The future of NSM

[Cobraroll]

Hello everybody, please be prepared for a bit of a rant here.

Let's face it, the site moves at snail's pace at the moment. Uploads about twice a season, except for the summer. Most of the forum
activity is condensed in one topic. Senior members leaving, new ones not staying. We're not a big site, but there is potential to do
so much more. Also, the infrequent updates and anonymous community may keep possible contributors from ever contacting us. We're an archive as if ran by an institution, but there's a community behind it. I have a few suggestions that could help us get more
recognition:

 - More uploaders (preferable two more). At the moment, there are three people here (I think) with access to the uploader script.
However, these are people with a life outside NSM, and never get enough spare time to revise and upload the submitted sheets. It
doesn't exactly help either that only one of them will take responsibility for updating at a time. I think we should establish an
uploader team, with specific guidelines to follow, such as the formatting of sheets. The team members don't need forum moderator
powers (at least outside the Submission subforum), but a team with knowledge, a goal and guidelines is better than a single mod doing
the task. This team would also be responsible for keeping track of the "fulfilling the requests" competition.

 - Next, establish proper guidelines for uploading. That includes a strict keeping to schedules. For example, a set day of the
month updates are set to be on. Sweeping, with comments, will be done by the team continously (read: Whenever a team member gets
time, he can revise a post and write "approved by (member name)"), and the submission thread will be closed for submissions two days
before the update is set to take place.

 - Also, as the amount of "classic" unarranged songs are spiralling towards zero, I think we should establish a new section of the
site dedicated to full arrangements. There are plenty of them lying around in various threads by now. There should also be a note
somewhere that it's less likely that a full arrangement request will be taken than a piano one, if any. They are arranged, formatted
according to the guidelines, why shouldn't we upload them if we get the arranger's permission?

 - Many people go to other sites instead of NSM because they have to download a dedicated program to view our sheets (which in turn
they'll have to register for to download). I suggest that we add .pdf-files to the sheets, or at least a selected few (main themes
from well-known games, for example). If the download counts are affected, we can expand on the concept. I know, there is a lot of
work in converting and uploading 1300 files, but if we start with ten or twenty, it wouldn't be much of an issue.

 - Promoting NSM some way would be cool too. A bunch of people here are active on other forums, and if we just ask them politely to
mention NSM in some way, we might get more visitors. Also, if we finish that video project, it will be good PR.

 - Make the community more visible. If we create a "members" subforum, only visible to registered members, we could have a little
more privacy. On the other forum I use, this subforum is very popular, with the "photos of members" thread getting a thousand visits
a week or so. Competitions would be nice too, or annual "member awards" (with categories such as best arranger, best newcomer, most
friendly, most knowledgeable, etc).

What do you think?

[dahans]

What shall I say? I support your proposals... NSM needs to be changed!!!

[Brassman388]

Agreed. I don't see the problem with any of these points. They all seem great.

[MaestroUGC]

Hmm...I'm all for expansion. I would offer my services for the Uploading Team, but I know nothing about scripts, very little about computers in general. I could help review though the files though and provide a PDF if needed as I review.

But we need approval of the mighty JaMaHa for the ultimate say.

[Brassman388]

Uploaders might be hard to find, but to find people who can at least sift through arrangements will be easy.

[Nintendude73]

I know nothing about scripts, very little about computers in general

There isn't really anything involved that requires extensive knowledge about computers.  It's all done through a form.  The part of uploading that takes time and effort is going through the sheets.

-More uploaders seems like a reasonable idea.  That's not up to me though.
-Strict keeping of a schedule will never work out.  Just trust me on this one.  For a few weeks, a new person will be all gung-ho about updating and do it regularly, but then they'll find excuses...  They'll always find excuses.  Unless they literally have no life in which case bring them on board.
-I think there's still plenty of music that hasn't been arranged for piano.  I'm not totally opposed to full arrangements, I just don't know what the best way to implement them would be.
-I see your point about the PDFs.  Seems like a reasonable idea, though I don't want to be the one who has to update all 1300 sheets with a PDF file.  When you think about it, Finale Reader really is an excessively inconvenient program to download.
-Promotion is great.  Word of mouth is really the best (free) advertising we can get.  Just tell people about the site.  An easy thing to do would be to invite friends on Facebook to join the fan page.
-Your last point is kind of a contradiction, suggesting a more visible community by making a members-only thread, but I see what you mean.  I don't really know how much that would boost membership or community activity, but it would be easy enough to implement, I would imagine.  Competitions likely won't happen, because no one likes a contest with no prizes, and we have no way to obtain prizes.  Member awards could be neat, and would be a great way for an interested member to do their part to promote activity (a community member could easily run something like that).

[Dimentio]

Well, you're definitely right. I support all the changes you propose.

[Cobraroll]

I know 1300 .pdf-files is the online version of a container full of laundry. But say that we first try it out for a few well-known songs, such as the SMB overworld theme, the LoZ main theme, the Pokémon main theme and a few more. I don't know if there is a way to view download statistics, but if the DL count for these .pdfs are notably higher than other songs, we could expand to a few more popular songs.

