As I mentioned in the Waxi thread, my only real problem with SS right now is that I can only really use it on my phone. Something has gone wrong with the desktop version, at least for me, and switching from "mobile" view when on my PC with Chrome no longer fixes it. Making posts even this long from my phone kinda sucks, so I end up lurking and only making one-line posts cause I can't use SS at my desk.
Is this happening to other people, and does anyone have a fix?
I'm not on the site as much as I used to be for a variety of reasons (you can find me on Facebook and Twitter! Kidding... sort of), but I'd hate to see it go away.
RAJ, you should move the site to teh cloud... Amazon EC2+S3 would probably cut your costs significantly. Although, what's your typical monthly bandwidth on the Mixes?
Bring back the "ISH" features- that would be rad. But if more work is not what you're trying to get into RAJ than maybe there's some way to pair down the some of the site features.
This place rules, minus some of the jack ass posts that are up, but whatever..it's a forum...I get it.
I had stated on waxi just posted that I would hate to see it go. I really think that the site needs to be simplified, yeah, cosign on the
The ish, I'll contribute another one soon and just music talk!
One thing I used to love about this site was trading and selling. I got, traded and sold many great records here. It seems like a ghost town, better yet the goodwill you avoid knowing that there is nothing about.
I will say this one more time, if you folks are ever interested in re-establishing that comp, I would be more than happy to contribue and fund for it, that is...if the artists are still content with their work.
Elbow grease and a little love, that is all that is needed.
I love soulstrut and met many of great people here. Orale soulstrut!
I will say this one more time, if you folks are ever interested in re-establishing that comp, I would be more than happy to contribue and fund for it, that is...if the artists are still content with their work.
I would be sad if the Strut died, because I've met some great people thru the site, but honestly, it has issues.
Need less: Lame posts no one cares about and newbie aholes saying what's this sample (a lot lately!) Yes, it elicits the adorable replies, but still, cmon son.
Need more: Record talk. This includes record day being a day to talk about records, not posting rips. I don't even look at record day on here. Additionally, the board needs more moderation.
Needs fixing: Classifieds section.
Classifieds are the engine to record talk imo. If people are coming here FOR RECORDS, they'll talk ABOUT RECORDS along the way (in theory). The sales section used to be KICKING for set sales and pushing auctions. It is not so any longer. The new design for the classifieds is ineffective and I personally cannot justify the cost for it. Additionally, if it was cheaper, perhaps more people would post better shit, including more set sales instead of "fake" set sales, ebay links to tired records and general personal store webpage garbage.
My 2c. I love most a yall and it'd be nice if this thing didn't die. ISH, adjust the sales section, get rid of the banner clutter, less sterile board look. There are a lotta good things that could be done on here.
I agree, I would even probably go as far as not charging for set sales and stuff like that(advertisements). It all can be moderated/filtered for the most part.(it being a bunk and a shit sale). You probably will genreate more hits and get some half decent sales going up, and need I say...records for the taking!
I still check daily. I've got two kids now, work full time, and kind of don't care about records that much anymore. That sounds bad, but I've got other things going on. I'd still love to hear about all the exciting things people are up to and learn about some music I might like.
I was so into this place at one point that it was a curse. I was hitting refresh like a fiend and spending hours photoshopping shit. So much fun. I also didn't have a real job
To me, this place always excelled with a mix of record knowledge and hilariously mysterious inside jokes. The spontaneous gramelins and what not were what made me love this place.
This place rules, minus some of the jack ass posts that are up, but whatever..it's a forum...I get it.
I had stated on waxi just posted that I would hate to see it go. I really think that the site needs to be simplified, yeah, cosign on the
The ish, I'll contribute another one soon and just music talk!
One thing I used to love about this site was trading and selling. I got, traded and sold many great records here. It seems like a ghost town, better yet the goodwill you avoid knowing that there is nothing about.
I will say this one more time, if you folks are ever interested in re-establishing that comp, I would be more than happy to contribue and fund for it, that is...if the artists are still content with their work.
Elbow grease and a little love, that is all that is needed.
I love soulstrut and met many of great people here. Orale soulstrut!
what my good man Age said.
yeah the webs changed, twitter and FB took over, everyone got older, got busier, etc etc. but we all got love for the strut and would hate to see it go. I vote for a tech pair-down so Raj breaks even at least, and the site does what we want and not more. And meanwhile, I gotta get on here a lil more often. Its weird how freaking busy life has gotten - and ive always considered myself busy. but the last 2 years...??. wtf...
Way too many Circle Jerks threads with dudes trying to outdo each other on some Meet The Press nonsense.
