DreamTheaterForums.org Dream Theater Fan Site
General => General Discussion => Topic started by: KevShmev on July 05, 2020, 08:48:32 AM
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Feels like bosk's post (link below) got glossed over to the due obvious nature of the thread, but it feels like it is worth unpacking more, no?
https://www.dreamtheaterforums.org/boards/index.php?topic=55459.msg2679618#msg2679618
Is the forum on borrowed time?
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It would be a shame for this forum cease to exist.
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Yeah, also saw this and very curious about this.
This is my seventh year on DTF which isn't too long, I know, but basically this is the only online community I've actually stayed in as an active participant. I thought I'll post a few times and probably forget about it, or maybe I'll post some stupid shit one day or overshare some personal details and then stop visiting this forum in shame. Seven years later, I've met several people from this community, visited concerts with them and had a great time. I check this forum when I wake up and gearing up to go to work, I check it at work and after work, I've bought tons of music because of people introducing new bands to me here, I hope I did the same for other folks here. I've made a lot of friends here which I'm honestly honored to have.
This forum has become a huge, huge part of my life. I never thought it would happen when I posted my first message here in 2013, but somehow it happened. Sometimes when I have a difficult day I open DTF and some stupid exchange between king and Tim (or other people, but usually it's them) lightens up my mood. I will be gutted if this forum goes away.
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I aim to be the medicine for this forum and mocking Tim takes all our pains away.
Still love that knucklehead too.
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Yeah, also saw this and very curious about this.
This is my seventh year on DTF which isn't too long, I know, but basically this is the only online community I've actually stayed in as an active participant. I thought I'll post a few times and probably forget about it, or maybe I'll post some stupid shit one day or overshare some personal details and then stop visiting this forum in shame. Seven years later, I've met several people from this community, visited concerts with them and had a great time. I check this forum when I wake up and gearing up to go to work, I check it at work and after work, I've bought tons of music because of people introducing new bands to me here, I hope I did the same for other folks here. I've made a lot of friends here which I'm honestly honored to have.
This forum has become a huge, huge part of my life. I never thought it would happen when I posted my first message here in 2013, but somehow it happened. Sometimes when I have a difficult day I open DTF and some stupid exchange between king and Tim (or other people, but usually it's them) lightens up my mood. I will be gutted if this forum goes away.
This. Exactly. Hopefully Bosk elaborates some more, because there are more than a few people here whose daily routine is connected with this community. While I'm FB friends (and irl friends) with many, I'm not sure that would replicate the 30k+ times I've shared my thoughts over the last decade+
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Agree 100% with Ruslan.
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I aim to be the medicine for this forum and mocking Tim takes all our pains away.
Still love that knucklehead too.
:natalieportman:
I didn’t gloss over it Kev! I have it 3 solid :omg: :omg: :omg: s.
Bosk did say he’d share though.
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I also sincerely hope this forum sticks around for as long as possible. I’ll admit I pretty much never visit the actual Dream Theater side of the forum these days, but the General Music Discussion forum has been invaluable and I’ve really grown accustomed to the community there.
If this forum goes under I’d have to get all of my music recommendations from Anthony Fantano and that would be a very dark fate.
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I also sincerely hope this forum sticks around for as long as possible. I’ll admit I pretty much never visit the actual Dream Theater side of the forum these days, but the General Music Discussion forum has been invaluable and I’ve really grown accustomed to the community there.
If this forum goes under I’d have to get all of my music recommendations from Anthony Fantano and that would be a very dark fate.
That can be said for a ton of users. We come for the DT-side; we stay for the GD/GMD (and for some, P/R). I can't remember the last time I purposefully went into DT-side.
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This is the only online community I’m a part of and it’s been a valuable one at that. Consider many here close friends despite having never physically met them and bluntly.....it’d suck to lose this place.
If Bosk and the powers that be have needs that must be met and are becoming more difficult to attain.....I would love to know how I (or we) could help to assure this community sticks around.
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God dammit, what did Stadler do now?
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I saw that post, then didn't see any follow up or comments about it, and I thought "surely I wasn't the only one who saw that..."
I am on this site more than any other except for YouTube. I do not have accounts with any other forum or social media platform. When I was at my last desk job, there were days I logged more hours here than I did performing actual work.
I was under no presumption this site would last forever, but neither did I ever want to see the end come.
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I pretty much echo what everyone said, this is one of 2 forums I check online. Having a forum is very different than using other social media. There is a connection here that cannot be replicated anywhere else. I'm glad it's here and thank all the people behind the scenes. I really hope it continues.
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Sorry for being out of the loop but why is there discussions about closing the forum?
I also sincerely hope this forum sticks around for as long as possible. I’ll admit I pretty much never visit the actual Dream Theater side of the forum these days, but the General Music Discussion forum has been invaluable and I’ve really grown accustomed to the community there.
If this forum goes under I’d have to get all of my music recommendations from Anthony Fantano and that would be a very dark fate.
That can be said for a ton of users. We come for the DT-side; we stay for the GD/GMD (and for some, P/R). I can't remember the last time I purposefully went into DT-side.
Yea i'm one of those but I do sneak onto the DT-side from time to time.
This is a really cool forum if you're a music nerd, seriously! I really appreciate the diversity of music that's discussed daily on this forum but also everything that goes on in GD.
I get sad even thinking about it.
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If Bosk and the powers that be have needs that must be met and are becoming more difficult to attain.....I would love to know how I (or we) could help to assure this community sticks around.
This^
I'd love to be able to contribute/help in any way that I can to ensure this forum doesn't die.
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I saw that post, then didn't see any follow up or comments about it, and I thought "surely I wasn't the only one who saw that..."
You weren't, but I think none of us wanted to derail that thread for very obvious reasons.
I was "born" on forums, I used to visit them a lot back when the internet was "young", and I was on plenty (James LaBrie's one included), eventually I found my home on the Blind Guardian forum and I cyber-lived there, making a lot of national and foreign friends.
Then Facebook exploded and that and the other forums eventually died down, and the golden era of forums finished, and I didn't post actively in anyone else, until this one.
I joined back in the lead up to The Astonishing, and I still feel a n00b around here, but since the glory days of the Blind Guardian forum, this was the only one where I could finally find the pleasure of visiting and posting daily again. Sure, there's FB and Reddit but nothing beats a forum, losing this one would leave me stranded and saddened.
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Yeah, I've been on this forum for over 7 years now, and I hope it sticks around. There aren't many good forums around these days.
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I've been a member of this forum since like 2007, and somehow I did not get banned despite being an utter moron for the first four or five of those. Since then I've just been... Unseasoned. I'd hate to see the place close down. If the issue is financial, then perhaps a Patreon page would help? Just a thought, perhaps a bad one, but feel like I have to throw something out there.
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I've been a member of this forum since like 2007, and somehow I did not get banned despite being an utter moron for the first four or five of those. Since then I've just been... Unseasoned. I'd hate to see the place close down. If the issue is financial, then perhaps a Patreon page would help? Just a thought, perhaps a bad one, but feel like I have to throw something out there.
Bosk will give us an update I'm sure. He alluded to it in his post. I'd be surprised to hear it's financial. It's not like there's a Donation period every year. I thought the was enough given each donation period to last a bit.
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It's all about time. It's easy for us to just come on and post. It's harder for them to maintain, moderate these forums as they get older and real life priorities take over.
I totally get it.
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Yup, I'd be surprised if that wasn't the issue.
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I mean we're a fairly friendly bunch. I don't know what going on behind the scenes but I can't imagine the actual moderation of this forum would take that much time. I moderated a subforum when I was a teenager and it was a lot of work, but that was mostly because it was for an online game where everyone were competing and waging war with each other. DTF is very chill compared to that.
Even if it's that, don't just drop the thing. Pass it over to someone who wants to keep this. This forum, this community is golden, it would be a real shame to lose it.
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I'm primarily a lurker nowadays, but this place has been a part of my daily life since I was a Sophomore in High School. Now 9 years later I'm a big boy with bills to pay and shit. I've been a member of several different forums throughout the years, and I frequently post on reddit, but DTF has always been my mainstay. Even if I don't post much, I've always enjoyed reading through all the discussions, and this place has introduced to so many different bands I probably never would have checked out otherwise. I would hate to see this place go. Whatever I can do to help it keep going, I'm in.
2020 has been shitty enough. Let's not make it any worse.
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2020 has been shitty enough. Let's not make it any worse.
:lol
Right?
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:lol
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I will wait for Bosk to make a post on the subject, but just so everyone is not left hanging I'll give a few quick thoughts.
-As alluded to in his post the one conclusion we all reached rather quickly was that this place won't be going anywhere anytime soon.
-There are a couple items up in the air that we're working through, but should hopefully have a greater idea on what the future will look like when it's all sorted.
-So many of us on the mod/admin side have also been a part of this for a very long time like most of you, and we don't take that history lightly and it has really driven our discussions thus far.
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Never been on other forums, never been on social media, so I can't make comparisons, but this place has special people.
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Honestly, as much as I love their backlog, DT has been regulated to that list of bands I might listen to whenever they put something new out, but that's about it.
I haven't been on here as long as some of you fogeys, but this community is the main reason I stick around. It's rare to find such a quality group of music fans with a diverse array of tastes and points of view. It'd be a shame to see this forum go.
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I will wait for Bosk to make a post on the subject, but just so everyone is not left hanging I'll give a few quick thoughts.
-As alluded to in his post the one conclusion we all reached rather quickly was that this place won't be going anywhere anytime soon.
-There are a couple items up in the air that we're working through, but should hopefully have a greater idea on what the future will look like when it's all sorted.
-So many of us on the mod/admin side have also been a part of this for a very long time like most of you, and we don't take that history lightly and it has really driven our discussions thus far.
Thanks Nick for a post "from the inside".
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Then Facebook exploded and that and the other forums eventually died down, and the golden era of forums finished, and I didn't post actively in anyone else, until this one.
Yep, there aren't many good forums left, and let's face it, most FB group pages dedicated to a single group or artist kinda suck, a) because there is never a good way to organize it neatly like you can a normal forum like this one, and b) most admins/mods of those group pages have that stupid rule where you can only start topics that are about the artist to whom the page is dedicated (with rare exceptions). Imagine this forum being one where we could only have threads about Dream Theater 99% of the time. That is what most group FB pages are like, and is a big reason why most are a waste of time as those pages just became ejaculation sessions to the artist rather than a page with real discussions.
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Personally I feel like reddit was the bigger killer of forums compared to Facebook.
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I will wait for Bosk to make a post on the subject, but just so everyone is not left hanging I'll give a few quick thoughts.
-As alluded to in his post the one conclusion we all reached rather quickly was that this place won't be going anywhere anytime soon.
