Personally I'd like to hide the topics from "active topics" , because there's enough "clutter" from off-topic forum already.

Because of the above 2 things, I haven't proceeded with the forum yet..

I voted yes, but I don't think we're getting a Music forum because it would bother the 1/3 who voted 'No' more than not having one would bother the 2/3 who voted 'Yes'. Besides, HA isn't a democracy

@emtree
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....0&&#entry116208

Is it difficult to leave this decision to the individual members?

I always imagined it as a second "off-topic" forum just for discussing music, i.e. it wouldn't show up in active topics.

There are plenty of music forums online though, why would anyone wanna water this place down? I'm serious, that's what it'd do. People would be distracted from the main areas and the whole point of this place. I know this from working as a moderator of 3 different forums myself for the last 3 years. It'd be a mistake, believe me.

EDIT: Typoos.

I'm all for a music section, since I love (some people say I'm obsessed with) introducing new music to people and talking/ranting about music in general.
About the issues JohnV mentioned:

Upload shouldn't be allowed, since a) 30 sec. clips are nowhere near enough to get an impression of a song or even an album b) most labels provide free downloads (up to 3 songs off one album in the case of most indie-labels) or streams (major-labels).

Threads shouldn't appear in the portal or the Active Topics.

dev0

that are excactly my thoughts on this matter. I'm not against another sub-forum addressing only music itself (in fact, I voted yes), but it shouldn't show up in the active topic list. that would realy be annoying to all who are not that much intersted in other ppl taste for music (for that purpose, there's still the 'what are you listening' section to begin a small discusion, if interested. though it's primary goal seems to be able to say: 'hello, it's me. I like that song (because of...)).
so, nothing wrong with the idea. but it would be good to keep focus on compression and more related topics than ones taste in music + to not bother all of thoose who are against it.

Well, I was going to respond to JohnV's points, but dev0 said exactly what I would have said! And understanding that no matter how many of us want a music forum, it's still not nearly the main point of HA and would accordingly have a lower priority than other administrative tasks (I would assume).

I'd like to add that, in addition to music forum topics not appearing in the active topics section, that also music forum posts should not add to post count, not that post count matters to most of us, but simply the number of music forum posts should not be reflective of someone's participation in the rest of HydrogenAudio. (This had been brought up originally in the poll thread.)

Also, it had been asked whether such a forum could be "hidden" from general web searches (google, jeeves, etc.) in the interest of keeping it as a place for people who's first interest is psychoacoustic audio compression to also discuss music. Is "hiding" only part of a message board from the rest of the internet something that's even possible?

dev0 put my thoughts into words

Yes to a music forum, even though I wouldn't participate.
No to allowing uploads, IMO it would chew up bandwith for no real reason.
No to topics appearing in the recent threads, it's an OT Forum

Aside from the points JohnV raised, there are other issues as well. The main one being that this sort of forum will probably be a moderation nightmare, and I simply don't have the time to put into it to uphold the level of quality I'd like to see. I'm not sure that JohnV wants to spend a whole lot of time on this either, and most of our other mods are usually pretty inactive...

I totally agree with this point. The last thing I need to see if a bunch of "Did you hear Britney's new song?"

are you saying that ha might need one or two adidtional mods if the music section gonna happen? or is this a (kind of understandable) reason for not to raise it?
the other option would be just to take less time to moderate the section then. after all, it's 'just' about music (no technical discussion etc). though it would be sad if no kind of control gonna happen, for it might someday be that sombody claims: 'Diana Ross was married with M.J., they had a daughter named Britney, which also started singing. it's true, I swear to god, I read it at ha!'

Please don't take this the wrong way, Dibrom, but this reads like a bit of a cop out. The sudden rush of posts you often see here when someone writes, "what's the name of this song" etc shows that there are many members who like to talk about this stuff, in a forum that sets the benchmark in how these things should be run.

I deeply appreciate the efforts and the difficulties of maintaining this level of quality, and the lack of time that you and JohnV have because of your HA and other real life commitments.

