wildgoldenhoney said:

NeonCraxx said:

^^^

Sure the org has been IN three decades. But you said the org has been around for 30 years.

Two different things.

Yep, that's what I said I thought he meant. That is why I said someone already clarified that I misunderstood what was said - as I stated.

I can see how NeonCraxx is confused, as he's been a member for less than three weeks.

electricberet said:

wildgoldenhoney said:

Yep, that's what I said I thought he meant. That is why I said someone already clarified that I misunderstood what was said - as I stated.

I can see how NeonCraxx is confused, as he's been a member for less than three weeks.

Thanks! I never thought about that and I was having a bad day that I was ready to snap. Well, he got me. LOL

They're secretly mad about Brazil

Neon....Craxx...

wildgoldenhoney said:

electricberet said:

I can see how NeonCraxx is confused, as he's been a member for less than three weeks.

Thanks! I never thought about that and I was having a bad day that I was ready to snap. Well, he got me. LOL

I wouldn't take anyone too seriously who quotes Eric Cartman in his signature line.

wildgoldenhoney said:

JeePee said:

It's not good, but I'd rather see them go than the org. This site HAS to continue!

[Edited 9/6/11 14:20pm]

And I didn't realize that the org has been around for 30 years!!!

I thought the same thing. Who remembers Le Grind? Didn't they merge with one of Prince's sites?

klick

klick2me said:

wildgoldenhoney said:

And I didn't realize that the org has been around for 30 years!!!

I thought the same thing. Who remembers Le Grind? Didn't they merge with one of Prince's sites?

klick

Uptown News => Le Grind => emale.com -- all maintained by Pierre Igot, who joined "the Collective" (or whatever they were called). He was already censoring news before that, and after he joined the Collective he started attacking fan mags/websites like The Prince Family in anonymous posts on alt.music.prince because they dared to remain independent from the Borg hivemind and published all kinds of news, including items that weren't flattering. IIRC he also stopped posting reviews when those were uniformily negative -- and then broke that rule a couple of days later when there was a positive one.

IMHO MoQuake never stood a chance. It was obviously a reboot of Housequake.com, but years after that website had closed and lacking the content that drove people to HQ.

But worst of all was that it was stuck in the old forum-functionality, an outdated model in a time when people have flocked to social media. Moreover, many oldtimers and Prince experts just aren't into repeating the same old stuff again, especially in an era where a wiki like PrinceVault is already providing answers (it's just too bad they're so closed).

And they had a splash screen. Sorry, but that's insane. Your homepage should provide your users access to a wealth of information in one click -- instead you had to click through before you arrived at... well, a page that had some news (but not all), and that again didn't provide you with links to the good stuff. And which was quite frankly way to graphic-eavy, while still locked in an old design made for an era where monitors were much smaller.

IMHO the only way to get something going is by running a website in the style of MetaFilter or Reddit, where users get points for insightful posts and comments (and bad ones get downvoted so they'll disappear) for news items and concert reviews, and have something like the StackExchange model for factual questions.

And before anyone says "well why don't you build that yourself": I can't be arsed. 15 years ago I already had some pretty decent ideas for a fan site with similar functionality, but then Prince started being a complete dick and plenty of his fans followed suit, and to top it off there were the lawsuits. I feel absolutely no urge to invest time or money in such a venture, and quite frankly I'm baffled that there are still people who do.

I'm telling you this: compared to other artists out there, the online Prince community is ridiculously outdated. And this used to be a technically savvy community -- until Prince drove out all the talent.

forums are still a very popular, and increasingly popular form of website. i am mod for one of the biggest and most popular forums in the world, with literally millions of unique visitors and members per month and tens of thousands of new members each month, and that's with many things in place to prevent dupe and rereg accounts

the problem is partly social networking sites and partly prince himself, attacking fansites and closing down official sites. it doesn't help when your official site has a URL few can remember and you need to answer 20 questsions before you can sign up to pay to access the site, that's if you have a cray supercomputer that can handle the flash on the site. you are just shit out of luck if you use an apple IOS device

prince is getting on a bit and that's part of the tech savvy problems. along with living on a different planet from the rest of us. mork calling orson, come in orson...

