Another Damn Canuck enters
- Thread starter TVvoodoo
- Start date
chilipeppermaniac
Ambassador of Decibels
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!
Wow! Nice axe! I really like the idea of a P90 neck, and humbucker bridge, pickup combo!
Welcome!
send me your gear.......that IS the lay of the land
we have a couch in FLO-ri-DUH--but you have to move the dogs to use it ........there are 9 of them .....one is 120lbs....several are "pissy" ......(I wish you much luck -- and if you find my watch let me know they wont let me near the couch to look)
oh and some people here "derail" threads.......so just a heads up ........so you know....
what?
a what?
a squirrel?
hold on Brad.........
Holy Crud, Brad/ Where do I start?
I have only read the first page and already have 3-4 quotes as my reply.
First, that sure is some story about the MOMO BS. Many of us came from another forum where it got sold to a guy who ruined a great resource facet of the whole place. There are also a fair number of us who frequent a myriad of fora plus who all posess different skill levels on their instruments. No need feeling intimidated. If you know Sp8ctre, you are in good hands and among friends here.
As Bastard don says, that is a sweet LP with P90 etc. Believe it or not, I had bid on a similar type LP.
The P90/Humbucker one I missed out on was like this one.
What I wound up with was this.
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OP
TVvoodoo
Ambassador of The Comfortably Slung
@chilipeppermaniac, that's a crazy post because that very Gatorey Green BFG you showed above was exactly the inspiration for my gator LP, I just went in a slightly different direction.
I had no idea this family here went through the same thing, and I don't want to infer that it ever could again, but I know there is a lot of cross-pollination in forums, members of one
are likely members of another and another... etc.
Data mining companies will become a real issue, and it's not just guitar forums, it's all smaller online communities. And to me it seems particularly scary when it's offshore companies buying up all that data because they are really hard to hold accountable and how to do you sort the good actors from the bad?
Always loved the look of SGs, sexiest guitar of them all IMO
I had no idea this family here went through the same thing, and I don't want to infer that it ever could again, but I know there is a lot of cross-pollination in forums, members of one
are likely members of another and another... etc.
Data mining companies will become a real issue, and it's not just guitar forums, it's all smaller online communities. And to me it seems particularly scary when it's offshore companies buying up all that data because they are really hard to hold accountable and how to do you sort the good actors from the bad?
Always loved the look of SGs, sexiest guitar of them all IMO
Amp Mad Scientist
Ambassador of Heresy
Did they tell you that Their religion was the only true religion?
Did they tell you that the earth is 6000 years old?
Did they tell you that Noah kept 2 dinosaurs inside the Arc?
Did they tell you that the Bible was the true words of God Herself?
Did they tell you that Gay people need to be "re-educated?" and "fixed?"
Then if so, you got problems. My deepest condolences.
Yes, Noah kept 2 of every type animal, including dinosaurs ! maybe you didn't know this?
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Indeed there is cross pollination here with a few other forums. Some of the other forums block links to this site and even block the name of this forum. I believe that this is more than likely due to greed of harvesting advertisement views and he does not want the members he "owns" going to other sites and causing him a loss in revenue. We do not block links to any other sites because we are not afraid for our members learning and sharing info. Heck, I encourage members here to share info they have learned from another site.
The Tone Rooms was created by @RVA , @eSGEe and myself. We started this site because we love talking, showing, posting and reading about gear. We are not focused on just one model, one brand or even one type of instrument. We are here for the love of music. This site is all about the love of making music, not the love of making money. We could charge members for premium membership. We could plaster the site with Google ads. However we have decided to offer all of our members full access to the site free of cost. We do offer a perk of getting promoted to Ambassador status for the simple cost of their time. Their time to post 1,000 posts will "buy" them a custom Ambassador title. RVA has a full time, real world job, eSGEe has a couple of jobs, I too have have a full time, real world job (although currently on furlough due to COVID-19) and we three use this place as a sanctuary to escape the real world. Actually we probably consider this place more real than the outside world we merely exist in. Here we live, we thrive, we enjoy the life we share here. This site is not for sale, will not be for sale, does not sell the lives of our members (family). We are definitly not the biggest forum, but many of us do consider this to be the best forum on the net.
BTW, SG is also my favorite guitar, I own 3 of them!
RVA
Ambassador
Well said Wav!
OP
TVvoodoo
Ambassador of The Comfortably Slung
^ That is very reassuring, considering what I went through in the past ten days with the selling off and shutdown of my previous home forum. A couple of us posted some original musical pieces in the final moments of the forum informing both the old and new owners (both still involved) exactly what we thought of them, resulting in a banhammer blow to the noggin 
. Message sent / received, bookmark deleted. The new place is coming together, but right now a lot of members are rather bitter, so it's hard to be there because misery loves company a little too much, a bit of a pity party - again, similar to this place a real cast of characters with very strong bonds, some forums can go from side-splitting laughter to feeling deep empathy for others between two posts.
