WATMM is dying

  On 7/22/2019 at 6:32 PM, diatoms said:

The thread or

both or?

Intentionally phrased that way to have multiple meanings 

  On 7/22/2019 at 5:52 PM, chronical said:

Do you guys actually go and read a 20 page thread? I never bother beyond a page or two. Maybe three.

not so much anymore but b4 especially while I was lurking I member reading all of the skrillex thread n all of the first world problems thread and most of old genban.. I had waay too much free time 

i often start reading on the last page and then i keep going backwards...

  On 7/22/2019 at 5:52 PM, chronical said:

Do you guys actually go and read a 20 page thread? I never bother beyond a page or two. Maybe three.

lol fuck no. Ain't nobody got time for that.

I'm just occasionally visiting this thread for the entertaining dumpster fire that it's become.

oy vey

Why not Firefly you god damn bitches of men in suits god fucking damnit 

cant decide if allison pill is good looking or not

this thread has been mis-died. 

Picasso is dead

Walt Disney is dead

Steve Jobs is dead

Wattm is dead

the king is dead, long live the king!

born deaaaad

  On 7/22/2019 at 11:21 PM, dr lopez said:

cant decide if allison pill is good looking or not

how dare you disrespect kim pine like this

joyrex pls ban

  On 7/17/2019 at 1:17 PM, o00o said:

@Joyrex In addition the mobile theme has 1 1/2 topics displayed when opening the page vs 5 topics before the new update. So you now have to scroll down to see more than 1 topic in unread content on mobile (iPhone 8  ) In expanded mode you can't even see 1 full topic. these are really bad UI patterns for engagement  

 

 

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Thanks for the feedback - probably would be better in the thread for Forum Issues, but nonetheless I am working on the mobile view of WATMM Classic and will be making improvements.

  On 7/17/2019 at 10:30 PM, Brisbot said:

I think you should do whatever will bring more people in if simply changing the paywall format will help. At least have the 'level 1' account which would allow to post without making threads. I know WATMM is an often lurked forum, especially when a major release is coming out.

Posting without being able to make threads... that's not a bad idea tbh, or limiting the number of posts per day (although I personally think that's worse than a paywall)

  On 7/18/2019 at 4:57 AM, ambergonk said:

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Dank Memes WATMM is Dying Edition™

  On 7/18/2019 at 5:52 PM, zkom said:

TBH I don't think I would have had registered back in the day if I had had to pay for subscription.

Also the payment may be fair to most people in US and Europe but there are places where it's nearly impossible to make online payments to other countries or at least very difficult and even in US and Europe lots of people don't have credit cards or similar online payment options.

On the other hand if there was some WATMM merch to support the site I'd probably be interested.

AFAIK you don't need a credit/debit card to pay - unless PayPal now requires you (or may require in your country of residence) to have one associated with your PayPal account. The new forum upgrade also offers other payment gateways like Stripe - I suppose I could look into those.

WATMM Merch - what would you be interested in?

  On 7/18/2019 at 6:25 PM, dr lopez said:

chatmm going "down" and then the creation of the discord was a huge mistake. I don't even think it was a "mistake" per se, but it happened, and I'm sure Joyrex is "we have to go back"-ing every night before bed. JR is a control freak about watmm and hates when others are seen to be taking a slice of whatever he thinks he controls. In this instance I agree - chatmm is a fucking disaster, impossible to read, filled with fake personas and characters (which aren't funny) and run by posters even more craven than papa. It's not about music it's about who's in or out. what cwmbrancity said. and at the root of that is hello spiral. his behavior and others and the creation of the chatmm discord has done more damage to the vibe of watmm than any one member banning. 

also this and getting rid of the subscription might change that obviously. but for some reason joyrex can't afford $70 a month. Honestly joyrex if you made me a mod / admin i would cover the fees.

this is how i feel

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CHATMM went "down" because the built-in chat module was discontinued by the forum software maker. There was no third-party solution that integrated with the version of the forum we had, and I had to wait until the forum was upgraded to install the one we currently have, which ironically is better than CHATMM (software-wise) ever was, so I don't see where the complaints are coming from.

The Discord was a result of wanting to keep in touch/updated for Day for Night in 2017, and I never thought it would spawn a free for all Discord.

And you are absolutely right - anything associated with my site reflects upon me, so of course I would want some form of control over it - wouldn't you?

I/WATMM got a bad reputation back in 2008-ish due to it transforming into a 'boy's club' with threads like Nice Tits and increasing levels of pornography that had no place here amongst music discussion, which was the whole point of the site to begin with. Some artists/labels outright told me they didn't want to be associated with WATMM because of that, and so I made the decision to clean things up.

