Save ZG!!

[DavidF]

It's only those who come onto forums to make themselves seem bigger in their own minds cause problems for everyone else

thats the one....well put.

So no don't bring them back
(sadly my other personality wants them back)

how come?

 

[mr cat]

now guys, no arguing please!

 

[RobHolt]

Woo-hoo! 81 posts

I feel a poll coming on and so far I think we have the following suggestions:

- Let the undead back in to live another day

- Loosen moderation or allow a free for all - anything goes so long as it's legal.

- New rooms such as Vintage, Tube, others?

- ZeroGay ...... ahem, thank you Simon.

- Make it exclusively a place for subjectivists or objectivists but not both and moderate it accordingly. (that's me thinking aloud..)

Keep them coming.

 

[DavidF]

Woo-hoo! 81 posts

I feel a poll coming on and so far I think we have the following suggestions:

- Let the undead back in to live another day

- Loosen moderation or allow a free for all - anything goes so long as it's legal.

- New rooms such as Vintage, Tube, others?

- ZeroGay ...... ahem, thank you Simon.

- Make it exclusively a place for subjectivists or objectivists but not both and moderate it accordingly. (that's me thinking aloud..)

Keep them coming.

No, thankyou.

(Tube rooms is ok.)

 

[Graffoeman]

Have A Quiet Room

Can't help noticing that this place is but a shadow of the old ZG.

Very few daily posts and when I spot a new topic in the audio room I feel like cracking open a bottle - it's that rare!

So, what's gone/going wrong and what ideas do folk have to fix it?

Does ZG need a focus, an ethos which would attract new blood and bring back some of the lost posters?

It seems to be drifting into oblivion and I think that is very sad.

I notice a thread started to bring back, or not, banned members. I haven't been a member long enough to have an opinion on that one. What I have seen on another forum is an area they call TOL (Thinking out Loud).

This is where the contentious threads get posted, or moved to, (£250 ethernet cable anyone?!!), and that part of the forum is HEAVILY moderated. Only posts that add something useful to the discussion are allowed.

I think the idea is to encourage discussion about the flat/round earth topics without the inevitable decline into abuse. If contentious issues are moderated harshly then the rest of the forum should tick over nicely, as it seems to now, and people who may otherwise end up being banned, because they can't resist the bun-fight, simply have their posts removed. If they object to the censorship, they will ultimately stay away of their own accord - no-one likes being ignored

 

[Joe]

Well, when I'm directly accused of dishonesty with another forum member.....I get annoyed.

I think so would you.

I know I wouldn't, because I am honesty personified. Anyone accusing me of dishonesty is quite clearly a lying get.

As I've said before, the entire audio community can be divided into two groups; those who get all het up and those who don't. You need both for a thriving forum though.

 

[lbr]

Slap some porno pics on, you'll double the membership overnight, everybody likes a bit of porn .

We used to have the option to change this to blue but it seems to have disappeared after tidy up/upgrades etc.

Are we talking about the same thing here guys?

 

[joel]

I like idea of refocusing ZG on niche areas like vintage audio and the, ah, gay audio scene (maybe that one isn't so niche). However, to make it work is not simply a matter of bolting on a new room or two.
PFM's vintage room has worked because there was already enough interest in this area to support another room.
It may actually be better to reduce the the number of rooms on ZG and so direct what conversation there is into fewer areas as conversation generally encourages more of the same.
As for an amnesty, why not. I doubt everyone who is gone will want to come back, but it enhances the idea of a fresh start.
Maybe a total rebranding with a clean slate is the order of the day.

 

[Tenson]

I like idea of refocusing ZG on niche areas like vintage audio and the, ah, gay audio scene (maybe that one isn't so niche). However, to make it work is not simply a matter of bolting on a new room or two.
PFM's vintage room has worked because there was already enough interest in this area to support another room.
It may actually be better to reduce the the number of rooms on ZG and so direct what conversation there is into fewer areas as conversation generally encourages more of the same.
As for an amnesty, why not. I doubt everyone who is gone will want to come back, but it enhances the idea of a fresh start.
Maybe a total rebranding with a clean slate is the order of the day.

Agreed, fewer rooms is a good idea. Also a new name is needed to for a fresh start. ZeroGain doesn't exactly sound like a fun place... no offense!