-There are a couple items up in the air that we're working through, but should hopefully have a greater idea on what the future will look like when it's all sorted.
-So many of us on the mod/admin side have also been a part of this for a very long time like most of you, and we don't take that history lightly and it has really driven our discussions thus far.
Thanks for this post, Nick! :tup :tup
Not sure what the plans are for the future, but I'd love see this forum get moved to a place that is just as user-friendly as this one is, but with features that most forums still going have (like "like" buttons, for example).
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I don't know. The format to this forum is perfect, honestly.
It's so much better than say, maidenfans.
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I’ve been registered here about ten years and although I haven’t been an active poster during the whole time, I’d hate to see it come to a close as I look forward to reading this forum everyday.
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I don't know. The format to this forum is perfect, honestly.
Yeah, if it stays here, all good by me. I just think it would be cool to see some newer features that most existing forums now have as well.
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It would suck to see the forum go away. I don't post much anymore (I just don't care much about DT or prog in general anymore), but I've been posting here under this account and under a previous account for over a decade and there are still quite a few people I only know how to get ahold of here. I like forums and I do think forums still hold some advantages over discords and facebook groups. If this place does close I just want to make sure I get invited to whatever legacy forum someone decides to launch. I suppose many of us still have registrations at fiveeightforums.com (which is thankfully a lot more mature and less toxic than it was even 5 years ago) but new registrations there have been closed for many years as the community has grown privately.
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The thought of this place not existing almost makes me cry, seriously.
Even though it doesn't seem to be the issue, I'd donate a lot of money to help keep it going if that's what it meant.
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Honestly, when MP closed his forum down I was truly depressed. I spent so much time there. The truth was--it was an addiction. It turned out to be a positive for me as I converted the time I wasted there into productive time. I began writing. Hell, I was writing every day on his site anyway, why not start a novel? I just completed my 4th book and am outlining and researching for my 5th. Yes it would suck if this place were to shut down, but many of you might discover that it could become beneficial for you.
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Honestly, when MP closed his forum down I was truly depressed. I spent so much time there. The truth was--it was an addiction. It turned out to be a positive for me as I converted the time I wasted there into productive time. I began writing. Hell, I was writing every day on his site anyway, why not start a novel? I just completed my 4th book and am outlining and researching for my 5th. Yes it would suck if this place were to shut down, but many of you might discover that it could become beneficial for you.
Nah, it won't be, trust me. Well done to you though.
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Novels that will be written by forum members when the board shuts down:
I Have Never Heard of That, and Other Things That Didn't Exist Prior to 1982, by TAC
The Comma, an Appreciation, by Stadler
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Novels that will be written by forum members when the board shuts down:
I Have Never Heard of That, and Other Things That Didn't Exist Prior to 1982, by TAC
The Comma, an Appreciation, by Stadler
:lol :lol
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Novels that will be written by forum members when the board shuts down:
I Have Never Heard of That, and Other Things That Didn't Exist Prior to 1982, by TAC
The Comma, an Appreciation, by Stadler
A Rebuttal, of Stadler by Adami
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Novels that will be written by forum members when the board shuts down:
I Have Never Heard of That, and Other Things That Didn't Exist Prior to 1982, by TAC
The Comma, an Appreciation, by Stadler
:lol :lol
I haven't been on this forum very long yet, but I can already say that I would miss it and everyone I am starting to get to know, if it were gone.
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Yep, there aren't many good forums left, and let's face it, most FB group pages dedicated to a single group or artist kinda suck, a) because there is never a good way to organize it neatly like you can a normal forum like this one, and b) most admins/mods of those group pages have that stupid rule where you can only start topics that are about the artist to whom the page is dedicated (with rare exceptions). Imagine this forum being one where we could only have threads about Dream Theater 99% of the time. That is what most group FB pages are like, and is a big reason why most are a waste of time as those pages just became ejaculation sessions to the artist rather than a page with real discussions.
While this is to a certain extent true, you also have to consider this;
Old style forums were really "the entire social network" of its time, so when you compare you have to compare groups or subreddits to subforums, not the entire forum. So a band specific subreddit or group on facebook (say, my Dream Theater group, for instance) is really the equivalent of the Dream Theater subforum here. Yes, that group will have a certain amount of "echo chamber" in it, but you can join as many groups about as many topics as you want. Of course, it gets harder to form "bonds" as the social networks have just become that much bigger... But they're also serving different functions. And things just evolve. I mean, some of us "oldies" will still look back at newsgroups and BBS's as the golden age of group communication, and forums are a far inferior version of newsgroups and bbs's :P Facebook and reddit are just the natural evolution that is inevitable, and I'm sure that in 10 years time there's gonna be new ways and sites to do this kind of thing on.
I spend most of my "interacting with people online" on facebook, reddit and discord nowadays. That's where it's easiest to reach a bigger amount of people. The activity on forums has gone down, and it's increasingly harder to recruit new members. I have access to hundreds of thousands of people on our social media, and even if only 10% of them interact with us (and each other) at any given point, that's still many times more than on this forum. And my "job", as it were, is to create engagement.
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Chill dudes, the forum isn't going anywhere, as noted by Nick and indeed right there in bosk's original post that prompted this thread.
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rich said the forum is canceled everyone
:boskinated:
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rich said the forum is canceled everyone
:boskinated:
(https://i.imgur.com/nN79BoX.png)
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You guys.
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Yep, there aren't many good forums left, and let's face it, most FB group pages dedicated to a single group or artist kinda suck, a) because there is never a good way to organize it neatly like you can a normal forum like this one, and b) most admins/mods of those group pages have that stupid rule where you can only start topics that are about the artist to whom the page is dedicated (with rare exceptions). Imagine this forum being one where we could only have threads about Dream Theater 99% of the time. That is what most group FB pages are like, and is a big reason why most are a waste of time as those pages just became ejaculation sessions to the artist rather than a page with real discussions.
While this is to a certain extent true, you also have to consider this;
Old style forums were really "the entire social network" of its time, so when you compare you have to compare groups or subreddits to subforums, not the entire forum. So a band specific subreddit or group on facebook (say, my Dream Theater group, for instance) is really the equivalent of the Dream Theater subforum here. Yes, that group will have a certain amount of "echo chamber" in it, but you can join as many groups about as many topics as you want. Of course, it gets harder to form "bonds" as the social networks have just become that much bigger... But they're also serving different functions. And things just evolve. I mean, some of us "oldies" will still look back at newsgroups and BBS's as the golden age of group communication, and forums are a far inferior version of newsgroups and bbs's :P Facebook and reddit are just the natural evolution that is inevitable, and I'm sure that in 10 years time there's gonna be new ways and sites to do this kind of thing on.
I spend most of my "interacting with people online" on facebook, reddit and discord nowadays. That's where it's easiest to reach a bigger amount of people. The activity on forums has gone down, and it's increasingly harder to recruit new members. I have access to hundreds of thousands of people on our social media, and even if only 10% of them interact with us (and each other) at any given point, that's still many times more than on this forum. And my "job", as it were, is to create engagement.
That's great Noxon, but I don't even know WTF reddit and discord are, man. And you're basically just doing PR for the band.
Nothing wrong with that.
I came here to talk DT in 2004. This is a great place to talk with people, not at them.
Sorry, I don't mean to sound like a dick, but I read your post and I felt you were dismissing what this forum means to everyone, as all have posted.
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Novels that will be written by forum members when the board shuts down:
I Have Never Heard of That, and Other Things That Didn't Exist Prior to 1982, by TAC
The Comma, an Appreciation, by Stadler
Nice!! :lol
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Yep, there aren't many good forums left, and let's face it, most FB group pages dedicated to a single group or artist kinda suck, a) because there is never a good way to organize it neatly like you can a normal forum like this one, and b) most admins/mods of those group pages have that stupid rule where you can only start topics that are about the artist to whom the page is dedicated (with rare exceptions). Imagine this forum being one where we could only have threads about Dream Theater 99% of the time. That is what most group FB pages are like, and is a big reason why most are a waste of time as those pages just became ejaculation sessions to the artist rather than a page with real discussions.
While this is to a certain extent true, you also have to consider this;
Old style forums were really "the entire social network" of its time, so when you compare you have to compare groups or subreddits to subforums, not the entire forum. So a band specific subreddit or group on facebook (say, my Dream Theater group, for instance) is really the equivalent of the Dream Theater subforum here. Yes, that group will have a certain amount of "echo chamber" in it, but you can join as many groups about as many topics as you want. Of course, it gets harder to form "bonds" as the social networks have just become that much bigger... But they're also serving different functions. And things just evolve. I mean, some of us "oldies" will still look back at newsgroups and BBS's as the golden age of group communication, and forums are a far inferior version of newsgroups and bbs's :P Facebook and reddit are just the natural evolution that is inevitable, and I'm sure that in 10 years time there's gonna be new ways and sites to do this kind of thing on.
I spend most of my "interacting with people online" on facebook, reddit and discord nowadays. That's where it's easiest to reach a bigger amount of people. The activity on forums has gone down, and it's increasingly harder to recruit new members. I have access to hundreds of thousands of people on our social media, and even if only 10% of them interact with us (and each other) at any given point, that's still many times more than on this forum. And my "job", as it were, is to create engagement.
Things evolve, yes, but forums and group pages often become more about the community than anything else, and who wants to bounce from 199 FB pages just to talk other bands, especially when the odds of the same people being on all of the same pages is slim to none.
To me, the unique thing about this forum is the wide range of opinions on music, which has a lot to do with the band. DT has a lot of metal fans, a lot of prog fans, a lot of rock fans, etc., so you get fans from different musical backgrounds, so to speak. Contrast that to say the old Spock's Beard forum I used to visit in the early 2000's which had a lot of nice people, but nearly everyone there was a prog fan first and foremost, and while there is nothing wrong with that, it made it difficult to talk a lot of music that wasn't prog. Sure, the vast majority of band threads that get a lot of activity here are prog and/or metal, but there are plenty of threads about bands not from those genres that have had a lot of chatter.
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My hope is that if the current administration ever does decide to throw in the towel, the database for the forum would be made available so that another team could take it over. Reddit and Discord have their place but the building of community, level of interaction, and persistence of content is lacking compared to a good ol' fashioned forum. This community would not survive a shift to another format anyway.
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I love this forum and it was like moving to a bigger city with a whole bunch of new friendly people after MP shut down his forum. It's a varied, fun community and a neverending source of great music imo, which is the chief reason I come here, along with having fun with a bunch of people I'm happy to call friends. Been using forums for over 20 years, since I was a kid; even with social media, forums are the one thing that have been a mainstay for me.
