The future of the Production forum - PLEASE READ!!

[thinking]

I posted the stuff below in another thread, but I think we should start a separate discussion thread as I want as much input as possible. Have a read of the following:

As for the Production forum, we've discussed it between the Mods before, we even considered getting rid of it as a great deal of it is embarrassingly shite to read. Threads like 'help me make good wobble' are painful to read over and over. The Grid on DOA (arguably the best/most useful production forum on the net) would punish idiocy of this level quickly and harshly.

One possible solution would be to spend a bit of time making more comprehensive threads on all the common topics, sticky them, and lock/delete all threads that then cover old ground.


Also, on a personal level, I fucking HATE threads where people ask "what should I do with this tune?" or similar questions. It's YOUR music, YOU'RE the one being creative, either make the music you want to make or just give up. If you want to make music with other people, do so. Don't just put it to the forum if you've run out of ideas, it's cripplingly unimaginative.

Similarly, questions like "what synth/software is best for _____" or "which ____ shall I buy" are a waste of space, for various reasons.



So, to conclude, I'm the only Mod who keeps an eye on this place much, and in general the Mods have been thinking of ways to vamp this up, but haven't come to any conclusions. I/we do however think that something needs to be done to cleanse this place of all the bullshit. Any ideas would be welcome, let's have a discussion and see if we can't improve this place.

One idea for starters would be to have one or two Mods just for this forum (like we have in the Ninja Hideout), possibly on a rotating basis.

What do you think? Have you any ideas? I don't think this forum can continue on in its current format, something needs to change.

Go!!

[concept_]

One possible solution would be to spend a bit of time making more comprehensive threads on all the common topics, sticky them, and lock/delete all threads that then cover old ground.

[dj fidelity]

Sound's absolutely Fair and alot of Sense...

The other choice is Publicly Humiliate & Ridicule all Incoherant, Foolish or Ill-Informed ramblings...
Although this may be more Time consuming it will Certainly be more FuN!

Well, Crack on, no need to muse on It.

[dirtycash]

needs to change defo...have to scroll through too much garbage to get to the goods..but there is some great info lurking..bits where jason @ transition is talking about cutting and mastering is great info..specially when ya live in a country that doesnlt have a single dubplate cutting facility...

maybe just automatically delete all these bullshit threads straight off the bat..
but then again, that would be like a fulltime job..

anyways..look forward to any improvements..needs to be done..

and to the people that keep baiting with the same replies (you know who you are) ..how bout stopping and trying to offer something useful..

[Disco Nutter]

Don't you dare remove it
lol

Seriously though, I'm up for collecting information from the older topics and gathering it up in a big thread (ex: drums, mixing, wobble, synth vs, etc).


And someone visiting the forum on a daily basis (and trustworthy) should moderate aggressively.

[thinking]

maybe just automatically delete all these bullshit threads straight off the bat..
but then again, that would be like a fulltime job..

this is pretty much my opinion - we would need a "Production Bible" thread, linking to different threads on many subjects, and then delete any thread posted by someone who clearly hasn't taken time to look around.

I can say now though that this would mean at least one person taking on the job of Moderating this forum.


As you say though, far too much bullshit clogging up the genuinely useful stuff - makes this forum almost pointless and just a place for idiots to ask questions when they should really be looking for the answers on their own. Half the point of production is learning things YOUR way, and finding YOUR sound - asking for shortcuts all the time completely defeats the object of self-expression.

[silentk]

I think a lot of the problem is all the retatards posting crap puts other people off, why go to the effort of making a serious detailed thread about some proper technique when it looks like only these spakkers are gonna read and reply to it. start locking down these shitty threads, and it will encourage proper posts.

[junglist]

How about an 'Advanced Production Section' that links off the Production forum. The link could be placed at the top of the Production forum page, and the description underneath the link could read 'Only for advanced music producers, no questions about wobble or any other stupid topics or your family shall be slaughtered and then publicly disemboweled!!!'

That way all the noobs could make as many threads about wobble as they want and we wont have to care.

