Don't over-think it, guys. The forum changes resulted from user suggestions. From us. 
 
The Cakewalk folks have more pressing things to do than micro-manage a forum. That's why they asked for our help, and we volunteered.
 
We (meaning the so-called "forum hosts") are NOT moderators. We can't ban you and I, for one, would have absolutely no desire to do so anyway. Now, Wookie, bapu and Karyn, I can't speak for. But at least one of them, who shall remain unnamed, has promised not to rip anyone's arms out.
 
The Software forum is my hangout. I lobbied to keep it just the way it was, and aside from splitting out sale announcements into a separate sub-forum, it will. Promise.

bitflipper
We can't ban you

Actually Bit, you can ban someone. It says so right in the new rules. Considering that at least one of the new "hosts" has repeatedly suggested that I should be banned... well, it is just sort of funny. :-) 
 

On the look out for ALL-CAP postings!!!
 
 
 
 
 
But that is not why I'm posting on this thread. ;-)
 
I would like to suggest that segregating the forum into discrete subjects makes it less likely that ideas will cross pollinate in a positive and useful way.
 
That is how you end up with Magicians that do not know that SONAR imports OMF and forum hosts that do not know what a sample buffer is. When discussions get pigeon holed into categories it becomes less likely that people will encounter ideas that they never even knew they might have an interest in.
 
Classical forums were places where people had varied discussions and encountered other people having discussions. They were not reference libraries.
 
 

mike_mccue

bitflipper
We can't ban you

Actually Bit, you can ban someone. It says so right in the new rules. Considering that at least one of the new "hosts" has repeatedly suggested that I should be banned... well, it is just sort of funny. :-) 

Clarification.  We can temporarily deny access.  More like a cooling off, come back in a day, sorta thing.  We would only ever do that as a last resort when all other discussions have failed and the user persists in the activity that brought him/her to our attention in the first place.   Only the Bakers can perma-ban a user.
Obvious spammers we would deny access without a second thought, but we still have to inform the Bakers to make a ban permanent.
 

I'll defer to the official policy as stated in the official sticky:
 
 

• Temporarily ban repeat offenders. If a member breaks the rules over and over and over again a forum host can temporarily ban a user. This is a very extreme case and you'd have to try really, really hard to get a host to do this to you. Hosts will not ban members permanently, this is only a tool to prevent abuse until a Cakewalk Staff member can investigate the situation.

 
The previous terms of service policy was largely ignored for a decade and occasionally applied capriciously. Every couple of years some folks got bent out of shape over the easy to ignore spam and they would spend more time posting about spam than they have ever seemed to spend discussing SONAR.
 
It will be interesting to see how vigorously and comprehensively a group of volungilantes work to represent the official T.O.S. (that's an acronym) and the freshly posted Code of Conduct.
 
It will be interesting to see if the result of having extra help with policy-ing will result in an environment that reflects the terms of service and the Code of Conduct (which, by the way, I find very agreeable) or if the results will seem as spotty and arbitrarily applied as they have been in the past.
 
It will be interesting to see if a small group of enthusiasts are truly motivated to provide policy-ing in an environment where the actual paid representatives of this forum's owner have never seemed to have the time and resources to provide the leadership that the former term of service has suggested all users should expect.
 
 
 
edit spelling

If you go to a high class restaurant you expect to be waited on hand and foot.  Go to a fast food chain and you're expected to put your own rubbish in the bins provided, but there are always some that don't and staff members clean up after them.
There is also the drunk that wanders in occasionally and starts abusing the customers for no apparent reason that security has to deal with.
 
Cakewalk have basically set on a group of cleaners to keep things tidy and given them a hall monitor badge to deal with the very occasional problems we get.
 
I'm currently at work, I should be printing out pay slips, but I've spent my time today in several threads trying to explain that we're not here to police every post and typo.  We're cleaners. 

Personally I think the SW forum was so overrun with deals that there was often little discussion of SW in it, or it got buried in the onslaught of new deals. I'm not complaining about the deal posts, but I see them as a different thing.
 
But then I already have more than enough EQ's/Compressors/Reverbs/YOM's (Yet Another Moog)/etc., so I don't mind them being in a separate forum.

meh, do the switch and let's see how it goes

lawp
meh, do the switch and let's see how it goes

^^^^^
 
That's where I am with all of this.   I just have to remember to visit both places, though I think that will be easier when there are less and less dollar/euro/pound signs in the threads here.    
 

Hi everyone,
 
Just got my forum account linked. Good to see the new forum layout.. and especially glad that all the spams are gone. Upgraded my monitor to a 39" Samsung LED TV recently which I'm liking it very much, great for reading the forum near or far! ..opps should post that under the Hardware section right..? :) 
 
Cheers.

So... full price software here reduced price software there. Seems to me like they belong in the same place. New software & Old software. When does it become a deal? Not sure the differentiation makes any real sense with its current labelling. I can see this not working very well, people will just end up posting in either one for either reason. I like the rest of the changes though.