Category Archives: Miscellaneous

Does Blogging Still Have A Future?

Posted on September 28, 2011 by Tim Hall

Has blogging had it’s day, or does it still have a place in the world of social networking?

Yesterday was not a typical day for this blog. I posted an opinionated and provocative rant that aimed a broadside at the cynicism of the record industry and the conservatism of some so-called progressive rock fans. It got picked up by a couple of very high-profile people on Facebook and Twitter, and my hit counter went through the roof.

But normally, when I’ve spent hours writing something like a detailed album review, the sort of readership I get is a fraction the number of people who’d read a pithy one-line status update on Facebook. Given my annual hosting bill for this site, sometimes I wonder if it’s an effective use of my time and money any more.

Social networking has already killed off all but the highest traffic web forums just as web forums killed most internet mailing lists before them. Is it now killing blogging as well?

Twitter has certainly killed off link blogging. There is no point maintaining a real-time stream of topical links using a blogging platform any more; Twitter just does that so much better. But for longer opinion pieces?

One thing I’ve noticed is that I’m often getting little in the way of discussion in the comments section, although I often get a lot of intelligent and civilised discussion on my Facebook page when I link to a blog post here. That might be down to my curating of an intelligent and civilised friends list, when I only accept requests from people I know and trust, and am not shy of defriending someone who turns out to be disruptive or offensive on a regular basis. Meanwhile my blog gets a disproportionate number of drive-by trolls like the “You are a moron” guy on my Wishbone Ash review. Maybe my Facebook friends are unwilling to expose their opinions outside Facebook’s walled garden. Maybe they find the drive-by trolls make the atmosphere too unpleasant. I don’t know.

The big weakness of blog comments is a lack of identity management, which is one thing social networks do well. I’ve often heard it said that anonymity is one of the causes of bad behaviour on the internet, and trolls will go away if only you force everyone to use their real names all the time. This is only half right; what’s actually needed is some form of trusted identity, for which your public posts across multiple sites are searchable. On high-traffic sites which allow that sort of thing it’s surprising how few of someone’s posts you need to read before you get quite a good picture of where they’re coming from. You can usually tell if they’re drive-by troublemakers, or people with a passion who occasionally let their enthusiasm get the better of them. Whether you use a real name or not, a strong online reputation does take a lot of effort to built.

I wonder if it’s possible to create some sort of decentralised equivalent of social network built around the RSS feeds of existing blogs with some kind of trusted identity management for commenters? Or is the march of the social networks unstoppable, and blogs need to find a way to exist in the cracks between then?

Posted in Miscellaneous | Tagged Facebook, Trolls, Twitter | 6 Comments

New Look

Posted on June 13, 2011 by Tim Hall

As you have probably noticed, I’ve given this blog a bit of a revamp, based on a far newer WordPress template. The header image reflects the music-centric focus of the site - if you don’t know who any of the performers are, I can tell you’re not a regular reader.

Navigation links are a bit of a work in progress at present - I’ve given record and concert reviews a higher profile by putting navigation links for them on the main menu.

The layout may yet see a few more tweaks.

Posted in Miscellaneous | 1 Comment

Administrative Note

Posted on March 12, 2011 by Tim Hall

I’ve just received a quarterly invoice from my web hosting provider. The amount of money I’m paying (you could buy quite a few CDs with that) ought to serve as a reminder to a few people as to the purpose of this site.

Recently I’ve had people take exception to things I’ve written, and I’ve even had it suggested that I can’t be trusted to write unmoderated on my own site because “I keep getting myself into trouble”. Nobody should be surprised that I take such suggestions, however well-meaning they claim to be, rather personally.

As long as I’m maintaining this site using my own time and money, absolutely nobody has the right to tell me what I can and can’t write on here. If you don’t like what I have to say, nobody is forcing you to read it. Same goes for my Twitter feed.

Comments, of course, are always welcome. I don’t mind if you disagree with me on the condition that you remain polite and civil in your replies. But if you’re just going to leave insults, don’t be surprised if I decide to delete your post or even ban you from the site. Again, the decision as to whether or not to moderate comments is mine and mine alone. It’s always a subjective judgement call whether to delete a borderline-acceptable comment or to allow it and follow up with a rebuttal.