[djshiva]

maybe just automatically delete all these bullshit threads straight off the bat..
but then again, that would be like a fulltime job..

this is pretty much my opinion - we would need a "Production Bible" thread, linking to different threads on many subjects, and then delete any thread posted by someone who clearly hasn't taken time to look around.

I can say now though that this would mean at least one person taking on the job of Moderating this forum.


As you say though, far too much bullshit clogging up the genuinely useful stuff - makes this forum almost pointless and just a place for idiots to ask questions when they should really be looking for the answers on their own. Half the point of production is learning things YOUR way, and finding YOUR sound - asking for shortcuts all the time completely defeats the object of self-expression.

perhaps a few stickies on the different production software, as well as a hardware thread for those who don't use computers. i know there are many people using many different platforms, and a specific thread for each might be interesting.

it would make the stickies list a bit longer, but people could then really contribute their knowledge on each platform, and if people wanted to come looking for info about logic, or reason, or ableton or whatever, they could go directly to that thread.

a stickied thread of free vsts is never a bad idea either.

[silentk]

How about an 'Advanced Production Section' that links off the Production forum. The link could be placed at the top of the Production forum page, and the description underneath the link could read 'Only for advanced music producers, no questions about wobble or any other stupid topics or your family shall be slaughtered and then publicly disemboweled!!!'

That way all the noobs could make as many threads about wobble as they want and we wont have to care.

actually scrap what i said, this is a better idea. because these threads are never gona go away, new users will always come along, not bother to read anything, ignore the search function and ask how to make a "phat wobble" anyway. and TBH they need a place to ask this, realise this forum isnt (always) useless, find some helpfull people, and hopefully end up contributing the Proper production forum.
(just make sure this one is fairly strictly moderated)

[silentk]

maybe just automatically delete all these bullshit threads straight off the bat..
but then again, that would be like a fulltime job..

this is pretty much my opinion - we would need a "Production Bible" thread, linking to different threads on many subjects, and then delete any thread posted by someone who clearly hasn't taken time to look around.

I can say now though that this would mean at least one person taking on the job of Moderating this forum.


As you say though, far too much bullshit clogging up the genuinely useful stuff - makes this forum almost pointless and just a place for idiots to ask questions when they should really be looking for the answers on their own. Half the point of production is learning things YOUR way, and finding YOUR sound - asking for shortcuts all the time completely defeats the object of self-expression.

perhaps a few stickies on the different production software, as well as a hardware thread for those who don't use computers. i know there are many people using many different platforms, and a specific thread for each might be interesting.

it would make the stickies list a bit longer, but people could then really contribute their knowledge on each platform, and if people wanted to come looking for info about logic, or reason, or ableton or whatever, they could go directly to that thread.

a stickied thread of free vsts is never a bad idea either.

The only problem with lots of stickies is, unless there is someone willing to check on it regularly and add information to the first post. new users are going to be very reluctant to read the thread to find the little peice of information they desperatly need.

I know this is a massive step up from what is going on now, but, perhaps what we should be aiming for is many sub-production-forums. one for each DAW, one for EQ/Compression/Mixing/Mastering queries, one for synthesis, one for percussion, one for "new commers" (read: ask about ur wobble here) etc...

oh, and sorry fot the double post

[thinking]

How about an 'Advanced Production Section' that links off the Production forum. The link could be placed at the top of the Production forum page, and the description underneath the link could read 'Only for advanced music producers, no questions about wobble or any other stupid topics or your family shall be slaughtered and then publicly disemboweled!!!'

That way all the noobs could make as many threads about wobble as they want and we wont have to care.

actually scrap what i said, this is a better idea. because these threads are never gona go away, new users will always come along, not bother to read anything, ignore the search function and ask how to make a "phat wobble" anyway. and TBH they need a place to ask this, realise this forum isnt (always) useless, find some helpfull people, and hopefully end up contributing the Proper production forum.
(just make sure this one is fairly strictly moderated)

no, additional forums are not the answer to this particular problem. The issue here is too much shit from people who don't think before they post - the solution is not to leave them to it, but to discourage them from posting rubbish at all. We need to turn this place into a genuinely useful resource, and creating some alternative ivory tower is not the way to do it.



