[Announcement] Community Updates

Greetings Friends,
 
Today we'd like to share with you our first round of ideas for some changes to the forum and get your feedback. We understand that many of you call this home so we want to give everyone time to provide input or point out any horrible ideas we may have conjured up. 
 
Re-Organization
It's been awhile since we last re-organized the forums and it's long overdue for some spring cleaning. The below outline is our proposed new structure. Please note the names are by no means final just a rough outline of what we are thinking.
 
Products
 - SONAR Producer, Studio, Essential & Base
 - Music Creator
 - Cakewalk Instruments
 - Cakewalk Hardware (including V-Studio, Audio & MIDI devices)
 - Classic Cakewalk (including pyro, Pro Audio, Kinetic & Project5)
 
Feedback Loop *
 - Features & Ideas
 - Problem Reports
 - Forum Discussion
 - Cakewalk Store
 
Community
 - Coffee House
 - Songs
 - Mixing, Production, & Studio Techniques
 - Audio Software, Hardware & DAW Building
 
 
Moderation changes
We have been kicking around this idea internally for awhile but we'd like to find a more effective way at keeping conversation on-topic, civil and helpful to the community. As hard as we try - there just isn't enough of us to fully provide the support that the community deserves. 
 
We'd like to introduce community moderators.
 
Deep breaths.
 
All forums, with the exception of 'Cakewalk store' would be moderated by members of the community. We would work with the moderation team to write a FAQ for each forum that summarizes what can and cannot be posted in that forum as well as expectations and etiquette. Here is what we are thinking, please let us know what you think.
 
1] A small group of handpicked by Cakewalk community members will be invited on a trial-basis to moderate specific parts of the forum
2] We would like to intentionally start with a small group as a kind of trial-run to work out the kinks
3] A private forum will be setup just for this group so that they:
 a) can bring major issues to the attention of Cakewalk staff
 b) have a place to discuss moderation policy
4] Once the kinks are worked out with the moderation process we'd like to explore alternative means of promoting moderators, community elections or appointment by some measure of helpfulness etc.
 
* Feedback Loop Addendum
Features & Ideas
We would like to make it easier to consolidate ideas from the community and provide some means of gauging how much the community does or does not support an idea. The forum has some voting features we are looking into enabling in this section.
 
Community moderators would:
 a] Merge duplicate ideas.
 b] Lock/remove rants or posts that don't include enough information for us to act on.
 c] Relocate product-specific questions to the appropriate forum.
 d] Work with contributors to ensure that any proposed idea is fleshed out and something a developer at Cakewalk could just pick up and start prototyping.
 
Problem Reports
 
We want it to be easier for the community to collaborate on common problems that may crop up in our products. This happens today but it can get very chaotic and difficult to keep track of.
 
Community moderators would:
 a] Lock/remove rants or posts that don't include helpful information to resolve a problem.
 b] Merge and consolidate duplicate reports.
 c] Manage feedback and nudge contributors to provide helpful repro cases.
 d] Ensure that for any reproducible, verified issue on the forum that there is an associated CWBRN ID in our tracking system.
 
Forum Discussion
Basically a place to discuss forum-specific issues or problems.
 
Cakewalk Store
This is a revival of an old forum that we used to have that we'd like to bring back. This forum would be specifically for users having an issue with the store or their Cakewalk account.
 
 

I like it. Do it. 

I don't think they know some of us are always using Sonar even when we are in the CH fooling around but I'm always working on something. The Coffee House is on my screen when I'm taking a break etc. but some probably complain it's a waste of time and a not Sonar related. I have to say a lot of collaborations go on here under the water so to speak that most don't know about. It would be a shame if the Coffee House went away. The Coffee House maintains a SONAR comradery that is unique in ANY forum!

Yeah, hopefully the CH stays intact.
 
One suggestion for community mods is something I see used on other sites. Give the user visible mod status if that's the direction you'd like to go but also allow them to click something in their profile or tools or whatever to switch over to a nondescript Moderator account. That way if they need to post something in a thread to calm down a fight it won't turn into a game of favorites, grudges or hurt feelings.
 
Just a thought. Seems to work well elsewhere.

