Thoughts on the future of Mac OS 9 Lives

[GaryN]

I'm good with that.

Ommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm…………………

[torvan]

Okay, for me I have this to say:

I am not on the web all that much anymore, or on any of my comptuers but once in a week or so. I have found myself spending way too much time on the web and not doing things like the housework, reading, walking the dog, or any of the other things in life.

So that is why you also do not see me commenting or reading things here. It is not from a lack of interest, it is from the "I need a life other than the Internet."

[ssp3]

Re. forum.
It would be cool if we could edit our own content (attached pictures) without time limit.

I would love to add watermarks to my images attached to older posts so that they do not appear elswhere without proper reference. (see @aBc recent post in masochist thread)

[Knezzen]

Re. forum.
It would be cool if we could edit our own content (attached pictures) without time limit.

I would love to add watermarks to my images attached to older posts so that they do not appear elswhere without proper reference. (see @aBc recent post in masochist thread)

See my answer in said thread

[ssp3]

Just an idea - if you disable forum search function for non registered users, it might motivate people to register.
(It motivated me in one particular forum).

[Knezzen]

Just an idea - if you disable forum search function for non registered users, it might motivate people to register.
(It motivated me in one particular forum).

Good idea! I'll look into it. Thanks

[Protools5LEGuy]

This will not get you very far, I'm afraid.

You have to set a clear set of rules, follow and enforce them!

Here's the post by user TenorClefCyclist on reddit, who gives very good example on what happens.
* Emphasis mine.
** I joined Pro Audio Mailing List in 1997
*** I tried to dig out that list's rules, but can't locate them.

Public forums pretty much always turn to cr@p. It happened to USENET's rec.audio.pro once everyone and their grandmother got web access. Gabe Weiner (RIP) started the Pro Audio Mailing List in response. It was by invitation only -- you had to introduce yourself to Gabe by email. In its heyday, it had lots of industry luminaries: including mastering engineer Bob Katz, Motown engineer Bob Olhssohn, gear designers Daniel Weiss and Eelco Grimm, converter chip designer Max Hauser, and mic modder Scott Dorsey.

There have been pro forums on various platforms in the interim, most of which fell into disuse as the platform itself did. I recall a recording engineer's forum on AOL hosted by Glenn Meadows. Prosoundweb.com still hosts discussion groups run by Klauss Heine and Bruno Putzys, but they are very low traffic now. Sometimes a year goes by before I remember to look at them.

That illustrates the basic problem:
The "network effect" dictates that you need a critical mass of the right members for a forum to be useful.
If you have too few, nobody shows up regularly and questions go unanswered for weeks.
OTOH, more growth means an influx of basically clueless people.
First, they ask tons of elementary and repetitive questions, answerable by reading the FAQ, the first chapter of any audio engineering text, or a two-minute web search.
Then they start answering questions, often wrongly, and arguing when the pros correct them. It's Dunning-Kruger Effect writ large!
Ultimately, the pros get driven away and the forum's signal-to-noise ratio falls into the toilet.
That's pretty much what happened to Gearspace.com . I still try to help people there, but I'm frequently shouted down by folks who think a Schoeps CMC64 is useless because all you need is a SM57. I wish I had a dime for every time I've been lectured about the Nyquist theorem by someone who "learned it" from their buddy in a bar!

Breaking News!
https://www.digido.com/forum/

Image
Digido Fora
Dear fellow Forum enthusiasts:

I regret to inform you that I have not been able to get a sufficient base of users to justify the expense of maintaining this forum. You all have been extremely enthusiastic, informative and active! I especially want to thank my moderators, who put in their best!

But it seems that the vast majority of Facebook groupies prefer to participate in messy, SHORT, non-threaded discussions. The usual FB group "thread" is not really a thread, it's disorganized and cannot be maintained with more than a few cycles of back and forth before they become useless! So I'm very sorry that I have to close this group. If you want to ask questions or start a discussion, feel free to PM me on Facebook. If I can do it, I'll make a post on my home page, where my 5000 friends and 20,000+ followers will likely make a response! It will get messy within a few cycles, but as I said, that's Facebook :-(. That's the most I can afford to offer, sorry!

Bob

[Protools5LEGuy]

Knez, if you see apropiate I cant try to atract Bob Katz. I am a destacate fan on Facebook. Can we have a place inside the garden multiverse for Digido forum?

https://www.digido.com/forum/

[ssp3]

Breaking News!
https://www.digido.com/forum/

It doesn't surprise me at all.

(This is my 666th post  )

[aBc]

Perhaps a double-edged sword, cutting both ways if one must be registered in order to search… which might open the flood gates (as with digido.com) where “more” is not necessarily better?

