Disklavier

Mark's suggestion of a "web forum similar to Piano World with sections for Disklavier, PianoDisc, QRS Pianomation, Pianocorder, Pianoforce, Steinway Spirio, Live Performance LX, etc. and a couple of "common" areas for discussion applicable to all systems, such as sources of MIDI files, editing tools, etc." could actually be a real  improvement on what we have had: Some of us operate various systems other than Disklavier and are equally interested in systems we don't.  
Mark's impartiality and technical help by email and forum to so many of us, over so many years, deserves recognition and "playerpianoforum.com" in the form he suggests would be a gift.
Can anyone see a down-side to Mark's offer? I would be grateful for his oversight of any replacement for the group we are about to lose.


Ian Williamson






 
On 19/10/2019, at 12:30 PM, Mark Fontana mark@... [disklavier] wrote:

> 
> I concur that Facebook is not an ideal solution.  Migrating to groups.io is a possibility, but one of us would need to pay USD $110 (upfront, and possibly annually) if we want that company to automatically migrate the Yahoo Groups membership roster, message database, file library, etc.  Or we could start a new group there on their free service tier, but we would need to bring over our files and get everyone to sign up again, and we would not have the message history available, and there would be only 1 GB of storage.  Many existing Yahoo groups are migrating to groups.io due to it being an easy solution, but personally, I'd be wary about doing that without knowing more about how it protects user data (such as not selling email lists to marketing firms).  Plus, there's no guarantee that this new provider won't go under too within a few years.
> 
> A while back, someone tried to get people to move to a Google-hosted Disklavier group.  There was also that original "DUG" mailing list run by Yamaha since the early 1990s.  My recollection is that DUG was officially shut down.  The Google group seems to have fizzled out about 14 years ago but is still live at https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/ydug
> 
> For a couple of years, I had parked the domain "playerpianoforum.com" thinking I might set up a vBulletin/UBB/XenForo-style web forum similar to Piano World with sections for Disklavier, PianoDisc, QRS Pianomation, Pianocorder, Pianoforce, Steinway Spirio, Live Performance LX, etc. and a couple of "common" areas for discussion applicable to all systems, such as sources of MIDI files, editing tools, etc.  I never got around to setting it up, out of concern for stealing thunder from the existing groups, liability for user-provided content, dealing with spammers posting links to illegal sites, etc.  But maybe a forum like that is still worth considering.  Some consider web forums to be obsolete, but the nice thing about them is that you're not dependent on some corporate entity who can claim ownership of the content, change or discontinue the service at any time, etc.
> 
> I received a couple of emails in response to my posting in which people assumed I have some kind of administrative role in this group.  I actually don't.  It should probably be Todd Muncy (or the individual to whom he's planning to hand off the group) who decides what to do about the demise of Yahoo Groups.  I just wanted to raise the issue, since other groups have been sounding the alarm this week and it hadn't been mentioned here yet.
> 
> I'm willing to participate in a migration effort, but as I am more of a general player piano enthusiast (I don't personally own a Disklavier), any solution I'd devise would be more along the lines of a forum with sections for each of the player systems rather than something Disklavier-centric.  The way I see it, the users of the various systems tend to have some things in common and could benefit from a platform that facilitates mingling.
> 
> Mark Fontana 
> 
> 
> On 10/18/19 7:08 PM, bill@...-a-geek.com [disklavier] wrote:
>>  
>> Facebook requires registering on Facebook. To many, including myself, it is a dealbreaker. I run a small IT company and I am plenty aware of the pitfalls of joining Facebook. 
>> 
>> However, to address your issues. What is so 'last decade' about this mailing list that you think Facebook can do better?
>> 
>> You mention sharing media is a 'near impossibility'. What type of filesharing you would want? All I have seen are uploads of pdf files and photographs. 
>> 
>> Most of the important information I have seen pass through here is messages/text. 
>> 
>> Do you want something else? something like Pianoworld?
>> 
>> There are plenty of 'off-the-shelf' programs that can easily replace this Yahoo group without going to Facebook. 
>> 
>> IMHO,
>> 
>> Bill
>> 
> 
> 
>