So what rooms do we have? How about a room focusing on Japanese hi-fi? They have enough crazy stuff!

 

[RobHolt]

We need a Grunge Hi-Fi room for all that 70s Japanese stuff that looked superb, was well built and sold for surprisingly little.

Stuff like the classic JVC and Technics amps, Pioneer receivers - that sort of stuff.

It's sufficiently different from the usual retro stuff and there is plenty of it still around.

This sort of thing: http://www.silverpioneer.netfirms.com/


Other than that I pretty much agree with Joel's post.

 

[joel]

We need a Grunge Hi-Fi room for all that 70s Japanese stuff that looked superb, was well built and sold for surprisingly little.

It's not grunge, it's how hifi is supposed to look (and sound)!

 

[cooky1257]

A lot of posters on PFM seem interested in same sex relationships. Perhaps ZG can capitalize on this in some way? Clearly there is a need that PFM is not fulfilling amongst a large percentage of its members.

Pink Fist?

 

[narabdela]

Why not get amazingtrade to set up a motoring room? His threads on the subject always attracted a lot of interest.

 

[robM]

we do have another problem here.... how to attract new forum'ers? I have seen too many times (even somewhere on this thread) chaps saying 'my knowledge of hifi is limited'. That is not good and needs to change. If it seems the existing forum ZG is alienating new members because of specific terminology then we need to do something about it...create a small dictionary & try to be less 'geekish' about audio.

 

[lordsummit]

There aren't that many banned members on ZG to be fair.
A couple were banned for posting racist or homophobic material
There were a few who completely lost the plot, surprisingly enough those seem to be banned from most Audio forums.
There was one further ban last year, that person is also banned from some other forums. I don't think these members returning would contribute anything to a revitalisation of ZG, only the possible appeal of a bit or car crash gazing.

I really don't feel that the banned members return would contribute anything to Zerogain. The only thing that will improve the place is more people contributing. I suspect though that what fora need is a certain critical mass, we don't have that. So many of our big posters (I mean that in terms of number of posts) have moved on. I seldom post, I have no interest in buying new kit (can't afford it with a little one upstairs), and seldom get the chance to listen at the moment. Yet three years ago, I was posting lots, along with Isaac, Dev, Penance, Cookymonster, Chris, Technobear, Michaelab etc.

Personally I would love to see this place running like that again, it was always the friendliest forum. Maybe as Rob says we need to re-brand it somehow, but that also smacks of corporate rebadging, not something that works in internet land. I suspect that as Tony says these things are organic, and grow/decline to meet a public need.

What is interesting is that our visitor rates are as high as they've always been. We just need more people to actually post.

 

[RobHolt]

It's not grunge, it's how hifi is supposed to look (and sound)!

I agree Joel but I think that's a commonly used term for that enormous mountain of low-middle priced Japanese kit that filled the shops (certainly in the uk) back in the 70s and early 80s.
Certainly isn't intended to be a derogatory term.

Stuff like the Trio KA3700, Pioneer 7800, Sansui AU217/317.
Not just the high end collectable stuff.

 

[joel]

Stuff like the Trio KA3700, Pioneer 7800, Sansui AU217/317.
Not just the high end collectable stuff.

With this I totally agree. Maybe a sort of audiokarma with some more high-end stuff and a friendlier attitude (not they they aren't friendly over there, just that it's a little too alien).
There's also lots of fun kit from the US and Europe from the 70s & 80s (JBL, Kliptsch, Altec, Tandberg, Grundig, Siemens to name just a few), and it would be a shame to exclude those.
I guess the last thing the world needs is yet another internet forum, even one that operates out in the white space where the low-hanging fruit are and is tightly focused around the needs of its core constituents*.


*last bit just for Lordsummit.

 

[RobHolt]

That sounds good Joel.

I'm playing with a pair of old AR speakers from 1979 that I picked up for £30 and based on what I heard yesterday for the two hours they lasted before the driver foams fell apart I'm giving them a full refurb.

There is tons of stuff like this out there.

When all the parts arrive perhaps I'll start the renovation thread with pics on ZG.

 

[joel]

The questions are:
Is ZG the place for this, and
If not, where is

 

[Dev]

When all the parts arrive perhaps I'll start the renovation thread with pics on ZG.

Please do Rob, I'll look forward to it.