BartVanHemelen said:

Moreover, many oldtimers and Prince experts just aren't into repeating the same old stuff again, especially in an era where a wiki like PrinceVault is already providing answers (it's just too bad they're so closed).

And they had a splash screen. Sorry, but that's insane. Your homepage should provide your users access to a wealth of information in one click -- instead you had to click through before you arrived at... well, a page that had some news (but not all), and that again didn't provide you with links to the good stuff. And which was quite frankly way to graphic-eavy, while still locked in an old design made for an era where monitors were much smaller.

IMHO the only way to get something going is by running a website in the style of MetaFilter or Reddit, where users get points for insightful posts and comments (and bad ones get downvoted so they'll disappear) for news items and concert reviews, and have something like the StackExchange model for factual questions.

And before anyone says "well why don't you build that yourself": I can't be arsed. 15 years ago I already had some pretty decent ideas for a fan site with similar functionality, but then Prince started being a complete dick and plenty of his fans followed suit, and to top it off there were the lawsuits. I feel absolutely no urge to invest time or money in such a venture, and quite frankly I'm baffled that there are still people who do.

I'm telling you this: compared to other artists out there, the online Prince community is ridiculously outdated. And this used to be a technically savvy community -- until Prince drove out all the talent.

Well put. I agree with you 100%.

'

[Edited 9/10/11 11:43am]

i went there every once in a while, but it was always boring and dead there. sorry it's going though.

BartVanHemelen said:

I'm telling you this: compared to other artists out there, the online Prince community is ridiculously outdated. And this used to be a technically savvy community -- until Prince drove out all the talent.

I'm telling you this: the Prince online community (or rather, part of it) is actively involved in releasing material which is often flawless, from a purely technical perspective. I'm speaking about audio releases, including some of the finest audience recordings I have ever heard, together with fully professional artwork. Besides we have seen some releases of older stuff which has been the subject of an almost miraculous resurrection, to the point of being hardly recognizable as coming from the same source.

Same goes to video releases: we have seen outstanding DVDs and mp4 files, made by fans and released for free; and if you spend some time on them, you will quickly agree in that it is top notch stuff, nothing to envy from any other community.

Now if we focus on the online communities, that is another story, because thanks to the pressure of the purple guy, most people has migrated to closed places. And something tells me that such places are, from many points of view, at the forefront, technically speaking.

In short: the problem is not in the fans, who have been consistently doing a stunning job along the years. The problem is in a musician unable to appreciate and stimulate such work, in fear of losing control.

[Edited 9/9/11 2:39am]

cateto said:

BartVanHemelen said:

I'm telling you this: compared to other artists out there, the online Prince community is ridiculously outdated. And this used to be a technically savvy community -- until Prince drove out all the talent.

I'm telling you this: the Prince online community (or rather, part of it) is actively involved in releasing material which is often flawless, from a purely technical perspective. I'm speaking about audio releases, including some of the finest audience recordings I have ever heard, together with fully professional artwork. Besides we have seen some releases of older stuff which has been subjected of an almost miraculous resurrection, to the point of being hardly recognizable as coming from the same source.

Same goes to video releases: we have seen outstanding DVDs and mp4 files, made by fans and released for free; and if you spend some time on them, you will quickly agree in that it is top notch stuff, nothing to envy from any other community.

Now if we focus on the online communities, that is another story, because thanks to the pressure of the purple guy, most people has migrated to closed places. And something tells me that such places are, from many points of view, at the forefront, technically speaking.

In short: the problem is not in the fans, who have been consistently doing a stunning job along the years. The problem is in a musician unable to appreciate and stimulate such work, in fear of losing control.

I'm pretty sure that's effectively what Bart was saying, before semantics got in the way...

^ Well, he stated that the community is ridiculously outdated. I am saying exactly the opposite, although it might be true that if you look only at the big open places, Bart's statement is correct.

[Edited 9/9/11 1:49am]

Great shame if it goes, it was pretty much the only place to get decent gig info/news on Prince and similar acts without having to trawl through a load of "What is Prince's favourite wine/film/car/whatever" type of crap that we see in some places.