  On 7/19/2019 at 8:35 AM, o00o said:

@JoyrexI really wonder why its $70 to host this website. you can get your own server with 300GB of space for $20-30 max currently with ssh and domains. Maybe its time to re-negotiate the hosting terms with your provider. this save of costs could also be used to decrease subscription fees

It's dedicated hosting on a VPS via Linode, our hosting company. We had to move off shared hosting due to constantly hitting CPU and SQL utilization maxes. The actual hosting cost for Linode is 40+10 for backups, and the forum software is around 190+ a year, so 190/12 = 15.83/month, hence the 70.00.

I'm looking into offloading our storage into Wasabi as they offer 1TB for around 78.00/year, which will be critical for some things I have planned related to EKT Radio, and other media-intensive parts of the site yet to come.

  On 7/19/2019 at 11:10 PM, Brisbot said:

What about opt-in subforums? People can make a subforum about whatever they like, and the ones that becomes popular enough are visible from the main forum page somewhere. Otherwise findable by a search or word of mouth or whatevs. Kinda like reddit but with more focus on music of course and less of the general... casualness of reddit. One side effect would be to see what people want to talk about besides aphex twin and AE. I'm sure metal would be a big one... and apparently bluegrass. 

IDK if there's enough people here though to warrant that. And of course the person who made the subforum would have to moderate it. But if it's a bad one for whatever reason it would die anyway so that shouldn't be a big deal. At the very least it would be an interesting experiment to see if it helps watmm's dying issue.

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There's a Clubs feature I haven't activated yet that allows users to form their own Clubs, and within said clubs they can have their own forums. I'm currently looking over the best way to implement it so it doesn't all go to hell and then it's a Pandora's Box to try and fix.

  On 7/20/2019 at 4:02 PM, auxien said:

i've recently quit chatmm (unrelated to anything other than myself) and this^ is the only thing i miss. i still think about IDM artist dick lengths all the time tho, in rememberance and for no other reasons, of course (who rememberarnce?) 

(lies, i miss the music sharing there too and plant talk with andrd/etc)

watmm is obv not dead btw. just needs to grow and actually be more inclusive and organic (more relevant featured artists obv. quit talking about it and workshopping it and just do it Joyrex. featured labels, featured artists, just throw shit at the wall and whatever sticks keep it and nix what doesn't. this is 2019 m8 gotta keep up.) 
 

also yes @Stickfigger my elseq hate outshines anyone's Oversteps hate

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Sorry, I devote as much time to WATMM as life/work allows me - I am actively seeking others to help me out so hopefully the turnaround times on things get better.

  On 7/21/2019 at 6:17 PM, ligma said:

the chat feature here compared to discord is so bad and broken that its comical. not sure why this is the only option that is available to us? 

It's not the only option, but perhaps you can detail why it's so bad and broken, considering it's actually superior to the original CHATMM module we had?

There are other chat options, but this one was the best in terms of price and also to see if there was any appetite for CHATMM since some people prefer Discord these days.

  On 7/21/2019 at 6:28 PM, hello spiral said:

it is...not good

Again, please provide some concrete examples - I can't make it better if I don't know what's wrong.

a major issue is the fact that the new chat feature is only truly functional (marginally) all-in on browser and not functional or below-functional on mobile. Discord has a dedicated app on mobile that is well beyond the functionality of the very bad and annoying chatbox on mobile, which has no history viewing, bad scrolling, clunky and bluky usage of font/size/color/link inclusion, posting images, etc. I'm certain you've seen and/or used discord on mobile, on desktop app and also through a browser before you chose to nix it as a viable chat option. I feel like rather than celebrate discord for its strengths, you knock it for the learning curve it requires to fully integrate with the site, and of course, the challenges it poses for you to fully control, moderate and ultimately censor it if something you don't like is posted. It feels to me like you only are concerned with your ability to control the discussion rather than include a truly functional and enjoyable chat experience. 

at the end of the day of course its your site and you make the big decisions, so if you're truly happy with the chat feature, then the users here have to accept that. on the other hand, you will also have to accept the fact that the users here will choose to use other platforms if this one does not suit their needs.

I've had an incredible burger earlier today. No photos unfortunately.

at the end of the day, watmm, chatmm are no different to me really - we all like similar music, so I personally care about the things that will bring people together

  On 7/23/2019 at 12:25 AM, Joyrex said:

Sorry, I devote as much time to WATMM as life/work allows me - I am actively seeking others to help me out so hopefully the turnaround times on things get better.

A couple posts after this I expanded partly on this idea (as i know you actually have a life unlike, ahem, some of the rest us). A trusted couple of mods who spared a few extra minutes every couple months, as a filter for the larger community, to implement different featured artist or label sections. Either permanent or temporary, depending on what felt right/worked. Wouldn't have to be anything more than a sidebar with FEATURED LABEL OF AUGUST: SHITFUCKER RECORDS! with a link to the most recent thread or two that's part of this (again, permanent or temporary) subforum. I'm not trying to overestimate the ease, but I'd imagine creating a new subforum under New & Upcoming Releases for labels (or under Featured Artists, wherever) wouldn't be much more difficult than deciding on a name and telling the main forum where that content lives, yeah? You've been experimenting with sidebars so i'd guess that aspect would be easy. Idk, just trying to be proactive i guess. Featured artists subs are pretty dead besides AE/AFX. Just start including others. If someone pulls a Vsnares and gets their panties in a wad at 'being featured on this forum' then fuck 'em, take the subf down. easy. Otherwise, try some shit out. Legowelt subforum when? hell, start a Tycho subforum if you really want, idc.  