I posted in the waxi thread so should probably post in this one too.
The political shit does get a bit much but I suspect that that's in part due to no other interesting activity happening to stop it taking over the first page. IMO the Circle Jerking is what's really killing the forum though, as I said in the other thread, I feel like the place has devolved in to too many cliques (and I'm well aware that The Brits thread is one of them) - there have always been real world friends on here but it never seemed to overwhelm people just talking to each other about music - nowadays friends and fans stick together and there's little actual discourse. Not to say that real world moves can't be great conversation starters- the Ask Big Stacks thread was great for example - just in moderation and with a little less hero worship.
I also sort of feel like it's never recovered from the us/them splitting over the prop 1A thread.
For what it's worth, as my post count indicates I've got great pleasure from this site in the 8 plus years I've on here. I don't actually want to see this place die (I like the differences in tastes and opinions between wax and soulstrut) and do still visit everyday but, and the number of old posters popping up in this thread kind of confirms the trend. I find it harder to find something to post about or get engaged in. On a slightly separate note, a good starting point would be to revise the moderators for the site.
To me, this place always excelled with a mix of record knowledge and hilariously mysterious inside jokes. The spontaneous gramelins and what not were what made me love this place.
+1
would hate to see it go. Met a couple of great people through this board and sure as hell the strut had me laughing tears many, many times.
can`t say that about a waxi thread..
and the number of old posters popping up in this thread kind of confirms the trend.
I'm not sure I understand your point. As someone like yourself, who's been here borderline a decade, of course we're gonna have an opinion on what's going on. I agree, there's a lot of dynamics as to why things have changed, and there's a strong chance they will never be the same, but that said, I don't want to see it go. I would have never met a gang of amazing people or be where I am without this place. It's too soon to throw in the towel.
I will say this tho, as much as I like Crink and what Waxi is about, the SS dudes who hide over there and talk shit about this place under different names are the worst. Enjoy your boners, bros.
Been put onto so much good music from this site. There are folks here with a deep understanding of music who can articulate this in a way you don't find anywhere else. The non-music stuff is also great - love the photo threads.
I guess LIFE has caught up a lot of the OG heads, as jobs, spouses and kids eat into digging, surfing and photoshopping time. People get older, priorities change, people get their questions answered and then have nothing to add.
I've never had any technical issues with the site on Firefox. I don't know what people are doing for it to look f*cked-up. I also use the Adblocker add-on, so I don't have to endure banner ads (not a dig @ RAJ, I don't want to look at any ads on any sites, thanks).
One day, when the kids are older, I hope to hop over the pond again, hit up the coasts and buy some strutteurs dranks. Are you going to be the crusher of dreams? :cry:
I've been here since the beginning. I haven't always posted, but throughout the years, I've learned sooooo much and met so many great people!!! I will always be a consider myself a Soulstruter. I hope this place is always here!!!
and the number of old posters popping up in this thread kind of confirms the trend.
I'm not sure I understand your point. As someone like yourself, who's been here borderline a decade, of course we're gonna have an opinion on what's going on.
To clarify, it wasn't meant as a dig at the people posting in this thread. There's a fair few posters who've popped up here I don't really see posting on the strut any more on an even semi regular basis and it's great to see the old names. The fact that they posted in this thread though suggests to me that they do still check the site pretty regularly and care about what's going on but don't feel any motivation to engage the rest of the time. Either that or they stick to posting in a single thread I'm not checking.
Don't get me wrong, I think any site needs a constant supply of fresh blood to keep it from going stale and real life priorities are always going to mean changes in frequent posters (and it's great that in many cases this is due to people becoming successful in the very field we discuss here) but there seemed to me to be a mass exodus of the old guard which has left the site floundering.
A lot of forums are shadows of their former selves these days.
Ive been in this kind of conversation on many such forums and it's generally believed Facebook/twitter/Wordpress are where people spend their time these days, and for many that (online) time is far more limited than it used to be.
Soulstrut has changed greatly over the years, from back in the days where folks would would talk almost exclusively about crate digging basics (drumbreaks, different versions of GOMLW or Spinning Wheel ect) right up to not hardly talking about records at all.
As someone who joined the community early on and still checks the site almost daily (I have hours of downtime at work) I feel the site got far too clicky some years ago, it became more about in-jokes than the music. Now I'm happy with the in-jokes if that's how it's going to be but the focus on records/music was lost, how many times does somebody typing LOCATION remain funny/entertaining?