A few thoughts...
 
I think the proposed streamlining will make the forums much more relevant.
 
Moderators? Well, I don't think it's necessary to take a deep breath. Compared to what's out there Cakewalk's forums are remarkably civilized. I suspect any moderators will deal more with organization and moving to places where threads will get the most attention, as opposed to policing actions. 
 
I love the idea of a separate forum for problem reports. Sometimes people post valuable input on some kind of problem that gets lost when it ends up being post #74 on page 5 of a thread. However I think to be effective, this is where moderation would really come into play to merge duplicate topics and encourage people to provide more information about a problem. I've seen these kinds of forums for other companies and when done poorly, they're whinefests that accomplish nothing but when done well, they make huge contributions by centralizing data and soliciting useful input from the community.
 
As to the Coffee House, off-topic forums are always a hot potato...but people are people, not just software users. Having a place for off-topic posts also keeps those posts out of the main forums. One option is to make them password-protected so forum regulars can get in, while keeping out the +91 Swami Babaji types and trolls. (We had to do that with the political forum at Harmony Central because people who had zero interest in music but did have political agendas would ruin it for everyone). Really, it's up to you guys...it's always difficult to decide the best way to handle off-topic forums, but I think it's probably worth retaining. 

Ah sorry for US folks 'Cake Hole' means 'mouth'.

Looks good. +1 on some spam/troll filter at CH door.

jm24
Forum moderators should NEVER be allowed to mark any response as an answer. ONLY the OP should be allowed to identify what actually was useful.

The problem with that is there's no guarantee that after the problem's solved, the person will come back and mark it answered. Sometimes they'll even say in the thread "thanks, that solved my problem" but not indicate the issue was solved or answered. This makes it more difficult for the people who need to find answers to the same problem.
 
As to moderators, the proposal is for people from the community, not people who have a vested interest in trying to make Cakewalk look good so I don't think you'd have "the Microsoft effect."
 
The points thing is highly variable. I've seen some forums use point systems really effectively for sorting answers for knowledge base articles and such, whereas others are b.s. popularity contests and no one participates in them.

If Cakewalk cannot provide moderator support then considering forum members to do it seems like the only viable choice.  I would prefer the moderators be Cakewalk employees because they are the ones who write the TOS and have the means to help fix issues when they come up.  I have had experience with other forums where non-employees were the moderators and they can sometimes over moderate!  
 
Nothing is perfect.  However, if everyone would simply follow the TOS, we would not have to be moderated at all when it comes to sexual content, vulgarity, hatred, disrespect, politics, name calling, etc...
Sadly, even though most forumites are respectful of others, fights can start and words can fly and then threads get deleted or locked.  Moderators are necessary to ensure that the TOS is respected but I don't think Cake has had time to devote to this.  It is a tough spot to be in for sure.  To improve, I do like that they are considering different folks for different forum sections.  I don't think a few could cover the whole place.  It will take time to develop.  The guideline has to be clearly written so that everyone is treated equally and fairly.  Cake will have to moderate the moderators as well.
 
I don't want the Coffee House to be changed because it has evolved into a very unique group.  I am not a regular contributor here but I spend a good amount of time seeing what's up with personal side of life that can be funny and sad. As long as everyone is welcomed to participate, I hope this place continues as it has.  
 
 
 
 
 
 

There are forums other than the Coffee House? 
 

Community moderators have worked very well in many forums I have used. Definitely worth giving it a try. Just keep coming here anyway, Cakewalkers!
 
I THINK it would make sense to keep separate forums for current versions of SONAR / MC, and one for legacy versions. Helps avoid confusion. Just name them "Sonar X3" and "Sonar legacy forum", or something like that thats very clear ?

I'd like to see Audio Hardware & DAW Building be kept separate from Software.
 
In the software forum there are about 20+ threads a day from people or companies noting new products or deals (which is great, btw) which will drown out the hardware and DAW threads that are often very informative.

A moderator would probably redact that post jm24.
 

Freeze post counts once I hit a 100K.
 
Should only take a week.

bapu
 
Hey, can I be a moderator?

 
Every coffee house needs a barista