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Feels like bosk's post (link below) got glossed over to the due obvious nature of the thread, but it feels like it is worth unpacking more, no?
https://www.dreamtheaterforums.org/boards/index.php?topic=55459.msg2679618#msg2679618
Is the forum on borrowed time?
and if so, why? what can we do to salvage this?
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I've been a member of this forum since like 2007, and somehow I did not get banned despite being an utter moron for the first four or five of those.
I know, right? LOL
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It's all about time. It's easy for us to just come on and post. It's harder for them to maintain, moderate these forums as they get older and real life priorities take over.
I totally get it.
well i'll volunteer to come back and help then.
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Personally I feel like reddit was the bigger killer of forums compared to Facebook.
well yeah but now that reddit finally permabanned me, i need this!
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Novels that will be written by forum members when the board shuts down:
I Have Never Heard of That, and Other Things That Didn't Exist Prior to 1982, by TAC
The Comma, an Appreciation, by Stadler
A Rebuttal, of Stadler by Adami
:clap:
Spell-checking is for Loosah’s by Kingshmegland.
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:lol :lol
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That's great Noxon, but I don't even know WTF reddit and discord are, man. And you're basically just doing PR for the band.
Nothing wrong with that.
I came here to talk DT in 2004. This is a great place to talk with people, not at them.
Sorry, I don't mean to sound like a dick, but I read your post and I felt you were dismissing what this forum means to everyone, as all have posted.
Oh, I'm sure it means a great deal to a lot of people, but you also have to be a bit realistic. The old style forums are dying. People just don't see any reason to join anymore. That's not undermining the people that DID join a forum and feel a connection to that forum and the people on it, but there will also be a certain kind of attrition because that's only natural when things get older.
Reddit is the biggest "forum" on the planet right now. It works a bit differently than you're used to (as it highlights relevant content based on a perceived quality as jugded by activity and up/downvotes), but it's basically the "home page" for a lot of people now - this is where they go to discuss whatever. Case in point; DTF has 5600 members amassed over the course of 13 years. The r/Dreamtheater has 16.1k members over 11 years. My DT facebook group has 34k members. It's just a completely different scale. Of course, the forum has played an important part of DT history, but it's no longer the bastion of DT communication as it once was. And that's okay. And for the people who connected on this forum, it'll exist. But my point from the previous post - I'm just seeing the same type reaction here now as I saw when the Ytsejam mailing list and the alt.music.dream-theater group was dying due to the forums... And it's all fine to have nostalgia for the past, but you're missing out if you get -stuck- in the past... :P
Discord is kinda like IRC, only updated. It's kinda a bit like Slack or Teams, if you've ever tried those. It's a real time chat, with voice or text. If you look at younger bands, they focus on facebook, twitter, twitch, discord and reddit. Discord was what was used to solved the DT treasure hunt I did before Distance Over Time.
I'm doing PR? Not really. I'm building communities. A fan club isn't primarily about -the band-, it's about the fans. Our common interest, the band, is of course what drives a lot of our activities, but it's still about building communities. Which is why we hold our pre show events cities all over the world. Why we feature fans covers on our social media. Hold interactive Q&A sessions. Etc. The treasure hunt wasn't PR for the band, primarily. It was to engage the fans in building connections between them. And the places where I get the most reaction whenever I ask for feedback USED to be the forum, but now it's #1 Facebook, #2 Instagram, #3 Reddit, #4 Discord and #5 Forum.
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Now ur gonna have to explain to Tim IRC, Slack, Teams ... :rollin
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I've a week away from my 10 year anniversary here. Holy shit. While I know I don't spend as much time on here as I used to, and when I do post I am usually bitching about work, this place is and will always be my internet home. I spend way more time on Reddit and Facebook than I do here, but if I woke up and Reddit was gone, I'd be okay. If I woke up and DTF was gone...
I wouldn't be.
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My hope is that if the current administration ever does decide to throw in the towel, the database for the forum would be made available so that another team could take it over. Reddit and Discord have their place but the building of community, level of interaction, and persistence of content is lacking compared to a good ol' fashioned forum. This community would not survive a shift to another format anyway.
If this were to be the case down the track, I'd seriously put my hand up in taking a part in running this place for sure. I don't get on as much due to work but I'd make time.
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I have no doubt that many younger peeps have no interest in joining forums like this and would rather just click "like" or "join" on a FB page, but I would bet money that most people on a FB page do it and move on while rarely participating. Looking at what I assume is your DT page on FB (the one with 34K members), I see it has 21 new posts....today. Today. This forum can get 21 posts in like two minutes in the various threads. :lol :lol So yeah, while the FB pages and whatnot can rack up the numbers of members, the community isn't really there otherwise you'd see a lot more posts in general, and that is what you get at a forum like this. Maybe we are the old men yelling at the cloud that our way is still better, maybe not, but I will still take this over FB, reddit or whatever any day of the week.
edit (noxon): oops, sorry, pressed the "modify" button instead of the quote button
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Do all those other platforms have the personal factor that this place has? I like Tim am not up on other platformsbut if Redit has so many more users you think it would be hard to get those personal connections like we get here? I could be way off.
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I have no doubt that many younger peeps have no interest in joining forums like this and would rather just click "like" or "join" on a FB page, but I would bet money that most people on a FB page do it and move on while rarely participating. Looking at what I assume is your DT page on FB (the one with 34K members), I see it has 21 new posts....today. Today. This forum can get 21 posts in like two minutes in the various threads. :lol :lol So yeah, while the FB pages and whatnot can rack up the numbers of members, the community isn't really there otherwise you'd see a lot more posts in general, and that is what you get at a forum like this. Maybe we are the old men yelling at the cloud that our way is still better, maybe not, but I will still take this over FB, reddit or whatever any day of the week.
I've posted at both the discord mentioned here as well as many iterations of the Facebook group. And I don't think it's anywhere near as rich or rewarding as posting at the forum. Those groups just move too fast, and become the territory of people who have nothing better to do than post all day. Especially the discord. since it's in real time, the only way you can become a regular is if you have enough time I basically live on there. I much prefer the forum style, where you can still participate in a conversation at your own pace. talk about community engagement all you want, I think there is a lot more to a community then catering to half a dozen people who have unlimited time for a chat room.
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I agree with Noxon's analysis of the trends about social platforms, but still I claim the right to be a grumpy old man and talk about the good old days. Speaking of this, I want bot ICQ and MSN back :biggrin:
No, seriously, of course these things evolve, and they're different by nature and purpouse; a forum will always be the place where you come for a common interest, and you stay for the community, Noxon is right in pointing out the different numbers but precisely why a forum has fewer partecipants you can get a sense of who's who, and start recognizing people and avatars.
In the end social platforms will be like your favorite albums of a band, you will always love more the ones with whom you started with. I will always love the forum format and I'm just glad I found another one to hang out after the demise of the one where I cyber-lived in my 20s.
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My nine year anniversary was 3 days ago :eek
When I joined this forum I was still a teenager. I signed up because I wanted to post my top 50 Dream Theater tracks when that was still a thing :lol I probably never thought I would still be here years later. This forum was here during my studies, before I even met my girlfriend and it has given me so much joy. As Chad pointed out earlier in this thread; for so many people this forum is part of a daily routine. Check updates, chat some stuff, find some music etc. etc. and it's so good to know that no matter what, if I'm absent for a week or so, this place will still be here.
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I agree with Noxon's analysis of the trends about social platforms, but still I claim the right to be a grumpy old man and talk about the good old days. Speaking of this, I want bot ICQ and MSN back :biggrin:
No, seriously, of course these things evolve, and they're different by nature and purpouse; a forum will always be the place where you come for a common interest, and you stay for the community, Noxon is right in pointing out the different numbers but precisely why a forum has fewer partecipants you can get a sense of who's who, and start recognizing people and avatars.
In the end social platforms will be like your favorite albums of a band, you will always love more the ones with whom you started with. I will always love the forum format and I'm just glad I found another one to hang out after the demise of the one where I cyber-lived in my 20s.
I still use ICQ. :lol
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I agree with Noxon's analysis of the trends about social platforms, but still I claim the right to be a grumpy old man and talk about the good old days. Speaking of this, I want bot ICQ and MSN back :biggrin:
No, seriously, of course these things evolve, and they're different by nature and purpouse; a forum will always be the place where you come for a common interest, and you stay for the community, Noxon is right in pointing out the different numbers but precisely why a forum has fewer partecipants you can get a sense of who's who, and start recognizing people and avatars.
In the end social platforms will be like your favorite albums of a band, you will always love more the ones with whom you started with. I will always love the forum format and I'm just glad I found another one to hang out after the demise of the one where I cyber-lived in my 20s.
I still use ICQ. :lol
It took me over ten years to realize that it's not pronounced "Ick", but "I Seek You".
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I agree with Noxon's analysis of the trends about social platforms, but still I claim the right to be a grumpy old man and talk about the good old days. Speaking of this, I want bot ICQ and MSN back :biggrin:
I still use ICQ. :lol
Not surprised, it was big in Russia and I remember a lot of russian girls were using it ;D
I'd still use it if anyone would remotely know what it is.
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I have no doubt that many younger peeps have no interest in joining forums like this and would rather just click "like" or "join" on a FB page, but I would bet money that most people on a FB page do it and move on while rarely participating. Looking at what I assume is your DT page on FB (the one with 34K members), I see it has 21 new posts....today. Today. This forum can get 21 posts in like two minutes in the various threads. :lol :lol So yeah, while the FB pages and whatnot can rack up the numbers of members, the community isn't really there otherwise you'd see a lot more posts in general, and that is what you get at a forum like this. Maybe we are the old men yelling at the cloud that our way is still better, maybe not, but I will still take this over FB, reddit or whatever any day of the week.
You're mudding the waters with unclear term usages. Posts on this forum = comments on facebook. Threads on this forum = posts on facebook.
And; 21 new posts today - but you have to compare this to the dream theater subforum. Cause that's what my group is. It's ONLY the dream theater subforum. And how many new threads are there on the DT subforum? None - they were all started over a month ago. In my group, over the course of a month there's been 1373 posts, with 17080 comments and 129197 reactions. Now, you may well argue (rightly so) that the depth of the discussion in those 1373 posts isn't as deep as this forum can have, but if we're talking engagement it's not as clear cut as you state. This entire forum had 153 threads from June till today. 13068 posts. Averages about 5 threads a day.
https://www.dreamtheaterforums.org/boards/index.php?action=stats
Sorry about that edit flub, wasn't my intention.
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Would be very sad if this forum quits as well. Discovered a lot of cool stuf through the passionate people posting here. I am kind of sad I missed the peak of forums back in the day, I have witnessed all of the other forums I started posting on in my (late) teens die out in a matter of years (mostly music, television or game related). The fact that this forum still has a core group interacting well past the rise of social media and platforms like reddit speaks volumes in my opinion.
