I am getting requests for new CMGers every day, but ...

[Lance]

Indeed, I get requests every day, and there are many. I verify their ISP codes and 95% or higher of the time, and noticing odd or suggestive email addresses, they do not appear to be CMG "material." I have offered to have people send me personal emails to lanceghill@msn.com to let me know they have registered, giving me their SIGN-ON name, and I will be happy to accept the registration. Once again, I am trying to keep our site clean from advertising schemes and people who are seeking online sites for their own purposes.

By now, after years being online, we still have a number of people registered who have passed on to the Great Beyond, have provided excellent posts. I have decided not to discard their contributions, at least at this point.

[maestrob]

Lance, I've noticed that we have 1014 "users," yet rarely do we have more than 20 posts per day. I'd say that most of our members have drifted away, and only return occasionally, if at all. Since CMG is such a welcoming, friendly crowd now, I have no explanation for this phenomenon.

I have two friends who are quite intimidated by the level of expertise here, such that they either don't post or refuse to join, preferring to lurk.

I don't blame you for being careful, however. The last thing we need would be to be hacked by a .ru website troll!

[Lance]

Yes, I find most of our CMGers are probably over the age 50 mark giving some kind of indication of where young people are in the classical music world of listeners today. I put up a post (but took it down) about maybe asking good friends/contributors to other sites, such as GMG, to join us. Don't know how that would work. Many younger people, colleges, etc., are going for downloading with very little interest in buying physical product. I believe the musical arts will suffer somewhat from this. Just have to face it. People are busier, more involved with politics, the status of the world, electric cards vs. gas, climate, etc., et al. Much of it disturbing to me.

Lance, I've noticed that we have 1014 "users," yet rarely do we have more than 20 posts per day. I'd say that most of our members have drifted away, and only return occasionally, if at all. Since CMG is such a welcoming, friendly crowd now, I have no explanation for this phenomenon.

I have two friends who are quite intimidated by the level of expertise here, such that they either don't post or refuse to join, preferring to lurk.

I don't blame you for being careful, however. The last thing we need would be to be hacked by a .ru website troll!

[nosreme]

If you go to the Susato and MIMIC scrolling chat boxes, you'll see a lot of very erudite people from all generations whose sole goal in life is to get as many classical recordings as possible without ever, EVER paying even a cent for them. These same people carry on some incredibly erudite discussions of recorded and live classical music and occasionally jazz. There's more discussion there in a day, I think, than there is here in a week or more. Even the Steve Hoffman classical recordings group makes the pace here look geriatric. I've wondered for a long time if the structure itself here is part of the problem, with too many specific categories of chat. Why separate "classical music (recordings) from classical concert reviews? Why even have separate "rooms" for books, films, and "pub stuff?" Can the participation problem be partly attributable to trying to be too many things to too many people? How does the bewildered new member who wants to share enthusiasm about a Bach cantata's dialogue learned with the aid of the Durr (or other text translations) book know whether to post in the "book" nice or the "recordings" niche? Where should one comment on JS Bach-Stiftung's recordings, all of which come from live performances? What are those "archives" and why aren't posts just continued indefinitely? (In the SymphonyShare group, posts dating back 10 or 12 years are regularly referred to largely because of reissues of old recordings). Why don't CMG owners and some of the active members go to those groups and the only good two or three VERY active Facebook classical music groups to promote this place? And an aside: My first thought about CMG years ago was how incredibly difficult it was for me to change my email address making me unable to log on for several years. In short, it's time perhaps to rethink everything about CMG in updated terms because its great, potential has been and will remain unrealized because it hasn't kept up with all the other terrific classical music discussion groups that have. Technology and how people interact in and with it have changed. CMG is "behind the power curve."

[Ricordanza]

Why separate "classical music (recordings) from classical concert reviews? Why even have separate "rooms" for books, films, and "pub stuff?"

Some of your other suggestions may make sense, but I can't agree with these two.

Listening to a recording and attending a concert are two vastly different experiences. Accordingly, they call for different responses. Posting a note about a recording is different than commenting on the entire concert experience. Perhaps I'm biased because I have more to say about concerts I've attended than recordings I've listened to, but I'll bet that other CMG members will agree.

As for separate rooms, that's one of the best features of CMG. Other sites are cluttered with posts about topics that are not of interest to music lovers. Here, the separate "rooms" allow us to focus on what we want.