The "member forum" is mostly not to get new members, but to keep the old. After all, veterans are often the glue that sticks the community together. If we manage to get a site "culture", newcomers would find it easier to fit in here too.

Concerning the schedule of uploading, I hope a team would be more effective than a single uploader taking the responsibility of starting update threads, setting deadlines, sweep and upload. If all the files are approved by a given deadline, it's just for the uploader to do just that: upload. Regular deadlines (say, the first day of each month) would also be easier to keep. Approving files may be a chore, but if it can be condensed into "look at a post if I have five empty minutes", it might be easier. That way, it becomes a regular activity, rather than a full sweep that has to be completed in one sitting.

[universe-X]

This site needs to be changed (I skimmed through ), that's true. But, it all goes back to JaMaHa's word...

[HugoMeister]

I really don't understand any of you, I really don't. I'm absolutely flustered.

Do you think nothing like this has happened before? Why do you think people are going to other sites? Why do you think all the veteran members didn't stick around?

In fact, I seem to recall something happening like this roughly a year ago. Something exactly like this. A few NSM members saw exactly what you saw; extreme lapses of productivity. And they tried doing something about it.

They had everything at their disposal that NSM needed. But NSM didn't want it. They didn't let it go to waste. They did something about everything they brought up. Everyone else who agreed with them followed.

I'm going to fill this quote box with everything that happened, if its mentioned in this thread.

"More uploaders (preferable two more)"
"I think we should establish an uploader team, with specific guidelines to follow, such as the formatting of sheets."
"a team with knowledge, a goal and guidelines"
"Sweeping, with comments, will be done by the team continously"
"a new section of the site dedicated to full arrangements."
"add .pdf-files to the sheets"
"Promoting NSM some way would be cool too."
"photos of members thread"
"annual member awards"
"download statistics"
"it becomes a regular activity, rather than a full sweep that has to be completed in one sitting."
"veterans are often the glue that sticks the community together"
"a site culture"

And then, to top things off, those members operated in a way that didn't take from NSM, nor did they try to harm NSM in anyway. In fact, after they had gone off and done their thing, they still tried to help NSM. They still offered to do such things as submissions, or clean through sheets, or what have you.

Yet you all turn your noses up when you hear any mention of it. You look at it as something dirty, as something less, as something menacing, when in fact, the entire thing is built upon EVERYTHING you suggest now.

Clicky

And notice I'm still here. I haven't left. In fact, we're all here, to some degree. For god's sake, I'm still staff. I'm in the chatroom every single day, still with that power to moderate its users. To be fair, even the few users who go their are either chatroom staff, or our members.

It pisses a lot of us off that had to have happened before, and now its happening again. As a matter of fact, we're still trying to help.

I'm very glad someone (two people even) brought this up:

This site needs to be changed (I skimmed through ), that's true. But, it all goes back to JaMaHa's word...

But we need approval of the mighty JaMaHa for the ultimate say.

I want you all to guess what he said one year ago.

I'm sorry if I come off as some egotistical dick (I'm not trying to, I'm really not), but everything I say is the truth, and quite honestly, you all need a slap in the face.

[universe-X]

^^A bit over-exaggerated and pessimistic imo.

It's not that this hasn't happened before, but we think if this stuff is added to NSM, then more people will come.

I remember coming here and wanting to play the sheets, and I found out I had to pay for Finale to use them. Then I looked elsewhere for PDF's and only came back here for MIDI's... I honestly would've forgot about this site if it hadn't been for UGC's submissions and the updates were popping up like they do now.

And if that's how the veteran members left, so be it. Who knows? Maybe more will come with these advancements.

And I do recall JMH calling this off. Doesn't mean we still can't try...

Can you give us any idea of people who left to VGVirtuoso that are still somewhat contributing here, please? The only I've seen is Sirus (somewhat, I don't know if he even goes there) and Ingus...

Just my $0.02

[Brassman388]

^That's not what Hugo is saying. What he is saying is that we have everything to make the changes ourselves. It's just if we really wanted to, that we could get our lazy asses and start working.

Plus, how would you know whether Hugo is exaggerating or not? Or even, who cares? The point is, we shouldn't make a big deal out of this because all it's going to do is cause problems for the site and its members.

Lets focus on what the site is made for; The sheets.

[universe-X]

Plus, how would you know whether Hugo is exaggerating or not? Or even, who cares? The point is, we shouldn't make a big deal out of this because all it's going to do is cause problems for the site and its members.

Wow, aren't you psychic...

[Brassman388]

Yes. Yes I am.

[KefkaticFanatic]

Goddammit, Hugo is right and you know it.  Just like how he has been right on the majority of other similar points.

People are going to lose interest, there is not a big enough community OVERALL to give this site a giant boost to megaforum status, and those little awards and crap only work when you have a ton of active members, which we don't have.

Also, you registered in fucking January, that alone should make everything you're saying here invalid.