RIP to WATMM Discussion thread

  On 1/29/2025 at 6:46 PM, Satans Little Helper said:

WATMM needs a new CEO! papa can be on the advisory board.

Let someone else keep this place afloat. Not interested to move to XLT at this point, but probably will if this place dies.

 

edit: also, THIS SUCKS

damn that looks horrible

  On 1/29/2025 at 5:57 PM, Adamovich said:

Anyone? @Rubin Farr @mcbpete @chaosmachine @Herr Jan

So I’ve suggested to the other mods we could set up a new AFTER WATMM subreddit, it would be free, but we need a few people to mod it, it could be made public or private, maybe a poll to decide? Now, there is already a We Are The Music Makers sub, which is mostly a general musician discussion sub, I’m not technically minded like the Admins here or the other mods, so this is the best idea I could muster. Some members dislike Reddit, I get that, but the online world is changing rapidly, this option whether it be temporary or permanent, would at least maintain some of the friendships and discussions we’ve established over the past 2 1/2 decades. Opinions welcome.

i dont even understand dischord but is that a thing?  mastodon?

Is it true that the new WATMM Paywall system for New members made it less attractive maybe? 

I Belive so..

  On 1/29/2025 at 6:56 PM, Crazing said:

i dont even understand dischord but is that a thing?  mastodon?

invite only dischord server is not a bad idea. it's not bad to navigate and there can topics.. for example.. memes. no idea how it all works for setting up though. i follow a couple software devs and podcaster or two there. 

  On 1/29/2025 at 6:58 PM, ignatius said:

invite only dischord server is not a bad idea. it's not bad to navigate and there can topics.. for example.. memes. no idea how it all works for setting up though. i follow a couple software devs and podcaster or two there. 

sounds good 

you know what could save Watmm?

a new BOC album. Now.

Ah, this is so sad. I still mourn the blood and fire forum and the enormous archives of knowledge, expertise, recommendations, jokes and connections that were lost when it went under.

Its understandable ofc, but its still awful to see these last bastions of community and fandom disappear.   

  On 1/29/2025 at 6:30 PM, cern said:

are u nuts?

I don't think so?

  On 1/29/2025 at 6:30 PM, cern said:

Like the whole AAA thing, Ambient thread with loads of good ambient recommendations. All the recommendation threads really. 
Many users have really good taste in electronic music and stuff. 

fair enough. 100% agree with all the music recs from this site. personally I don't go back to read many of the old threads/posts, instead look to new posts to react/read/reply to - which is why I asked the question.

Ignorant me from a few years ago would just add WATMM sections to my fsol forum but I'm pretty sure moderation wise (even if I took on the existing mods) and server resource wise I wouldn't be able to keep up with everything and end up with a big pile of theo infected toenails on my lap.

  On 1/29/2025 at 6:56 PM, Crazing said:

i dont even understand dischord but is that a thing?  mastodon?

Disscord is alot of young folks. Nothing wrong with them ofc but it is more like a chat forum people talking all the time

I just joined Mastodon and I have 0 ideas of what to do?? It seems like Ol Twitter 

Whats to do there? 

 

Kind of lost for words really, but I had a feeling in my bones that it might be on the horizon. I think a lot of users have mellowed out in the last few years and it's a nice place to spend some time. I guess we will have to throw an online party sometime before the plug is pulled

I just biked in to pay tribute to probably the biggest source of time theft I experienced at any of my jobs. I joined WATMM at the very beginning of Joyrex.com and had so many laughs as a result of this forum throughout the years. Kudos to Joyrex for keeping it afloat and for putting up with my persistent trolling. 
 

For me WATMM represents not only my discovery of some amazing music but also that small time on the internet before social media when the web presented exciting new horizons rather than social destruction. 
 

I will get through this loss, I’m sure. But I’m worried about my many dupes. I’m not sure how to break it to them. 

Did not expect to be hit with an emotional gut punch today, or the realization that a music forum shutting down would hit me this hard, but here we are...

