Suggestion: non vkei and vkei news sections

[Slsr 207]

With this late surge of non visual news to news section I have been thinking whether news should have vkei and non vkei sections, so wondering what would people think about this suggestion (so is it just stupid or simply bad? ...)

 

My thoughts:

Though I'd have a bit mixed feeling for forum being divided like this even more, it would also be something that makes sense as divided user base here is a very real thing anyway and with this change both fans of vkei and non vkei (or fans of both) could be able to keep up with news they want in more optimal way. besides I feel forum might get more news posted about non vkei if it had section for it and though forum could possibly grow to be more relevant when it comes to non visual music (right now news section is mostly about vkei anyway.)

 

Main questions:

Are these sections really needed and is there enough demand for non visual news for all of this to make sense anyway?

[Original Saku 1593]

You do make some good points... I wouldn't be against it, especially if it spurs more non-vk news being posted more often

[eiheartx 1310]

I think it's a good idea. It could be a good way to keep MH growing, thriving, and stay #1 azn forum.

 

I have a question regarding the DL general section.

What's authorized to be in there? It's only for non Vk (J-rock/J-metal)? No J-pop? Why don't we have a J-pop section btw? Why do we have Ringo Shena news in the news thread and not others pop singers?

[doombox 4421]

I don't feel there is enough non-vk news here to warrant that kind of split yet, but maybe just a "visual" and "general" news prefix (like we have with uploads for albums, minis, or singles) that could be used?

[Des 289]

I'm all for a split. I suggest the forums to be named "Japanese Music News (Non-Visual)" and "Trombe's Private Quarters (Visual)".

[beni 2149]

I agree with the splitting up to a VK and non-VK/general news area. Even if there's not much J-pop news to include, I think this general idea can cover all areas apart from the VK territory, unless there's more incoming news than expected. It'd be awesome to see the news area expanding since it's such a massive help with finding new updates and staying tuned with it.

[Naaaaani 1173]

I think this splitting would be just useless

[Original Saku 1593]

I think it's a good idea. It could be a good way to keep MH growing, thriving, and stay #1 azn forum.

 

I have a question regarding the DL general section.

What's authorized to be in there? It's only for non Vk (J-rock/J-metal)? No J-pop? Why don't we have a J-pop section btw? Why do we have Ringo Shena news in the news thread and not others pop singers?

 

anything that's not VK and is still Japanese is allowed to be posted in the non-vk section, that also includes Jpop.

[paradoxal 2948]

I think this is a great suggestion! As I follow vk bands only, it would be easier to spot the stuff I actually want to read. 

[fictioninhope 355]

There's literally no reason to segregate news. News is news. The world isn't gonna end if you accidentally click a news post on a metal band when you wanted that indiefag oshare post instead.

[Slsr 207]

There's literally no reason to segregate news. News is news. The world isn't gonna end if you accidentally click a news post on a metal band when you wanted that indiefag oshare post instead.

 

I agree it is not big deal like that, just a small thing. But what if one wants to read news about non visual bands? Thanks to Trombe's great news service countless visual topics are created/updated with new info every day which is great. However this also means non vkei threads quickly vanish in the vast sea of visual threads. I think surely this section split would be useful when you think it like this. 

 

Therefore main question I have with this is indeed whether non vkei section would be popular enough for it to have reason to exist. Also while I admit I am not all that well informed regarding this, I don't think there is that many good news sites of non visual music, so therefore I think this section split might be useful as surely there would be stuff posted about bands that are not posted in any other site if we could activate non vkei news posting. Ideally it would go so that people would update info about bands/artists they follow and info about new interesting bands and their doings I guess, though I do wonder whether forum has big enough community of non visual listeners so that section would be updated enough. Like I am sure there is such people in forum but not everyone has time to follow bands so closely anyway, not everyone posts that much and not all have interest to do neither of previously mentioned either.

 

Also naturally there is many small bands who don't have many fans in this forum and considering I don't feel our non visual music community here is crazy big it is questionable how useful would updating news about random unpopular indie band x be, it might be total waste if no one cares XD, this is because non visual music and visual music are very different beasts anyway, as visual music is very specific thing people love to follow here and it is more natural to be a bit more interested in random new bands when it comes to such thing as they are part of specific thing you are interested in anyway.