Reddit is fine and all, but a very different experience. A lot of subreddits are either very calm/dead or very crowded and apersonal. I do like that there are many long form posts and sometimes interesting debates going on. Social media started to take over when I was in high school. And while that was actually very fun and all initially on a personal level, something changed over the years, at least for me. I really think social media has taken a turn for the worst in the last five years or so, especially twitter seems like a dumpsterfire of online hissy fits. What I do enjoy about facebook though, is pages of artists and how they communicate with fans, so no it is not all negative. But what I like about forums vs those fb pages is that there tends to be more long form communication between (kind of) strangers in regards to a wide(r) variety of topics. Just look at the discography threads here, as an example. A band facebook page is very different in nature, at least in my experience for most of my favourite artists and/or intellectual properties. Discord seems interesting, but I have yet to explore that.
Taken together I totally get why forums are mostly dead and yes I am using modern platforms as well, but I think there are some differences outside of nostalgia that make me miss the forums that have already died, for sure. And for most of them (probably all) I wasn't even there during their peaks.
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I've found that Reddit is great for reviews / discussions. Reading after an episode of a TV show the various opinions and discussions is a nice experience, you get many different point of views.
It's even better than reading a review because with a review you get ONE point of view of someone who tries to be professional, when it's every fan of the show commenting you get various point of views and the occasional joke to laugh at.
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Case in point; DTF has 5600 members amassed over the course of 13 years. The r/Dreamtheater has 16.1k members over 11 years. My DT facebook group has 34k members. It's just a completely different scale. Of course, the forum has played an important part of DT history, but it's no longer the bastion of DT communication as it once was.
I think that misses the point, though. Respectfully.
I'm not interested in 34,000 people, I'm interested in my FRIENDS. I suppose I could start and amass another whole friend group, but I'm 52 and I'm not sure I'm up for that again, frankly. And that assumes that the same vibe and environment and context can be replicated... I'm not willing to wager on that. I've been on several forums over the years, and they vary, mostly inferior to here. There's another forum that's a remnant of MP's and it's not the same. Great people, no doubt, but the chemistry is different and so it's not the same. Maybe that other one has cleaned up over the years, but for a while it was morally offensive. Some people here (myself included) are not on Facebook. Have no interest in Reddit. The one place where EVERYONE is? HERE.
I'm not delusional; if this goes away, I'll figure it out as I usually do, but it's comfort, and while some may dismiss that as 'living in the past', in this age of Trump, Covid, BLM, etc. etc. etc., maybe a little comfort ain't such a bad thing.
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Well said, Stadler, and to touch on the numbers thing, I have noticed that trend with most FB group pages. There are constant new topics about reaching this many members and whatnot. I get that getting more fans is great, but it often feels like they care more about racking up the "like" and "join" numbers than having great discussions (which are often hampered by the super strict rules those pages usually have).
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Nobody is disputing that you've found friends here, and that friends is a good thing to have. But look at the development of activity. Over the past decade, every two year you see a reduction in activity by 50%. The outlier is The Astonishing, which caused a certain amount of influx of new members due to the very controversial nature of that album, which increased the activity a lot, leaving 2017 to have no reduction in activity, compared to 2015. But then the trend continued in 2018, and 2019... Point is, even if we don't want to shut down the forum exactly because there are social connections here that are not replicable to other arenas, it's still a sad fact that all things must come to an end. If not today nor yet tomorrow then some other day...
The forum will keep going a while longer. We're not shutting down. I'm just trying to explain - why - this even has been a discussion.
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Communities will find a way to stick together somehow, one way or another.
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Nobody is disputing that you've found friends here, and that friends is a good thing to have. But look at the development of activity. Over the past decade, every two year you see a reduction in activity by 50%. The outlier is The Astonishing, which caused a certain amount of influx of new members due to the very controversial nature of that album, which increased the activity a lot, leaving 2017 to have no reduction in activity, compared to 2015. But then the trend continued in 2018, and 2019... Point is, even if we don't want to shut down the forum exactly because there are social connections here that are not replicable to other arenas, it's still a sad fact that all things must come to an end. If not today nor yet tomorrow then some other day...
The forum will keep going a while longer. We're not shutting down. I'm just trying to explain - why - this even has been a discussion.
I don't think we're wildly apart. I totally get that things wind down. Nothing good lasts forever, as they say. I think there's a sweet spot of distillation, though. A critical mass, if you will.
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Nobody is disputing that you've found friends here, and that friends is a good thing to have. But look at the development of activity. Over the past decade, every two year you see a reduction in activity by 50%. The outlier is The Astonishing, which caused a certain amount of influx of new members due to the very controversial nature of that album, which increased the activity a lot, leaving 2017 to have no reduction in activity, compared to 2015. But then the trend continued in 2018, and 2019... Point is, even if we don't want to shut down the forum exactly because there are social connections here that are not replicable to other arenas, it's still a sad fact that all things must come to an end. If not today nor yet tomorrow then some other day...
The forum will keep going a while longer. We're not shutting down. I'm just trying to explain - why - this even has been a discussion.
Despite the affiliation, DT-related stuff are only one part of the activity of this forum, and that's always been the case for as long as I can remember. General Music and General are significantly busier, and the rest of the boards when combined would also be busier. To me, that speaks to the fact that his community is really not about "engagement" with DT, even if DT is what brought most of us here. Personally, I barely listen to DT anymore, and wouldn't be surprised if that is the case for many people.
I think this community stands on its own, with or without DT. I can understand if the creators of this iteration of DTForums feel a little bit like the board has gotten away from its true purpose, with DT becoming less active and even DT-related activity on this board taking a backseat to other activity. My only ask would be, please consider the alternatives before pulling the plug. The board could go private, or remove the DT affiliation (as these forums have once before). There may be people willing to step up, and coordinate the handover to a new shared space. Previous iterations of this forum were nuked with almost no warning several times in the past, for not good reason other than the people behind them simply didn't care about what happened to the community once the forum was gone.
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I can only speak for myself but it's clear when we're talking about popular places for DT fans, this forums has lost it's place too Reddit and Facebook in terms of the amount of members. So in that aspect I can see the reasoning for discussions about the value of this forum on the internet. For me though, this forum is so much more than just DT which in all honesty is not that relevant sadly since it's called dreamtheaterforums.org. So my vote may not mean that much to DT fans only looking for that part of the forum.
Now I hate both Reddit and especially Facebook groups because there's no way to have sub-topics outside of the main subject so to speak and in general they have specific rules to keep the discussion on topic. That's where the forum format is superior atleast for me.
Correct me if i'm wrong but wasn't the split from fiveeightforums because it became a more general forum instead of only DT or something?
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The state of the Forum is as such:
It's in the cloud, so its obviously a Gas.
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What is r/Dreamtheater?
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What is r/Dreamtheater?
r/[insert thing here] is shorthand for referencing a subject's subreddit. Think of Reddit like DTF for the Internet at large; the subreddits would be subforums like GMD and P/R, and individual posts in those subreddits would be like threads in GMD and P/R.
r/DreamTheater refers to the DT subreddit (http://reddit.com/r/DreamTheater) where DT fans gather to talk about DT and DT-related stuff, memes, etc. You can also just type reddit.com/r/DreamTheater and it'll take you there.
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What is r/Dreamtheater?
The Dream Theater subreddit (subforum?) On reddit.
Edit:
Ninja'd
I personally feel very little sense of community in subreddits and FB groups.
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What is r/Dreamtheater?
When mommy and daddy listen to Dreamtheather and make a little r/
for a rocker.
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I personally feel very little sense of community in subreddits and FB groups.
It is definitely a different experience. I love some of the subreddits I'm following: r/DMAcademy and r/DnDBehindTheScreen are amazing for me, r/Haken is good for Haken memes, r/progmetal has some good obscure recommendations sometimes, there are some good book series subs where you can discuss the books you read or shitpost about them which is also great, but indeed none of them have this community vibe.
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I tried to follow another forum a number of years back, related to relationships and mental health. There were simply too many people there though, and threads were moving WAY too fast. Another great thing about this forum is new people can join, and still manage to fit in and be quickly accepted - Brother Lion, HOF, and Harmony (he says ironically) come to mind as new members that have been able to find their place.
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The forum will keep going a while longer. We're not shutting down. I'm just trying to explain - why - this even has been a discussion.
And just who are you?
In any case, your numbers are correct. However that doesn't change the fact that the forum, FB, and R/ are 3 very different things for 3 very different groups of people. Some people like to discuss music. Sometimes DT and sometimes other bands with people of similar tastes. I find it a sad commentary that discussion has been replaced with drive by :tup s, but there are still lots of people who want that discussion. FB is NOT a place for discussion. It's a place for self-gratification. As long as there are those of us that enjoy actually talking about music there will be forums such as this, regardless of who owns it.
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That's a nice overview, Bart. I know for me, once in a while I will put a question out there, but on any given day, I don't come here to talk "Dream Theater", or "Trump" or "Derek Sherinian". I come here to talk with Bart, and TAC and Chad, and Mike about whatever. Sometimes about just THEM as people. I guess I haven't spent enough time there, but "reddit" to me is more like a wikipedia-type source where I go occasionally for information. I avoid Facebook like the plague (I had reason to sign up - Marketplace - and they delayed my acceptance to Marketplace long enough where it wasn't useful; in the meantime I did a little searching and there's nothing on there that I feel obligated to be a part of.)
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I like reddit a lot and it's good for some things, but there is a sort of impersonality to it that prevents it from replacing a forum like this for me. Not to mention that the way replies work make it better suited to jokes than actual conversation.
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I like reddit, I like Discord, I like Facebook groups. It's easy to reach a lot of people over them, people do join every day, for people who are interested in building communities and getting responses they're the places to go. But this is already a built community. This is a freaking garden. This is the last old style hobby forum I still have access to (I don't doubt there are others, but not in hobbies that interest me, like heavy music). Yes, there will come a day when it has to fold. But I don't want it to, and no amount of "other communities are just as good and we must go with the times" will scratch my itch for what we have built here all together. Here's a place where I feel safe, where I found some of my best friends, met people who live lives I will never live, that I am endlessly interested in. Here's a place that actually listens to me when I say something, and I can't put any price tag on that.
Plus, not to be a grumpy hag hanging onto something effervescent, but where else am I gonna say "marriage analogy" and have people instantly deriving three sentences worth of meaning with a backstory out of that :lol where am I gonna have my own emoticon! where am I going to green text for sarcasm! It's not even a garden, it's a full expansive ecosystem, this forum.