Like many here, I've been here for a long time. I found this site when I was 20 years old in college after having my young mind blown and becoming obsessed with Warp and the artists we love here. 22 years later, here I am at 42 and have been posting here for over half of my life. Despite mostly lurking these days, I still check the site almost daily and it is still a comforting routine for me. My life is vastly different than it was 20+ years ago but WATMM has remained a lovable constant through it all.

I have discovered so much amazing music and everything else unde the sun through this site. During my time in Brooklyn I met up with many of you at shows and even made some lasting irl friends.

I'll be sad to see this place go and hope we can somehow find a way to carry the torch elsewhere.

Thank you Joyrex (Papa!) for keeping the lights on all these years, this place has meant a lot to us all and we all appreciate you providing a safe haven even when it was probably more hassle than it was worth for you. Thanks to all of you for the great music and laughs over the years, there are some insanely talented and hilarious people here. Thinking back to the early days and if you missed it, it was a way wackier place back in the day. And here's remembering those who are no longer with us, you are missed.

Much love to you all, I'm not even gonna fix that burger.

-Brendan (six)

  On 1/29/2025 at 6:59 PM, Ski Nell said:

you know what could save Watmm?

a new BOC album. Now.

Imagine if the BoC-boys just coming in like hey guys Ask us anything u want 

Maybe we should set up a Discord server and name it WATDD - We Are the Dreamers of Dreams.

World-Losers and World-Forsakers sounds good as well.

There's already a WATMMOfficial Discord but it's not really used.

  On 1/29/2025 at 7:04 PM, cern said:

Disscord is alot of young folks. Nothing wrong with them ofc but it is more like a chat forum people talking all the time

I just joined Mastodon and I have 0 ideas of what to do?? It seems like Ol Twitter 

Whats to do there? 

 

Expand  

Discord is too trans-y, too geared towards weird teenagers. I'll just move back to FB IDM groups. I'll miss watmm a lot though.

We Were the Music Makers?

  On 1/29/2025 at 5:37 PM, dr lopez said:

let's pour one out for this guy too

Expand  

flol. also, read the rules spudgun. ffs.

Yea, Ive been on here for like 18 years now. This is some sad news. 

Fuck me I'd only recently remembered how much better forums were than Reddit/twitter etc. 

All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain

  On 1/29/2025 at 7:21 PM, Ski Nell said:

Discord is too trans-y, too geared towards weird teenagers. I'll just move back to FB IDM groups. I'll miss watmm a lot though.

That is super weird with Discord and I have really seen that everywhere. 

Like "We are Trans here so u know" everywhere like okay good to know ehh 

Sad to hear the news but I absolutely understand and respect Joyrex´s decision.

I check in almost daily, if nothing else just to check Dcom's music recommendations and see if there's anything Aphex related I need to know about. 

WATMM's been part of my life for so long, and I've met some really cool people here over the years. 

Did we win the war with xltronic?

All you guys are obviously reacting to a announcement I can't find nor have received, but I gather So @Joyrex is closing down the shop, after further fatigue and financial stress. I'll echo the same sentiment as everyone : there's a positive, special reason we're all hanging out here 25 years on, and it's more than the sum of the geological strata of injokes.

But my question is : before we scatter out in discords and subreddits (which both function differently and will provide a vastly different experience), a diaspora were we loose what's been our own space for litteral decades, is there a possibility of us buying back the shop, so to speak? That we collectively self-run this forum, with open accounting of server costs, instead of relying on the gracious (but tired and opaque) upkeeper? I firmly believe the people best placed to decide and manage the continuity of a community are the people in it.

I've previously asked, when we talked last February about putting up ads or making the forum pay-only, if the actual numbers could be made public, so that we could actually access the situation. I've managed online communities before (moderation, IT and bookeeping), would I really be the sole one?

To many these days it feels like so much is going to shit, and I don't just mean the enshittification of the web, but a ongoing killer climate crisis, the apparent steamrolling of the far-right,  livestreamed genocide... overwhelming stuff at a scale we might feel we can't do anything about.

But organising to keep the lights open of this small community?

I think we can manage that.

Who's in?

FFS you guys owe us