I arrived here on the invitation of @Sp8ctre who wanted to show my work, and I told him I appreciate he felt strongly enough to show. I too was temporarily laid off my regular job, though i went in to chat the other day, and it seems while they still want me to work with them, we both decided the position I was in was not best for anyone. So, it seems I will be picking away at social media and GMB for them and billing them for my time, while I pursue my craft obsession, maybe try to drum up a few other things.... we will see how that goes. If I can make it living my so-called dream and pay the bills everybody wins. But you know, trying to save for later on, have two kids in post-secondary, that's where I am in the life cycle of a just another middle aged poppa. The burn rate is kinda high, and not everybody here is open to change, understandably so.
Again, thank you TTF members for the warm welcome, I'll stick around your digital town as long as you'll have me, rest assured I am not prone to rioting or looting.
. Message sent / received, bookmark deleted. The new place is coming together, but right now a lot of members are rather bitter, so it's hard to be there because misery loves company a little too much, a bit of a pity party - again, similar to this place a real cast of characters with very strong bonds, some forums can go from side-splitting laughter to feeling deep empathy for others between two posts.I arrived here on the invitation of @Sp8ctre who wanted to show my work, and I told him I appreciate he felt strongly enough to show. I too was temporarily laid off my regular job, though i went in to chat the other day, and it seems while they still want me to work with them, we both decided the position I was in was not best for anyone. So, it seems I will be picking away at social media and GMB for them and billing them for my time, while I pursue my craft obsession, maybe try to drum up a few other things.... we will see how that goes. If I can make it living my so-called dream and pay the bills everybody wins. But you know, trying to save for later on, have two kids in post-secondary, that's where I am in the life cycle of a just another middle aged poppa. The burn rate is kinda high, and not everybody here is open to change, understandably so.
Again, thank you TTF members for the warm welcome, I'll stick around your digital town as long as you'll have me, rest assured I am not prone to rioting or looting.
chilipeppermaniac
Ambassador of Decibels
Yup Grant, I know of and have witnessed this personally while trying to make a point about this and that...over there about something over Here...
chilipeppermaniac
Ambassador of Decibels
I kind of sensed you may have, Brad. Anyhow, glad you made it here and made your guitar one to be proud of and to bring you enjoyment to play.
As for that data mining stuff. I kind of remember that being the crux of what Mr Zuckerberg was under fire for. I am so hateful of this.
OP
TVvoodoo
Ambassador of The Comfortably Slung
That's the issue right now I think @chilipeppermaniac, we have a number of large players that now dominate because over time they they have gobbled up major audiences/members like f-book, twitter etc.
So anyone else trying to enter the data mining game has to either come up with an idea so good eyeballs will organically follow to the product and grow it, or in the MOMO boards forum case they need invest towards "purchasing and enslaving" a number of smaller groups by capturing and holding the content hostage to pull them into these new social media entities . In this case, the product was only half developed, and looked so sketchy it was easy to see it was not something our group could have lived with. If they had presented a new home that was somewhat enticing, their plan very well may have worked. Speculation is, the shareholders of the company wanted to see growth in audience/membership numbers, so the pressure is on MOMO to buy audience share rather than earn it. But, the investment they got is nothing but tumbleweeds now, because everybody left. However, if all they really wanted was PMs, addresses, real names, passwords and emails, they fully succeeded. I don't know. Some members are reporting strange email spam and phishing all of a sudden, which is kind of freaky in itself.
So anyone else trying to enter the data mining game has to either come up with an idea so good eyeballs will organically follow to the product and grow it, or in the MOMO boards forum case they need invest towards "purchasing and enslaving" a number of smaller groups by capturing and holding the content hostage to pull them into these new social media entities . In this case, the product was only half developed, and looked so sketchy it was easy to see it was not something our group could have lived with. If they had presented a new home that was somewhat enticing, their plan very well may have worked. Speculation is, the shareholders of the company wanted to see growth in audience/membership numbers, so the pressure is on MOMO to buy audience share rather than earn it. But, the investment they got is nothing but tumbleweeds now, because everybody left. However, if all they really wanted was PMs, addresses, real names, passwords and emails, they fully succeeded. I don't know. Some members are reporting strange email spam and phishing all of a sudden, which is kind of freaky in itself.
fretless
Well-Known Member
I never realized what was going on behind the scenes at other forums. I have been a member of several forums over the years, but left when the welcome wore thin. I was never one of the cool kids in school and never wanted to be. This forum is the only one I have ever been on where everyone is treated as an equal. My appreciation for everyone here goes beyond words. To put it simply, thanks for being who y'all are, and for goodness sake, don't change!