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Dream Theater is a very unique band with a sort of dichotomy to them. They’ve achieved great success yet remain largely unknown to anyone outside of the prog rock community (compare this to Rush, Pink Floyd, Yes, Genesis, and Tool for a more modern band). They’re a one hit wonder, yet found their success in spite of that instead of because of it (outside of the I,W,&B tour, I’ve only seen them play Pull Me Under once). Their biggest failure came when they tried to have a more accessible sound, and a concept album with complex arrangements saved their career. They aren’t your average band, and their fan base is no different. For most bands, Facebook and sometimes Reddit is enough for their fans. But Dream Theater isn’t like most bands, and we aren’t like most fans. We love in depth discussion about our favorite band and other topics as well, and for that, a dedicated forum is better suited for our needs than a Facebook page and a subreddit. This isn’t just a fandom. We are a community, and this website is our little cul-de-sac.
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Glad to hear this place is sticking around, it'd be a bummer to see the forum that I've been visiting since I was a teenager go down. This is one of the only two forums I visit. The rest of the time I'm on reddit.
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I'm really disappointed it took three posts before someone ripped on Tim for the 'what is r/dreamtheater' post. You guys are losing your touch man.
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What is r/Dreamtheater?
r/[insert thing here] is shorthand for referencing a subject's subreddit. Think of Reddit like DTF for the Internet at large; the subreddits would be subforums like GMD and P/R, and individual posts in those subreddits would be like threads in GMD and P/R.
r/DreamTheater refers to the DT subreddit (http://reddit.com/r/DreamTheater)
OK, just clicked the link. Oh boy. That format is awful. I mean the top post is by some clown pimping his video game work, or whatever the hell it is. No thank you.
Is that place DT authorized?
@ Noxon, I do know who you are. With all due respect.
Are you part of the "inside discussions" or are you just giving your two cents on the issue?
Does the 34k followers on FB even mean anything? I mean, maybe people follow the account so they get news updates sent to them. I'd find it hard that 34k are actually contributing.
Again, not to sound like a dick, but the boast that DT FB has 34k followers sounds almost...….Kardashian.
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Yeah Reddit's format has always been a massive turn-off for me.
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I'm really disappointed it took three posts before someone ripped on Tim for the 'what is r/dreamtheater' post. You guys are losing your touch man.
:lol
I have heard of the term reddit, but I had no idea what r/Dreamtheater referred to.
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Most every one of the last few posts (other that Tim re:reddit) completely align with how I view and use DTF. It’s my hangout ... my Cheers, my Central Perk, my Tom’s Diner if you will (maybe all of them wrapped into one) - but with 100+ regular characters, not just 8, or 6 or 4. I can always come in here and find a conversation or discussion topic to jump in to, or continue, or start.
Unless it’s a WildRanger thread. :lol
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I'm really disappointed it took three posts before someone ripped on Tim for the 'what is r/dreamtheater' post. You guys are losing your touch man.
You know I wouldn't let you down.
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I think a lot of outlets could use more forums nowadays. I can't stand the layout for Facebook which is why I don't use Facebook. I also think Reddit has it's place. I mean I visit Reddit for a good amount of stuff and the conversations there are relatively ok. It doesn't beat having a forum though. For the last 7 years, this place has been a great place for me not just learn more about Dream Theater as a band, but to get into other bands like Iron Maiden and a lot of other cool bands that people here get excited about. Heck, I used to visit a poker forum to talk about hockey and the NHL, and I find myself reading/posting in the NHL threads here than I would in the poker forum nowadays and that's mainly on the backs of great fans that have their interesting tales and perspectives about something.
I think that's what mainly drives this forum to be what they are. It's not much about people posting something just to get likes and approval about a view. It's about a great community of all ages from all over the world with different ethnicity and backgrounds having a common interest in a band called Dream Theater that so happens to have different interests about other hobbies/sports/music/etc. and able to have great conversations with different views about something without needing to demean or invalidate someone's other views for the most part.
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Most every one of the last few posts (other that Tim re:reddit) completely align with how I view and use DTF. It’s my hangout ... my Cheers, my Central Perk, my Tom’s Diner if you will (maybe all of them wrapped into one) - but with 100+ regular characters, not just 8, or 6 or 4. I can always come in here and find a conversation or discussion topic to jump in to, or continue, or start.
Central Perk? Tom's Diner?
I mean I've heard of Mel's Diner.
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Most every one of the last few posts (other that Tim re:reddit) completely align with how I view and use DTF. It’s my hangout ... my Cheers, my Central Perk, my Tom’s Diner if you will (maybe all of them wrapped into one) - but with 100+ regular characters, not just 8, or 6 or 4. I can always come in here and find a conversation or discussion topic to jump in to, or continue, or start.
Central Perk? Tom's Diner?
I mean I've heard of Mel's Diner.
From the two most famous sitcoms not based in Boston. But, they were both from the 90s, so I shouldn’t be surprised. Maybe a Cosby Show reference would’ve been more your thing? :lol
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Yeah, I wasn't watching sitcoms in the 90's. I started watching the first couple seasons of Seinfeld, but then I started working nights.
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Dear God. The Big Salad or Smelly Cat?
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It's gotta be a joke.... It's gotta be a joke....
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Nah, I think Bosk was serious. Hoping he'll post soon.
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Yeah, I know Central Perk from Friends, but I didn't know the restaurant from Seinfeld is called Tom's Restaurant. They always remove the Tom's part when they switched to it.
Edit: Wait, it's actually called Monk's in the show? That's the name I always know of.
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Wait, if this is Cheers, who is DTF's Cliff Clavin?
I think we all know that TAC would be Coach...:P :P
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Was hoping Tom's Diner was the name of the diner from the film Diner. Had to look that one up: Fell's Point Diner.
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Yeah Reddit's format has always been a massive turn-off for me.
Their website is shit. I almost have to use a 3rd party app to navigate most of the time.
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Wait, if this is Cheers, who is DTF's Cliff Clavin?
I think we all know that TAC would be Coach...:P :P
I'll have you know that Coach (Nicholas Colasanto) and I went to the same college.
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I'll have you know that Coach (Nicholas Colasanto) and I went to the same college.
Ha, that's kinda cool, actually. :coolio
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Yeah, they had just built a new student center on campus before I got there, and there was a giant TV room that was called Nick's Place. Spent many nights watching Bruins games there while in school.
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Yeah, I know Central Perk from Friends, but I didn't know the restaurant from Seinfeld is called Tom's Restaurant. They always remove the Tom's part when they switched to it.
Edit: Wait, it's actually called Monk's in the show? That's the name I always know of.
It’s Toms Diner in real life, Monks on the show.
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Just saw this thread because I accidentally clicked on this forum. I’ve been a part of various message boards since high school, including various DT related boards for most of that time. I’m on Facebook and Twitter, but those just aren’t structured like a message board and really can’t replace the type of community there is here and in other dedicated boards. When the MP forum went under, I had a chance to kind of unplug for a few years and that was good, but those other formats just didn’t offer the kind of place to discuss things that this one does. I lurked here for a while and then decided to jump in, and it’s really been pretty much like where the MP forum left off for me.
I am looking for a new (used) car right now, and to my dismay pretty much all of the new models do not have a CD player. I can still get something recent with a CD player, but it struck me that this is pretty much the end of the line. The next time I’m in the market it will be Bluetooth or bust, and that really sucks as far as the way I consume music. But times and technology change.
Being on an internet message board in 2020 is a lot like still listening to music on a CD player in my car. I’m about the youngest person still doing it, and in 5-10 years or so I won’t really have a choice. Pretty soon I expect all of the forums that exist now to go under as platforms evolve and people stop updating the software these things run on. We’ll find other places to go or things to do with our time, but it won’t be the same. Alas. Enjoy it while it lasts I guess.
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I just thought I'd pop in here in see what's going on. Okay, now I'll go.
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I am looking for a new (used) car right now, and to my dismay pretty much all of the new models do not have a CD player.
I posted this before, but I bought a new car in 2017, took it for a test drive, then we took it out again for my wife to drive it. I liked it, so I bought it. My first time out with it, I grabbed a CD, and when I started up the car, I thought "where the hell is the CD player?" I didn't realize there wasn't one until I got it home. I had just assumed there was one, it didn't occur to me to even check.
And I don't use reddit ever, but thought I would check out the DT page there. Man what a horrible interface!
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Most every one of the last few posts (other that Tim re:reddit) completely align with how I view and use DTF. It’s my hangout ... my Cheers, my Central Perk, my Tom’s Diner if you will (maybe all of them wrapped into one) - but with 100+ regular characters, not just 8, or 6 or 4. I can always come in here and find a conversation or discussion topic to jump in to, or continue, or start.
Unless it’s a WildRanger thread. :lol
This hits the nail on the head perfectly for me. As did your comment about new people joining and fitting in almost immediately. That's exactly how it was when I first joined. People like you and TAC, Cyril (aka Parama), Kattelox, Stadler, Ariich, Cramx3, Chino and so many others made me feel right at home here. I've made a lot of good friends here that I find many things in common with from music, to video games, to movies and TV shows.
I'd hate to see this place go, and it looks like for now it's not going anywhere, but I would be willing to do whatever it takes to keep it around.
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That's a nice overview, Bart. I know for me, once in a while I will put a question out there, but on any given day, I don't come here to talk "Dream Theater", or "Trump" or "Derek Sherinian". I come here to talk with Bart, and TAC and Chad, and Mike about whatever. Sometimes about just THEM as people. I guess I haven't spent enough time there, but "reddit" to me is more like a wikipedia-type source where I go occasionally for information. I avoid Facebook like the plague (I had reason to sign up - Marketplace - and they delayed my acceptance to Marketplace long enough where it wasn't useful; in the meantime I did a little searching and there's nothing on there that I feel obligated to be a part of.)
All of this.
I come here now to talk to people I know and have formed friendships with.
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Well, looks like I picked the wrong week to quit lurking...
But yeah agreed, it would be a shame to see this place go. This forum just has a really nice atmosphere to it, it feels a lot more like a little community than a lot of other places online.
And I can't speak for the DT sub-reddit in particular since I haven't been there, but I could just never get into reddit in general. And I think (at least in the case of bigger subs) the voting system doesn't work as well as classic forums do to allow discussion and disagreement, it just sort of allows a set of 'accepted' knowledge/opinions about the topic to crystallise, and anything new or which deviates from that just winds up ignored at the bottom of threads.
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Well, looks like I picked the wrong week to quit lurking...
You didn't - it has been stated more than once in this thread, and even in the message by the admin that prompted this thread, that at least for the foreseeable future, nothing's gonna happen to the forum, but people are still posting like we have a month left of activity :D
Oh, and welcome! :tup
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Well, looks like I picked the wrong week to quit lurking...
You didn't - it has been stated more than once in this thread, and even in the message by the admin that prompted this thread, that at least for the foreseeable future, nothing's gonna happen to the forum, but people are still posting like we have a month left of activity :D
Yeah seriously. :lol
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what's happening? don't like to look up this on web archive dot com..
