Improvements to website?

[french frank]

There is no standard facility for installing a Like/Dislike button - only a modification and we don't do modifications.

My improvement currently would be (yet again THREATS) to close Platform 3 (at least).

As I looked a few minutes ago there were 16 What's New threads:

Platform 3 - 8
Jazz - 3
World Music - 2
CD Review (Bargains + Amazon Mkt Pl Sellers)) - 2
Performance (BBC4 programme) - 1

If no one is even listening to any classical music on R3, do we (I?) need the forum? Installing a Like/Dislike button for people to check up on how many are on which side in the latest so-called 'political discussion' is about the last thing I need.

Logging off and going out in a huff ...

[Nick Armstrong]

My improvement currently would be (yet again THREATS) to close Platform 3 (at least).

Platform 3 seems to be the most popular... did you mean Performance? (with only one new thread?)

I would say: please don't (either way)!

There seem to be seasonal variations, maybe the run up to Christmas is at one end of the scale, the Proms season at the other - the fact that not many are posting new threads at a particular time doesn't mean it's not great to have the various boards there, in case... (Plus, how many postings were there, as opposed to new threads, I wonder...)

I agree that the 'like' / 'dislike' idea is inappropriate. This is a discussion forum, not a polling site.

[salymap]

I see your point of view ff and it is shared by others. I feel too many political discussions are aired on Platform 3 although I enjoy the occasional chat on Stormy Weather about pets, err. the weather, and other things we share. Anything good tempered that draws members closer together, instead of the unpleasant sniping is surely to be welcomed but there is certainly a shortage of music discussion. I try to post when possible but don't listen much because of tinnitus, I certainly read them though.
I hope you don'tget rid of anything but if the European political situation and our Coalition Govt. etc.could be
controlled somehow that would be good IMO.

[aeolium]

If no one is even listening to any classical music on R3, do we (I?) need the forum?

Isn't that in part a problem of the perceived decline in quality, and therefore interest, in Radio 3 programmes? Unless you have endless complaint threads, such as the ones on the Breakfast, people will increasingly seek to discuss non-R3 topics - after all, how many programmes now on R3 merit regular discussion? I would suggest not enough to justify the continuance of the forum, if it were solely restricted to R3 discussions. There are however quite a few interesting threads about music and arts which are not concerned with anything on R3 and yet which it would be a pity to lose. If you think Platform 3 is becoming too political, or is dominating the forum discussions too much, then you could either discourage threads on political subjects (via a House Rule) or close Platform 3 completely - perhaps retaining a place for the Stormy Weather thread somewhere. It is, as Peter Cook's judge might have said, entirely a matter for you

[DracoM]

What it maybe does show is that decreasing numbers of contributors to this Forum [a] are listening to R3 at all, and / or [b] are unchallenged / unstimulated by what they do hear on R3, but [c] like to talk to intelligent people in a general way.

IMO, if R3 had more genuinely challenging SPEECH programmes, there would be long and interesting threads ensuing, but R3 seems to have pretty well abdicated from the notion of carrying major challenging, polemical speech programmes, so........!

How you reconcile all those, I am not sure. BUT I fully agree with above that intense ongoing response to the music per se is possibly seasonal: Proms etc / major live events get correspondence, BAL usually gets a good deal, and some of The Choir threads get regular clusters, and naturally near Christmas, buying and selling becomes more prominent in minds.

So........?

This Forum is essential to keep a tight check on the identity of R3, its output and as a Forum for a lobby group, it's indispensable.

[Nick Armstrong]

And please don't junk the Alphabet Associations thread which at over 10,000 replies and soon 200,000 views is the Forum's most popular thread, and fosters all sorts of musical cross referencing and research (as well as harbouring a certain amount of tangential wit or at least humour )

[Bryn]

I must admit that these days the vast majority of my Radio 3 listening is done via the iPlayer (Listen Again) HD Sound facility. That does mean that topic discussions re. Radio 3 broadcasts can easily be past my being able to contribute anything new to by the time I have listened. All a bit ironic as I was so keen to have the live concerts reinstated, but at that time HD Sound via Listen Again was not available. With the iPlayer Listen Again option I can skip through most of the chat I am not interested in.

[salymap]

Well, if we don't want to lose anything, perhaps we should post the LIVE concerts on Performance more.
I've just done my twopennorth by posting tonight's Bournemouth concert. What do you all think?

[Anna]

But I wonder how many of us here do listen to the evening concert LIVE rather than up to a week later on LA as Bryn says (if, indeed then?) unless it's a composer or orchestra particularly of interest. If I am at home during the day I'm afraid it's R4 for me in the mornings, until 2.00 (when it's the awful Archers) then the afternoon R3 concert will go on. With R3 schedule being so rigid it's very much that one day is much like another whereas R4 always seems to have something of interest, particularly in the mornings (I'm not alone in thinking that as several people have mentioned it.)

Postings are of course seasonal, as mentioned above, Proms/Total Immersions/Composer Fests/Christmas and New Year programming (when people are at home and able to listen) I imagine with a lot of Dickens coming up (Verb, Nightwaves, Essay, etc.) that would generate a lot of comment on the spoken word.

Unless there is a ban it's difficult to avoid political threads, some like the AV, were very interesting but so many of them degenerate into spiteful point scoring and it's unfair that frenchie has to come along after them with her bucket and shovel to clean things up.

[amateur51]

Unless there is a ban it's difficult to avoid political threads, some like the AV, were very interesting but so many of them degenerate into spiteful point scoring and it's unfair that frenchie has to come along after them with her bucket and shovel to clean things up.

Why is it unfair? If you choose to be milk monitor, spilt milk comes with the territory.

And I recall a fair amount of unnecessarily febrile posts on the AV thread, and not all from me

[Nick Armstrong]

But if people (present company excepted ) start chucking the milk (and indeed the bottles) at each other rather than drinking it, that is unfair and the monitor might justifiably hang up the jolly old crate and say "no more milk, girls and boys!"

Non?

[amateur51]

But if people (present company excepted ) start chucking the milk (and indeed the bottles) at each other rather than drinking it, that is unfair and the monitor might justifiably hang up the jolly old crate and say "no more milk, girls and boys!"

Non?

Are you implying that our esteemed administrator has Thatcherite tendencies?

Cos you're a better man than I if you are

[Nick Armstrong]

Are you implying that our esteemed administrator has Thatcherite tendencies?

Cos you're a better man than I if you are

Who sir? me sir? no sir!!

[mercia]

oddly enough, it's this forum that has done the most to put me off listening to Radio 3. Why should I listen to a station whose apparently all-powerful controller is held in such low esteem - where the content, presenters and sound engineers are continuously criticised. What exactly is there to like about Radio 3?

[Karafan]

"Yet each man kills the thing he loves". Well perhaps a little with R3, but that is only to conceal a deep love for it in reality, despite attempts to dumb it down and jazz it up.