Years ago, when you were a programmer and had a technical question -- you were stuck on an implementation, couldn't figure out how to do something -- there were a myriad of possible venues tofind an answer. However, most of these were terribly inefficient (forums), others were closed (email lists, usenet groups), or the signal-to-noise ratio was horrible.

.

Then came Experts Exchange, and they proved to be quite good. And then they wanted to monetize their excellent Google results and they started hiding the answers in order to get you to click through to their site and suffer numerous ads or even forced you to join (i.e. provide personal data). A reputable source became a major PITA overnight.

.

Some people decided to fight this, and started StackExchange, which quickly grew into the leading Q&A site for programming questions and answers.

.

It worked so well the creators decided to branch out to other topics, and one of their recent creations is http://musicfans.stackexchange.com/. It's just come out of Area51, StackExchange's incubator site where proposals for new SE sites are looking for supporters. MusicFans already passed that stage, and is now in private beta: they're looking for "experts" to provide quality questions and asnwers so when the site is opened to the general public there already is a wealth of (answered) questions and their associated tags, some temporary admins, and an audience ready to help out newbies.

.

I'd love to see plenty of Prince-related questions and answers on this site. There is a wealth of possible subjects that can receive factual answers, and considering that StackExchange sites score highly in Google, the questions and answers you provide will not disappear into the digital mist like so many threads on this forum. It could also be a great way to promote reputable sources like PrinceVault, and perhaps even provide additional information that they lack.

.

I'm able to send out invites to people who want to help out while the site is still in private beta. But for that I need your email adres and some proof that you'll be able to provide quality content. So send me an email -- BartVanHemelen(at)GMail(dot)com -- and provide some links to Org threads where you feel you've added valuable content. Or convince me otherwise.

.

The rest of you will have to wait until the site comes out of private beta; at that time it would be nice if http://musicfans.stackexc...ged/prince had a significant amount of worthwhile content.

[Edited 3/20/15 7:27am]

A good example of what I'd consider "quality" is some of the information in this thread, which discusses some of the deleted scenes from Graffiti Bridge. That topic has undoubtedly been raised numerous times over the years, and could easily become an interesting question: "Are there any deleted scenes from Graffiti Bridge, and what is known about them?" I can easily imagine some people posting various answers, including screenshots etc. and earning valuable "internet points" in return, making it a "definitive resource".

.

Then whenever this subject comes up in the future on the Org, you can simply point to that q&a.

Who cares about deleted scenes from Graffiti Bridge. Its bloody terrible. Leave them in the vault. A private What? A site for snobs by the sound of it.

This could at long last put an end to the "does Prince do drugs?", "Prince did scheme the cancelation of the Black Album and invented the Blue Tuesday story as a PR thing from day 1" and other similar nonsense that regularly pops up here

antonb said:

Who cares about deleted scenes from Graffiti Bridge. Its bloody terrible. Leave them in the vault. A private What? A site for snobs by the sound of it.

I am caring... about the heart scene, Prince & Ingrid Chavez... (try the link Bart posted above).

Maybe you will be curious about it as well?

Don't be too negative just because it is Bart posting..

Not being negative, just realistic. Im as big a fan of prince as anyone on here, but Graffiti bridge is so bad. He dropped the ball big time with this movie.

I am not sure what the difference is between what we do here at Prince.org and at the private "quality" beta site? I mean we post questions and statements here and people comment on them. Help me understand.

For fuck's sake, is it TOO BLOODY HARD to ACTUALLY READ what it says and follow a link?

.

Yes, the site is currently in private beta, and I've explained why. Soon-ish it will graduate to a regular public website that can be used by all. But wouldn't it be nice if it already had a bunch of questions and answers WRT Prince by then?

.

So what if you don't care about GB, THAT IS NOT THE SUBJECT OF THIS THREAD. If you wanna bitch about GB, go start your own fucking thread and be happy I don't report you to the mods for goign off-topic here.

.

I used that GB-thread as an example of the kind of information that would be perfectly suited for this Q&A site, precisely because it involves facts that are obviously well-known by some yet unknown by others, even though it involves a twenty five year old movie. Information that I'm sure has been posted here numerous times, yet isn't easily available. But once MusicFans goes public, you can bet such information is easily found via Google because Google loooves StackExchange.

.

So much info is buried in long forgotten threads here on the Org. Which is a bloody shame: it should be easily accessible.

.

"I mean we post questions and statements here and people comment on them." Yup, and three months from now that thread is dead and buried and good luck extracting any info from it, buried amongst a pile of opinions and irrelevant remarks etc.

.

MusicFans is a Q&A site, and bad answers (and questions) get downvoted, and sometimes get closed and then deleted. They require quality, facts, data, research,... and reward such effort with internet points and eternal glory.

.