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Nothing is happening! :)
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Well, looks like I picked the wrong week to quit lurking...
You didn't - it has been stated more than once in this thread, and even in the message by the admin that prompted this thread, that at least for the foreseeable future, nothing's gonna happen to the forum, but people are still posting like we have a month left of activity :D
Oh, and welcome! :tup
I wasn't being entirely serious with that line, I kinda went for the Airplane! reference and missed.
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Well, looks like I picked the wrong week to quit lurking...
You didn't - it has been stated more than once in this thread, and even in the message by the admin that prompted this thread, that at least for the foreseeable future, nothing's gonna happen to the forum, but people are still posting like we have a month left of activity :D
Oh, and welcome! :tup
I wasn't being entirely serious with that line, I kinda went for the Airplane! reference and missed.
Surely you can't be serious.
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Well, looks like I picked the wrong week to quit lurking...
You didn't - it has been stated more than once in this thread, and even in the message by the admin that prompted this thread, that at least for the foreseeable future, nothing's gonna happen to the forum, but people are still posting like we have a month left of activity :D
Oh, and welcome! :tup
I wasn't being entirely serious with that line, I kinda went for the Airplane! reference and missed.
Surely you can't be serious.
:lol I am serious... and don't call me Shirley!
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Well, looks like I picked the wrong week to quit lurking...
You didn't - it has been stated more than once in this thread, and even in the message by the admin that prompted this thread, that at least for the foreseeable future, nothing's gonna happen to the forum, but people are still posting like we have a month left of activity :D
Oh, and welcome! :tup
I wasn't being entirely serious with that line, I kinda went for the Airplane! reference and missed.
Surely you can't be serious.
:lol I am serious... and don't call me Shirley!
Roger.
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Wait, if this is Cheers, who is DTF's Cliff Clavin?
I think we all know that TAC would be Coach...:P :P
I'll have you know that Coach (Nicholas Colasanto) and I went to the same college.
Was he your tutor? :lol
And yeah... I forgot that Tom's was actually Monk's in the show. I'd seen/read something about it being Tom's irl, and guess that's what I pulled out of my mind yesterday. But yeah, ya'll got the point.
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If this place went under, I'd be incredibly sad. I've been around since seeing DT on the TOT tour back in 2004. There's a few of you that I've now known for more years than I haven't.
+1 on forums disappearing. I hate it. All of my my RC clubs used to have dedicated websites and their own forums. Every. Single. One. has made the transition to Facebook groups. I can't stand it. The formatting and search functions suck, and there's no way to have a "build thread" if you're doing something cool over a period of time. Maintaining my connections to my hobbies is the only reason I still stick around on Facebook.
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I'll say this, it will be a sad day when this forum comes to an end. Good to hear that it's not any time soon!
I joined around the time ADTOE came out, and I stalked around for a while before that. I check this forum pretty much very day. Even though I don't venture into the DT side much nowadays, there is still lots of interesting threads to check out. I come here to read my music news for example, and then discuss those news with all of you guys and gals. And weirdly enough, I feel like I know a lot of you people, without really knowing anybody. :lol Not even your real names..
I'm sure this community finds a way to exist in some form after the day the forums will be gone, but it just won't be the same..
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Glad to hear this place isn't going anywhere and it's nice to see how much it means to a lot of you as well. It would be a real shame if the forum disappeared. I'm a background character at best, but I love coming on every day and reading peoples thoughts, participating in polls and finding great new music. This place has always been one of the best I've used in terms of the number of assholes/wums/trolls - I barely remember any!
As for forums in general, I've been using them for over 20 years. Maybe I'm a bit set in my ways, but I agree with many of you that they're still a far better format for things like this than Facebook and Reddit - though I understand their appeal too. It's a pity the popularity of forums is waning these days, though they do still have their place.
Another forum I post on had been basically ignored and left to rot by the owners for quite a while, so the members decided to build their own one that worked properly. Many of us chipped in and raised over £8500 and now we have a working forum with funds to sustain it for quite a while. So clearly these little communities are still important to people.
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Just saw this thread because I accidentally clicked on this forum. I’ve been a part of various message boards since high school, including various DT related boards for most of that time. I’m on Facebook and Twitter, but those just aren’t structured like a message board and really can’t replace the type of community there is here and in other dedicated boards. When the MP forum went under, I had a chance to kind of unplug for a few years and that was good, but those other formats just didn’t offer the kind of place to discuss things that this one does. I lurked here for a while and then decided to jump in, and it’s really been pretty much like where the MP forum left off for me.
I am looking for a new (used) car right now, and to my dismay pretty much all of the new models do not have a CD player. I can still get something recent with a CD player, but it struck me that this is pretty much the end of the line. The next time I’m in the market it will be Bluetooth or bust, and that really sucks as far as the way I consume music. But times and technology change.
Being on an internet message board in 2020 is a lot like still listening to music on a CD player in my car. I’m about the youngest person still doing it, and in 5-10 years or so I won’t really have a choice. Pretty soon I expect all of the forums that exist now to go under as platforms evolve and people stop updating the software these things run on. We’ll find other places to go or things to do with our time, but it won’t be the same. Alas. Enjoy it while it lasts I guess.
Sidebar: I will sometimes bring CDs with me when I travel, as I do a decent amount of driving. It's a great way to listen to CDs I just bought, etc. There has been more than one occassion where I'm walking through the Hertz parking lot peeking in windows to see if the car has a CD player or not. More often than not, NO. That blows, man.
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It's settled.
We're a merry bunch of CD player lovers gathering in this one-of-a-kind automotive rally; they may stop producing CD's and CD players, we still have huge collections, the skill to fix our cars, and lot of things to talk about.
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Just saw this thread because I accidentally clicked on this forum. I’ve been a part of various message boards since high school, including various DT related boards for most of that time. I’m on Facebook and Twitter, but those just aren’t structured like a message board and really can’t replace the type of community there is here and in other dedicated boards. When the MP forum went under, I had a chance to kind of unplug for a few years and that was good, but those other formats just didn’t offer the kind of place to discuss things that this one does. I lurked here for a while and then decided to jump in, and it’s really been pretty much like where the MP forum left off for me.
I am looking for a new (used) car right now, and to my dismay pretty much all of the new models do not have a CD player. I can still get something recent with a CD player, but it struck me that this is pretty much the end of the line. The next time I’m in the market it will be Bluetooth or bust, and that really sucks as far as the way I consume music. But times and technology change.
Being on an internet message board in 2020 is a lot like still listening to music on a CD player in my car. I’m about the youngest person still doing it, and in 5-10 years or so I won’t really have a choice. Pretty soon I expect all of the forums that exist now to go under as platforms evolve and people stop updating the software these things run on. We’ll find other places to go or things to do with our time, but it won’t be the same. Alas. Enjoy it while it lasts I guess.
Sidebar: I will sometimes bring CDs with me when I travel, as I do a decent amount of driving. It's a great way to listen to CDs I just bought, etc. There has been more than one occassion where I'm walking through the Hertz parking lot peeking in windows to see if the car has a CD player or not. More often than not, NO. That blows, man.
My work occasionally requires me to drive throughout my state, and having what can be up to a six hour chunk of time to listen to CDs is one of the highlights of my job. Sure, I could stream most of what I listen to on CD in the car, but the car is kind of my last solitary place that I can still just put a CD in and press play with no distractions or interruptions. I also have to plan ahead what CDs to bring, and that often affords me a reason to pick some stuff that I haven’t heard in a while, or sometimes I’ll listen to a chunk of an artist’s catalog in order. If I just relied on streaming from my phone, the options are almost overwhelmingly unlimited (I’ve added so much junk on my Amazon account that I might have checked out once but it’s still there) and I don’t know that I would have that same incentive to carefully plan ahead. There’s also more temptation to skip around to something else. When all you have is the CDs you brought, you’re committed to listening to just that.
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We have literally made three dozen car rides to Disney over the years. The choosing of CD's basically became a ritual, as I have had some of the most important musical listening during those times. My wife used to get upset that I'd have my headphones on, but she qrealized that that was my vacation/wind down time.
I'll be honest, the iPod made it so much easier.
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No CD has ever returned unscathed from a car trip of mine.
Indestructible my arse
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I'm not even sure if my car has a CD player. I know my Mini Cooper did, but I don't think I ever used it. I have enough clutter in my car, I don't need CDs thrown into the mix.
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My work occasionally requires me to drive throughout my state, and having what can be up to a six hour chunk of time to listen to CDs is one of the highlights of my job. Sure, I could stream most of what I listen to on CD in the car, but the car is kind of my last solitary place that I can still just put a CD in and press play with no distractions or interruptions. I also have to plan ahead what CDs to bring, and that often affords me a reason to pick some stuff that I haven’t heard in a while, or sometimes I’ll listen to a chunk of an artist’s catalog in order. If I just relied on streaming from my phone, the options are almost overwhelmingly unlimited (I’ve added so much junk on my Amazon account that I might have checked out once but it’s still there) and I don’t know that I would have that same incentive to carefully plan ahead. There’s also more temptation to skip around to something else. When all you have is the CDs you brought, you’re committed to listening to just that.
I get that line of thinking, but the advantage of the iPhone is the unpredictability. My iPhone has about 5,000 songs uploaded from my iTunes (all HQ mp3's), and once I plug in my phone when I get in the car, it automatically shuffles and starts playing something before I have a chance to pick something, and more often than not, I will leave on what it picks, or maybe I will hit skip if that particular song isn't appealing to me a lot at the time, except on the days when I have my heart set on listening to something specific, and I often get on kicks with bands that maybe I wouldn't have planned on listening to that particular day, and that is always fun.
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We have literally made three dozen car rides to Disney over the years. The choosing of CD's basically became a ritual, as I have had some of the most important musical listening during those times. My wife used to get upset that I'd have my headphones on, but she qrealized that that was my vacation/wind down time.
I'll be honest, the iPod made it so much easier.
Probably what I’ll do at some point is invest in a dedicated MP3 player like that so I’m not at the mercy of an internet connection and also I can more carefully curate the contents. Trouble is finding something with enough storage. I know there are some more expensive products out there that might be able to handle a large amount of music but I haven’t looked into it very closely. I don’t want to have to spend a bunch of time curating another device. If I can just keep it updated with everything that’s on my main laptop I’ll be happy (that’s about 37 gigs right now).
I get that line of thinking, but the advantage of the iPhone is the unpredictability. My iPhone has about 5,000 songs uploaded from my iTunes (all HQ mp3's), and once I plug in my phone when I get in the car, it automatically shuffles and starts playing something before I have a chance to pick something, and more often than not, I will leave on what it picks, or maybe I will hit skip if that particular song isn't appealing to me a lot at the time, except on the days when I have my heart set on listening to something specific, and I often get on kicks with bands that maybe I wouldn't have planned on listening to that particular day, and that is always fun.
