RIP to WATMM Discussion thread

  On 1/31/2025 at 5:15 PM, Joyrex said:

Wow... thanks for everyone sharing their thoughts and feelings.

While I appreciate your sentiments to carry on, I don't think I conveyed well my intent in wanting to shut down WATMM.

I don't want the site to continue on, in any form - I know a lot of people get a lot of benefit from it, but I do not want it continuing and going in a direction I would not agree with had I continued to administer the site.

Of course, I can't stop anyone from doing their own thing, but for me personally, I think it's time for We Are The Music Makers/WATMM to end.

I would respectfully ask that whatever you want to do, please don't associate it with WATMM/me or make any reference/connection to me. WATMM had it's time, it's place. Time to move on. There's been some good suggestions of alternate names and ideas, so I encourage you to go with that.

Also, June 3rd might have been a bit optimistic of me - right now we've got enough to cover February's hosting, and depending on if the Google AdSense gets over 100 USD for a payout (Google won't pay out until the ad revenue hits 100 USD), we might make it to April. If that is in danger of happening, I'll let you all know, but please don't go sending money via PayPal right now - not only will that cause me more work (refunding any overages), but it puts a potential tax burden on me (I know real life stuff).

 

Expand  

  On 1/31/2025 at 5:15 PM, Joyrex said:

Wow... thanks for everyone sharing their thoughts and feelings.

While I appreciate your sentiments to carry on, I don't think I conveyed well my intent in wanting to shut down WATMM.

I don't want the site to continue on, in any form - I know a lot of people get a lot of benefit from it, but I do not want it continuing and going in a direction I would not agree with had I continued to administer the site.

Of course, I can't stop anyone from doing their own thing, but for me personally, I think it's time for We Are The Music Makers/WATMM to end.

I would respectfully ask that whatever you want to do, please don't associate it with WATMM/me or make any reference/connection to me. WATMM had it's time, it's place. Time to move on. There's been some good suggestions of alternate names and ideas, so I encourage you to go with that.

Also, June 3rd might have been a bit optimistic of me - right now we've got enough to cover February's hosting, and depending on if the Google AdSense gets over 100 USD for a payout (Google won't pay out until the ad revenue hits 100 USD), we might make it to April. If that is in danger of happening, I'll let you all know, but please don't go sending money via PayPal right now - not only will that cause me more work (refunding any overages), but it puts a potential tax burden on me (I know real life stuff).

 

Expand  

wow ok 

is there some significant change in your life recently that lead you to this hard cut or did it just accumulate over the years? I had the impression you didn't really took part in the actual forum discussion in recent times and only did some much appreciated house keeping. but I can imagine that's very draining if there no gain from your part as you don't enjoy taking part in the forum life anymore. Its this true or was it completely different? 

Judging by papa’s post, I say we bring back Joyrex.com. He never said anything about not wanting anyone to carry on with that one. 

Also…

  Quote

I don't want the site to continue on, in any form - I know a lot of people get a lot of benefit from it, but I do not want it continuing and going in a direction I would not agree with had I continued to administer the site.

“Had I continued to administer the site” meaning a well oiled, respectful community of mostly law abiding members?  I mean, what’s so bad about that? Unless there’s something else deeply wrong with what it currently is, which I can’t really imagine what that could be.

I know, it’s your site and you can do what you want with it. I appreciate what you’ve given all of us, in all forms. I just can’t help but feel a little confused by this after watching this forum evolve over the course of a quarter century to go from the free -wheeling / wild place it was to the bucolic, thoughtful garden of support (more or less) it currently is. 

boo.

I can understand wanting to shut down WATMM completely and move on when it must be a mental reminder of all the planned changes and projects related to WATMM that you bailed out on. WATMM Vol. 1 for example. Never really saw any follow up volumes there. Also site redesigns and the like. I'd hate that constant reminder of how things are just a bit too much effort.

Anyway I'd like to take this opportunity to announce the start of my new unrelated forum called We Aren't The Music Makers. Everyone is welcome except Rubin Farr and we will be discussing things like listening to music but absolutely no discussion about the production of music so so as to legally differentiate from the "other forum"

  On 1/31/2025 at 6:19 PM, Blir said:

can understand wanting to shut down WATMM completely and move on when it must be a mental reminder of all the planned changes and projects related to WATMM that you bailed out on. WATMM Vol. 1 for example. Never really saw any follow up volumes there. Also site redesigns and the like. I'd hate that constant reminder of how things are just a bit too much effort.

a massive thanks to joyrex and a massive thanks to everyone here for cultivating such a wicked space  

watmm is the only forum i frequent nowadays, so once this ship sinks i'm probably gonna feel a lil sad and weird. i've tried getting into things like discord and reddit but they aren't for me. the discussion feels too temporary and disposable on those places i guess? i dunno, it's hard to explain. basically, my stupid brain is built for forums and nothing else.

lol that sucks so fucking much…

  On 1/31/2025 at 5:15 PM, Joyrex said:

Wow... thanks for everyone sharing their thoughts and feelings.

While I appreciate your sentiments to carry on, I don't think I conveyed well my intent in wanting to shut down WATMM.

I don't want the site to continue on, in any form - I know a lot of people get a lot of benefit from it, but I do not want it continuing and going in a direction I would not agree with had I continued to administer the site.

Of course, I can't stop anyone from doing their own thing, but for me personally, I think it's time for We Are The Music Makers/WATMM to end.