Also whilst its something that has never bothered me here or elsewhere site redesigns always seem to have a detrimental effect, I've seen it so many time, a site gets a make over, folks moan, and forum became less popular than before. I've seen this so many times, if I had a successful forum the last thing I would do is change it.
Anyway I hope SS continues though I'd (if I could be so bold to) suggest Raj cuts the site/forum down to the basics so he doesn't loose money.
"The new design for the classifieds is ineffective and I personally cannot justify the cost for it. Additionally, if it was cheaper, perhaps more people would post better shit, including more set sales instead of "fake" set sales, ebay links to tired records and general personal store webpage garbage"
what he said
bring back the old classified format,drop the prices
the new one is awful
But all the same, I'm not sure I have the stomach to move to another country and learn a new language just for the purposes of talking shit.
Dude - what exactly do you do in Berlin?
:cheese:
Srsly doe, point taken and agreed with. It feels like revenge of the nerds over there. I have a look to see what I'm missing, and yeah, there's record talk which is great, but I kind of feel like I'm in some club made up of the people who were made to feel unpopular here ('tenderberries' or whatever they're called), so maybe the Strut is repping what it sowed with the clonning of the sensitive private press snoozer enthusiast or something.
Bigger point that I agree with is that my life is busier these days.
I love the strut and hope it will survive. Some suggestions:
1) This site is nothing without the forum. Anything else we can live without if it means that Raj can't afford to run this place anymore. As many people have said, you can easily run a forum without losing money. Mixes etc can be hosted by soundcloud.
2) I appreciate all the effort Raj put into this new design, but personally I never liked it. It looks like a lot of posters agree, and therefore it can be swapped with an uglier and more cost effective design if necessary.
3) Kill the classifieds section. Do it like the waxidermists. A well moderated sub forum where you can trade/sell/want records where you have to contribute to the main forum before you can post there. Like in the old days. Makes it attractive to contribute in the main forum if you want to take part of the selling/trading here.
4) I acknowledge that the clowning is an important part of the culture here, and most of the times it is justified. Nevertheless I feel that it is a bit too much sometimes. Especially when knowledgeable people try to contribute with threads about records/music for then to get clowned. In recent months Upskiboo for example have shared personal stuff which should appeal to at least some people here, but some of his threads have been killed by the mob. I think if people seriously tries to contribute with something positive record wise, the different cliques should be a bit less aggressive with the clowning. Wait at least a day or something so the thread has a chance.
i'd say none of this debate is particularly new - how to make SS better (age old topic), certain asshole behaviour on here (largely a thing of the past), bad politics of certain people (done to death), waxi vs strutty (two halves of the same whole with historic interplay, in which threads often cascaded from one to the other, as this has done, and this thread has appeared many times before).
twitter is sucking the life energy out of message boards full stop if you ask me, most of them are less active than they once were, no matter what the genre, and i've read at least 10 boards for years, they are all pretty dry nowadays. also retro-vintage-record-digging is not really in fashion these days as collectors get older, there are few young people coming into this path, their methodology now is mostly based on youtube, shazam and the collectors frenzy app for iphone. there was once a time where timmy digalots like me would get sonned, and lurked daily, meticulously noting things down.. the factors that brought them here are not to do with content quality of this site, but the need to rely on the knowledge of others, which is less of a concern now. Nothing really to lament here, there are still good threads - focus the energy on sharing and posting good stuff, and try not to get drawn into this heated "them vs us" stuff.
I feel the site got far too clicky some years ago, it became more about in-jokes than the music. Now I'm happy with the in-jokes if that's how it's going to be but the focus on records/music was lost, how many times does somebody typing LOCATION remain funny/entertaining?
Also whilst its something that has never bothered me here or elsewhere site redesigns always seem to have a detrimental effect, I've seen it so many time, a site gets a make over, folks moan, and forum became less popular than before. I've seen this so many times, if I had a successful forum the last thing I would do is change it.
Anyway I hope SS continues though I'd (if I could be so bold to) suggest Raj cuts the site/forum down to the basics so he doesn't loose money.
100% agree with this.
Meanwhile, Faux Rillz is over there bitching like a coward.
Comments
Once veterans stopped making n00bs think thrice before posting, the threads starting getting clogged.
And I would also like to add that I'd hate to see this place go... this forum was hugely influential on my own tastes and it still has its place.
Is this happening to other people, and does anyone have a fix?
I'm not on the site as much as I used to be for a variety of reasons (you can find me on Facebook and Twitter! Kidding... sort of), but I'd hate to see it go away.
RAJ, you should move the site to teh cloud... Amazon EC2+S3 would probably cut your costs significantly. Although, what's your typical monthly bandwidth on the Mixes?