If it does go then I hope something remains like a twitter feed as has been mentioned, or that the org can go back to what it used to be like instead of the Holy River v2.0

I commented on the thread which seems to have caused a lot of this issue

http://moquake.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=683

Strangely enough it wasn't the actual competition winner (Christine) who caused any aggro - she was very gracious, but her guest. It wouldn't have taken a lot to say thanks to Prince, his crew and the organisers for providing the experience. Lots of folk would have given their right arm to win that competition.

cateto said:

BartVanHemelen said:

I'm telling you this: compared to other artists out there, the online Prince community is ridiculously outdated. And this used to be a technically savvy community -- until Prince drove out all the talent.

I'm telling you this: the Prince online community (or rather, part of it) is actively involved in releasing material which is often flawless, from a purely technical perspective.

We had people doing that back in the late 1990s/early 2000s. That kind of work has always been happening, for the simple reason that as technology advances people will attempt to improve the quality of their collection. Software has also become easier and more affordable, so it's not that exceptional that this is happening.

Are we seeing more "liberations"? I don't know, although we have seen a couple of spectacular releases in recent years. But the same can be said about the Japan Lovesexy gigs: granted, they originated from expensive bootlegs, but they were available almost immediately as lossless files. And that's just one of many examples.

Now if we focus on the online communities, that is another story, because thanks to the pressure of the purple guy, most people has migrated to closed places. And something tells me that such places are, from many points of view, at the forefront, technically speaking.

I don't know, it's possible, but I kinda doubt it. Thing is: they don't need to be, if it only involves a handful of people.

And again: we had those too back in the late 1990s/early 2000s. There has always been an inner circle of traders who kept the good stuff to themselves and we'd be lucky if they'd leak a severely dismembered copy.

In short: the problem is not in the fans, who have been consistently doing a stunning job along the years. The problem is in a musician unable to appreciate and stimulate such work, in fear of losing control.

Have you read my post?

If you look at the NIN community, where you have a dedicated wiki that is an amazing source of info, where you have websites that provide a complete discography, websites that provide an index of all circulating audio and video recordings of concerts (and in many cases samples or even full downloads),...

"There is this secret place where me and five otehr guys hang out that's state of the art" -- well, lucky you, but that doesn't mean shit to the vast majority of fans. When I said "the online Prince community is ridiculously outdated", it was WITHIN A SPECIFIC CONTEXT: I was talking about publicly available fan efforts.

I agree with the spirit of your post, Bart, although this bit puzzles me.

BartVanHemelen said:

If you look at the NIN community, where you have a dedicated wiki that is an amazing source of info, where you have websites that provide a complete discography, websites that provide an index of all circulating audio and video recordings of concerts (and in many cases samples or even full downloads),...

Those two specific examples seem to me to equate to two of the best sources of online Prince info besides all that's hiding in the belly of the org, namely PrinceVault (complete discography and then some) and The Digital Garden (AFAIK, basically a detailed graphical index of all circulating boots; ie. audio and video recordings of concerts and beyond).

I think the fan interaction is probably what's suffered the most through all that has happened, moreso than the informative sites that seem to have weathered the storms remarkably well, even if they are a little thin on the ground these days.

BartVanHemelen said:

IMHO MoQuake never stood a chance. It was obviously a reboot of Housequake.com, but years after that website had closed and lacking the content that drove people to HQ.

But worst of all was that it was stuck in the old forum-functionality, an outdated model in a time when people have flocked to social media. Moreover, many oldtimers and Prince experts just aren't into repeating the same old stuff again, especially in an era where a wiki like PrinceVault is already providing answers (it's just too bad they're so closed).

And they had a splash screen. Sorry, but that's insane. Your homepage should provide your users access to a wealth of information in one click -- instead you had to click through before you arrived at... well, a page that had some news (but not all), and that again didn't provide you with links to the good stuff. And which was quite frankly way to graphic-eavy, while still locked in an old design made for an era where monitors were much smaller.

IMHO the only way to get something going is by running a website in the style of MetaFilter or Reddit, where users get points for insightful posts and comments (and bad ones get downvoted so they'll disappear) for news items and concert reviews, and have something like the StackExchange model for factual questions.

And before anyone says "well why don't you build that yourself": I can't be arsed. 15 years ago I already had some pretty decent ideas for a fan site with similar functionality, but then Prince started being a complete dick and plenty of his fans followed suit, and to top it off there were the lawsuits. I feel absolutely no urge to invest time or money in such a venture, and quite frankly I'm baffled that there are still people who do.

