Worried

[DakoJack]

I’m worried about the amount of activity on here, sometimes I feel like I’m posting at the bottom of threads and no one else is chiming in. I don’t know what the traffic is on here compared to the forum ,but I would like this to be way more active than the forum. We need to get every trombonist into checking this out. Recently I was looking at Talk Bass comparing our forum to other instruments, and I think we could definitely make some strides. I don’t know what the answer is with making the site more modern, attractive, and busy and unfortunately I’m not a computer guy. I do feel like it wouldn’t be a bad Idea to let instrument makers and music companies advertise their stuff here but definitely in a certain location. I just feel like there’s a lot of untapped potential and this is secondary if non existent in comparison to trombone talks on Facebook where I see several groups where people advertise their new music, selling horns ,equipment, talking trombone players, and teaching ideas basically all the stuff we need on here. With all that said I do want to thank and give a shout out to the moderators and creators of this site for all of their hard work and it has successfully replaced the forum and preserved all of the forums archives.

[Matt K]

I can't speak for all of us, though I feel that the the sentiment on content is that we prefer quality and ease of archiving over quantity, per se. I also fairly regularly contribute to the Facebook and Reddit communities, which both benefit from having users be already registered as well as locking out those who are not before they can even see the content. We have no intention of locking out content before registering! However, that is a roadblock to posting. There are a lot of people who infrequently post there that their contributions would not have been registered if they didn't already have an account. Frankly, it is a hassle to register yet another account just to make a first, smaller, post about something that may be deemed as trivial to the poster.

Additionally, a lot of the content on the primarily social media platforms is rehashed, or not even on topic. Think about how many times someone has to tell people in the Trombone Pedagogy group to not ask about what the best mouthpiece is? That's noise, but not necessarily new or interesting content.

In other words, certainly tell everyone about this oasis! But at the same time, fret not about post counts. We've only really been live for 30 days at this point and we're still actively developing new portions of the site that we will, with luck, be cutting the ribbon on very shortly that will add a lot of value.

[ghmerrill]

I'm encouraged to see that this group is getting increasingly more traffic -- and that the traffic is consistent with the "charter" and goals of the group. If it were to go in the "social media" direction, I almost certainly would stop using it. And while I feel very strongly that while registration should be a requirement to post (and in fact would prefer to see this strengthened in certain ways -- but never mind that for now), requiring registration in order to READ the forum removes much of its power to inform and influence a broad audience that might not be interested in "joining" something -- and this includes students of all ages.

[SwissTbone]

I am not worried at all. We had more activity on TTF, but the quality wasn't as hifh as it used to be. Quality on Trombonechat seems high, less "what mouthpiece" and "slide o mix" threads.

So far I like it. Of course more activity would always be better, but not when quality decreases.

[MoominDave]

It's still picking up. Give it time. There will be people holding out on registering, giving TTF some time to get itself back together.

[ghmerrill]

As there is ample room in the world for both Tubnet and Dave Werden's Euphonium-Tuba forums, there is likewise room for two trombone forums -- which can attract overlapping readership to some degree while not directly "competing" with one another. It's good, in any case, to have a reasonably well thought out and guiding philosophy and goals, rather than chasing audience participation. If you build it, they will come ... Or not, in which case you've learned something about them or you or both. Been there. Done that.

[Davidus1]

I just found out about this group from a friend. I didn't know that it existed! I really liked the information available on the trombone forum. It will take time. I think spreading the news about this site will help. It takes time to build up information and get people involved.

[Matt K]

I just found out about this group from a friend. I didn't know that it existed! I really liked the information available on the trombone forum. It will take time. I think spreading the news about this site will help. It takes time to build up information and get people involved.

That's the name of the game, we've actually been active for one month today! Not to toot my own horn but, I feel like the forum is doing pretty good for being a month old!

[Bach5G]

I like “What mouthpiece?” threads.

[Neo Bri]

I just found out about this group from a friend. I didn't know that it existed! I really liked the information available on the trombone forum. It will take time. I think spreading the news about this site will help. It takes time to build up information and get people involved.

That's the name of the game, we've actually been active for one month today! Not to toot my own horn but, I feel like the forum is doing pretty good for being a month old!

For one month (effectively) we're doing fine. And we are growing a great community. I like that.