Why not an Analogic Force or CPU records subforum? These labels are generally hot and having dedicated areas to coordinate their releases would be great for their fans (re: the users here!) 

But ultimately letting a few trusted community members (i'd be worried about Featured Label decisions by polls/committee but maybe that would be fairest? idk) put in some effort with a couple mods to filter things out, you don't have to do much of anything at all Joyrex, or am i wrong? as long as it doesn't get out of hand with like 30 featured artists or a featured label subforum with zero interest, it COULD bring some freshness. but....

ultimately what i'm getting at is try a little something. doesn't have to be big or grand or whatever, or even any ideas i'm talking about. the new forum upgrade has been generally good and positive and we know you've talked about a BIG watmm 2.0 or something with lots of stuff but honestly that's been hinted at for years, and requires a lot of work on the back end i'd imagine and just doesn't seem very likely to actually happen. in the meantime at least just go where the community is going, gotta fight that staleness that feels present even with the new forum upgrade: the content is essentially the exact same (which is fine and great but it's not growing is my point). 

also, regarding other comments: it's still VERY much a boy's club here which i know you or anyone alone can't fix, but i think having the forum content stay fresh and diverse and interesting will hopefully attract a more diverse crowd and (i think i speak for almost everyone except the old wretched cunts here): a diverse crowd of people sharing music is a great thing for everyone involved.

^perhaps correct. but solely for the sake of discussion, i'll explain how i imagine it could be helpful: (just to continue using this example, not to single out any label or artist in particular...) i'd say dozens of AF threads is perhaps worthy of at least consideration for a subforum. benefits of this would include easy cross-population of similar artists obviously...but also having a 'place' like a subforum is, imo, good for reminding of older releases to help continue discussion...

specific example: no one is going to be 90 pages deep on the new releases subf and stumble across the Shinra - Meteor EP thread. it was last bumped in May of 2017, exactly 3 days after its release in fact according to the Bandcamp page. yet for the preceding month (announcement up to release i assume) it got a fair amount of attention, and nothing but praise from what i'm glancing at. then, it disappeared into page 2 then 3 then 10 then 50 of New Releases. unless someone is listening to that EP and searches for it and goes and bumps the thread, it's likely 'forgotten' (as far as its existence on WATMM is concerned). if it was instead one of 2 or 3 dozen AF threads in the AF subf then it's /much/ more likely someone's going to stumble across the thread and be reminded of it, want to pan it or praise it, maybe they'll be seeing it for the first time, whatever....which is the whole general point of a forum if i'm not mistaken :) 

but of course this is an idealized/imagined view. idk if it would actually work, hence the 'just try it and see if it works maybe?' overall push. further, i'd counter your argument with why the fuck is there a µ-Ziq subforum when, from what i just glanced at, there's been exactly 4 posts in exactly 1 thread in the past 10 months. not saying get rid of the subf for him altogether or whatever but simply: would WATMM be more active with an AF subforum or a µ-Ziq subforum? luckily we don't have to choose either/or, of course... just sorta, i guess, weighing things in my mind? maybe the tagging system is supposed to help with some of this, but is anyone really digging around on watmm threads using tags? idk, i'd say not likely. and i'm surely not suggesting everything needs a subforum or featured time or anything....mostly just saying that seems the easiest way to implement some things that might help change the dynamics a little. maybe it wouldn't do shit. maybe it'll just piss off all the old cunts milling about and make them leave (pls). maybe it'll mean one less inane aphex thread (srsly pls).

the subforms do need an overhaul imo. aphex and ae are the only ones with much point anymore, but i kind of think the whole idea of a "big 5" or whatever of "IDM" artists is old hat and a bit embarrassing.

  On 7/23/2019 at 12:22 PM, BCM said:

the subforms do need an overhaul imo. aphex and ae are the only ones with much point anymore, but i kind of think the whole idea of a "big 5" or whatever of "IDM" artists is old hat and a bit embarrassing.

You’d like another big 5?

Well, good luck in agreeing which 5!

roses are red,

WATMM is sad,

  On 7/23/2019 at 1:05 PM, xox said:

You’d like another big 5?

Well, good luck in agreeing which 5!

Venetian Snares

OPN

DJ Nigga Fox

Jlin

Nina Kraviz

Obviously

The Tuss

Polygon Window

AFX

Caustic Window

Aphex Twin

Bradley Strider

sorry, picked top 6

yeah no more big anything. i'd fuck that idea off entirely and go with genre based subforums - techno, drum and bass, acid, electro etc. bit like a record shop.