JPF Home Page Forums Lyric and MP3 Feedback MP3 Feedback Forum Do you all want GENRE boards?

Lisa,

We don't require anyone to use their real names. But we all know that it's better for everyone involved if you're dealing with real people using their real name. People are more cautious about what they say and do when they use their real name. Sure, some folks still fake it and some still use silly names that aren't real, but we also don't trust those folks nor do we EVER give them the benefit of the doubt when a problem arises. They are ghosts, not real people when they are anonymous. They might be a 15 year old boy or a 72 year old lady or anyone in between. Most are harmless, but a small number are VERY destructive. In truth, I'd say probably 10 psychotics have come here and caused major trouble with multiple names and IDs and I know at least one of them is still here hiding out as someone else. It's sad a few mentally ill people cause trouble, but they do. I think our board is better since people started using real names. In most cases we are able to verify who they really are over time so the fakers eventually are exposed and run off yet again. Your friends could easily come here, send me a PM and let me know their concerns and we'd either find them a pseudonym or an alias of some type to use no problem. We have some people right now who do that very thing. For a long time we had 2 very famous artists who used to come here under aliases, but they've gotten too busy in one case and in the other, attacks by grumpy old members on them were more than it was worth. (In one nasty post, a famous person's name came up in a post where they were being attacked and when they tried to offer some perspective under their alias, they were attacked as the alias too for defending their real name. That was the end of them coming here. It really made me sad for them to leave, but I don't blame them. They had been here a LONG time too.

I think cracking down harder on personal or direct attacks on people here is something we need to do. That would require all of your input and help watching posts for that sort of thing. I get a lot of notes now and try to intervene, often I just jump into the middle of it and let the bully attack me for a while, which usually works. I hate to ban people and to date we've only banned 12 people in all our years, though often people CLAIM they have been banned to try and make me look bad when it's simply not true. This type of stuff goes with the territory and over the years we've had he friendliest and most supportive board out there. But we are NOT welcoming to certain genres (Rap, Pop, Metal etc.) even though Rap was behind only Rock as the largest Genre in our last music awards in terms of entries. It's about time for people who hate Rap to stop posting their opinions on Rap because it is not instructive or constructive when you're simply a broken record. The truth is that people who write Metal, Punk, Rap and the edgier genres rarely are welcomed on any music site and therefore they have little chance to learn or improve. Those genres may have lyrics that people are offended by, but instead of simply ignoring stuff they don't like, they berate and belittle these folks before anyone can help them, welcome them and perhaps make them better writers and artists.

We can't add a zillion boards that won't be used. I thought perhaps 3 boards, one for Country and all variations of it (Americana, Folk, etc.) All the other popular Radio genres and then a board for the smaller or less common genres from Jazz to Children's to Instrumental etc. I doubt we'd get a lot to start with, but perhaps if a Rap artist could link a track and not get hammered automatically or a Metal kid could post and get feedback on their guitar playing and dark subject lyrics without judgement, they'd not only stay, but would ask more folks to join in. Meanwhile, the same stuff that gets posted now would still get posted. It wouldn't take MORE time because we'd have a system to put GENRE in the subject of MP3's. If the title is too long, someone would just have to shorten it... (and likely SHOULD anyone, as few hits ever have really long titles that won't fit on our entire subject line) and they could put the full title inside the post with the lyric if there was one.

I only go a single new private message with an offer to help. I was hoping for a bit more as it will likely take 10 people making a real effort to move us in the right direction.

Brian