I'm telling you this: compared to other artists out there, the online Prince community is ridiculously outdated. And this used to be a technically savvy community -- until Prince drove out all the talent.

I agree. I even thought about doing it myself, but I simply wouldn't be able to spare the time needed to make it work properly. And with P acting like he does, it hardly inspires.

BartVanHemelen said:

And again: we had those too back in the late 1990s/early 2000s. There has always been an inner circle of traders who kept the good stuff to themselves and we'd be lucky if they'd leak a severely dismembered copy.

I'm not speaking about undisclosed material; I'm speaking about communities that were forced to work out of public knowledge, yet release stuff openly. A certain musician sent threatening messages and there was no other way.

Have you read my post?

Yes, and pretty much we are saying the same. Only difference: you criticize what is publicly available. I say: maybe what is not publicly available is much better. Maybe.

If you look at the NIN community, where you have a dedicated wiki that is an amazing source of info, where you have websites that provide a complete discography, websites that provide an index of all circulating audio and video recordings of concerts (and in many cases samples or even full downloads),...

Princevault is close to the wiki idea you mention (with the exception that is tightly controlled, which results in great quality control), including extensive discography and liveography information. And Uptown published a list of circulating recordings, but it had to be forgotten after their agreement with P. You are as aware as I am.

"There is this secret place where me and five otehr guys hang out that's state of the art" -- well, lucky you, but that doesn't mean shit to the vast majority of fans. When I said "the online Prince community is ridiculously outdated", it was WITHIN A SPECIFIC CONTEXT: I was talking about publicly available fan efforts.

Nobody here is bragging about "me and five other guys". I simply pointed out that the overall situation, if you consider the whole of Princeland, is quite different from "ridiculously updated".

As usual, you are seeing problems where there are no problems. You say the community is outdated. I say only part of the community. In the end, as usual too, the main issue here has two names: Prince and control. If one day Prince woke up in a lightened mode and decided that free labels are not a problem anymore, we all would see this community flourishing in ways that would possibly put most equivalent fan communties of other musicians into shame.

Take home message: the problem is not technical update or the wishes to work of the community. It is elsewhere, and in that I think we both agree completely.

cateto said:

BartVanHemelen said:

And again: we had those too back in the late 1990s/early 2000s. There has always been an inner circle of traders who kept the good stuff to themselves and we'd be lucky if they'd leak a severely dismembered copy.

I'm not speaking about undisclosed material; I'm speaking about communities that were forced to work out of public knowledge, yet release stuff openly. A certain musician sent threatening messages and there was no other way.

Princevault is close to the wiki idea you mention (with the exception that is tightly controlled, which results in great quality control), including extensive discography and liveography information. And Uptown published a list of circulating recordings, but it had to be forgotten after their agreement with P. You are as aware as I am.

"There is this secret place where me and five otehr guys hang out that's state of the art" -- well, lucky you, but that doesn't mean shit to the vast majority of fans. When I said "the online Prince community is ridiculously outdated", it was WITHIN A SPECIFIC CONTEXT: I was talking about publicly available fan efforts.

Nobody here is bragging about "me and five other guys". I simply pointed out that the overall situation, if you consider the whole of Princeland, is quite different from "ridiculously updated".

As usual, you are seeing problems where there are no problems. You say the community is outdated. I say only part of the community. In the end, as usual too, the main issue here has two names: Prince and control. If one day Prince woke up in a lightened mode and decided that free labels are not a problem anymore, we all would see this community flourishing in ways that would possibly put most equivalent fan communties of other musicians into shame.

Take home message: the problem is not technical update or the wishes to work of the community. It is elsewhere, and in that I think we both agree completely.

Actually, it'd be more accurate to say that a small section of the community is um... Not outdated.

All Prince fan sites are fucking ancient. Sorry to burst your bubble. And besides the Org.... Where are those sites, again? Ah yes, an incomplete Wiki, some discography work painstakingly done by like 1 dude, and a slick bootleg info site (Digital Garden).

That's it. Back in the heyday, there were dozens of intricate, attractive, and intuitive sites. This is no longer the case in any way.