KEEP SOULSTRUT ALIVE
Bring back the "ISH" features- that would be rad. But if more work is not what you're trying to get into RAJ than maybe there's some way to pair down the some of the site features.
I had stated on waxi just posted that I would hate to see it go. I really think that the site needs to be simplified, yeah, cosign on the
The ish, I'll contribute another one soon and just music talk!
One thing I used to love about this site was trading and selling. I got, traded and sold many great records here. It seems like a ghost town, better yet the goodwill you avoid knowing that there is nothing about.
I will say this one more time, if you folks are ever interested in re-establishing that comp, I would be more than happy to contribue and fund for it, that is...if the artists are still content with their work.
Elbow grease and a little love, that is all that is needed.
I love soulstrut and met many of great people here. Orale soulstrut!
we should do a new comp
Need less:
Lame posts no one cares about and newbie aholes saying what's this sample (a lot lately!) Yes, it elicits the adorable replies, but still, cmon son.
Need more:
Record talk. This includes record day being a day to talk about records, not posting rips. I don't even look at record day on here. Additionally, the board needs more moderation.
Needs fixing:
Classifieds section.
Classifieds are the engine to record talk imo. If people are coming here FOR RECORDS, they'll talk ABOUT RECORDS along the way (in theory). The sales section used to be KICKING for set sales and pushing auctions. It is not so any longer. The new design for the classifieds is ineffective and I personally cannot justify the cost for it. Additionally, if it was cheaper, perhaps more people would post better shit, including more set sales instead of "fake" set sales, ebay links to tired records and general personal store webpage garbage.
My 2c. I love most a yall and it'd be nice if this thing didn't die. ISH, adjust the sales section, get rid of the banner clutter, less sterile board look. There are a lotta good things that could be done on here.
I was so into this place at one point that it was a curse. I was hitting refresh like a fiend and spending hours photoshopping shit. So much fun. I also didn't have a real job
Way too many Circle Jerks threads with dudes trying to outdo each other on some Meet The Press nonsense.
what my good man Age said.
yeah the webs changed, twitter and FB took over, everyone got older, got busier, etc etc. but we all got love for the strut and would hate to see it go. I vote for a tech pair-down so Raj breaks even at least, and the site does what we want and not more. And meanwhile, I gotta get on here a lil more often. Its weird how freaking busy life has gotten - and ive always considered myself busy. but the last 2 years...??. wtf...
It is no secret that Waxidermy prefers the folk over the funk.
I posted in the waxi thread so should probably post in this one too.
The political shit does get a bit much but I suspect that that's in part due to no other interesting activity happening to stop it taking over the first page. IMO the Circle Jerking is what's really killing the forum though, as I said in the other thread, I feel like the place has devolved in to too many cliques (and I'm well aware that The Brits thread is one of them) - there have always been real world friends on here but it never seemed to overwhelm people just talking to each other about music - nowadays friends and fans stick together and there's little actual discourse. Not to say that real world moves can't be great conversation starters- the Ask Big Stacks thread was great for example - just in moderation and with a little less hero worship.
I also sort of feel like it's never recovered from the us/them splitting over the prop 1A thread.
For what it's worth, as my post count indicates I've got great pleasure from this site in the 8 plus years I've on here. I don't actually want to see this place die (I like the differences in tastes and opinions between wax and soulstrut) and do still visit everyday but, and the number of old posters popping up in this thread kind of confirms the trend. I find it harder to find something to post about or get engaged in. On a slightly separate note, a good starting point would be to revise the moderators for the site.
+1
would hate to see it go. Met a couple of great people through this board and sure as hell the strut had me laughing tears many, many times.
can`t say that about a waxi thread..
I'm not sure I understand your point. As someone like yourself, who's been here borderline a decade, of course we're gonna have an opinion on what's going on. I agree, there's a lot of dynamics as to why things have changed, and there's a strong chance they will never be the same, but that said, I don't want to see it go. I would have never met a gang of amazing people or be where I am without this place. It's too soon to throw in the towel.
I will say this tho, as much as I like Crink and what Waxi is about, the SS dudes who hide over there and talk shit about this place under different names are the worst. Enjoy your boners, bros.
I guess LIFE has caught up a lot of the OG heads, as jobs, spouses and kids eat into digging, surfing and photoshopping time. People get older, priorities change, people get their questions answered and then have nothing to add.
I've never had any technical issues with the site on Firefox. I don't know what people are doing for it to look f*cked-up. I also use the Adblocker add-on, so I don't have to endure banner ads (not a dig @ RAJ, I don't want to look at any ads on any sites, thanks).