On the other hand there are clearly some very enthusiastic, yet still mostly responsible members here, ie dev0, Scotlibran etc, and after all, it's one thing to be precise, and chew the fat about what's what in the audio compresson scene, but hell, why do most of us use these codecs? The music!

Surely HA could get around the concerns of quality etc by keeping the music section separate and out of the active topics area, appoint a couple of new moderators just for looking after the music discussion section, and have some clear terms of service, banning samples, music trading etc, with a disclaimer or two, covering that nothing in this music discussion forum is necessarily true and does not represent the opinion of HA, blah blah blah.

Seriously though too, the off topic section is already cluttered with all sorts of stuff, if we don't get a music discussion forum, you'll probably just get more and more music threads appear anyway! Why not keep them out of the main area, but give the music fans a little area where we can go and keep ourselves occupied.

Just my 2c.

Den

If a music forum did come to fruition, it's statements like the above that will weigh heavily on its success.

Later.

well, can't say I like BritneyS. myself... on the contrary B)
BUT do we got the right to say things like: 'I don't like your taste in music, so you won't be allowed to post about it'?!!
I guess the potential new music forum would consist of a lot of oppinions about mainstream pop-music etc. but it could aslo be used to discuss all kind of new albums, impotant artist related questions (meaning no gossip) and would be a way to maybe kind of broaden ones mind in termes of (new, maybe good) artists.

edit: the only thing that would make worry about this new forum is that ha might become known as a forum where you can talk about music. fullstop.
but as there prob. are more users attracted that way, maybe this would be a way to make the knowledge about the 'right' way about audiocompression spread further...
and finaly, if the users of this forum want to do talk about music, why not? after all the users are the forums main sense (not to forget the admins, which I more or less count to the users in this point ).

Then it begs the question, "Are there new people who would be eligible/responsible for being a moderator within the music forum?" As someone mentioned before, there are some growing veterans who may be responsible enough to be a moderator, dev0 & ScorLibran for one. There are probably others as well, but those two come immediately to mind.

As for the issues, here are my two cents:
1. Should uploads be allow? NO. There's already an uploads folder, and if it's abused just for attention whoring, warn & delete. I think violations can be handled on a case by case basis, since I don't think the upload traffic will increase drastically.
2. Let this be essentially in the off-topic forum, so that it follows the same rules as such. That way fewer people will be distracted by the music forum.

Other policies that should be set:
1. No direct linking to music - This may sound strange, but it will keep HA free from anyone who would violate an artists copyrights, and it would save moderators from having to determine whether or not there are copyrights are violated.
2. Obviously, no linking to Warez-like pages that includes unauthorized file distribution.

What are your thoughts on this?

I agree with this statement, but I don't believe that anyone should deride anyone else's taste in music simply because they don't share the same opinion or taste in music. Disagree, yes, but anything other than that, no. I was simply thinking of the possible flame wars that negative comments would incite.

Later.

{edit:} deleted a word that didn't make sense in the sentence.

right.
I interpreted your post in a differnet way than it was meant.

coming to flame wars... this kind of stuff did and will happen on all kind of topics (e.g. see 1. some music format flamings, ogg vorbis beeing opensource etc... 2. choise of os 3. taste in music 4. [fill in any other topic] etc etc etc...).
so just because there is the possibilty that there will be some flaming is no reason to not create such a forum.
I guess there would be a statement like: 'everebody is free to hear what he/she likes, so pls keep the discussion at a friendly level furthermore bla bla...
this would of course not keep all ppl away from flameing, but what can I say...

sounds good to me, though I think links to e.g mtv-sites etc where you can listen to short samples should be allowed, you could easily spot the 'mtv.com' in the link...

edit: layout, (some) typos

I have mixed reactions on this subject.
I would love to have a musical discussion, as long as this was constructive and fulfilling. One would think that HA, with it's above-average-intelligence crowd, would be a natural place for this. One at least has the certainty that everybody here is a bonafide music lover, that really listens to music, not just uses it for "background". I would love to be able to comment my musical tastes with an international crowd such as this.
On the other, hand, as the war-related threads showed, discussion here can get pretty nasty when there is no scientific evidence to fall on. If all the Audio Compression threads are so civil, is because of this. This cannot be done in a music forum. Sooner or later, there are going to be fierce flaming battles. Warning and banning will probably be innefective, those are weapons against "bullshit" and trolling, but when people's personal opinions and tastes are confronted, they could be very close to censorship. And, have you seem the "fan boys" at sites like Ain't It Cool News? Do we really want that upon us?