I did used to have an old iPhone loaded with a bunch of music and would listen to that in the car at times. I didn’t have a Bluetooth connection and the sound wasn’t great. I also ran out of room to load music and my collection has grown a ton in the last several years. My wife’s car does have Bluetooth and the last two trips I’ve taken in it I actually did stream stuff most of the time. I had some pre-planned playlists and podcasts to listen through. Shuffle on my Amazon account is a nightmare. Just too much stuff that’s unnecessary.
I’m sure I’ll just adapt and find ways to make listening off a device enjoyable. But I do hate that it’s one less place to listen to CDs you know? Truthfully, I rip all my CDs to my home computer anyway and pretty much just listen to that at home, so I’m really kicking against the possibility of not needing CDs at all I think.
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I did used to have an old iPhone loaded with a bunch of music and would listen to that in the car at times. I didn’t have a Bluetooth connection and the sound wasn’t great. I also ran out of room to load music and my collection has grown a ton in the last several years. My wife’s car does have Bluetooth and the last two trips I’ve taken in it I actually did stream stuff most of the time. I had some pre-planned playlists and podcasts to listen through. Shuffle on my Amazon account is a nightmare. Just too much stuff that’s unnecessary.
I’m sure I’ll just adapt and find ways to make listening off a device enjoyable. But I do hate that it’s one less place to listen to CDs you know? Truthfully, I rip all my CDs to my home computer anyway and pretty much just listen to that at home, so I’m really kicking against the possibility of not needing CDs at all I think.
I plug in the phone in the car rather than doing Bluetooth; it is easier to scroll through the songs on my phone on the car panel when it is actually plugged in, plus having it plugged in keeps it charging.
I was resistant for a while about moving away from CD's, but gotta roll with the times. I still buy the occasional CD, for albums where I want a physical copy, but I still just end up ripping it to my iTunes and never listening to the physical CD, so even the rare buy almost seems unnecessary.
As far as planned trips, last fall I had to do a 3-hour trip (one way) and I did enjoy the hell out of doing Neal Morse Band's Similtude and The Great Adventure on the way there, and then all three Flying Colors albums on the way back. That was all planned...and made for awesome drives. :coolio
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Hopefully the next car I have has an audio jack.
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All three of the cars I usually drive have a jack. Invaluable.
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I'm still an iPod guy, and my last couple of cars have had a USB/iPod input in the head unit. Required, as far as I'm concerned.
I replaced the battery and hard drive in my 2007 iPod Classic a few years ago, and now the motherboard is failing, so I started looking around. There's a company (actually it looks like just a guy working out of his house) that makes custom solid state iPods, using SD cards. I'm thinking of getting a Terabtye iPod.
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My car has a CD player, but I haven't physically touched a CD in almost 15 years. My car doesn't have blue tooth though so I connect the Aux jack to the Iphone and listen to music that way. And I love it.
I mood swing like crazy, so its nice to have all my music ready on my phone and not try and guess which couple of CD's I would be in the mood to listen to.
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My car has a CD player, but I haven't physically touched a CD in almost 15 years. My car doesn't have blue tooth though so I connect the Aux jack to the Iphone and listen to music that way. And I love it.
I mood swing like crazy, so its nice to have all my music ready on my phone and not try and guess which couple of CD's I would be in the mood to listen to.
Don’t get me wrong, I love to put my laptop on shuffle and just see what comes up. I wouldn’t mind that for car rides, especially around town. But currently my car is the place I go specifically to focus on individual albums (usually new purchases but occasionally something I haven’t heard in a while). Just been a part of my listening experience for many years now, so I’m reluctant to give it up.
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The only time that's not possible is with new vehicles. My truck came with all the bells and whistles for audio except a CD player. Modern world I guess.
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I think Subaru are one of the few cars that still include a CD player on new models.
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I don't miss CD players at all. I installed a jack in my car and never looked back. Planning a road trip and having to take along a 50 disk spindle of CDs pissed me off to no end.
I did used to have an old iPhone loaded with a bunch of music and would listen to that in the car at times. I didn’t have a Bluetooth connection and the sound wasn’t great. I also ran out of room to load music and my collection has grown a ton in the last several years. My wife’s car does have Bluetooth and the last two trips I’ve taken in it I actually did stream stuff most of the time. I had some pre-planned playlists and podcasts to listen through. Shuffle on my Amazon account is a nightmare. Just too much stuff that’s unnecessary.
I’m sure I’ll just adapt and find ways to make listening off a device enjoyable. But I do hate that it’s one less place to listen to CDs you know? Truthfully, I rip all my CDs to my home computer anyway and pretty much just listen to that at home, so I’m really kicking against the possibility of not needing CDs at all I think.
I plug in the phone in the car rather than doing Bluetooth; it is easier to scroll through the songs on my phone on the car panel when it is actually plugged in, plus having it plugged in keeps it charging.
I was resistant for a while about moving away from CD's, but gotta roll with the times. I still buy the occasional CD, for albums where I want a physical copy, but I still just end up ripping it to my iTunes and never listening to the physical CD, so even the rare buy almost seems unnecessary.
As far as planned trips, last fall I had to do a 3-hour trip (one way) and I did enjoy the hell out of doing Neal Morse Band's Similtude and The Great Adventure on the way there, and then all three Flying Colors albums on the way back. That was all planned...and made for awesome drives. :coolio
Bluetooth is hit or miss. I'm only exposed to it in rental cars, but I always have a 3.5 cable with me just in case. Sometimes it plays real nice with me. Sometimes the car likes to nag you about pointless stuff and mutes your BT audio. The last car I rented would start playing music from my phone every time I got in, whether I wanted it or not. I can't tell you how much that pissed me off. I had to disable BT on my phone to make it stop.
The downside of all of this is GPS. If you're using your phone for music and GPS it kind of sucks. I only need to be told "take the second right" once, but it starts up 2 miles away and just hounds you about it. I actually just pause my music at the two mile mark.
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I'm not even sure if my car has a CD player. I know my Mini Cooper did, but I don't think I ever used it. I have enough clutter in my car, I don't need CDs thrown into the mix.
My last car the Veloster didn't have a cd player but it did have a cool feature where you can sync it to your home network and upload music to the car's internal hard drive.
The car I just got has it's own spotify app so even if you don't bring your phone you can stream music to your car, additionally it also has a hard drive to upload music to. I'm probably the minority but I hated carting cd's around and changing them. I'm much happier just streaming albums/playlists.
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I probably just need a new cable, but the sound quality via audio jack in my car is awful. Or it could be because it’s a 2007 model.
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Bluetooth is hit or miss. I'm only exposed to it in rental cars, but I always have a 3.5 cable with me just in case. Sometimes it plays real nice with me. Sometimes the car likes to nag you about pointless stuff and mutes your BT audio. The last car I rented would start playing music from my phone every time I got in, whether I wanted it or not. I can't tell you how much that pissed me off. I had to disable BT on my phone to make it stop.
The downside of all of this is GPS. If you're using your phone for music and GPS it kind of sucks. I only need to be told "take the second right" once, but it starts up 2 miles away and just hounds you about it. I actually just pause my music at the two mile mark.
Oh man, don't get me started on that. :lol :lol
More than once, I have gotten in my car and started to make a call before driving and the freaking Bluetooth automatically starts playing something (when I start the car to sit there and talk before hanging up and driving).
Fortunately, my GPS/maps feature has the mute option, so I can mute the lady telling me every 19 seconds how many feet it is to my next turn for the next 11 miles. :lol :lol :facepalm: :facepalm:
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I have a Lexus RX (from 2008) that must've been the last car ever made to have a tape deck :metal
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I bought a kenwood car stereo a few years back and couldn't a good deal on them, all the bluetooth versions were being pushed. This was back when BT was awful and getting one with a CD cost more, it was worth it.
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I had a $400.00 blaupunkt cassette radio with $250.00 JBL speakers in my $400.00 car. Lol. My first car.
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I had a $400.00 blaupunkt cassette radio with $250.00 JBL speakers in my $400.00 car. Lol. My first car.
That sounds like my first car. I bought the car for about $500 and then proceeded to put about $3000 into the Stereo deck, speakers, amps, and subs. :lol
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The state of this thread :rollin
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BTW WTF is The Walrus? Is that Kattlelox? people can just change their names on a whim?
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I had a $400.00 blaupunkt cassette radio with $250.00 JBL speakers in my $400.00 car. Lol. My first car.
That sounds like my first car. I bought the car for about $500 and then proceeded to put about $3000 into the Stereo deck, speakers, amps, and subs. :lol
Priorities!
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BTW WTF is The Walrus? Is that Kattlelox? people can just change their names on a whim?
Mods having fun in his Roulette. Check it out. Lol
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BTW WTF is The Walrus? Is that Kattlelox? people can just change their names on a whim?
He actually started out as The Walrus. Then he changed his name to Kattoelox.
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When I shop for a new car, first thing I'll be looking at is if it has a cd player. I guess I use more USB's now anyway, but nothing like putting a new cd in the car and cranking it.
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BTW WTF is The Walrus? Is that Kattlelox? people can just change their names on a whim?
Mods having fun in his Roulette. Check it out. Lol
Ah I see.
BTW WTF is The Walrus? Is that Kattlelox? people can just change their names on a whim?
He actually started out as The Walrus. Then he changed his name to Kattoelox.
Did not know that.
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The state of this thread :rollin
I was just trying to make an analogy and it all went downhill from there I guess!
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Leave it to DTF to turn a discussion about something worrying into a discussion about car radios.
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I'm glad to see the page 1 posts of seriousness have turned into the typical DTF thread spin of silliness.
As pretty much universally stated here, I'd be upset if this place ended. Been around a long time and have real life friendships from this place.
Also regarding FB/reddit. It's true that the internet traffic has shifted from traditional forums to social media platforms. It's what the younger kids are into these days. However, I wouldn't really compare DTF to r/dreamtheater. It's two totally different animals IMO. There's NOTHING personal about reddit. Facebook is attached to your personal account so there's some personality to it, but even then, it's througha dedicated group that doesn't allow you to express yourself.
Discord is an emerging player in the scene. It's being remarketed to get away from being just about video games (as it already is, but it's kind of known for gaming). However, in large groups, it's really uninteresting IMO. Discord channels quickly become unpersonal, but on a small scale are pretty awesome. I'm definitely a fan and have been using it a lot more for different areas besides just gaming as I traditionally used it.