 

Also I'd like to note that I feel this would be also one step to raise believability of the forum in minds of those who follow non visual stuff if this section split was created as right now as I feel this forum currently offers more for visual listeners, there is way less reasons to be part of the community as non visual listener. Still there is really many fans of Japanese music out there who like non visual bands/artists, so it is not like community couldn't be more popular among such people, maybe we could spread the word to get such people join if this section split happens and try to grow community. Lately I don't think forum has been growing all that much anyway so maybe we could get some new members to join community too if it were more inviting for bigger variety of people.

 

Alternative if this split doesn't seem like a good idea in the end having prefix might be something that could indeed work as it was mentioned here. Especially if there would be a easy way to choose so that only certain type of news would show you(?) So then you could look only non vkei news if you want to not see visual news or vice versa. Though honestly I feel news section split would be better if we'd want to try activate non visual part of the forum and attract new people interested in that part. But I guess it is also matter of if forum wants to even be more than mainly visual kei forum, as that is OK too and I feel I am not one to say what forum should be anyway, I am just to offer my suggestion here. 

[fictioninhope 355]

The fact of the matter is that right now, the people who are interested in non-vk and would want to post and read news on such music don't have the time for spam posting news or keeping track of yet another section of an already large forum. We don't have a non-vk-Trombe to spend every waking moment scouring Japanese webpages for news. Your suggestion isn't a horrible idea, it sounds pretty decent when you get to the bare bones of it, but at the current point of the forum and the members who do enjoy non-vk there just isn't enough time in the day or need for news segregation. There is maybe 1 in every 50 vk posts that's non-vk. That is no "surge" at all. You make valid points, I'm not trying to say you're not or anything like that for suggesting this. It's more along the lines of it just not being practical currently. Do you want to be the one sitting at your computer mindlessly posting thread after thread of news on non-vk to substantiate your suggestion of a separate news section? The answer is probably no. The prefix idea is probably going to be the most useful option until there is enough demand for and people who can post consistent non-vk news threads. The search function, tags and the "start date" option are in place for a reason.

I can't say what vision the admins have for this forum in the future, I just download music and write reviews. I personally would love to see a bigger fanbase for non-vk, be it pop, rock, metal etc. But I don't think a segregated news section is gonna do that right now. There's just not enough people here to keep a separate news section updated enough to draw new people. A few news posts a month isn't gonna do what you are wanting it to do.

[Slsr 207]

Do you want to be the one sitting at your computer mindlessly posting thread after thread of news on non-vk to substantiate your suggestion of a separate news section? The answer is probably no. 

 

Yea, I personally have no interest posting new threads to this section myself other than if bands/artists I enjoy do something worth posting or new interesting band has appeared. And frankly I don't think anyone else should do anything more than that either, as it would be questionable anyway if there is people who would care these posts (unlike with visual news where I'd say most news are somewhat relevant, there is always people interested to about new bands etc.) But yes, as you mention it might be there is not enough demand, it is mostly about if there is enough people to even post to it. I'd like to believe there would be few people besides myself who would post to this section but hard to say if there would be enough of us. Also of course one needs to raise a question if there would be enough readers for these post then anyway? However I think I like this idea more than result of it might be for now, because I really think this section split is something I'd like to see in this forum personally as I'd want to see more to be posted about bands outside visual kei and i kinda doubt it will ever going happen if such section doesn't first exist. Maybe it could grow something more relevant within time even if it isn't first all that great (or mayb not, lol.)

 

Anyway I feel it is OK really to make your opinion known if you think this suggestion isn't good/wouldn't work currently/whatever. so I encourage everyone to post if they have opinion regarding suggestion be it for it or against it. As if it doesn't seem something that would work well or isn't needed in the end then maybe it shouldn't happen.

[doombox 4421]

 

 Also while I admit I am not all that well informed regarding this, I don't think there is that many good news sites of non visual music, so therefore I think this section split might be useful as surely there would be stuff posted about bands that are not posted in any other site if we could activate non vkei news posting. 

I'll inform you that there are indeed many more "general" japanese music news sites than there are visual. (Arama, Gekirock, and Indies Music are just the ones I personally follow there are many many many more). Not only do I agree with what @fictioninhope has said, but the "general" aspect of Japanese music is so massive compared to the visual kei corner of it, it'd be literally impossible to keep that side of the news section truly general. Just the indie rock scene in Japan is about 50 times larger than the visual one. Never mind pop, rap, metal, etc and so on. So I don't feel even attempting to establish it as a dedicated news source would be worth it unless 10 more people just like @Trombe step up and take a genre of japanese music to update. 

[CAT5 9075]

I appreciate your suggestion slsr, but at the moment, I can't see this happening. The demand simply isn't high enough, as there are not enough fans nor enough users to post news as often as needed.