I put a lot of time and effort into writing for this site; nothing I write on here is tossed together in five minutes, which is more than can be said for some of the more intemperate comments I occasionally get. Guess a comment beginning with the words “You are a moron” perhaps qualifies me to be a proper music critic?

Since reviews of albums and gigs are such a major part of this site, I always try to be honest as I can. Only artists with exceptionally thin skins should be unable to handle constructive criticism. But when I know the artist personally I’ll always try to be positive as well. I write very much as a fan rather than affect the jaded cynicism of the stereotypical critic. And many band members have thanked me for reviews over the years.

Posted in Miscellaneous, Music | 6 Comments

All Change?

Posted on February 27, 2011 by Tim Hall

This blog has been around for the best part of a decade now. When I started it, blogging was in infancy, and it started out, like many blogs, as a personal journal. In the early days I used to post ranty political posts, memes and funnies, much like other bloggers. Over time it focused on three subjects, music, roleplaying games, and trains, and more recently the focus has been almost exclusively on music.

Given that I’m now quite active on social networking sites (especially Twitter), I’ve decided to take stock and decide exactly what this blog is for. I’ve come to the conclusion that some topics, especially rants on politics or religion are actually a distraction from some of the other specialist content on here.

So from now on, this blog will be first and foremost a music blog, with an emphasis on contemporary British progressive rock. I’ll leave the archives in situ, since I’m not the type to go and rewrite history.

As for the other stuff, I’ve created a brand new Roleplaying Blog at http://www.kalyr.com/rpg. Railway-related posts will be found on another brand-new blog on RMweb. For anything I used to post on that doesn’t fall into any of those categories, you can find me on Twitter and Facebook (although I will only accept friend requests on the latter from people I actually know)

Posted in Miscellaneous | Leave a comment

The perils and pitfalls of moderating online comments

Posted on October 30, 2010 by Tim Hall

Very good post on the role of a moderator on online forums.

The rule of thumb I find useful both there and here (and, more importantly given the way people’s internet habits are changing, over on Facebook where blog content is imported) is to approach moderation the same way a good chair would approach chairing a public meeting.

Giving people a chance to have their say is right up there at the top of the list of objectives for chairing. Alongside it are other considerations like trying to give lots of people in the meeting the chance to have their say: the free speech of one person shouting down whatever anyone else says infringes the free speech of all the others also wanting to talk.

While it’s obvious that political (and for that matter, religious) forums are far more likely to turn toxic, at least in theory, than those devoted to subjects like model railways or music, I’ve always found that many online community sites are only as good as their moderators.

The point about shouting down others is a very good point. What’s worse is when the shouting down isn’t just one disruptive individual but two or three backing each other up. It seems to me that it’s a case of “civil behaviour”, “high traffic”, “no moderation”, pick any two. Do nothing to rein them in, and the loud aggressive types will drive away many of the more reasonable posters, who might otherwise have made a useful contribution, but find the online atmosphere too unpleasant. It’s why, for example, I give the official Marillion forum a very wide berth.

Although sometimes I wonder whether at least some of the trolls aren’t necessarily malicious, but demonstrate the Dunning-Kruger effect when it comes to online discourse. This would explain why they always blame ‘the other guy’ when a thread turns nasty.

Blogs are a bit different, in that many of them are very much personal soapboxes, and their owners primary interest isn’t to build a community around the blog - those such as Making Light are very much the exception here.

Posted in Miscellaneous | Tagged Forums | 2 Comments

A Public Plea About Forum Behaviour

Posted on August 28, 2010 by Tim Hall

Don’t know if it’s the time of year, or it’s something in the water, but a number of small prog bands’ web forums have turned rather toxic lately, and worse still, the discord has spilled from one forum to another.

Over the past couple of weeks I’ve read some quite spiteful and mean-spirited attacks against one or two bands, followed up by complaints that the band’s fans are unable to handle criticism. And of course you find some of the very same people will be up in arms if anyone says a word against their band. Too much of it has got very unpleasantly personal.