One day, when the kids are older, I hope to hop over the pond again, hit up the coasts and buy some strutteurs dranks. Are you going to be the crusher of dreams? :cry:
To clarify, it wasn't meant as a dig at the people posting in this thread. There's a fair few posters who've popped up here I don't really see posting on the strut any more on an even semi regular basis and it's great to see the old names. The fact that they posted in this thread though suggests to me that they do still check the site pretty regularly and care about what's going on but don't feel any motivation to engage the rest of the time. Either that or they stick to posting in a single thread I'm not checking.
Don't get me wrong, I think any site needs a constant supply of fresh blood to keep it from going stale and real life priorities are always going to mean changes in frequent posters (and it's great that in many cases this is due to people becoming successful in the very field we discuss here) but there seemed to me to be a mass exodus of the old guard which has left the site floundering.
Ive been in this kind of conversation on many such forums and it's generally believed Facebook/twitter/Wordpress are where people spend their time these days, and for many that (online) time is far more limited than it used to be.
Soulstrut has changed greatly over the years, from back in the days where folks would would talk almost exclusively about crate digging basics (drumbreaks, different versions of GOMLW or Spinning Wheel ect) right up to not hardly talking about records at all.
As someone who joined the community early on and still checks the site almost daily (I have hours of downtime at work) I feel the site got far too clicky some years ago, it became more about in-jokes than the music. Now I'm happy with the in-jokes if that's how it's going to be but the focus on records/music was lost, how many times does somebody typing LOCATION remain funny/entertaining?
Also whilst its something that has never bothered me here or elsewhere site redesigns always seem to have a detrimental effect, I've seen it so many time, a site gets a make over, folks moan, and forum became less popular than before. I've seen this so many times, if I had a successful forum the last thing I would do is change it.
Anyway I hope SS continues though I'd (if I could be so bold to) suggest Raj cuts the site/forum down to the basics so he doesn't loose money.
what he said
bring back the old classified format,drop the prices
the new one is awful
where is faux-realz?
getting a haircut whilst listening to the newest mixtape he copped in the ghetto?
Dude - what exactly do you do in Berlin?
:cheese:
Srsly doe, point taken and agreed with. It feels like revenge of the nerds over there. I have a look to see what I'm missing, and yeah, there's record talk which is great, but I kind of feel like I'm in some club made up of the people who were made to feel unpopular here ('tenderberries' or whatever they're called), so maybe the Strut is repping what it sowed with the clonning of the sensitive private press snoozer enthusiast or something.
Bigger point that I agree with is that my life is busier these days.
1) This site is nothing without the forum. Anything else we can live without if it means that Raj can't afford to run this place anymore. As many people have said, you can easily run a forum without losing money. Mixes etc can be hosted by soundcloud.
2) I appreciate all the effort Raj put into this new design, but personally I never liked it. It looks like a lot of posters agree, and therefore it can be swapped with an uglier and more cost effective design if necessary.
3) Kill the classifieds section. Do it like the waxidermists. A well moderated sub forum where you can trade/sell/want records where you have to contribute to the main forum before you can post there. Like in the old days. Makes it attractive to contribute in the main forum if you want to take part of the selling/trading here.
4) I acknowledge that the clowning is an important part of the culture here, and most of the times it is justified. Nevertheless I feel that it is a bit too much sometimes. Especially when knowledgeable people try to contribute with threads about records/music for then to get clowned. In recent months Upskiboo for example have shared personal stuff which should appeal to at least some people here, but some of his threads have been killed by the mob. I think if people seriously tries to contribute with something positive record wise, the different cliques should be a bit less aggressive with the clowning. Wait at least a day or something so the thread has a chance.
twitter is sucking the life energy out of message boards full stop if you ask me, most of them are less active than they once were, no matter what the genre, and i've read at least 10 boards for years, they are all pretty dry nowadays. also retro-vintage-record-digging is not really in fashion these days as collectors get older, there are few young people coming into this path, their methodology now is mostly based on youtube, shazam and the collectors frenzy app for iphone. there was once a time where timmy digalots like me would get sonned, and lurked daily, meticulously noting things down.. the factors that brought them here are not to do with content quality of this site, but the need to rely on the knowledge of others, which is less of a concern now. Nothing really to lament here, there are still good threads - focus the energy on sharing and posting good stuff, and try not to get drawn into this heated "them vs us" stuff.
100% agree with this.
Meanwhile, Faux Rillz is over there bitching like a coward.