"But it seems that the vast majority of Facebook groupies prefer to participate in messy, SHORT, non-threaded discussions. The usual FB group "thread" is not really a thread, it's disorganized and cannot be maintained with more than a few cycles of back and forth before they become useless!"

Sure, overall member number count might increase - BUT you might also end up gaining more “noise-to-signal” ratio postings.

i.e.

“Why won’t my printer work?”

“How can I get louder sound out of my computer.”

“You like Beyonce’? I like Beyonce’.”

And other possibly mundane silliness. I’d say let ‘em continue to search and then if they really have a serious concern, question or comment - THEN let ‘em register to then explore the collective knowledge base or actually, seriously become a part of it. But that’s just my opinion… hoping not to endure similar problems encountered by digido.com (or at least to circumvent such things for as long as absolutely possible).

As it is now, and as it has been for quite a long, long time… many will register, ask their questions and even occasionally offer some insights or even otherwise positive contributions and then simply fade away.

"The "network effect" dictates that you need a critical mass of the right members for a forum to be useful.
If you have too few, nobody shows up regularly and questions go unanswered for weeks.
OTOH, more growth means an influx of basically clueless people.
First, they ask tons of elementary and repetitive questions, answerable by reading the FAQ, the first chapter of any audio engineering text, or a two-minute web search.
Then they start answering questions, often wrongly, and arguing when the pros correct them. It's Dunning-Kruger Effect writ large!
Ultimately, the pros get driven away and the forum's signal-to-noise ratio falls into the toilet."

I really like this Bob Katz guy.


Of the current (nearly 13,500) members here, how many are actually active and contributing?
I’m still a big fan of our old LIKE button - but don’t want this turning into frikken abysmal Facebook.

Don’t destroy the invaluable reference that this site has grown to be... and yet still remains.

[IIO]

Maybe in a few years we will also see "System 6 Paradise" forums

lol, and not to forget the badly needed "System 6 Pro Audio Enthusiasts Forum" where you can download "sysex converter 0.1b.cpt" using mailboxes.

[IIO]

I really like this Bob Katz guy.

a person who registers patents for "the delay effect" complains about beginners on an open mailing list. figures.^^

having to deal with complete retards is your daily business when participating in "music forums".

you either survive it somehow, or you must stay in your inner circles of ITU, AAA, the warez scene, the universities, the industry, you name it.

[Bolkonskij]

Fully agree on the terrible Facebook-style low-attention span "discussions" that fade from memory as fast as from your news feed. One of the reasons I deleted my FB account and haven't missed anything since.

But why the negative attitude towards newbies? Do I perceive this wrong ? (quite possible!)

I think OS 9 newbies today would be either people returning to Mac OS 9 after two decades or young people interested in old tech. Given our forum is about Mac OS 9, I don't think we can expect any "mass assault" by newbies any time in the near future.

A forum like ours actually lives by newbies coming in, asking questions. Sometimes challenging conventional wisdom? Sometimes asking questions nobody has asked before? Yes, sometimes asking silly stuff too?

If a forum degrades into a place where the same old elite hangs out patting their shoulders while "dissing noobs", it's destined for doom - my opinion.

I think it'd be cool to be a welcoming place for newbies, even if that means the occasional "dud" asking why sound doesn't work (for the 258th time). But it's like with good employees - you don't get the "perfect match" to join. You need to get them when they're still somewhat green and have them develop. Every single one of us has been in that group.

[aBc]

The mere suggestion that my position be misconstrued as elitist or anti-newbie is personally rather insulting. I don’t participate, or test and post results here targeted for an echo chamber.

The idea that one need to register and become a member in order to utilize the search feature of the site is restrictive, reductive and in and of itself perhaps elitist. Does one need to register and become a member of say: System 7 Today, MacRumors, 68KMLA, ThinkDifferent OR even MacRepository or Macintosh Garden - in order to use those search features? NO.

“WE” are an information resource, first and foremost - as are primarily all of the others just mentioned above. In effect, forced registration membership would be closing the door to a great extent for many casually seeking information and forcing all visitors to become members. What’s next, a paywall? Seriously.

Recently it also was suggested that the previous daily visitor count represented bots and other search engine crawlers… and to what extent that might be accurate is rather questionable to me. I tend to view the daily “traffic” number as representative of those that have sought research and resource information - and thus, the primary reason for the site’s viable and continued existence. And of those human visitors, while some… not registered members, they need not become registerred members for the primary purpose of increasing the member count. Again, this site represents an ongoing and growing knowledge base archive that (hopefully) continues to grow and flourish.

Those that wish to become registered members are always welcome. Closing the door to non-members using the search feature reduces and restricts “our” viability… and then those simply seeking information will just as easily “click” elsewhere.

In the past, most motivation to garner more registered members were: (1). Restricting posted image viewing from non-members AND (2). Some downloads were restricted to only registered members. And while I personally didn’t care for #1 - it became more understandable to me, especially after some recent commentary.

