Home Recording & Audiofanzine

[Psycom]

Dear HR members,

As you have probably read, David, alias Dragon, has decided to let the Audiofanzine team manage the HR website, and so we need to give you more information about what is going on so you will be part of the adventure.

These last few years, David did not really have time to develop the website like he wanted to (this happens often when you do your website apart from your regular work). When we started talking, we discussed Home Recording's history, and about Audiofanzine, and David got really enthusiastic about the synergy we could have between the great HR community and the work from Audiofanzine's team.

Audiofanzine beginning

First of all, let me introduce myself. I'm Philippe. I started playing the piano when I was 6 years old and then started composing different types of music in my home studio when I was 14. In 1999, I wanted to make my own album without any label, and that turned out to be a very difficult but rewarding experience. When I was finished making this first album, I decided to share my experience in order to help other musicians.

That is how Audiofanzine started.

How it became a (small) company

At that time, I was finishing my studies in Computer Engineering and I worked on Audiofanzine just as a hobby. I watched as some other similar websites came and went, dying out because their webmasters became too busy with their everyday life, families, jobs, etc.

At the same time, I realized how important Audiofanzine was to me, and that I don't want to ever stop Audiofanzine because of another job or anything else! I wanted to put more content, to develop features, etc… Then it was obvious that I needed permanent people working on it with me, and for this reason, my personal website had to become a company and I had to find a business model. As you will see later, this never changed my philosophy, which remains to help musicians to achieve their goals.

Who are the people working behind Audiofanzine?

We all are guitar, bass, keyboard players and amateur sound engineers. Audiofanzine has really been made by musicians for musicians. All the folks who joined my team the past few years have come from the community of Audiofanzine (FR). They liked the website so much that they wanted to be even more involved in this exciting project.
Today, we are 420,000 members on Audiofanzine FR. This could be done only because we were able to offer musicians (almost) everything they wanted from a website. By the way, some professional musicians started as beginners on Audiofanzine and we often receive warm thanks from members who Audiofanzine has helped. Today my goal is that English speaking musicians from all around the world could have the same great experience from using our services, and maybe in the future be as happy about the website as our French members have been for the past 9 years.

What we do

Audiofanzine has two kinds of content: editorial (technical articles, tests, news items, videos…) and user based (forums, user reviews, classifieds). There is a real link between editorial work and community exchanges, and we think that this has many advantages for members. For example, a product which we test also has user reviews, so the editorial content has to be perfectly true and accurate. I think this is a healthy model

One other example is how we have developed new features and writen new articles based upon member's requests. The feedback from the community is good because then we can follow the community's needs.

To relieve any concerns you may have...

Audiofanzine is, like Home Recording, 100% free for visitors and members and will always be.

The forums are self moderated by their members: our moderators are not employees so they don't follow any music industry imposed censorship. On Audiofanzine, the main role of moderators is to animate forums and check that the technical threads are relevant (the Gentlemen's pub, like the Dragon Cave, will not be moderated).

Absolute respect of your privacy: no spam, no sharing of your personal data, no opt-out newsletter...

The advertising is never aggressive: no pop-ups, no interstitials, no in-content text advertising, and only relevant ads that are interesting for musicians and sound engineers.

Our articles are fair and are not constrained by advertisers. This is a very important thing we will always keep because it is essential to keep our members' trust.

And finally, what is going to change on HR with Audiofanzine?

The main thing to remember is: we value and want to keep your membership, so we don't want to make you unhappy.

For the next few weeks/months: nothing that would have any impact on HR's forums will happen (some relevant links to AF on the categorized HR forums are added, that's it). We will first talk in the forums with you, feel the atmosphere here and see what are the most important things for HR members. Whatever the changes are in the future, we want to keep the HR forum's spirit. In the meantime we will occasionally publish some good articles we make and hopefully you will like and use some of our features, like the well organized product classifieds and the user reviews. One thing we are currently doing for you is translating many user reviews from French into English (we have 42,000 user reviews on Audiofanzine FR).

In the mid term: we will move Vbulletin forums to our new technical platform, which will include at least the same features as Vbulletin, but it will be done with our own PHP code and we will add some fine tuned features thanks to your feedback. One more time, it will be done while paying attention to your needs. By the way, one good thing is that the forum will be a big 6 servers cluster, so it will be quick and reliable – one thing HR members were asking for.

Now I think we shared most of the important things we wanted to tell you. Any questions and comments that help us go forward are welcome.

Philippe

[Sky Blue Lou]

Good luck with the venture.


lou

[TelePaul]

Phillipe, did Dragon mention ez_willis to you?

[XLR]

Thank you for removing intellitxt.

[superbeatballer]

Originally Posted by Psycom

Any questions and comments that help us go forward are welcome.

Philippe

Two comments. I can't stand newly established management teams trying to identify with me because they care. It's usually pretty vapid and a waste of time.

You guys should just lay back in the cut, slowly make your changes without announcement, and try to leave as little a footprint as possible.

[Harvey Gerst]

How do you see the moderator's role in the forums? Will he/she keep threads on track? What constitutes grounds for banning? How active will moderators be in each forum; will they be active participants, or just peacekeepers?

I look forward to moderate moderation.

[DonF]

Originally Posted by Harvey Gerst

I look forward to moderate moderation.

Well put.

This place isn't perfect, but it is comfortable, like an old shoe. I for one would be disappointed if the changes were too sudden or too fundamental. A light touch is called for, in my opinion.

Don

[Rokket]

Originally Posted by DonF

Well put.