This is probably just a nice idea that cannot be implemented correctly as of now (kinda like a lot of things in the Audio Compression world).

that would be a sad fact. not because I hunger for a music forum, but because of the potential inabilty of ppl to accept other point of views, even if you dislike them. I'm aware that no scientific discussion on ones taste of music can be held, but don't you guys think this could be done in a propper way, with some guidance from the potential mods?
shoudn't everbody be able to keep the argument level at least like: 'I realy like the way the guitar sounds, the voice is very melodic, very tense atmosphere... you don't think so? fine, that's your point of view, you don't have to listen to it' etc?!
all right, this is an utopia, but something like that should be possible...

edit: clarification

It's more likely to be possible with music than with politics. Of course some times there will be hard words, but that lies in the nature of discussing things.

Not a problem. See that thing on the left that says warn: (0%)? Anyone participating in harsh flame wars should be warned. That's pretty much how we do things on HA.

For example, if someone admits to liking Barry Manilow, Abba, and/or New Kids on the Block, that's alright. But if someone makes fun of them for it (when the 1st person specifically requests you refrain from doing so), then let the 2nd person get warned.

In the same vein, people writing disrespectful posts in a "Pay your respects"-type thread gets warned or even banned. Paying your respects does NOT allow you to debate. Debates get their own thread. For example, if I posted a "Johnny Cash sucks, and I'm glad he's dead" post in the Johnny Cash is dead thread, I should expect to be warned or banned.

That should cover the bases for now. Don't forget to apply rule 8 liberally. Claims need to be backed with some evidence. If I say that John Mayer is the greatest guitarist in the world, then I'd better back that up or prepare to get flamed or warned.

P.S. One more thing. If traffic REALLY becomes a problem, then I would suggest taking the music forum and turning it into something like the foobar2000 forum, where someone else is the admin.

Uh how can you back that up? Will you ABX him against Kirk Hammett from Metallica or others ?

If you say you like an artist that is an expression of your personal taste which people either follow or dislike/don't really feel for it. Taste is such a personal thing that no one can offer any kind of moderation on these topics apart from keeping it polite as you said a bit higher in your post.

Anyway I don't think it is a good idea to start such a forum since it will atract people that aren't interested in the technological (either deep or noob - more of my level ) discussion done here at HA.

My $0.02...

>>>>>
HydrogenAudio - Music Forum - Terms of Service (proposed)

#1 : Taste in music is subjective in nature. Do not make absolute statements about music, artists or genres.

#2 : Do not make claims of fact that you cannot support with scientific evidence.

#3 : If you do not have something nice to say about another person's opinions or taste in music, artist or genre, then say nothing at all. There are plenty of other threads to read and participate in.

#4 : Posts which are offensive in nature including personal insults (flames) or exhibitions of prejudice (bias by race, gender, religion, nationality, etc.) will not be tolorated.

#5 : References or links to "warez" (illegal distribution of copyrighted materials) is forbidden.

#6 : ...
<<<<<

HydrogenAudio's adherance to scientific principles will have to be adapted to fit a "music forum" in order to be applicable/enforceable while still maintaining the standards which set HA apart. Rule #2 may seem irrelevant in such a forum, but it (along with rule #1) would invalidate such claims as "John Mayer is the best guitarist in the world".

Rules #3 and #4 would provide the basis for preventing or addressing personal conflicts. They can be used to enforce the "Can't we all just get along?" principle.

Rule #5 (and all other such rules) should be adopted directly from the regular HA TOS to effectively "synchronize" the standards of conduct in a music forum with those across the rest of HA. Alternatively, the subset of music forum TOS can also reference the primary HA TOS to maintain standards.

