Less interest - or less ignorance?

Would folks be interested in bringing back the monthly contests?  Maybe if I opened them up to public voting?

I think the monthly contests helped to generate interest  and they were fun.   Might want to have categories (i.e., beginner, intermediate, advanced).

Kevin ~
How do you define the parameters of each categories?

A monthly contest...that sounds interesting.

Anyhew, for what it's worth, here be my tuppence worth regarding TW Vs 'The Rest':

Levnet is ok but as has been pointed out previously seems like a 'closed club', or at least one where the big guns like to trumpet.

Levnet-on-Facebook, or whatever it is called (I AM a member of it and should really know...) is fine but the problem that I have with it is that the posts or threads are not categorisable, so say for example, you want to find information about playing yer EW with a special effects pedal. Not going to happen unless you can remember where the thread was.

Here, with the TW site, generally, subject areas are easy to access and the search facility is great. There are subject areas which are lovely.
The folks are (mostly) polite and ready to share, whether on technical issues or playing or repertoire or whatever, the pages have a fantastic wealth of information in them.
I think a section on players attempts would be good so they could post links to their works (shoot me down in flames NOW): we all know that 90% of the theremin playing videos out there are less than perfect but that shouldn't give a monopoly to those who think their playing is in the top 10%

Otherwise, a fab site, thanks Jason.

R

N.B.- mostly when I vist TW I don't login unless I want to make a comment about something. I would guess that this is common.

I really love this place and the discussions that go on here. Sure, the state of theremin discussion and various clubs have evolved over the years, but there is no denying that there is still enthusiasm.  I bet there are more people reading (logged in or not) that don't work to add their two cents.  I shared a suggestion with Jason recently, but I'm not sure if anyone's talked about it previously in the forum.

The idea was to have a comment rating system for each post. Something like google plus and YouTube's +1 -1 thumbs up/down system. (Not so much the Facebook positive only 'like' system).

With a system like this in place, users would not need to log in always. They could also leave a quick approval or disapproval without leaving a lengthy response if they don't feel particularly inclined.

I think its probably best to have both thumbs up and thumbs down, and not a system that calculates a sum of  both together.

Comments that people find helpful can then possibly be sorted in a search.  Perhaps it could influence a karma type system in some way.

For users giving an up vote or down vote, that are not logged in, perhaps IP addresses could be logged to prevent abuse.  

Randy,

Sounds like a good idea.. but..

Take for example the theremini thread.. Now this will be 'hit' by a large number of folks who know ziltch about theremins and are passionate about their new toy..

Better make the "thumbs down" counter at least 16 bit - because otherwise I suspect my posts on this matter might go into "thumbs down" overflow.

;-)

(if/when implementing this, perhaps some way to differentiate between members thumbs and mindless masses thumbs ? - perhaps revealed only to members.. ;-)

I do like the direction of the idea - but I rarely click thumbs on other sites for one reason - For me, a simple yes/no +/-  usually feels utterly inadequate.. Oh, there are exceptions - some posts (Thierry's linearization explanation for example) which are faultless - but most are a mixed bag of BS and sound stuff - the BS deserving a "-" and the good stuff deserving a "+".. So I usually just post an (IMO) balanced reply ;-)

I wish that one could click both thumbs - and on each click a window popped up giving the option for a brief comment.

Fred.

Thanks Fred, good points. 

Perhaps it's best to make the interactivity  members only. I dunno, Jason, what do you think? Maybe if the +/- buttons were inactive for non-members it would be easier to manage in databases. The counts could still be visible to public.  There's been many times when I just wanted to give a post or comment a plus, but didn't feel like writing a comment. I recall other people mentioning some similar things in the past.

On some forums I've visited in the past, I've seen this feature ,but with registered member names listed at the bottom of the post if they decided to 'like' a post(only visible to members). It's less anonymous, but that's kind of the idea.  The general theme here is along the lines of the speedy stamp of approval. A commenter can quickly see who found the post useful.... But then again, its more aligned with the 'like' system of Facebook.

I guess the best solution would be to do what ever would not eventually get out of hand and or become abused...  Anyways it's all just an idea to toss around.

In all honesty, I don't really care for the thumbs up or thumbs down for someone's thread or comment (s). I disabled mine on YT cause there is one person that must hates my guts (probably from Oshawa, Canada), and as soon as I upload videos, that person goes on there and thumbs down anything I post. It's so childish ~ kinda like 1st grade-ish.

Theremin World is down to the last 10 old people standing maybe 15 on a good day which includes registered or not. Many know, with the slowdown, I started monitoring TW and world statistics. Who among you can explain to me what is achieved by giving thumbs to 10 crotchety people at TW already set in their ways, when three words in a follow up comment could say it all? 

Capturing the interest of the young generation should be the focus, it is no longer about me. The young peoples brief visit to TW only sees their grandparents. For new builders a lot of positive TW attention could be developed at eHow and Instructables, this could be an area designers might place some basic “working” theremin projects that could encourage youthful interest that guides them to TW?

Musicians might recommend the music side recruitment methods.

You gotta feel the love…

Christopher

I agree that "two antennas up" voting is not likely going to generate interest from the younger generation. There needs to be more discussion of music itself on this site to garner more interest in my mind with more musical examples, more discussion of what is current and different ways to use the theremin (I bet GordonC has some views there). I think the technical side is more than aptly covered here and anyone that has a technical issue to discuss or problem to solve seems to get excellent information.

That's the value of a competition - getting more people to generate music and talk about it. Getting people to listen. Getting people to comment. Of course with YouTube and Soundcloud, they will likely be links here - but here might be where the fruitful discussion of the pieces occurs.

How did you record that? What type of theremin is that? How did you get that sound? What techniques are you using? etc. Hopefully new people directed here will start asking those questions.

Remember people also get directed here from Google searches. So the more categories we can add of interest to the younger generation, the more hits, the more people coming, etc. 

Halloween is coming. Now's the time to send out the call for pieces. The only thing about this kind of thing is that you have to give people enough time to come up with something - at least a month or two. No need to have a monthly contest. Better to give us some time to come up with the best production we can.

As for the competition angle, I'm not crazy about it as who's to say what good is in this post modernistic world - but like it or not the whole world is crazy about music competition these days and the competition angle might garner more interest from the outside. Maybe the categories could be traditional (classical/popular/jazz) vs. experimental (avant guarde, effect processed pieces, etc). You really can't judge the two in the same way in my mind.

Rich