Dendy Jarrett explaining HC.

Tiltsta said:
Hi Abrasion, good to see you again.

HC was doing fine, except for the total lack of maintenance and infrastructure investment in the site after MF bought it. They basically ignored it until it became critical, hired several firms to fix things and migrate to new 'interactive' software, which resulted in the loss of many posts, the reviews, and a lot of useful features, and these efforts made the forum less 'interactive'. Of course, the people who made the choices were unable to admit they made bad choices until the core members left, and the fix has been a homogenized and sanitized forum that is essentially a MF/GC marketing tool. The 'family friendly' reboot, in a software format that was slow and non-fucntional, pretty much killed off the core members. They have since (after a couple of different reboots with different crappy software packages) gone back to a v-bulletin format, but everyone was pretty much gone, so it takes three weeks to fill up the front page of Guitar Jam.

At this point, they could go back to a reboot of the OLD site, and no one is coming back. The heart of a forum isn't the software, or the ad space revenue, or the 'interactive social media experience', it is the membership and what they can provide. Once that has gone, you basically are starting over. Their point that the web has changed is true, and I don't think anyone could build a HC of old today, regardless of budget or effort. I know I am not going back to have discussions about pickups or guitar electronics for the benefit of MF. If you can't help people you 'know', or at least fool around about nonsense with a fun group of people, what is the point of going to a forum?

Look at this place as a good example of a forum, you can get civil engineering, other engineering, building, pickup making, guitar building, whiskey making, photograph taking, sciencing, rocket sciencing, marketing, administrating, general busninessing, teaching music and other topics, gigging, addiction counseling, guitar selling, music recording, stage directing, IT advising, horse raising, lawyering, car selling, car fixing, car racing, plane flying, beer making, star gazing, cooking, military servicing, DJ'ing, music journalism writing, writing, banking, federal government training, the crushing office cubicle experience living, wheel chair customizing, truck driving, studenting, goat sexing, bamboo sex toy selling, and a slew of other topics I can't recall...for free, from people you trust and respect. Ask a question on almost any topic, and someone here knows about it and will post to help you (and I apologize for any topics we cover that I missed). That is precisely what HC lost with their 'mainstreaming' and it is why most people don't go there. Even a small forum like this, with an active membership, provides a huge positive service to the members. I think the drive there to get 5 star reviews on MF products and strictly on topic sanitized content killed the collective intelligence of the place.

I edited this after a few people liked the original, so they may not agree with all of this.
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TLDR version...They fucked up...........
 
that is the dumbest post in a long, long time.

no one cares about HC. its ghost town and it should be. that place sucks.
 
sleewell said:
no one cares about HC. its ghost town and it should be. that place sucks.
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It is a ghost town, and it does suck. But I do care about it, and I wish that a healthy version still existed.

I participated in that forum for well over a decade, and made a lot of really great pen pals. It's a community where I shared my graduations, my engagement, my marriage, the birth of three kids, my cancer diagnosis, multiple surgeries, the deaths of loved ones, and received support and encouragement. And countless comfortable discussions on art, life, philosophy, politics, religion, etc., as well as the completely mundane and silly.

And, because of the clusterfuck, a lot of them just disappeared overnight, and I haven't heard from them since. It was like the Berlin Wall.
 
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the whole thread is an entertaining read. DJ and HC have their heads up their arses.

seems they've re-opened the "invite only" forums.

realtree71 said "HC has chosen a different species, target audience now seems to be the under 17 crowd and the new to music peeps."

I have maintained that this is what HC wanted all along. get rid of the old membership that could be viewed as creating a feeling of closed cliquishness, dissuading new people from joining, and get the discussion back on-topic, and on-topic only.
 
Flamencology said:
It is a ghost town, and it does suck. But I do care about it, and I wish that a healthy version still existed.

I participated in that forum for well over a decade, and made a lot of really great pen pals. It's a community where I shared my graduations, my engagement, my marriage, the birth of three kids, my cancer diagnosis, multiple surgeries, the deaths of loved ones, and received support and encouragement. And countless comfortable discussions on art, life, philosophy, politics, religion, etc., as well as the completely mundane and silly.

And, because of the clusterfuck, a lot of them just disappeared overnight, and I haven't heard from them since. It was like the Berlin Wall.
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could not agree more
 
Kerouac said:
Oh, and INB4 "HC = Detroit." :embarrassed:
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I enjoyed most of my years on it. I first went by, go ahead and laugh now, please, it was around 99' and I was a young Metallica fan, KirkHammettIsGod...shortened to KHIG and thus starting the kirkhammettisgay. I went under various names since then, I believe something like Cradle of Filth and Venom, eventually ending in CountGrishnackh, to which ended when I had too much to drink too often and posted under the influence too often...the last of it ended with me ranting about how salt isn't bad for you....yeah.

Anyway I'm here now and it's a better place.
 
Grave Bomber said:
I enjoyed most of my years on it. I first went by, go ahead and laugh now, please, it was around 99' and I was a young Metallica fan, KirkHammettIsGod...shortened to KHIG and thus starting the kirkhammettisgay. I went under various names since then, I believe something like Cradle of Filth and Venom, eventually ending in CountGrishnackh, to which ended when I had too much to drink too often and posted under the influence too often...the last of it ended with me ranting about how salt isn't bad for you....yeah.

Anyway I'm here now and it's a better place.
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You need to revert to the chain mail avatar. Immediately.
 
Tiltsta said:
I'm not surprised he would be sad. He built something amazing, and it was really the first successful guitar/music forum. I get why he sold it, and I get why he doesn't get involved in it now, but I am grateful for what he made.
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Pretty much will go out on a limb and say if it hadn't been for HC, most of us wouldn't know each other today... for whatever that's worth. :helper:

It was ten years ago that I stopped lurking and started posting over there.
 
Dendy spells it out (from the same thread) -

Harmony Central's Missions statement is helping people make better music. Due to the language on the site, we found that we were banned from most institutions of learning and at all libraries. Additionally, Google was limiting where we were being surfaced in searches because of language and images of women. These penalties were not allowing us to be true to our mission statement nor to the thousands of learning musicians that wished to participate here. Sometimes you have to trend towards the greater good.
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We were constantly e-mailed from users who would be able to participate in HC when at home visiting parents, but not while at college due to restricted access due to the aforementioned limitations. Again, this is about working towards making HC a better place for everyone. (disposable income folks as well)
And you get no argument from me ...
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The talk doesn't have to be church worthy, but we do have to consider that someone's 6 year old might be looking over their shoulder while they are researching the best strings to use on a 12 string guitar.
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HC is exactly the way they want it now.
 
My user info on HC (same user name as here) says I had been there since Jan 2000, but I'm pretty sure was around somewhat before that. It was a really cool place -- LOTS of interesting, irritating, annoying, funny, cool, etc. people. I really don't think there's anything else like it, and I do miss it, but life goes on...
 
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