Silvia Bluejay Posted October 7, 2013 Share Posted October 7, 2013 (edited) Many of us use this forum for announcing gigs all over the country, which is excellent as long as potential members of the audience subscribe to the forum or check it regularly. I think we could make even better use of it and possibly increase the number of visitors if we published some photos and footage from the gigs advertised here. My idea would be to have a thread reserved to each band, and for that band to create a new post within that thread after each gig, if/when they have video, audio or images to post. The title of the thread could include the BC name of the bassist, to make the band more recognisable, such as "All The Queen's Ravens (Clarky)" or something similar. Then each post within the thread could start with the name of the venue and the town where the gig in question took place, and show a few pics or a youtube link. They wouldn't need to be polished - phone camera stuff would be fine. Promo videos or photos or studio recordings would not be allowed in this context, since the emphasis is on live gigs. (Recorded material can be posted in the Recording forum.) I would also prefer not to see people post footage of a gig that took place 3 years ago, for instance - I'd like to see/hear stuff from the gigs advertised here. To sum up, we would still have individual threads along the lines of "XYZ at the Dog and Duck, Sat 10 Oct, Someplace, 9pm" as we have now, and those would be unchanged, but there would also be a thread titled "XYZ (name of BCer)" where any live photos or video/audio of that gig, and each subsequent gig, could be posted. Obviously, if your band prefers not to publish that kind of material and likes only studio recordings and professional videos to be offered to the public, you don't need to create a band thread at all - you can simply continue to advertise your gigs as before. What do you guys think of this idea? Edited October 7, 2013 by bluejay Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andydye Posted October 7, 2013 Share Posted October 7, 2013 I'd like to see that kind of thing for sure, it's nice for me to be able to put bands and used-id's together, helps at bc meets as I can ask questions about the relevant band etc... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Silvia Bluejay Posted October 7, 2013 Author Share Posted October 7, 2013 It would be a bit like bands publishing fan photos on Facebook, minus the tagging! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ou7shined Posted October 7, 2013 Share Posted October 7, 2013 I like it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clarky Posted October 7, 2013 Share Posted October 7, 2013 sounds good to me, Silvia Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Silvia Bluejay Posted October 7, 2013 Author Share Posted October 7, 2013 I've just started a new thread in this style, with the most recent photos I have of two gigs (Happy Jack's acoustic ones with Dani Molino), just to show how the new threads would look. If I had video, I would edit the relevant post and add an appropriate link. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ou7shined Posted October 7, 2013 Share Posted October 7, 2013 Can we start posting our own ones or are you going to start a sub-forum for it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Silvia Bluejay Posted October 7, 2013 Author Share Posted October 7, 2013 Of course you guys can start your own threads! The Dani Molino one is just to show how it would work. Thank you all for your replies! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Silvia Bluejay Posted October 7, 2013 Author Share Posted October 7, 2013 Incidentally, if posting gets chaotic, I'll ask the admins to create a separate subforum for the live stuff threads. However, there is the risk that visitors won't bother checking out both the gigs list and the live stuff forum, hence my initial idea of having both kinds of posts in the same section. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andydye Posted October 7, 2013 Share Posted October 7, 2013 [quote name='Ou7shined' timestamp='1381139353' post='2234710'] Can we start posting our own ones or are you going to start a sub-forum for it? [/quote] [quote name='bluejay' timestamp='1381139621' post='2234712'] Of course you guys can start your own threads! The Dani Molino one is just to show how it would work. Thank you all for your replies! [/quote] a sub-forum would be a superb extension of this idea! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Silvia Bluejay Posted October 7, 2013 Author Share Posted October 7, 2013 [quote name='andydye' timestamp='1381139997' post='2234735'] a sub-forum would be a superb extension of this idea! [/quote] We'll definitely have to see how things evolve, Andy. I thought about the separate forum but we need to be sure we don't end up splitting this forum's audience. I'll keep an eye on this Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Happy Jack Posted October 7, 2013 Share Posted October 7, 2013 As the chief beneficiary of Silvia's camera-related talents, I can only endorse this idea. Every gig I play, with any of the bands in my sig, is captured through the lens so I'll need to spend some time picking out the Best Of Breed for publication. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EliasMooseblaster Posted October 7, 2013 Share Posted October 7, 2013 Yeah, I rather like this idea - anything to massage my bloated ego further! We've got a gig coming up this time next week, so I'll look into starting a thread for Cherry White if any good photos appear. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Silvia Bluejay Posted October 7, 2013 Author Share Posted October 7, 2013 Anyone mind if I unpin those two old threads from the top and start pinning your bands, just to see if it's manageable that way? (May only work for as long as we have a limited number of band threads, but at least it'll give us time to refine things ) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skol303 Posted October 7, 2013 Share Posted October 7, 2013 Good to see support for this! Great idea Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigRedX Posted October 7, 2013 Share Posted October 7, 2013 In theory, it's an excellent idea. However pinning the threads at the top of the forum is not so great as it pushes the actual gig threads down the page so that none of them are visible on anything but the largest screens. There's also a fair few Basschat bands that will want to take advantage of this so if we're not careful it could end up like another forum that I visit where the entire first page of some sub-forums is taken up with pinned threads. That's not very user friendly at all. Also I've been using the "How was your gig last night?" thread to post most of my gig photos, which AFAIC is a perfectly good place for them. IMO we're going to continue with these threads then they need to be in their own sub forum and it needs to get sorted sooner rather than later. I'd like to add one for Dick Venom & The Terrortones, but I'll leave until this gets sorted out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Silvia Bluejay Posted October 7, 2013 Author Share Posted October 7, 2013 (edited) I stopped looking at and unsubscribed from the How Was Your Gig thread long ago as I don't like endless threads, as that thread is not easily searchable, and all the bands are thrown into it together. If I wanted to look for a certain gig by a certain band, I would have to read the thread backwards without having any idea whether the gig has been posted there and at what point in the sequence. I doubt that thread is a good substitute for what I'm trying to do here. The subforum solution would undoubtedly be the best, except that it's less immediate than the pinning, and may split the potential readers of the Gigs forum into those who go directly to Band Media Stuff or whatever we'd call it, and those who click on Gig List instead and don't bother with the other subforum. Not an easy one, I know. The pinning solution would be best for keeping readers together IMO, but definitely not if there are like 20 pinned band threads before we can even begin to see the gig list. Edited October 7, 2013 by bluejay Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigRedX Posted October 7, 2013 Share Posted October 7, 2013 IMO there's already too many pinned threads in the forum. Now when I open the gigs forum, the first proper gig thread has already been pushed below the bottom of the widow on my laptop which has a 900 pixel deep screen. If all the regular gigging bands on here decided to start their own pinned thread, I'd have to be scrolling down at least twice before I got to any actual gig posts. I imagine it's even worse for those browsing on phones or iPads... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Silvia Bluejay Posted October 7, 2013 Author Share Posted October 7, 2013 Well, having to scroll down isn't the end of the world, it's an easily performed action both on a PC and on tablets and smartphones. Having a long list of pins and having to divide the forum into two subforums are two actions that reduce the immediacy for the reader, in two different ways. I guess our only option is to try and choose the format that annoys the lowest number of readers... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lurksalot Posted October 7, 2013 Share Posted October 7, 2013 [quote name='bluejay' timestamp='1381182297' post='2235625'] I stopped looking at and unsubscribed from the How Was Your Gig thread long ago as I don't like endless threads, as that thread is not easily searchable, and all the bands are thrown into it together. If I wanted to look for a certain gig by a certain band, I would have to read the thread backwards without having any idea whether the gig has been posted there and at what point in the sequence. I doubt that thread is a good substitute for what I'm trying to do here. [/quote] great idea BJ If the bands had there own page , would they need to be sticky? as if they were all in one forum they could be searched for quite easily Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Silvia Bluejay Posted October 7, 2013 Author Share Posted October 7, 2013 All the threads can be left unpinned and jumbled in one single forum, if the result is not too chaotic. My impression is that it would be so, and that people would start posting in the wrong threads and possibly causing some information to fail to reach its target. Once again, not a huge problem, but we're simply discussing so that we can try to make things as convenient as possible for both posters and readers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pete.young Posted October 8, 2013 Share Posted October 8, 2013 I agree with BigRedX . In particular, the pinning is not going to work. The only thread in the forum which needs pinning is this one. There was nothing wrong in my view with the original concept of the forum, which was to announce gigs. A better solution would be to start a separate forum for photos, reviews etc for gigs, on a per-band basis. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Silvia Bluejay Posted October 8, 2013 Author Share Posted October 8, 2013 There are subforums on this site that have 15 or 20 pins, and I have absolutely no problem reading them and finding my way around, on desktop and on a tablet. It's a matter of personal preference - I tend to find it far more tedious to have to jump in and out of subforums, especially on a tablet - in a word, scrolling has in my view the edge over navigating. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EliasMooseblaster Posted October 8, 2013 Share Posted October 8, 2013 Just a thought...and this obviously depends on why and how people would prefer to use these threads, but I guess if they were left unpinned, the more recently active bands would get bumped up to the top so people could keep abreast of the latest uploads, and be guaranteed the freshest sets of photos. On the other hand, this would lead to them getting jumbled up with other gig threads, which I can see becoming confusing. And having them pinned in one place would make it easier for anyone looking for an archive of a particular band. If you knew they were going to be there, I guess you'd know to scroll past them for other gig posts. I think I've reached the point of "thinking out loud" now, so I'll probably just come to the conclusion that I don't know! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ou7shined Posted October 8, 2013 Share Posted October 8, 2013 Or pin a single index topic with links to each band's topic. I see the merits of both pinned and a sub-forum but I think we should wait and see how many band's utilise this feature before we start panicking about it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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