Edit: Also, LOL @ MQ's closing. Called it when it first opened and they tried to pass the site off as something inclusive of MPLS artists in general when really it was just about Prince only. I challenged them then to showcase artists other than Prince or the Prince-related and the well went dry and the crickets chirped. *roll eyes*

The hilarious part of it all is that these sites go through so much trouble to be whatever it is they think they are going to be and yet... It's all for an unforgiving and uncaring artist who couldn't give a shit about the fans in the first place. lol.

[Edited 9/9/11 15:55pm]

unique said:

freakyfeet said:

If I recall correctly, when they ran the backstage contest, one of the "guests" of a winner who was ill asked if the winner could meet Prince.

They were told that they'd try but as it was before a gig, Prince wouldn't meet anyone, regardless of their health.

When the write ups occured on MoQuake, the guest made a pretty scathing attack on Prince and didn't once thank either Prince's team or MoQuake for actually getting the chance to go backstage and meet the band.

This is all from memory so I may be wrong but I'm guessing that P's team were pretty pissed with the fanbase for the blatant show of ungratitude and decided not to let fans backstage again.

the story is basically along those lines. it obviously had a big and negative effect for it to be mentoned a year on, and in particular in a thread by the site owner announcing the site closure

there was no mention of meeting prince in the first place, it was a free competition they got what was offered, and they bitched about it. the first time prince let fans backstage for a competition, and probably the last because of that. and it's the very reason why people aren't let backstage in the first place

housequake was closed not by prince but because the owner was pissed off by prince and his peoples actions. now moquake is closed not by prince but because of a mix of prince, his people and his fans actions

no official site, the fansites closing down, it's not a good sign. fortunately ben has taken a step back from the org to just let it be, and we are in the third decade of it's existance. hopefully more quakers return back to the org and start building things back up here. perhaps creating some new forums to seperate the serious discussion from the banter that keeps this place alive, so the best of both worlds are on one site

I'm back but... to sell you my stuff.

I'm not going to rebuild or start building thing back here... pfffft! Yeah.

HQ is done. Just start with yourself rather then depending on others for some kind of improvement or change.

Its also really dumb to ... what the fuck am I DOING!?

No, this it.

I'll be in the marketplace from now on, no way... I'm not goint to engage you fammies. No way.

Bye.

Chiquetet said:

I agree with the spirit of your post, Bart, although this bit puzzles me.

BartVanHemelen said:

If you look at the NIN community, where you have a dedicated wiki that is an amazing source of info, where you have websites that provide a complete discography, websites that provide an index of all circulating audio and video recordings of concerts (and in many cases samples or even full downloads),...

Those two specific examples seem to me to equate to two of the best sources of online Prince info besides all that's hiding in the belly of the org, namely PrinceVault (complete discography and then some)

Is there anything like http://www.nincatalog.com/default.asp ?

and The Digital Garden (AFAIK, basically a detailed graphical index of all circulating boots; ie. audio and video recordings of concerts and beyond).

Nowhere near this: http://www.reflectinginthechrome.com/

ModernaireHQ said:

unique said:

the story is basically along those lines. it obviously had a big and negative effect for it to be mentoned a year on, and in particular in a thread by the site owner announcing the site closure

there was no mention of meeting prince in the first place, it was a free competition they got what was offered, and they bitched about it. the first time prince let fans backstage for a competition, and probably the last because of that. and it's the very reason why people aren't let backstage in the first place

housequake was closed not by prince but because the owner was pissed off by prince and his peoples actions. now moquake is closed not by prince but because of a mix of prince, his people and his fans actions

no official site, the fansites closing down, it's not a good sign. fortunately ben has taken a step back from the org to just let it be, and we are in the third decade of it's existance. hopefully more quakers return back to the org and start building things back up here. perhaps creating some new forums to seperate the serious discussion from the banter that keeps this place alive, so the best of both worlds are on one site

I'm back but... to sell you my stuff.

I'm not going to rebuild or start building thing back here... pfffft! Yeah.

HQ is done. Just start with yourself rather then depending on others for some kind of improvement or change.

Its also really dumb to ... what the fuck am I DOING!?

No, this it.

I'll be in the marketplace from now on, no way... I'm not goint to engage you fammies. No way.