Check out the Newcomers Guide & FAQ thread on the main forum:

http://www.dubstepforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=16170

this is what I envisage - we need a few people to work hard on collating as much useful info as possible on main subjects, then compiling them into 1 coherent thread on each subject, and finally building one 'uber'-Sticky with links to each separate subject.

In fairness, we already have something similar to this already with the Production forum's own FAQ Sticky, but it needs to be far more comprehensive and, furthermore, it needs to be supported by much stricter moderation - locking of threads which duplicate subjects already covered. The more information on any subject that can be kept in one thread, the more useful that thread becomes...

[lilt]

i have noticed on some webforums that that you must have a certain number of posts in order to post in particular areas...

maybe have (as has been mentioned) a n00b production forum for all the shit wobble threads and a 1337 forum for those with over 100/200 posts?

tho, i know that i dont contribute as much as i could so...

[djshiva]

can we require posters to actually know how to spell? that might cut down on a lot of posting right there...

[osk]

It is total gash, I agree.

Why not make some people on here who really know their stuff moderators of the production forum? Take the load off you, and make it their job to end awful threads and pointless discussions. Time to be ruthless I think, 'cos at the moment this forum reads like a baby's guide to making dubstep; and it shouldn't be like that. It should be a useful tool for making MUSIC.

It's awash with people who want to know which preset of which crack they can use to make a digital bassline that sounds a bit like some Rusko track they once heard. It's mindless. And actually, I don't think the Grid should be a benchmark necessarily; you could argue that it suffers from being full of people who CLAIM to know too much, and thus reads like an encyclopaedia of differing opinions. How do u know who to trust?

Ultimately, production is subjective and not objective. That's why production forums always frustrate. Best of learning on the job.

[junglist]

That's not going to stop the problem of repetitive threads. People will sign up just to make one post because they only need one answer and arn't looking to post regularly. Hell I do it on other forums, sign up, make one thread looking for an answer and then never return again.

A subforum is the best idea imo, and is shown to work. Locking threads will not stop new users and noobs. if they don't read the stickies saying 'THE BIG THREAD OF WOBBLE' and 'FAQ / Beginners Thread (READ BEFORE POSTING)' still make a thread about wobble (eg: How do i make my wobbles better????????? -Dubson-) then what makes you think they will give a shit about a few locked threads.

A subforum would keep the riff raff out.

[thinking]

Why not make some people on here who really know their stuff moderators of the production forum?

this is definitely one thing I hope to implement. I'll have a chat with a few people but before we can do something like that, we need to introduce a framework of rules that can be enforced before we nominate enforcers...


Keep posting & thinking out loud peeps, it's all useful.

[fixation]

i agree with junglist, we cant have a system where u have to have certain posts, because that would mean alot more posting without thinking than before.

how about, PM-ing and admin/mod for access to the production section of the forum, this may be too much effort for some of the people who arent really here for the right reasons


what definately needs to be done is the locking/deleting of most repeat threads, and the creation of new major threads as the previous ones gets too large(eg. new 'wobble' thread after 100 pages has been reached). This would mean info would be slightyl easier to find.

[thetaco]

The Grid on DOA (arguably the best/most useful production forum on the net) would punish idiocy of this level quickly and harshly.

You must not frequent the grid much


Anyway, more mods is a good start.

For the noobs (how do I make a wobble bassline on this synth plz help etc..):
I recommend not letting people who have just joined the forum (maybe 2-4 days) start a new thread in the production section. This forces them to actually SEARCH for topics or look at the stickies, which most people generally look straight past anyway. You could also have a stickied thread entitled something like "Can't start a new thread? look here!" or "Noob section"

Other stuff:
If the people that frequent this forum really care (or if you want more people to frequent it) you could leave it up to the mods to organize more activities. Not just production based competitions though, because not every has time/enough skill to enter these.

You could also think of some sort of reward system for posters that are genuinely helpful.

[daft cunt]

I think Festa & Forensix already offered to be mods for the production forum and received support from regular users.