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I miss…….
I miss the much-more-active Forum we had when I first joined TAC in Jan ’21.
I believe it was changed somehow during the “big re-work” of TAC a while ago- (but with my limited computer-skills, I don’t know what was actually changed, or how).
To be fair— I love the new TAC site overall…… no question.
But…….. the Forum is different……… way different. It’s not as “friendly, or as “lively”, or as FUN somehow.
There is no way the TAC crew wants or wanted to stifle the Forum in any way, but there is also no question there are less people posting in here compared to in the past, and that is not good in respect to exchanging thoughts and ideas about learning guitar.
Proof?- when I posted this very post, IT was only the 8th post in the prior 24 hours!
Granted, the “old” discussions used to wander a bit, and maybe that was a reason for tightening things up. I dunno.
Merriam-Webster’s definition– “a public meeting place for open discussion”. Just sayin’.
Please, please, please don’t take this post as a “complaining” post about TAC! I’ve been “in” for 2 years & 8 plus months and plan to continue.
But the Forum has changed- (or been changed), and with that came the loss of LOTS of help and information-sharing that the old Forum had. Not to mention the loss of “people” to communicate back & forth with, who just “went away”– as a result of the change(?)– that we haven’t heard from since.
I have a feeling that guitar-learners are still “Forum-izing” somewhere– just less and less in the TAC Forum….. And THAT, alone, is a huge loss…….
Just my 2-cents.
theoldcoach
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This discussion was modified 2 years, 6 months ago by
the-old-coach.
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This discussion was modified 2 years, 6 months ago by
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8 Replies
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Silly to answer my own post, but I have in the past edited one of my own posts here, and the original just disappears- poof! Frustrating.
Anyway, to further verify the reduction of participation here– check out that there have only been 15- (well, actually 16, now, with this post)- in the past 3-days+. Maybe it’s because it’s Summer…….
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Maybe summer, but just don’t know. Not sure if it is a trend or an aberration. Or a result of coming out of COVID and folks just aren’t as “at home” as they were. The forum and Virtual Open Mics (VOM’s) were more active during that time frame.
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For me it’s the the slow speed of this website. It discourages me from spending much time here. Taking 20-30 seconds to see the list of forum topics drives me nuts.
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I agree @the-old-coach that the forums are just not as friendly or the same, and I truly miss the banter too. Many of the old timers have moved on, which I agree is unfortunate. I lot of knowledge was taken with them. I know TAC tightened down on the forums and posts and their focus went back to basics, meaning the beginner, but learning can be so much more fun with the interactions in the forums and teaching from other people. The new format is not conducive to they type of banter we used to have. Also, new people aren’t urged to introduce themselves and be welcomed by a trove of people to make them feel a part of and welcome.
It would be nice if there was a better balance between the new lessons, which I love, and the ability to have a more free flowing and user friendly forum section that doesn’t limit us into 6 groupings or so. There were so many other interesting forums that talked about equipment, new guitars (we all like to showcase our guitars, especially when new).
The members need to step up, however, and respond to posts by others to make them feel a part of the community and that their posts are important. Make others feel valued in their journey by commenting on videos of others playing. That takes courage to do so, and it is a way to grow in your journey. I’ve become somewhat discouraged and don’t post nearly as often as I used to. I would comment on just about every post, because I would hope to have some traffic on my own posts. There are only a few people that seem to hold it together, but anyone can have an impact on someone elses journey.
If you have a day more than someone playing, then you have experience and can assist another person. That used to be the backbone of TAC was everyone helping each other out.
And yes, the site is still much slower than the last site, but it’s better than it initially was. I would hope that TAC would continue to find solutions to speed the site up in order to load pages more quickly.
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Loraine says:
“the backbone of TAC was everyone helping each other out”
“learning can be so much more fun with the interactions in the forums and teaching from other people”
“anyone can have an impact on someone else’s journey”
“It would be nice if there as a better balance between the new lessons, which I love, and the ability to have a more free flowing and user friendly forum….”
“I’ve become somewhat discouraged and don’t post nearly as often as I used to”
Nailed it…….. well said, miss!
Hey, if we didn’t like it here at TAC, we wouldn’t be here, right?…. BUT…. I think many don’t hang around in here nearly as much. And it makes me sad that many left completely because of the changes…… and THAT in itself has an overall effect on everybody’s guitar journey experience.
I always saw the Forum as a GREAT learning tool– that was also FUN to check in and see “what’s new”. Sadly, not nearly as many see it that way nowadays.
Thank you for commenting-back and keeping this conversation going. I really believe the TAC crew wants to keep their/our site and program an inviting, efficient, and fun learning site………. but the reduced “traffic” here in the Forum should be an indicator……
theoldcoach- (mark)
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I agree with both of you @the-old-coach & @Loraine . I remember when there were so many “ready and willing to help” type of people active in the Forums when I first started TAC. They were all so very encouraging and supportive of newbies as well as each other. I could go on and on about how great the old Forums were (and the old rendition of TAC for that matter) compared to what they are today. I believe the “change over” (late March of 2021) from “Old to Current TAC Rendition” caused a lot of active people to leave, not just the Forums, but TAC altogether. Why? Because they didn’t like the “Current Rendition” – philosophy based content verses the “Old” performance/social based content – just MHO. Then their were the “TAC Post Police” (just a name I’m calling it), but Loraine knows what I’m referring to – a very unfortunate time in the life of this current TAC rendition. I almost quit at that time, but decided to wait, and get closer to my TACiversary before making that decision. I’m glad I decided to stay, but I’m definitely not “thrilled” with this current rendition.
So to your statement, Mark, about fewer people participating in the Forums, my 2 cents on the causes:
1) The limited scope of Forum topics
2) The lack of encouragement from Tony & TAC to participate in the Forums
I could list a few other possible “causes”, but they would just boil down to one or the other of the 2 points I made above. Feel free to respond, maybe you have some more thoughts on my “causes list”, I’d be happy to hear them.
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Hey Mark @the-old-coach ;
Listen, I’d love to say something about this, but it’s tough to say anything without sounding like I’m complaining about TAC. I love TAC. TAC has given me an acoustic life I never thought possible. And I loved the old TAC forum, because it was like a guitar social media site.
But it’s NOT a social media site; it’s a guitar learning site THAT COSTS MONEY. It costs Tony and Levi money to have it on the web and it costs us money to access it. The changes have made it a better guitar learning site, which is what it is.
What’s left of the TAC forum is also better… for what it was intended for. To allow discussion about the lessons and about playing guitar. They choked it down on purpose.
However, some of the perceived problems are because of the platform, Word Press. Word Press offers services that are hard to match. And quite honestly, no platform is perfect. But yeah, there are some down sides.
I think the biggest reason for the lack of participation was already mentioned. This platform is painfully slow. Too slow for me to deal with very often. 😥
MG 😀
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Sooooooooo slow! It gets really frustrating to try navigate around the site. I did some quick math, it costs $197 for a yearly subscription. There are 34,563 people signed up. So that equals 6.8 million per year in subscriptions. Obviously there is ample funds to create a site that doesn’t take 10 seconds to load a page. Maybe Tony should pay more attention to the site that people pay good money for instead of adding to his guitar collection and getting more tattoo’s. Tony should be embarrassed by this inefficient site!
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