Bye.

i dunno, what the fuck are you doing? you don't make the slightest bit of sense. according to the one other post you made you are in the states, so presumably not one of the folks who went backstage at the gig, and thus not someone i'm referring to. so why quote me? i don't even know who you are

it's a bit of a liberty using a sites priviledges to sell your stuff to other fans without contributing, and putting down other fans though. but as you are selling off prince stuff i guess you aren't much of a fan anymore

cateto said:

Princevault is close to the wiki idea you mention (with the exception that is tightly controlled, which results in great quality control),

But they're only now putting in info we've had for ten, twenty years. They're years behind, while at this point in time I shoudl be able to use those wiki entries as indexes to Uptown's books and mags and other books... We should have been able to crosscheck the info in that recent "Prince In The Studio" book with the info in the wiki, and figure out what was new. How much info got lost when HQ disappeared? That should have been in there already. Etcetera.

So why don't we have those things? Because Prince is a dick to his fans. And they'll put up with that for a bit, but when things got seriously rough, they got out.

As usual, you are seeing problems where there are no problems. You say the community is outdated. I say only part of the community.

So all of it except five guys in their secret underground lair. Whoopee! Let's celebrate.

In the end, as usual too, the main issue here has two names: Prince and control. If one day Prince woke up in a lightened mode and decided that free labels are not a problem anymore, we all would see this community flourishing in ways that would possibly put most equivalent fan communties of other musicians into shame.

There's a lot of talent that's lost. We're years behind and tons of work. That's just something you can never get back. And it's not like those who decide that it isn't worth it are gonna switch positions in one day. We know Prince. Dude says A today, and Z tomorrow and denies he said A yesterday.

unique said:

forums are still a very popular, and increasingly popular form of website.

And completely the wrong tool for plenty of purposes they're used for. I cannot express the despair of having to read a dozen pages of mostly crap to find the one gem, i.e. the answer to my question of technical details about a Blu-ray etcetera. Stack Exchange basically grew out of the frustration with forums.

Whenever I see a forum these days, I can't help but think that it's merely a placeholder for the time when someone thinks up a far better way to deal with the info.

and The Digital Garden (AFAIK, basically a detailed graphical index of all circulating boots; ie. audio and video recordings of concerts and beyond).

Bartvanhemelen said:

Nowhere near this: http://www.reflectinginthechrome.com/

Well considering the huge risks history has shown us in the bootleg world, and as much as that site is very comprehensive and nice, I really don't think I'm about to start handing out hard-drives full of Prince bootlegs or even letting visitors download them. I'm pretty sure the site wouldn't last 5 minutes more if I did......

bartvanhemelen said:

But they're only now putting in info we've had for ten, twenty years. They're years behind...

This is such a negative and un-productive comment. Would you rather they didn't bother? Of course they're years behind, they've only just begun and there is a stagerring amount of info to compile. But once it is done it will stand as a valuable resource not just for us but for future generations. I fail to see what is wrong with their ambition and passion for the project.

BartVanHemelen said:

unique said:

forums are still a very popular, and increasingly popular form of website.

And completely the wrong tool for plenty of purposes they're used for. I cannot express the despair of having to read a dozen pages of mostly crap to find the one gem, i.e. the answer to my question of technical details about a Blu-ray etcetera. Stack Exchange basically grew out of the frustration with forums.

Whenever I see a forum these days, I can't help but think that it's merely a placeholder for the time when someone thinks up a far better way to deal with the info.

maybe you've seen too many bad forums

a forum is only as good as it's members and moderators. the large forum i mod is a wealth of information, moderated extremely tightly and professionally

take this site that's not moderated well, and compare it to HQ or MQ that were moderated far tighter and see the difference. the only problem is that due to issues in the past it has affected the current sites. and possibly it's irrepairable damage. i don't think so, not completely at least, but it will take a bit of work to pull things back together again

electricberet said:

I can see how NeonCraxx is confused, as he's been a member for less than three weeks.

Technically, I've been on this site longer than you have on my bro's account.

We've already been through this.

Not that I care how long you've been a member because you will ALWAYS be confused.

electricberet said:

I wouldn't take anyone too seriously who quotes Eric Cartman in his signature line.

It's too bad that you take me too seriously regaurdless.

[img:$uid]http://i1105.photobucket.com/albums/h353/sonicboom97/oie_5154536Rtyfu2xa.gif[/img:$uid]

[Edited 9/10/11 14:49pm]