Once the Music Forum TOS are documented (and assuming the forum were implemented) then it's a matter of enforcement which we can all help the admins and moderators with. When we see a clear violation, we use the "Report" button in an offending post. Then an admin or moderator can use the "Warn" or "Ban" buttons (or other appropriate response) accordingly with the post's submitter.

This doesn't reduce the potential workload of administrating and moderating such a forum, but at least it defines and addresses (hopefully) the most common problems. And these are all points which I'm sure have been considered already.

Sorry...just rambling with some ideas...it sounds like the music forum idea may be "shelved" for the moment anyway. Look at the bright side...we still have our beloved (and unintrusive) "What are you listening to right now?" thread.

I agree, but if it ever materializes I think the TOS will most likey be based on what you wrote.
Your rules could really open the possibility of having civil conversations.

ScorLibran, you are a f***ing genius. You've spelled out precisely what I was trying (but failing) to get at. Though I still stand by my idea for a policy on no direct linking to music in general. Direct linking to a legitimate page that has the material should be acceptable.

Personal example:
http://www.twolf1300.net/mp3/mp3.html

http://www.twolf1300.net/mp3/Steve&TianyuSing&Play.mp3

The former is a link to some of the songs I've done, the latter is a direct link to a song that a friend and I performed at public event. Since IANAL, I don't know the full legalities of distributing an mp3 of me performing a copyrighted song (I think it's legal, but if it's not I'll remove that link from this post). Even worse, a moderator or admin may have to listen to that song just to make sure that no laws are being broken.

Edit: Oh yeah, if anyone is wondering, those mp3s are the last mp3 encodes I did before discovering HA.

Edit2: Others are saying that me performing an unauthorized cover is illegal. I don't want to give HA any trouble in any regard, no matter how unlikely it is that ASCAP will sue. So I have changed the links to something that won't work. The point is still there.

It should be legal unless you have made an arrangement with the venue not to.
The composer has no say in the matter regarding others publically performing said songs.

I think it is not legal.
Performing other people's songs (specially if you got payed) is not legal.
Copyright law is not usually enforced, of course. Have you ever known of a bar "cover" band getting sued?
But it could mean trouble (this was raised on another forum but I don't remember where)

AFAIK it IS legal. everbody has got the right to play his own interpretation of any song writen by any artist in in the world. I'm almost 99,9% sure about that, I could be wrong though.
if it comes to payment and festivals, that is thing I don't know.

Actually not, but sometimes I wish I did.

/me shakes fist at shitty cover bands!

Sorry ScorLibran, not picking on you. Just noticing a few things. M.

1) Hard to enforce this at any rate. John Mayer may be the best guitarist in the world to someone. How do you scientifically deny that? This is so subjective to a persons personal tastes that it would be unenforcable no matter what.

3 & 4) Goes without saying, but someone is always gonna give an artist they don't like the typical, 'BLEH'! And I'll give an example of one of my BLEHS!: Muskrat Love - Captain & Tennille. Hey, if you had a sister that listened to that over and over and over in the 70's, you'd know.

Still, people should keep derogatory comments to themselves. Or better yet. If any members feel a need to voice opinions about bands that suck (in their eyes) then a thread could be started for that. Hey, if your fav is at the top of the ICK! list then don't read that thread. Simple.


And some general notes on this idea...

It's music. While not the main point of HA, it is the means to an end of all that goes on here. A subset forum of this nature wouldn't necessarily cause all the grief that some are envisioning. It's people discussing music. Can it get that bad? I don't think so. As mentioned above, any of the typical rowdy behavoir would be dealt with in usual HA fashion. Which is to say, if the mods don't get you, the members will.

I'd still like to see this come to fruition.

EDIT fixed tag

After having done of superficial Googling it seems that you are right. When performing live, the venue (or performer) needs a license from either ASCAP or BMI.

http://www.hartenshield.com/rights.html
http://www.ascap.com/licensing/generalfaq.html

good point.