Now seriously, considering the restriction of the search feature? Circle the proverbial wagons and Build A Wall, ehh?

I am most definitely not “anti-newbie”. I rather simply do not wish to force ALL to register - OR to further restrict access to non-members. Restrict the search access and the instance of “more elementary and repetitive questions” only stands to increase by forcing those that could have found answers without becoming members before by adding yet another “layer”.

Is “our” success truly measured in the member count, or is it in the “traffic” of daily “Users Online” that this site’s wealth of info is made available to? (Members or not.)

Cheers!

[Knezzen]

I'm more inclined to open everything up as much as possible. I think restricting attachments draws less traffic to the site than showing them could. Why? I for one tend to use Google Image search to look for inspiration and/or help regarding some hardware problems. Right now none of the very informative posts about hardware are searchable through search engines since search engines can't index restricted content.

The Vault. I've never posted there to my knowledge and I don't know what the point of it is. I'm not planning on changing it, it's just more or less an enigma to me and has always been. I don't see the need for it or the point of it.

Searching. It's an idea to restrict it, but you could always use Google to search the entire site, so there's easy ways to get around it.

I'm more inclined to lift more or less all the restrictions we have now on content than to inflict even more restrictions. Traffic is what brings people here, a good and healthy community around very good information is what keeps people here. Right now I feel like we're restricting traffic.

[ssp3]

You do realize that many of attachments and downloads here are in the "grey zone", to put it mildly.
IMO, it's better to be safe than sorry.

Re. restricted search - it was just an idea. Non-registed users could still browse the forum. And, by registering, they might discover more goodies and spread the word.

But, Knezzen, at the end of the day, it's your forum now, you can run it however you wish. Only time will tell whether you've chosen the right path or not.

[Knezzen]

You do realize that many of attachments and downloads here are in the "grey zone", to put it mildly.
IMO, it's better to be safe than sorry.

But, Knezzen, at the end of the day, it's your forum now, you can run it however you wish. Only time will tell whether you've chosen the right path or not.

A lot of downloads on Macintosh Garden are in the "grey zone" as well, but we have yet to have any real issues. I do understand what you mean and respect your opinion. As I mentioned, nothing in the Vault will go public.

I'm merely a caretaker of this place, I see it as OUR forum and platform
I'm just trying to make the best of this wonderful place and I believe that it has the potential of being so much more than what it is now.

Recently it also was suggested that the previous daily visitor count represented bots and other search engine crawlers… and to what extent that might be accurate is rather questionable to me.

Well, it's just facts. "Real" users doesn't come close to the hit rate the bots do.
Here's some numbers from a few days in March for example:

[IIO]

You do realize that many of attachments and downloads here are in the "grey zone"

he has a point though.

when we allow anyone to upload anything (which is a good thing) and at the same time you can see all of this stuff when not even registered (which also can be a good thing), certain problems can appear.

cracked OSX software is one example. the SATA card beta drivers is another one.

a minimal hurdle can have advantages, too.

however, to fullfill our mission, as much content as possible should be discoversable by using google.

[ssp3]

Actually, I ment manipulation of any binary, irrespective of operating system.


Anyway, @Knezzen, the html links contained in various posts end up in nirvana. You need to run some sort of "change & replace" on the whole database. BBEdit?

Example:

dead link (old):
http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php/topic,4337.0.html

working:
http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php?topic=4337.0.html

[Knezzen]

however, to fullfill our mission, as much content as possible should be discoversable by using google.

Making attachments public only affects the boards which are public (as in the ones you can browse around in without being logged in). I think that making these attachments open to the public would draw more people.

And, as a side effect, it would be easier for people to find stolen content. As in, it's only a Google search away and you'll see that the image posted on website X or on YouTube video Y has it's origins here. Now you need to be logged in on the forum and search the forum using our built in search in order to find it. Much harder for the general public to see through stolen content.

Anyway, @Knezzen, the html links contained in various posts end up in nirvana. You need to run some sort of "change & replace" on the whole database. Here's the example:

dead link (old):
http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php/topic,4337.0.html

working:
http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php?topic=4337.0.html

Yes, I'm very aware and I have tried to fix it to no avail. The first link uses a very old way of making URL's more "search engine friendly". A way of doing it that is technically incompatible with modern web servers, so I'm afraid they can't be fixed without downgrading everything and making the server and the forum VERY insecure (think bots everywhere, all the time). The only thing we can do at this point is to edit the posts we stumbled upon (ask a mod using the "report post" function) to change it to the technically original, unaltered link (the second link).

I can look into scripting the thing, but I'm not sure if it's worth the effort.

Sorry. Everything can't be fixed in a heartbeat.