[nosreme]

Undoubtedly separate "rooms" are favored by many. But turn it around: How does the single-thread approach deter discussion a variety of topics? Each thread is, in essence, a separate "domain" in that replies remain in the thread. It seems to me that both recordings and concerts discussions would benefit by having them together, e.g. a discussion of Conductor X's lousy Beethoven concert could generate a discussion of his fantastic Beethoven CD or DVD. Etc.

[barney]

Why separate "classical music (recordings) from classical concert reviews? Why even have separate "rooms" for books, films, and "pub stuff?"

Some of your other suggestions may make sense, but I can't agree with these two.

Listening to a recording and attending a concert are two vastly different experiences. Accordingly, they call for different responses. Posting a note about a recording is different than commenting on the entire concert experience. Perhaps I'm biased because I have more to say about concerts I've attended than recordings I've listened to, but I'll bet that other CMG members will agree.

As for separate rooms, that's one of the best features of CMG. Other sites are cluttered with posts about topics that are not of interest to music lovers. Here, the separate "rooms" allow us to focus on what we want.

I am one who certainly agrees. It's not a deal breaker - I don't open threads that don't interest me, and wouldn't however they were classified. But I find CMG easy to work through. Thanks Lance.

[barney]

Lance, please continue your present policy.

[maestrob]

Lance, please continue your present policy.

Yes.

[nosreme]

PS to my above: (1) In a doctor's waiting room this morning I googled "classical music groups" and "classical music discussion groups" on my iphone. I scrolled through dozens of entries and learned about several interesting-looking ones...but didn't see this one pop up at all as a search result (as opposed to maybe being referenced in one of those that did). (2) I then spent a few minutes in Reddit's classical music "group" and, again, continued to be pleasantly surprised at the respectable ratio of sophisticated posts to uninformed, clueless ones. But the pace of activity even there leaves that of the 100% sophisticated CMG far behind. But back to #1: If this group is so hard to find, it should surprise nobody in the internet age that something has gone amiss. And that's truly unfortunate.

[Rach3]

But back to #1: If this group is so hard to find, it should surprise nobody in the internet age that something has gone amiss. And that's truly unfortunate.

Perhaps the problem is with the searcher ? I just Googled " Classical music forums " and Chatterbox here came up as the second result and the Index here as the fourth.

Lance is getting daily requests from "finders."

Nothing is amiss here. The rooms were and are a great idea.

[barney]

But back to #1: If this group is so hard to find, it should surprise nobody in the internet age that something has gone amiss. And that's truly unfortunate.

Perhaps the problem is with the searcher ? I just Googled " Classical music forums " and Chatterbox here came up as the second result and the Index here as the fourth.

Lance is getting daily requests from "finders."

Nothing is amiss here. The rooms were and are a great idea.

Well, it's a good thing that Lance is always open to new ideas, and a good thing that Nosreme is making some suggestions. But in the end, I'm very happy with what we have now.The only other forum I ever joined was Talkclassical, and I left that because of the juvenile, belligerent attitude of too many posters. At least we insult each other with a small level of sophistication.

[Lance]

Many thanks for all the interesting comments and suggestions. It was and remains my aim to make our site one of the more interesting and friendly ones. We've been around now for about two decades or more, and while I felt it was "slow-going," for a while, over those years we made some great friends, had some New York City gatherings, and stay in touch with each other on CMG and private mails. I am also working on possibly getting more "notariety" about CMG for people who are seriously interested in classical music. Unfortunately, we have lost several of regular and long-time members through their departure to the Great Beyond. I know, people come and go, so keep watch. Personally, I like the way we illustrate our site with an index. I have been looking in on some other sites, I find some strong rudeness, and people who illustrate an unfriendly manner. I like to think of music as being basically heavenly harmony (some music isn't, of course and that's okay!), but no matter, we can still talk about it. Naturally, folks will not agree on everything ... that's to be expected, hence we have our Pub, which is quite active. Now, I think I will listen to Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 5!

[Belle]

But back to #1: If this group is so hard to find, it should surprise nobody in the internet age that something has gone amiss. And that's truly unfortunate.

Perhaps the problem is with the searcher ? I just Googled " Classical music forums " and Chatterbox here came up as the second result and the Index here as the fourth.

Lance is getting daily requests from "finders."

Nothing is amiss here. The rooms were and are a great idea.

Well, it's a good thing that Lance is always open to new ideas, and a good thing that Nosreme is making some suggestions. But in the end, I'm very happy with what we have now.The only other forum I ever joined was Talkclassical, and I left that because of the juvenile, belligerent attitude of too many posters. At least we insult each other with a small level of sophistication.

You've nailed Talk Classical, Barney. I think these sites are populated mainly by students, with some older people. It all became a horrible bore for me.