The fact that non-vk news gets buried so quickly is proof enough that the interest here isn't sufficient. If we did make a new forum, it would be mostly idle.

For the people who are afraid their eyes will melt after clicking on threads and seeing news that they're not interested in, I at least try to tag the stuff I post. Although to be honest, you can pretty safely assume what kind of news is being posted by the user that's posting it.

[enyx 903]

I'm not particularly supportive of the idea of splitting news based on genre (particularly one as subjective and controversial Visual Kei, with it's lack of an objective definition). One thing that I like about Monochrome Heaven is the fact that it's slowly moving more towards promoting musical diversity, and I feel that giving VK and non-VK news their own sections would hinder that somewhat. Personally I'm mostly interested in non-VK stuff, but every now and then I still come across some interesting VK news purely because of the fact that I see it being posted here while I'm predominantly searching for other things, and that helps me to stay aware of what's happening in the VK scene even if its not my main area of interest. 

 

Basically I think this site should keep promoting musical diversity within the Japanese music scene, rather than trying to segment it.

[Zeus 7997]

I'll try to tackle this in some sort of order.

 

With this late surge of non visual news to news section I have been thinking whether news should have vkei and non vkei sections, so wondering what would people think about this suggestion (so is it just stupid or simply bad? ...)

 

My thoughts:

Though I'd have a bit mixed feeling for forum being divided like this even more, it would also be something that makes sense as divided user base here is a very real thing anyway and with this change both fans of vkei and non vkei (or fans of both) could be able to keep up with news they want in more optimal way. besides I feel forum might get more news posted about non vkei if it had section for it and though forum could possibly grow to be more relevant when it comes to non visual music (right now news section is mostly about vkei anyway.)

 

Main questions:

Are these sections really needed and is there enough demand for non visual news for all of this to make sense anyway?

I looked at the ratio of visual kei to everything else on the first page of the news forum. Out of the 30, 66% of it fits cleanly into visual kei. Two or three are from the indie scene. There are four or five I don't know how to categorize. Even giving those five topics the benefit of the doubt and categorizing them as "everything else", there still isn't the surge of new topics some people are mentioning in this topic. In fact, there's barely any non visual kei news being reported.

 

I have a question regarding the DL general section.

What's authorized to be in there? It's only for non Vk (J-rock/J-metal)? No J-pop? Why don't we have a J-pop section btw? Why do we have Ringo Shena news in the news thread and not others pop singers?

Everything that's not allowed to be in the visual kei forum is allowed in the general section. We don't have a J-pop section because J-pop music is a subset of general Japanese music. There's no reason for J-pop to have it's own section.

 

I agree it is not big deal like that, just a small thing. But what if one wants to read news about non visual bands? Thanks to Trombe's great news service countless visual topics are created/updated with new info every day which is great. However this also means non vkei threads quickly vanish in the vast sea of visual threads. I think surely this section split would be useful when you think it like this.

You are making a very large assumption that the split will be clean and easy to maintain. From experience splitting the download forums, it's extremely difficult to keep both forums in order. @Linh-san and spend a majority of their time keeping the download forums in order and it's still not perfect. I would rather not double their workload and give them two forums to keep in order.

 

Also I'd like to note that I feel this would be also one step to raise believability of the forum in minds of those who follow non visual stuff if this section split was created as right now as I feel this forum currently offers more for visual listeners, there is way less reasons to be part of the community as non visual listener. Still there is really many fans of Japanese music out there who like non visual bands/artists, so it is not like community couldn't be more popular among such people, maybe we could spread the word to get such people join if this section split happens and try to grow community. Lately I don't think forum has been growing all that much anyway so maybe we could get some new members to join community too if it were more inviting for bigger variety of people.

The OR's have this covered. We only have so much time to spend promoting music. Download links can be taken. News can be reposted. But discussion generated in the form of reviews is something that can't be taken from us and reposted blindly (ok it can but that's called plagiarism and people tend to look down on that). As long as we continue to review all facets of Japanese music equally, people will be drawn here slowly.

And actually, we've been growing all along. It doesn't seem that way because a lot of our new members take their time to get comfortable, but new members register each day.

 

Splitting sections is overkill to achieve what you want to do. I'm also letting you know right now that splitting is not what you want to do. We split the download section because the sheer volume of topics being posted was too much and splitting it up by scene was the most natural thing to do. Turnover in the news section is not as high and topics filter themselves to the top based on how many people are interested enough to reply.