I would respectfully ask that whatever you want to do, please don't associate it with WATMM/me or make any reference/connection to me. WATMM had it's time, it's place. Time to move on. There's been some good suggestions of alternate names and ideas, so I encourage you to go with that.

Also, June 3rd might have been a bit optimistic of me - right now we've got enough to cover February's hosting, and depending on if the Google AdSense gets over 100 USD for a payout (Google won't pay out until the ad revenue hits 100 USD), we might make it to April. If that is in danger of happening, I'll let you all know, but please don't go sending money via PayPal right now - not only will that cause me more work (refunding any overages), but it puts a potential tax burden on me (I know real life stuff).

 

Expand  

please, please make plans to archive the site's data somewhere safe before it goes offline. throw it up as a big ol data dump on archive.org or something

  On 1/31/2025 at 6:51 PM, mushroom said:

please, please make plans to archive the site's data somewhere safe before it goes offline. throw it up as a big ol data dump on archive.org or something

given that the reason WATMM is shuttering is the admin's disinterest in performing clerical tasks, you really expect this is going to happen?

"I don't give a fuck about the future of the community, aside from the possibility of my (pseudonymous) name being tainted by whatever happens in that future."

  On 1/31/2025 at 6:55 PM, dr lopez said:

given that the reason WATMM is shuttering is the admin's disinterest in performing clerical tasks, you really expect this is going to happen?

incredible to me that this thread is filled with people talking about how important this place is to them, how some have been here for half their lives and shit, and joyrex is like "this is only about me."

  On 1/31/2025 at 6:55 PM, dr lopez said:

given that the reason WATMM is shuttering is the admin's disinterest in performing clerical tasks, you really expect this is going to happen?

worst case scenario someone runs a crawler and does it themselves. but it definitely needs to be done

  On 1/31/2025 at 6:58 PM, joseph said:

"I don't give a fuck about the future of the community, aside from the possibility of my (pseudonymous) name being tainted by whatever happens in that future."

yes. and it's also highly ironic given that he's sledgehammering his own reputation with every post. He will be forever remembered as the person who ended this community. Took his ball and went home.

Best way to protect the Joyrex reputation (which is clearly something he cares about) would be to sensibly engage with interested parties willing to continue WATMM in an honest and friendly way. I am one of them, my PMs are open papa.

  On 1/31/2025 at 6:59 PM, Alcofribas said:

incredible to me that this thread is filled with people talking about how important this place is to them, how some have been here for half their lives and shit, and joyrex is like "this is only about me."

A guy provides something essentially for free for a quarter century and decides he wants to move on with some closure and your response is "you owe us".

  On 1/31/2025 at 7:06 PM, sherkaner said:

A guy provides something essentially for free for a quarter century and decides he wants to move on with some closure and your response is "you owe us".

I paid for EKT+ for like 10 years bro (that's one decade), if he asked for more I would have paid more.

  On 1/31/2025 at 7:08 PM, Avarik said:

I paid for EKT+ for like 10 years bro, if he asked for more I would have paid more.

But I mean come on... subscriptions couldn't possibly have covered more than costs to make sure he didn't actively lose money. There was no way that "asking for money" would have worked out to this not still being a volunteer effort. And just because some money changed hands doesn't create an entitlement to things continuing forever.

  On 1/31/2025 at 7:06 PM, sherkaner said:

A guy provides something essentially for free for a quarter century and decides he wants to move on with some closure and your response is "you owe us".

that something was something because of everybody involved. this has been re-emphasised by many responses itt. applying cold capitalistic logic here - "I own this shit and you don't" - is simply wrong.

I'm a nobody-important lurker here so I'll pipe down about this. But the entitlement and blame both really bothers me when we've gotten so much, and is just unproductive to finding the best path forward.

I'd feel different if WATMM was a successful enterprise that made Joyrex rich on other people's "content", but that sure ain't the case.

i don't want to sit here and be entitled and talk shit about Joyrex, but I do want to emphasize that this site has a massive amount of content, decades' worth, and most of it isn't his in the moral sense. if the site doesn't continue that's fine, totally understand, but the stuff that's here needs to be preserved. it can't just disappear forever, it would be awful

  On 1/31/2025 at 7:16 PM, mushroom said:

i don't want to sit here and be entitled and talk shit about Joyrex, but I do want to emphasize that this site has a massive amount of content, decades' worth, and most of it isn't his in the moral sense. if the site doesn't continue that's fine, totally understand, but the stuff that's here needs to be preserved. it can't just disappear forever, it would be awful

  On 1/31/2025 at 7:06 PM, sherkaner said:

A guy provides something essentially for free for a quarter century and decides he wants to move on with some closure and your response is "you owe us".

wdym "you owe us?" he literally doesn't have to do anything lol. he provided something and countless people made it good. it's not about "owing" anybody, it's about being cool and respectful to the community who have made this place what it is. no one is objecting to joyrex moving on, we all just want to continue to have the online community we've put so much life into. it's nice that papa provided the site "for free (?)" but the reason people come to this site is because of the many years of contribution by the membership. AAA is a great example of this. papa was able to coordinate that (awesome) and this was legit the best place on the internet to have that kind of interaction with autechre bc we simply have the best fans here - our knowledge and spirit is unparalleled. note that it wasn't an interview with ae/joyrex. 

let's not forget who it was that pissed off aphex twin lmao

Time to make Venetian Snares a featured artist just out of badness.