I am really sick of these “My band is better than your band” pissing contests. Why is it that some people seem incapable of praising one band without simultaneously bad-mouthing another band who are perceived to be competitors? I’m thinking here particularly of a scene of interrelated bands where many of the regular forum posters know band members personally, and have a natural instinct to be defensive when they’re subject to what can easily be seen as unfair criticism.

I recognise that it should it’s perfectly OK to say you didn’t enjoy a particular album or gig, and to explain why. But I really wish people would at least try to be a little bit more gracious about it. I don’t think it’s on to imply that if someone else did enjoy a gig that their judgement must have been impaired. All these bands put their heart and soul their music. If you don’t care for a particular band, just leave them to people who do like them, and don’t keep carping on about how much you think they suck.

And I don’t think it’s OK to post jibes at other forum members who saw things differently, then claim it was only “witty banter between friends” when you find that they take offence. If you don’t know someone well enough to know what you can get away with saying, then don’t say it! And if they do take offence, then it can’t have been just ‘witty banter’. Is that really that difficult to understand?

And before people accuse me of hypocrisy because of some of the things I say about overrated indie bands on places like The Guardian Music Blog, I think completely different rules apply when it comes to big corporate rock acts or currently fashionable bands who have been ridiculously hyped by certain sections of the media - think of it as putting the boot into the hype as much as the act themselves.

Is a little bit more civility and mutual respect too much to ask for?

Posted in Miscellaneous, Music | Tagged Forums | 6 Comments

Are Social Networking Sites Killing Web Forums?

Posted on October 20, 2009 by Tim Hall

Back in the elder days, when Men were Men, beer was one-and-six a pint, and everyone only had metered dialup internet access, internet discussions revolved around mailing lists. (Yes, I know that before that, there was Usenet, but..) . Then as unmetered access became the norm, people moved to web forums, and mailing list traffic slowly dwindled, and once busy lists became shadows of their former selves.

Now I wonder if web forums themselves are dying. I’m on a lot of web forums, and while a few of them still have some sporadic traffic, more and more once-busy sites seem to have been taken over by tumbleweed. It appears that everybody’s on Facebook instead.

Only the really big forums, like RMWeb seem to be thriving. Perhaps it’s because it’s membership is large enough that it has enough of a critical mass to be able to compete with places like Facebook. It’s noticable that the recent site redesign has made things look a little more like a social networking site than a plain web forum. Also noticable that we seem to get more mentions on some bands on a thread in the off-topic area than some of those bands have posts on their official forums.

Posted in Miscellaneous | Tagged Facebook, RMWeb | Leave a comment

What I did on my holiday - Part the Third

Posted on October 4, 2009 by Tim Hall

By the end of the week I’d had my fill of narra-gauge kettles, and it was time for some proper trains again. I’d had Rugeley recommended as a good place for main line photography a few months back. It’s a local station on the four-track section of the Trent Valley line. As well as the procession of Virgin Trains Pendolinos, it sees a lot of freight; mostly intermodal from DB Schenker (Née EWS), Freightliner and DRS. And there’s a nice pub just outside the station supplying food (and real ales) when you get tired of watching trains.

Compared with Newport, where it’s all EWS 66s, Rugeley seems a variety of traction. This southbound Freightliner working has a pair veteran class 86s, still hard at work after 40 years. Other trains had DBS dual-voltage 92s, Freightliner 90s, and Freightliner and DRS 66s. One has to question why so much freight on this electrified route runs behind diesel traction.

The final weekend took me to my old home town of Slough, where my parents celebrated their Golden Wedding. This photo is from Saturday lunchtime, when the immediate family went to The House on the Bridge at Eton. There was a big party the following day at the church.

I don’t always stop to think how lucky I am that both my parents are still with is; especially when I think of the number of friends I have who are decades younger than me, but have lost one or both parents.

This last picture is one of those times when you see a good picture and just happen to have your camera with you. It’s the Thames at Windsor, where a huge gathering of swans had surrounded someone feeding them bread.

Posted in Miscellaneous, Photos, Railways | 1 Comment

Upgrading

Posted on September 22, 2009 by Tim Hall

I’m about to upgrade to a new version of WordPress - if things go strange for a while, that’s why….

Update: Upgrade seems to have gone OK