You don't want a split of the download forums: you want a way to be able to move through the topics already there in an efficient manner. Topic prefixes are the fastest and easiest way of doing such a thing because you can tell (roughly) what scene something falls into. We can implement that today.

[fitear1590 2414]

Disclaimer: incoming rant is not directed at Slsr or anyone in particular in this thread.

This has bugged me for a while, but does anyone else find the term "non-VK" to be obnoxious? It's such a contextual term that seemingly groups together music that has nothing to do with other music, simply by the fact that they are not visual kei. Are all people who take up jobs that aren't in the engineering field "non-engineers"? (Yes, it's a silly example, I know.)  But seriously, I cringe when I see sentences like "I only like non-VK music." or "Ew, please no non-VK music." It just emphasizes the arbitrariness/superficiality that people can use to judge music. I think the split would just help to further validate this silly division.

 

If the split does take place, please just call it "general" news like we did with the general download section.
 

I'm not particularly supportive of the idea of splitting news based on genre (particularly one as subjective and controversial Visual Kei, with it's lack of an objective definition). One thing that I like about Monochrome Heaven is the fact that it's slowly moving more towards promoting musical diversity, and I feel that giving VK and non-VK news their own sections would hinder that somewhat. Personally I'm mostly interested in non-VK stuff, but every now and then I still come across some interesting VK news purely because of the fact that I see it being posted here while I'm predominantly searching for other things, and that helps me to stay aware of what's happening in the VK scene even if its not my main area of interest. 

 

Basically I think this site should keep promoting musical diversity within the Japanese music scene, rather than trying to segment it.

I think Pho3nyx sums up my thoughts pretty well on the whole matter. I'm against splitting the news forum.

[Zeus 7997]

I've created two tags in the news forum to identify topics as belonging to visual kei or the general music scene.  I've already tagged a few news topics in the section with the prefixes to get started. Let's try it out and see if it suits your needs.

[Biopanda 2675]

Disclaimer: incoming rant is not directed at Slsr or anyone in particular in this thread.

This has bugged me for a while, but does anyone else find the term "non-VK" to be obnoxious? It's such a contextual term that seemingly groups together music that has nothing to do with other music, simply by the fact that they are not visual kei. Are all people who take up jobs that aren't in the engineering field "non-engineers"? (Yes, it's a silly example, I know.)  But seriously, I cringe when I see sentences like "I only like non-VK music." or "Ew, please no non-VK music." It just emphasizes the arbitrariness/superficiality that people can use to judge music. I think the split would just help to further validate this silly division.

 

If the split does take place, please just call it "general" news like we did with the general download section.

 

I think Pho3nyx sums up my thoughts pretty well on the whole matter. I'm against splitting the news forum.

Well I guess if you were on a forum that was mostly dedicated to engineers, then people might use the term "non-engineers". It's a bit silly, yeah, but it's all comes down to context.

[doombox 4421]

I'm just gonna say I find it slightly obnoxious too because it's just as easy to say jpop, or jrock, or "other" japanese music. But non-vk sounds very exclusive...  like it's not visual so it's implying it's less than visual. At least, that's how it comes off to me, add to that some of the sentiment around here in regards to other styles of music becoming more prevalent on MH hasn't always been put as kindly as it was by the OP. 

[PsychoΔelica 648]

Imho there aren't a lot of news that are truly interesting to read. But I think it would be nice to see a different way of presentation.

[BrenGun 2261]

Woa thats cool.. how it is now! perfect

 

hopefully the mods help tombre to put everything in the right topic catogory

 

Still difficult sometimes.. since some bands aren't visual but not really general too, just kinda.. gothic/alternative.

But I still like the General tag ^^

[Peace Heavy mk II 7200]

Is the point of this to encourage more news from people who aren't Trombe, i.e. more Japanese rock news from different scenes? I'm not seeing how tagging things with a different colored prefix is going to inspire that. I don't really see how having its own sub-forum would fix the issue either, as it would just make another bucket for the same lack of content.

 

What I'm saying is, the actual root of the issue is the users, not the tool.

[Zeus 7997]

Is the point of this to encourage more news from people who aren't Trombe, i.e. more Japanese rock news from different scenes? I'm not seeing how tagging things with a different colored prefix is going to inspire that. I don't really see how having its own sub-forum would fix the issue either, as it would just make another bucket for the same lack of content.

 

What I'm saying is, the actual root of the issue is the users, not the tool.

 

No, the point is to be able to filter topics out based on what the user is trying to find. You can click on prefixes to find other content tagged with it.