TVvoodoo
Ambassador of The Comfortably Slung
Funny story, I was just invited to join here by brother Sp8ctre whom I met over on MLP. So I come over here to sign up, and find out my account was already registered.
Probably/maybe by me years ago? You see, I am a member of a LOT of forums, too many to follow regularly, because i actually do play some guitar :dood: or try to.
Never made a dime playing music, probably never will, but I still get many rewards from hitting that perfect note on a step and a half bend!
Anyway, I am a bit intimidated because in a place called The Tone Rooms, well, I imagine my comparative tone experience/journey is seriously lacking in as a non-pro player.
Enough guitars, not enough amps is probably my story. But fully glad to be here, I hear mention of this forum a lot by guitar community people I respect.
One thing here I would like to relay, and I believe this is VERY important to guitar community people, so please heed what I say, a little story about the past few days that SHOOK MY WORLD.
Over the past few days, my favourite/home guitar community snap-announced they were moving members and content to another platform. Told us all to download the "MOMO Boards" app to continue our accounts. A smallish community of perhaps 10,000 historic members, but maybe a few hundred active posters, still thousands of non-active member visits every day.
Even the mods were blindsided by this. Turns out, the owner of the forum either sold us (and years and years of forum history, content, and all our passwords, e-mails, full names etc) or was given an equity stake or whatever in what is effectively a data-mining company masquerading as a message board entity. The mobile app, as one person put it, gave MOMO more control over your phone than you as the owner would have. To some offshore based company with an office in Sanfran, that specializes in two things: again, data-mining, and Artificial Intelligence... use your imagination. A number of us signed onto it anyway via desktop with dummy accounts for some recon. The interface was terrible, seemed only half-developed. They just needed members probably to show stockholders, with no mind paid towards functionality.
There was a mass outpouring of shock, grief, anger and for the past few days many of our brothers frantically trying to preserve our forum history (I believe 15 years worth) and warn the others. This, while fighting off the new owners trying to hide what they were doing, and block us from getting the word out. Meanwhile others got active in building the shell of a new home for us all, which by tonight is closing in on 200 of the brethren and in rather quick time is up and operating with decent functionality. Really kind of a small miracle. But every board has members from all walks of life and experience in so many things, right?
Definitely not here in The Tone Rooms, but imagine if tomorrow this happened to say, perhaps your OTHER favourite guitar forum. What would do? If you post a lot of content and refer back to it, or have a deep, deep of history here worth preserving as many communities do, this should of concern. The owner of the forum previous used to post once in awhile as a "bro" and that he was a guitar player, maybe so. The new "administrator" also posted he is a fellow guitar player as well, citing "Dave Gilmore" as one of his main influences. We were fooled by the first guy, (who happened to live in France, and owns a large portfolio of websites), but not the new guy. They both tried to dupe us about how much they care about guitars and guitar communities, and the people involved.
The moral of the story is... these communities, all of them, are a commodity. Always have been, but I believe ready-built groups of eyeballs and content and information are becoming even more and more important for the data-mining and programmatic ad-serving world. This means everyone should be mindful of that, and things can change extremely quickly if an owner is romanced into making a move which members have no control over.
I personally lost a "workshop" thread with had ten years of guitar refinishes, amp mods, much of my diary of personal family life, and beginnings and growth of a guitar-related business all documented by myself.
1,500 posts, 270,000 views. An 80 page long thread. Heartbreaking, it no longer exists on the web, but I do have a PDF copy... but you know, just not quite the same, right? It's not out there, who cares?
Not saying this would, or could happen here. But I already know many of you belong to other forums, or groups of forums and I just thought it proper to explain and detail this happening for other online guitar community lovers.
Enough of that. Glad to be here, I hope to visit regular, and get to know some of you. If you know me from other places and your handle is different here, please let me know!
Cheers! - Brad
oh, and here's my main gat, 'cause I know pics are important!
Probably/maybe by me years ago? You see, I am a member of a LOT of forums, too many to follow regularly, because i actually do play some guitar :dood: or try to.
Never made a dime playing music, probably never will, but I still get many rewards from hitting that perfect note on a step and a half bend!
Anyway, I am a bit intimidated because in a place called The Tone Rooms, well, I imagine my comparative tone experience/journey is seriously lacking in as a non-pro player.
Enough guitars, not enough amps is probably my story. But fully glad to be here, I hear mention of this forum a lot by guitar community people I respect.
One thing here I would like to relay, and I believe this is VERY important to guitar community people, so please heed what I say, a little story about the past few days that SHOOK MY WORLD.
Over the past few days, my favourite/home guitar community snap-announced they were moving members and content to another platform. Told us all to download the "MOMO Boards" app to continue our accounts. A smallish community of perhaps 10,000 historic members, but maybe a few hundred active posters, still thousands of non-active member visits every day.
Even the mods were blindsided by this. Turns out, the owner of the forum either sold us (and years and years of forum history, content, and all our passwords, e-mails, full names etc) or was given an equity stake or whatever in what is effectively a data-mining company masquerading as a message board entity. The mobile app, as one person put it, gave MOMO more control over your phone than you as the owner would have. To some offshore based company with an office in Sanfran, that specializes in two things: again, data-mining, and Artificial Intelligence... use your imagination. A number of us signed onto it anyway via desktop with dummy accounts for some recon. The interface was terrible, seemed only half-developed. They just needed members probably to show stockholders, with no mind paid towards functionality.
There was a mass outpouring of shock, grief, anger and for the past few days many of our brothers frantically trying to preserve our forum history (I believe 15 years worth) and warn the others. This, while fighting off the new owners trying to hide what they were doing, and block us from getting the word out. Meanwhile others got active in building the shell of a new home for us all, which by tonight is closing in on 200 of the brethren and in rather quick time is up and operating with decent functionality. Really kind of a small miracle. But every board has members from all walks of life and experience in so many things, right?
Definitely not here in The Tone Rooms, but imagine if tomorrow this happened to say, perhaps your OTHER favourite guitar forum. What would do? If you post a lot of content and refer back to it, or have a deep, deep of history here worth preserving as many communities do, this should of concern. The owner of the forum previous used to post once in awhile as a "bro" and that he was a guitar player, maybe so. The new "administrator" also posted he is a fellow guitar player as well, citing "Dave Gilmore" as one of his main influences. We were fooled by the first guy, (who happened to live in France, and owns a large portfolio of websites), but not the new guy. They both tried to dupe us about how much they care about guitars and guitar communities, and the people involved.
The moral of the story is... these communities, all of them, are a commodity. Always have been, but I believe ready-built groups of eyeballs and content and information are becoming even more and more important for the data-mining and programmatic ad-serving world. This means everyone should be mindful of that, and things can change extremely quickly if an owner is romanced into making a move which members have no control over.
I personally lost a "workshop" thread with had ten years of guitar refinishes, amp mods, much of my diary of personal family life, and beginnings and growth of a guitar-related business all documented by myself.
1,500 posts, 270,000 views. An 80 page long thread. Heartbreaking, it no longer exists on the web, but I do have a PDF copy... but you know, just not quite the same, right? It's not out there, who cares?
Not saying this would, or could happen here. But I already know many of you belong to other forums, or groups of forums and I just thought it proper to explain and detail this happening for other online guitar community lovers.
Enough of that. Glad to be here, I hope to visit regular, and get to know some of you. If you know me from other places and your handle is different here, please let me know!
Cheers! - Brad
oh, and here's my main gat, 'cause I know pics are important!
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