This place isn't perfect, but it is comfortable, like an old shoe. I for one would be disappointed if the changes were too sudden or too fundamental. A light touch is called for, in my opinion.

Don

I agree with that totally. I kinda like things the way they are right now. Sudden changes that are too big of a step would probably frustrate me into not coming back. I've been here awhile, and I'd like to stay here. Please keep that thought in mind as you 'moderate' and change things.

Oh, and a second on the intellitext thing. Big pain in the butt.

[dobro]

Originally Posted by Psycom

Dear HR members...

Any questions and comments that help us go forward are welcome.

Philippe

Hi Philippe

I'm a moderator here. My only question is this one: what's in this for you? What are you hoping will come of taking over your new role at HR?

dobro

[Riffmaster]

I just came across this forum a few months ago and it is by far the most helpful, info packed and knowlegable bunch of folks on the net. There's something for everybody here and if it's not terrbily broken, no need to fix. I just want to thank everyone for making this THE place to find those answers you just can't find in one forum. So please keep that in mind when contemplating changes.

[apl]

Originally Posted by Psycom

We all are guitar, bass, keyboard players and amateur sound engineers.

What!?!?!?! What about drumbers, flautists, violinners, and vocalists? Are they not allowed?

[Obi-Wan zenabI]

Originally Posted by apl

What!?!?!?! What about drumbers, flautists, violinners, and vocalists? Are they not allowed?

I think he meant the management 'team.' Drummers usually seem to think that they've done enough work setting up their kit and grabbing a drink... no overtime on the interwebs, please!

Je vous espere bonne chance avec ce venture, Phillipe -- et votre AFzine 'crew.' A sustainable business model for this site does mean its long term viability for our enjoyment.

I do hope for minimal changes-- the minimal commerciality of this site is precisely what attracts me to it. I've spent thousands on building out and gearing up a studio since I joined several years ago, but I am not so likely to be influenced by subsidized reviews and such. I get catalogs full of that...

[apl]

OK, but what about gadflies?

[rayc]

The only recent change I've been displeased about is the number of unknowns popping into the MP3 Mixing Clinic scrounging for reviews/plays/help & then disappearing without returning the compliment.
I do hope transparency and small footprint is the order of the takeover.
Did Dragon sell, lease, rent, employ?

[TelePaul]

Originally Posted by rayc

Did Dragon sell, lease, rent, employ?

Sell, or so it seems.

[Evil_twin]

How do you see the moderator's role in the forums? Will he/she keep threads on track? What constitutes grounds for banning? How active will moderators be in each forum; will they be active participants, or just peacekeepers?

On Audiofanzine FR, Moderators are active members of the community. They do some peacekeeping in technical threads, but it's not the biggest part of their "job".

Grounds for banning? Depends... basically we do not ban very often. Spamming being the number one reason. Repeated assholeness can be one too

[muttley600]

Originally Posted by Evil_twin

On Audiofanzine FR, Moderators are active members of the community. They do some peacekeeping in technical threads, but it's not the biggest part of their "job".

Grounds for banning? Depends... basically we do not ban very often. Spamming being the number one reason. Repeated assholeness can be one too

You might as well just empty the member database in that case.

[Evil_twin]

dont' overestimate yourself that much

[muttley600]

Originally Posted by Evil_twin

dont' overestimate yourself that much

x9.......

[Dogman]

Originally Posted by muttley600

x9.......

He's saying your a nice guy, Mutt....

[m/Audiofanzine]

Or at least, he thinks you're a nice guy.

[true-eurt]

As you all have well read, there is a lot of continual griping from one member here over the location of the Rep Point Thread.

I for one, am tired of the incessant crying about it and know, that it will go on and on, until you guys do something to appease him. I realize that ball-gagging and flogging would be impossible to do from France, so... could you please just make this member happy and move the thread to an appropriate place, such as Jenni's Place or such. The Cave would seem an unlikely spot for it, since the Rep Point Thread is far from the Cave mentality...? Perhaps make it a sticky too.


That is...if you get this one member's approval of the move...

And this is just a suggestion. If you decide not to do so, or even if you move it to the Cave, you won't hear me incessantly whining about it. It's not gonna affect my music life either way.

That is all...thank you.

True

[apl]

Yeah, I don't get the angst over the Rep Point thread, either. It doesn't need to be a sticky because it's always at the top. I think it got moved to the Live Events forum because for a while the Cave didn't have rep.

Speaking of Live Events, I'll be at Guitar Center this Saturday performing the intros to Sweet Child Of Mine and Stairway To Heaven. The encore will be Smoke On The Water, if requested.

[m/Audiofanzine]

Originally Posted by apl

The encore will be Smoke On The Water, if requested.

I'd much rather hear "Walk this Way" as an encore...

[TeyshaBlue]

Originally Posted by true-eurt

As you all have well read, there is a lot of continual griping from one member here over the location of the Rep Point Thread.

I for one, am tired of the incessant crying about it and know, that it will go on and on, until you guys do something to appease him. I realize that ball-gagging and flogging would be impossible to do from France, so... could you please just make this member happy and move the thread to an appropriate place, such as Jenni's Place or such. The Cave would seem an unlikely spot for it, since the Rep Point Thread is far from the Cave mentality...? Perhaps make it a sticky too.


That is...if you get this one member's approval of the move...

And this is just a suggestion. If you decide not to do so, or even if you move it to the Cave, you won't hear me incessantly whining about it. It's not gonna affect my music life either way.

That is all...thank you.

True

Move it to.......



























the shed.