I don't think it's that simple.
firts of all, the general purpose of that forum should be to make music you like available to other users (in terms of knowledge), and to discuss it. if you starting 'I realy hate this band' threads you'll provoke a hot tempered discusion which will most likly end in flaming. nothing wrong with showing what you are thinking, but it should be done in a civil way, most of the time anyway
the statement: 'I don't like that band' generally implies that everody who does like it is a sort of idiot in the view of the original poster. ppl who like the band will on the one hand (subconciously) be angered about this 'insult', and as a conlusion jump to defend 'their' band.
the meanings to prevent such a thing, is either to be aware of this, or just not to start theese threads.

edit: "To perform a musical work in public (live or broadcast), you must have a license. This category covers live performance situations and broadcasts of recordings, but does not provide the right to make a recording. Public performance rights may be licensed directly from the copyright owner or from one of the Performing Rights organizations "
uuh, could it be that there are different laws in every country (small chance though I guess)? I'm pretty sure that here (in Germany) it IS legal to go out and perform songs written by others... a good friend of mine, who makes music herself told me once. now I'm a bit unsure...

I know. I was kind of over simplifying with this example. Most of the time I wouldn't give rats @$$ about what anybody else thought of the music I listen to as well. I have so many different likes.

And I wouldn't go about snubbing someone who did enjoy Muskrat Love. Even though there is the distinct possiblity they may have severe drug problems...J/K!!.

Re: "Absolute statements" about music...you make a good point, M.H. A rule that's difficult to enforce become's weak and pointless unless it's better defined.

So, how about if that rule said some thing more like:

#1 : Taste is music is subjective in nature. You should avoid making absolute statements about a genre, artist or song. If you do, you will likely be inviting opposition, so be aware of this and avoid letting what could be a civil conversation become a "flame war". You will not receive administrative action for making absolute statements, but be aware that any arguments that may follow could devolve into a "flame war", for which you could receive such action.

And perhaps the second rule could be re-worded to be more applicable to a music forum while still maintaining HA standards as well.


Actually, this could be addressed with the current HA TOS, items #6 and #7...



If the topic is "What do you love about The Captain and Tennille?", then posting how much you hate them in that thread would divert from the thread topic, violating standard HA TOS #6. If the original poster titled the thread "What do you think about The Captain and Tennille?", then no one can complain about getting replies of either love or hate. If the OP wanted to hear only nice things about the band, then they should have more closely followed TOS #7 to better "focus" the thread.

As for how harsh comments become, the "line" of how harsh is too harsh would probably be the same as for any other HA forum. If the thread is "Post your opinions on Pink Floyd here...", saying "Pink Floyd stinks!" is acceptable. Saying "Pink Floyd stinks and anyone who likes them are f*cking a&&holes" warrants a warning (at least an unofficial warning) as it violates the rule barring derogatory remarks in general.

As for "harder to enforce" situations, like anything else it would come down to the discretion of the admin or moderator addressing the issue, and for regular HA members to try to help prevent flame wars (and report them and other violations when they come up).

Differencies in national copyright laws. Yes, very likely. I just googled the "U.S.A.'nian standard".

Much better.

Say, you're pretty good at this.

At any rate, I still don't think it'll get to 'out of hand'. I thoroughly enjoy going through the 'What are you listening to?' thread and seeing what's on peoples playlist at the moment. And I would think that a section dedicated to discussion of the same would be beneficial in some way. It tends to open your eyes, or rather ears, to new stuff you wouldn't try normally.

And here's an example of what I mean. Emusic recently started a deal called 'Lists'. People started listing their picks with links to albums on the site. So you find a list that looks appealing, check out an artist and download either a track or the album. Sometimes a dud, sometimes not. Either way, you have just discovered something 'new'. I have found many that I just wouldn't have on my own.

Granted, HA would have to do this in a slightly different fashion. But one could possibly link to something like AMG and find out if it would be someone they would indeed be interested in.

Here's an idea: let's use the Music Discussion section of Ruairi's forums. Being "The nicest member of Hydrogen Audio", I doubt he'll have any objection .