Anyway, glad to see this place isn't going anywhere soon
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Everything comes back into fashion sooner or later, and suddenly those who were uncool for a long stretch are the people who are in the forefront of the "new" trend. Similar to vinyl > cassette > CD > digital > vinyl.
Those other social media platforms will never have the personal touch of a forum like this, and I hope bosk compiles a list of people who have said they'd volunteer to help take over when he's had enough of running it because the day will come when a lot of people will realize that and come back, just like has recently happened with another of my hobby forums. They had a dead decade but kept on keeping on, and now people are starting to flow back in there for personal conversations and advice from elders who never left it.
I hope to see that here as well.
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I don't miss CD players at all. I installed a jack in my car and never looked back. Planning a road trip and having to take along a 50 disk spindle of CDs pissed me off to no end.
HAHA, I have a little box I bought from Ikea ($2.99, or something like that) that I use for that, but I hear you.
As for "priorities", I have a Jeep in my garage that I'm getting running for my stepson and his grandfather (while stepson is in Afghanistan) and while I was waiting for a deal on Craigslist for tires (mine were dryrotted, but I wasn't spending $1000 to refit a car that isn't even registered) I went to a pawn shop and found a decent Sony deck with Bluetooth and CD; added some inexpensive Pioneer speakers and new cable, and there you go. Fucker doesn't drive but I can sit in my garage and bang out tunes like a boss. Even have a remote control for the head unit! Now, I'll keep an eye for a used but quality sound bar for the roll bar and I'll be in bizniss.
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The thought of the forum shutting down was concerning, but not having a CD player available when I need a new car is really going to piss me off.
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Blu tooth is so much better IMO. My car has no physical media other than a usb port and blu tooth but the blu tooth just works so seamlessly. I have my entire music library on a 256G microsd card on my phone. Putting that on shuffle is so much better than listening to the radio.
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My new car, bought last year, couldn't have a CD. I got used to the USB port, I can dedicate a pendrive to the car, but I'm annoyed that the car has adopted the "playlist" mentality, and I have to create a playlist each time I add new music.
PLAY - THE - M'FKIN - FOLDER dammit!!!
I can't believe that for future devices and mp3 players I will have to investigate if there's a "play folder" option.
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My new car, bought last year, couldn't have a CD. I got used to the USB port, I can dedicate a pendrive to the car, but I'm annoyed that the car has adopted the "playlist" mentality, and I have to create a playlist each time I add new music.
PLAY - THE - M'FKIN - FOLDER dammit!!!
I can't believe that for future devices and mp3 players I will have to investigate if there's a "play folder" option.
You could just move from making folders to playlists. :P
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My new car, bought last year, couldn't have a CD. I got used to the USB port, I can dedicate a pendrive to the car, but I'm annoyed that the car has adopted the "playlist" mentality, and I have to create a playlist each time I add new music.
PLAY - THE - M'FKIN - FOLDER dammit!!!
I can't believe that for future devices and mp3 players I will have to investigate if there's a "play folder" option.
You could just move from making folders to playlists. :P
I've spent the last week starting and stopping an organization project that involves divying up my massive 4500-song 'favorites' playlist in Spotify into multiple smaller playlists. Problem is at some point I make soooo many playlists that trying to decide which songs go into which playlist(s) ends up in me panicking and quitting the project after making a couple dozen playlists for different styles/situations/moods. I have a problem :( too many genres/styles/moods to categorize, and some that don't fit anything, and some that are impossible to describe or label via a single genre name.
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I grew up making a ton of mixtapes and loved creating unique segues, trying to get as creative as possible. That said with the ease it is to do that now, I just don't do it.
I organize by album folders and just listen to them. If I do want to listen to individual tracks I just click through them as I rarely do that.
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My new car, bought last year, couldn't have a CD. I got used to the USB port, I can dedicate a pendrive to the car, but I'm annoyed that the car has adopted the "playlist" mentality, and I have to create a playlist each time I add new music.
PLAY - THE - M'FKIN - FOLDER dammit!!!
I can't believe that for future devices and mp3 players I will have to investigate if there's a "play folder" option.
You could just move from making folders to playlists. :P
I've spent the last week starting and stopping an organization project that involves divying up my massive 4500-song 'favorites' playlist in Spotify into multiple smaller playlists. Problem is at some point I make soooo many playlists that trying to decide which songs go into which playlist(s) ends up in me panicking and quitting the project after making a couple dozen playlists for different styles/situations/moods. I have a problem :( too many genres/styles/moods to categorize, and some that don't fit anything, and some that are impossible to describe or label via a single genre name.
Owning a large mp3 collection ftw.
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My new car, bought last year, couldn't have a CD. I got used to the USB port, I can dedicate a pendrive to the car, but I'm annoyed that the car has adopted the "playlist" mentality, and I have to create a playlist each time I add new music.
PLAY - THE - M'FKIN - FOLDER dammit!!!
I can't believe that for future devices and mp3 players I will have to investigate if there's a "play folder" option.
You could just move from making folders to playlists. :P
I've spent the last week starting and stopping an organization project that involves divying up my massive 4500-song 'favorites' playlist in Spotify into multiple smaller playlists. Problem is at some point I make soooo many playlists that trying to decide which songs go into which playlist(s) ends up in me panicking and quitting the project after making a couple dozen playlists for different styles/situations/moods. I have a problem :( too many genres/styles/moods to categorize, and some that don't fit anything, and some that are impossible to describe or label via a single genre name.
Owning a large mp3 collection ftw.
See, with my physical collection I have no desire to make playlists because everything is organized and tagged just right and in their proper folders. But with the digital library, at least for Spotify, my only real option for organization is with playlists. I can browse my saved albums or just put every song into one massive master list but that's a hassle. :(
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I think a key is knowing when to stop going overboard on playlists.
I used to have 6 main ones (and a few specific ones that were easy to remake) but then eventually got it down to one major playlist and shuffle. It takes a long time to make it, but once it's done, I save it on my Itunes, so that if I ever get a new Ipod, I can just transfer the playlist over.
If you find yourself needing dozens of specific playlists, then that might be a bit of an issue.
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I think a key is knowing when to stop going overboard on playlists.
I used to have 6 main ones (and a few specific ones that were easy to remake) but then eventually got it down to one major playlist and shuffle. It takes a long time to make it, but once it's done, I save it on my Itunes, so that if I ever get a new Ipod, I can just transfer the playlist over.
If you find yourself needing dozens of specific playlists, then that might be a bit of an issue.
It's definitely a personal issue. Like, if I make a playlist for one genre, I feel an irrational need to make playlists for every genre I come across, so I can have everything organized by genre, so that when I hit 'shuffle' on my favorites playlist I'm not getting whipash from going from 60s pop to 2017 epic power metal followed by Weird Al and then some melodeath. :lol
I guess I'll just have to retrain the way I approach playlists and learn to be okay with not putting every single song into its own special playlist.
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so that when I hit 'shuffle' on my favorites playlist I'm not getting whipash from going from 60s pop to 2017 epic power metal followed by Weird Al and then some melodeath. :lol
For me, I don't mind this. When I shuffle my library, for one, I expect everything should be something I could listen to. So even when I get one genre followed by something totally different, in my mind, that shouldn't and usually doesn't bother me. I can also push the next button (which I often do while driving because I feel like I only want energetic music during my commute going 80+mph and not Bob Marley). But I understand the mindset of organization, I just gave up doing that a long time ago as playlists don't seem to last forever as you change devices over time.
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My general approach is, if I like it enough, I'll own it. If I don't, then I don't need it all in Spotify playlists - I have all my RYM ratings to keep track of what I liked but not enough to own.
Probably helps that I'm very much an album listener.
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I’m like that too, Rich - album listener. I’ve got about 20-30 themed playlists in ITunes I go to occasionally, but for the most part I’ll just randomly chose some bands or albums, and let em spin. For Spotify, I just save full albums into various categorized folders. I can’t be stuffed to make themed playlists there x my playlists are albums. The interface is shit.
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Nothing like hitting shuffle and getting.... that 90 second interlude of ocean sounds, or some shit like that. ;)
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...or hearing 6 different live versions of Hallowed Be Thy Name in the first 12 shuffles.
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...or hearing 6 different live versions of Hallowed Be Thy Name in the first 12 shuffles.
That sounds more like a problem with your library's diversity. :lol
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Or Tim has a 1st edition 2 GB I-Pod. :lol
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Or Tim has a 1st edition 2 GB I-Pod. :lol
I have a 30G and two 160Gs.
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2 - 160's? One a hand me down to your kids?
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Those 160s probably make awesome paperweights these days!
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Those 160s probably make awesome paperweights these days!
I'll be honest. I love them more than my 256GB I-Pod touch. So many issues with the new one. It's starting to piss me off.
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2 - 160's? One a hand me down to your kids?
I had a 160, and then it was basically full. For our 20th, I had my wife buy me another one. They were already discontinued, so it was pricey, but I used it, so it was worth it.
I did buy a different mp3 player, but it was so complicated and cumbersome to load tracks on it.
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I am generally not a playlist guy either, although I have a few (classic rock, 80's, etc.). I am more of an artist guy, where I will get on a kick for days or even weeks at a time with one. Sometimes that results in full album listens, and sometimes I like bouncing all over their discography. It varies based on my mood and what sounds really good at any particular moment.
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I make playlists for mowing the lawn and long trips in the car for the most part.
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Generally, I'm an album guy. Simple, play the album, once over find another one to listen to (or if it's a new album I'm enjoying, play it again). I do the full library shuffle when I can't figure out what I want to listen to. Maybe I'll create a playlist for certain occassions (people over, doing a road trip, for a flight) but I don't do genre specific lists, just things that I feel I want in that moment usually.
...or hearing 6 different live versions of Hallowed Be Thy Name in the first 12 shuffles.
Even with a large library, it's amazing how many times a song will come on back to back with like different live or an album/live version. I would wish the shuffle would be smarter to know "hey they are different files, but the song name is the same so skip it!"
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Apple’s “random” algorithm absolutely blows.
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Apple’s “random” algorithm absolutely blows.
I think about this a lot. I use the samsung basic music app, and I sometimes wonder if I don't skip a song on random, it seems like I am more likely to get another song by the same band. Is that just a mental thing or is that built into the algorithm? These are the things I think about while driving sometimes.
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I can't remember the last time I ever used shuffle on purpose. I've mistakenly pressed it on my music app Poweramp a few times. I did use shuffle a lot back in the day when I got my first mp3 player a Creative Nomad Zen Xtra (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_Zen#NOMAD_Jukebox_Zen_series)
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A buddy of mine used to drive a Datsun B-210 (Google it). It was bright orange, with - I shit you not - yellow and purple racing stripes down the side, 4 on the floor, and an in-dash 8-track player.
Possibly the greatest vehicle of all time.