No matter how good PrinceVault is, it contains only a fraction of all knowledge about Prince. And I highly doubt anyone will start a new Prince-related website using state of the art technology, considering the reward for such effort is usually a letter from Prince's lawyer.

.

Remember how Housequake had a post that outlines the differences between the various versions of several online releases? Wouldn't it be nice if that post was still available and easily retrievable?

HA HA HA HA NOT INTERESTED

antonb said:

HA HA HA HA NOT INTERESTED

BartVanHemelen said:

For fuck's sake, is it TOO BLOODY HARD to ACTUALLY READ what it says and follow a link?

.

Yes, the site is currently in private beta, and I've explained why. Soon-ish it will graduate to a regular public website that can be used by all. But wouldn't it be nice if it already had a bunch of questions and answers WRT Prince by then?

.

So what if you don't care about GB, THAT IS NOT THE SUBJECT OF THIS THREAD. If you wanna bitch about GB, go start your own fucking thread and be happy I don't report you to the mods for goign off-topic here.

.

I used that GB-thread as an example of the kind of information that would be perfectly suited for this Q&A site, precisely because it involves facts that are obviously well-known by some yet unknown by others, even though it involves a twenty five year old movie. Information that I'm sure has been posted here numerous times, yet isn't easily available. But once MusicFans goes public, you can bet such information is easily found via Google because Google loooves StackExchange.

.

So much info is buried in long forgotten threads here on the Org. Which is a bloody shame: it should be easily accessible.

.

"I mean we post questions and statements here and people comment on them." Yup, and three months from now that thread is dead and buried and good luck extracting any info from it, buried amongst a pile of opinions and irrelevant remarks etc.

.

MusicFans is a Q&A site, and bad answers (and questions) get downvoted, and sometimes get closed and then deleted. They require quality, facts, data, research,... and reward such effort with internet points and eternal glory.

.

No matter how good PrinceVault is, it contains only a fraction of all knowledge about Prince. And I highly doubt anyone will start a new Prince-related website using state of the art technology, considering the reward for such effort is usually a letter from Prince's lawyer.

.

Remember how Housequake had a post that outlines the differences between the various versions of several online releases? Wouldn't it be nice if that post was still available and easily retrievable?

Though I'm not anywhere near knowledgable enough to help, I sincerley hope those that are do. I love the threads that actually teach me something new (yes - even when they're about GB) and its such a shame they disappear so quickly. Good luck with recruiting - I look forward to seeing it when it becomes public

so whats to stop a%holes from jumping in and taking a dump and leaving?

This looks like a very worthwhile endeavor and I thank youi for putting it together. Best of luck, and I hope to participate!

I think I'll stay here to provide non-quality content.

RodeoSchro said:

This looks like a very worthwhile endeavor and I thank youi for putting it together. Best of luck, and I hope to participate!

.

I agree! I'm much too recent a fan to be very knowledgeable about Prince, though. I'm just posting here to show support for the idea.

KingSausage said:

Bart, please sign me up. I do my best to contribute to real discussions here. The test of the time I enjoy fucking with the idiots. I'll email you.

Oh PLEASE, PLEASE , PLEASE, PLEASE SIGN ME UP TOOOO! (NOT)

^ you already wrote that once, above..

Sounds pretty great, I'll certainly check it out when it launches.

Sounds good to me. This intellectual dead space exists only because alternatives do not.

Sounds interesting.

I'm gonna go 'off topic' and see if Bart reports me to the mods

MJ or Prince who's best?

[Edited 3/2/15 16:03pm]

maplenpg said:

Though I'm not anywhere near knowledgable enough to help, I sincerley hope those that are do. I love the threads that actually teach me something new (yes - even when they're about GB) and its such a shame they disappear so quickly. Good luck with recruiting - I look forward to seeing it when it becomes public

Co-sign. I don't know much content-wise, but if you need help scouring the bowels of the Org for topic-specific info or proof-reading answers to questions, I have research/editing experience and some free time. If not, good luck! Looking forward to the results.

Dandroppedadime said:

I'm gonna go 'off topic' and see if Bart reports me to the mods

MJ or Prince who's best?

[Edited 3/2/15 16:03pm]

At Basketball? Michael Jordan.

nuff said ^^^^

Ugh, yeah, so I kinda lost track of this. Turns out the site is now in public beta and everyone can access it. So if you can contribute Prince-related content (and other content), please do: http://musicfans.stackexchange.com/ . Please tag your questions properly, e.g. Prince.

.

Note that I'm merely a user, not an admin etc. I just happen to have noticed this site while it was still in proposal state, and simply by commintting to the site at that point I got invited for the private beta.

.

But I do feel that it could be a useful tool to expose interesting content to a greater audience.

.

Before you do anything, please follow the tour to get an idea of what is required of your participation. StackExchange sites have a particular way of working. The help center also contain plenty of answers to any questions you might have, and if you feel there's still something that isn't covered in either of those places, ask on the meta site.