17

Well, I'm sorry to say that I personally now declare what was once Social Sound Design, utterly and fully DEAD.

I have waited for quite some time now to see how @TimPost would change things to make it better for us old timers. It just didn't happen. And for quite some time now I mostly see posts that definetly does not interest me at all. To me that was what social sound design was about, creating a community for sound designers. Today it is simply no more.

Goodbye and thanks for the fish!

Hopefully we will meetup on some other arena that is not affiliated with folks that have no interest or understanding of what kind of niche community we were.

Todeloo

  • 1
    If you build it they will come – Jamie F May 5 '14 at 0:52
  • @ErikG - If it helps any, there has been a ton of posts lately that are just completely off topic for the site period. We're getting a flood of music and home theater and even programming questions that aren't on topic for the site, but they can't get closed fast enough and people keep posting more. – AJ Henderson♦ May 5 '14 at 13:47
  • Hi AJ, I've noticed a lot of post like that as well.. what i was thinking is that maybe the 'introduction page' needs some work. We now see the following (when not logged in) : "Sound Design Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for sound engineers, producers, editors, and enthusiasts. It's 100% free, no registration required. " There is only 1 reference to design... could we at least change this text to stop the flood of off topic questions? – Arnoud Traa May 5 '14 at 14:34
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    Adding to what Arnoud is saying: I think the word enthusiasts doesn't belong there. Sure, you may be enthusiastic about sound, but I the focus originally was (and I think should be) sound professionals. The questions swamping the site are almost exclusively from non-(sound)-professionals making their first steps into the world of sound. That's nice, but not what this community was about. – EMV May 5 '14 at 16:04
  • Perhaps audibleworlds.com could become the place? – christiancoriolis May 5 '14 at 19:35
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    it's like when your favorite little underground club went top 40 hip hop. – user7731 May 9 '14 at 20:45
7

@ErikG, I strongly agree with your opinion. The current state of the site (formerly known as SSD) is depressing to me; gone are the thought-provoking questions about the art and practice of sound design, only to be replaced with plenty of questions about malfunctioning gear, programming and absolute newbie-isms. I was sad when Tim Prebble left, but I totally get it. I check in here every 2 days or so, only to be disappointed again. I don't know how much longer I'll even bother. Please - moderators - MAKE A CHANGE. ALL WE WANT IS OUR OLD SITE BACK.

  • Hi jay, i feel your pain. How do you think the moderators could change thinfs for the better? – Arnoud Traa May 8 '14 at 18:21
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    @Arnoud, I've come to believe that the spirit (and many of the main contributors) of the original SSD is gone and is not recoverable. Some of us still linger and check in once in a while, but when you have to weed through so many non-sound design related posts you eventually give up. That's pretty much where I am. So, I guess that leaves the site in a state of transition; currently it's a hodgepodge collection trying to appeal to a wide audience, but maybe one day it will come full circle and try to be what it once was. – Jay Jennings May 9 '14 at 0:24
  • Hi Jay, I hope so too! But if everyone jumps ship now, it'll never be the same again :) I'm just saying that what once was, can only be resurrected by the same people. If they were the spirit, they shouldn't leave but vocalise their thoughts, or am I missing something? – Arnoud Traa May 9 '14 at 12:01
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    I can't completely jump ship, as the archives still contain a good wealth of knowledge, but they have certainly taken what was once a quaint, little, reliable source of dedicated, close-knit professionals sharing ideas and attempted to make it consumer friendly. Thereby, alienating the charm of the community and cutting the resourcefulness/usefulness in half. I'm with @JayJennings... I can't see this place ever being what it once was again without starting over somewhere new. They've turned this forum into the equivalent of "Beats by Dre." – subtlelapse May 9 '14 at 16:08
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    I believe that would be "Beats by Dre by Apple" now. – Steve Urban May 9 '14 at 23:57
3

I'm very sorry to hear that you are leaving. You have had a big contribution to this place. Another reason I'm sorry to hear the news is, to be very honest, the way you view SSD. I personally don't think it's dead, yet. Yes, there has been a lot of changes and not for the better. This lead to a flood of newbies asking unrelated questions. I disliked that as much as anyone else here. I see TimPost and other people, working hard to clean this place up, but now everyone is leaving.. This makes me a bit sad as you perhaps understand.

But there is another thing that makes me even more sad, if people delete their account (example: @TimPrebble) a lot of very valuable information becomes anonimised and interesting discussions become 'unreadable'. That is such a shame and I hope that you won't completely delete your account, even though I totally understand if you do.

I hope you understand what I mean and stick around for a bit longer.. and goes for anyone else thinking of jumping ship..

If not, thanks for the fish indeed :)

Arnoud

  • I agree, SD is definitely not a lost cause! For sure there's things to smooth out but the thing that makes it a great place is still here, for the most part. Be nice to see some new questions from those of us that have been around the site for a while too.. feels like we've all been a bit quiet and that doesn't help balance out the front page. – Mark Durham May 6 '14 at 18:59
  • Thanks for the heads up Mark. I hope that we'll be gettibg back in shape soon! – Arnoud Traa May 6 '14 at 20:03
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    Thanks for the feedback Arnaud. They have had almost two months to do this. With as far as I can see zero results in regards to rebuilding a once great community. I will not delete my account as I might have written a thing here or there that might be useful to someone that searches for info. And despite the comments above, I wish no ill to this site or to the site owners. It's just clear to me that the mix is like oil and water... I'll surely pop in sometime to have a peek to see if it has changed eventually, but I see no signs in that direction. – ErikG May 7 '14 at 5:56
  • Thanks for your reply, i understand your dissapointment. What make sse a better place for you? What makes you pop in and contribute in the future? – Arnoud Traa May 8 '14 at 18:23
  • An email response from Tim Prebble is how I found SSD in the first place. Sad to see him go, but I agree with you and hope no further users delete their accounts, even if they choose to abandon the site. – subtlelapse May 9 '14 at 16:13
  • seriously, don't sell us this "Here comes everybody" stuff. it doesn't work for SSD. – georgi May 9 '14 at 22:04
  • Hi Georgi, what do you mean? – Arnoud Traa May 9 '14 at 22:06
2

I can't bring myself to cancel my account, there is 4 solid years of knowledge still contained in this site. For the archive alone, I find it still valuable. Besides, as we've seen from Tim's departure, closing the account leaves behind a little hole making it difficult to find those gems of knowledge that were provided. (FWIW I believe he's transformed into "user49").

That said, I am looking into alternatives for a new community.

  • +1 that's classic lock-in. – georgi May 9 '14 at 22:00
0

I'm sorry, why was this "migrated from sound.stackexchange.com May 5 at 12:13" ????

It deserves to be on SSD, not on SSD Meta.

:(

The SSD community, as it was, is dead. It has been replaced by participants in a fairly shallow discussion about technical issues.

  • Hi Georgi, yes we have been flooded by technical questions of low importance to sound designers. I agree that this is a problem. Maybe we should discuss that on the actual forum. On the other hand, if people are interested jn discussing the issue, they know where to find it. But maybe we could be more practical, if SSD is dead, how do we resurrext it? What do we need? – Arnoud Traa May 9 '14 at 22:11
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    From the help page, "Meta Sound Design Stack Exchange is the part of the site where users discuss the workings and policies of Sound Design Stack Exchange rather than discussing sound design itself. It is separated from the main Q&A to reduce noise there while providing a legitimate space for people to ask how and why this site works the way it does." This is precisely the type of question that meta is here for. – JoshP May 12 '14 at 17:11

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