The above thread was an appeal to Dopers to listen to and critique all-original music by me and my band.
SkipMagic’s reason for closing was:
I went through the CS rules again, and found no mention of requiring permission to post links to original art. In fact, the rules refer to different scenarios involving “original art” threads. To wit:
OK, so:
We’ve had loads of threads involving original art over the years. I’ve posted them, OpalCat has posted them, as well as many, many other posters, about art ranging from music to painting to poetry.
I don’t recall ever having to ask permission before, and it ain’t in the rules.
Why should the mods care, even if there are a ton of threads linking to original art (“we want you to ask first so that the SDMB doesn’t turn into a college-town streetlamp where anything and everything is promoted.”)? It’s Cafe Society. It’s “Our salon for art, drama, literature, movies, music, comics, cuisine – all the artistic disciplines – if it’s about creativity, entertainment, or leisure, it goes here.” If there’s no interest, it will go away. It’s pretty much that simple.
I’m not promoting my band for commercial purposes. I think it’s good music, and I want Dopers to hear it.
Given that my inquiries via PM have thus far gone unanswered (yeah, yeah, real life, etc.), I thought I’d ask here:
What the hell? I’m not exactly infuriated about it, but I must confess to being annoyed. Why does it seem that this board gets more restrictive and anal-retentive as time goes on?
It’s not a new rule, Ogre. Maybe it should be made clearer, but I know we get requests about this stuff so we’ve gotten the word out to some people, I guess. We encourage people to promote all their creative ventures, we just ask that they clear it with us first so we can weed out the occasional idea that crosses over into spam territory.
I don’t see how Ogre’s thread can be interpreted as anything close to spam. He wasn’t promoting an album or even a concert. His OP wasn’t an “empty” OP, with just a link–he discussed his band’s style, technique, and influences, and invited feedback.
How is this any different from the threads inviting visual artists to discuss and view one another’s work? Here’s one from a month ago, that went on for four pages: Artists show your work!
And there have been many additional threads consisting of a single artist posting links to his or her artwork, and inviting comments. I don’t recall anyone suggesting that those threads were spam, even though the artist might conceivably get someone interested enough in his or her work to sell a painting or two. Since those threads were clearly focused on discussions of creativity and technique, and not directly about the commercial promotion of the artworks, it would have been ridiculous for anyone to say they were spam.
I honestly can’t see what’s different about Ogre’s thread, except that it’s music instead of visual art.
It seems that SkipMagic and Marley23 are saying the thread was closed mainly because Ogre didn’t ask permission first for posting a thread that, in the moderators’ opinion, came too close to spam. While I can understand this rule in principle, it doesn’t apply to Ogre’s thread–just reading the OP makes it clear that it is in the same category as threads of other artists’ sharing their works and inviting discussion.
I’d humbly ask the moderators to reconsider this one.
I agree that this post was miles away from Spam. For starters, it was an incredibly detailed OP, and although the music doesn’t seem like it will be up my alley, I’d be more than happy for creative Dopers to be able to put their art up here, give it a context, and have fellow Dopers comment on it. Sort of like what might happen in a real Cafe. It’s not like we have fifty members a day creating new music, and dominating the board. (Although, now I think about it, that would be GREAT).
Of course, we don’t want our own artists here swamping all those essential What did you think of last week’s Simpsons episode’ threads :rolleyes:
These are the sorts of mod decisions i absolutely hate.
There is no way in hell that thread is spam, and if it’s not spam then what’s wrong with leaving it open, and just making a post along the lines of, “Please check with us if you’re going to open a thread like this in future”?
Also, why can’t there be some common sense regarding the poster himself? If he was some newbie whose first post was about his band, i can see him getting smacked down for spamming. But Ogre has been a member here for 8 years, and he’s got over 6,000 posts. If his membership was just a cunning plan to spam the boards with his band’s music, it certainly took a while to come to fruition.
I guess in future we should also have no Critique my photos threads either.
Exactly.
Maybe Ogre should start a thread called Musicians, let us hear your work, and start off by posting some of his own music.
OK, mods. What’s up? Can someone please reopen my thread, since there seems to be a certain amount of interest, and I’ve made it clear that I’m not spamming the boards?
(P.S.: Thanks, mhendo, Junior Spaceman, Götterfunken, WordMan, and Dissonance.)
We know you weren’t spamming the boards, and we never claimed you were. Regardless, we do want you to ask permission before you start threads promoting a group, cause or event, even if it’s something as innocuous as a charity. While this rule is effective in weeding out spam, we also want to make sure the fora aren’t overrun by numerous threads all asking for attention for some pet cause or another.
That said, we do like supporting our artist members, and rarely ever turn down a request. (None that I can think of, but I thought I’d throw in a “rarely” in case some enterprising Sherlock discovered a time when we didn’t allow an artist’s request.) So, please keep that in mind if you start a similar thread in the future.
And, yes, I’ll re-open the thread. I would have answered your PMs and e-mails earlier, but I haven’t been near my computer much these past few days.
