MOTM

A bit of ground to cover in this one :)

UPDATE
=======

Will be shipping kits/modules Mon-Wed of this week, then taking off until 
Mon Dec 1 for Thanksgiving. While wife is out scouring the malls for 
bargains, I usually have a massive office cleaning. I also need to gather up 
the remaining MOTM-730 SMT parts, program the PICs, and send over to board 
stuffing on the 1st. I will not be able to ship all the MOTM-730s on order 
this year but probably 60% of them. I'll still work on them the week after 
Christmas during 'video game madness' (I did my gaming computer upgrade 
yesterday, I didn't blow up the motherboard so I'm OK).

This week I am ordering the last of the sheet metal: MOTM-380 and MOTM-700 
panels. I am also ordering more rack rails to keep up with demand. MOTM-940 
panels ship to me on Tuesday.

SALE
====

Dec 15 to Dec 31 I am running a 15% off sale for assembled modules. The 
shopping cart will automatically reflect the new prices during that time. I 
expect the lead time on these modules to be 6-8 weeks dropping to 4-6 weeks 
by April. The main issue will be ordering more Spectrol and Bourns pots and 
when they show up. Both are quoting 12 weeks now. With 600pc *minimum* 
orders.

WEB SITE RELAUNCH
=================

I'm going to overhaul the website, essentially starting over from 'ground 
zero' (the shopping cart will be about the same). The current source code is 
so thrown together that it is difficult to edit/add/delete content. I'll 
have 'test pages' put up after Christmas, so everyone can verify they work 
with browsers I don't use (like FireFox, Eudora, etc). I hope to add new 
features, more content, better organization, etc.

NEW FORUM
===========

I'm going to move away from the current yahoo group to a 'self contained' 
forum on the site, using phpBB3 (www.phpbb.com). This is the software that 
www.modularsynth.com uses. If you go to the phpBB site, you can look at the 
different styles offered ('skins'). I personally like the PS3 and the 
fisubice2 ones. The reasons I'm changing are:

a) I'm NOT the moderator of the Yahoo Group
b) I like the fact the php-based forum has categories, and it's much easier 
to find stuff
c) I'm going to allow anyone to join/post, but trust me I'm going to boot 
folks off if they misbehave
d) the Yahoo group is 'hidden' and no other synth forum is. I've had several 
people tell me that joining a forum *before* buying was very useful

I have not decide if I'm going to do this before of at the time of the new 
site roll-out.

I consider 2009 to be the 'official' MOTM 2.0 start-up. It will be 11 years 
and ~ 8,500 modules with 650 MOTM customers after starting. I know what 
people expect now versus 10 years ago. I understand the marketplace better, 
the expectations and the 'hot buttons'. And, I am reacting accordingly. I 
just hope the economy improves so that there continues to be a market for 
the new modules coming out. I still have LOTS of modules, in various 
formats, that I want to do. I also hope that my suppliers continue to offer 
the parts I need without jacking the price up 15%/year 
(cough....Tyco....cough) to the point a 100K pot costs more that a 500,000 
gate FPGA or a 32-bit, 75MIPS ARM processor.

Paul S.

>NEW FORUM
>===========
>
>I'm going to move away from the current yahoo group to a 'self contained'
>forum on the site, using phpBB3 (www.phpbb.com).

i hope this forum software allows delivery of forum posts via email. 
email is asynchronous nonblocking. forums are synchronous blocking. 
if i have to remember to check a forum for new posts, then i won't 
get to it. didn't we discuss this a while back and the consensus was 
"leave it how it is" ?

>NEW FORUM
>===========
>
>I'm going to move away from the current yahoo group to a 'self contained'
>forum on the site, using phpBB3 (www.phpbb.com).
------------------------------------

From: motm@yahoogroups.com [mailto:motm@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Jason
Proctor
i hope this forum software allows delivery of forum posts via email. 
email is asynchronous nonblocking. forums are synchronous blocking. 
if i have to remember to check a forum for new posts, then i won't 
get to it. didn't we discuss this a while back and the consensus was 
"leave it how it is" ?
------------------------------------


On forums like www.muffwiggler.com and www.modularsynth.net that use phpBB
you can get email notifications when someone has replied to a thread you've
posted to and for personal messages (PM's) but I don't think you can get
emails of posts (or a 'digest')

I think I've read that's it's possible to do an RSS Feed for a phpBB site
which might be helpful to people who don't want to always log onto the
website but I don't know much about it or RSS Feeds in general.

Personally I think the benefits of web based forums outweigh the negative.
To me it seems much more fun, lively and interactive to be able to include
pictures, links, sound files, text formatting and yes even emoticons into a
discussion.

One nice feature on www.muffwiggler.com that I haven't seen on other similar
forums is if you scroll to the bottom of the main index page there is a list
of the "Last 12 Active Topics". I really like this and it makes it easier
and faster to find current topics.
 
John L Rice

On 2008-11-23 21:26 -0600, Paul Schreiber wrote:

> I'm going to move away from the current yahoo group to a 'self
> contained' forum on the site,

Great !

Instead of getting people's posts delivered to my mailbox
automatically, I'll have to *go* to the site and manually check
every sub-forum !

Instead of having an archive of the list on my disk, it will all
be on a machine somewhere that I can interact with with a latency
measured in seconds !

Instead of threading, I'll have a flat list where you are never
sure which post is a response to which !

Thanks, Paul, this is the way forward. <g>

> The reasons I'm changing are:
> 
> a) I'm NOT the moderator of the Yahoo Group

That is no reason to switch from a mailing list to a web forum.
If you feel you need to control everything, you could switch from
a mailing list to another mailing list of whom you are the
moderator.

> b) I like the fact the php-based forum has categories, and it's
> much easier to find stuff

It also forces you to manually look in each category when what you
are looking for
- does not happen to fit in any of whatever categories the creator
  of the web forum has thought of,
- belongs to more than one of the categories and you made the
  wrong guess,
- has been put in the wrong category.

> c) I'm going to allow anyone to join/post, but trust me I'm
> going to boot folks off if they misbehave

That is no reason to switch from a mailing list to a web forum.
If you feel you need to control everything, you could switch from
a mailing list to another mailing list of whom you are the
moderator.

> d) the Yahoo group is 'hidden' and no other synth forum is.

Couldn't that be fixed by adding a link to it on synthtech.com ?

> I've had several people tell me that joining a forum *before*
> buying was very useful

And joining a list before buying would be less useful ?

-- 
Andr\ufffd Majorel <URL:http://www.teaser.fr/~amajorel/>

Hi

I think the new Forum is a great idea. Im on a lot of Forums like this
and its great if you´re away for a while you can easy find the topics
of your interest. 
So my full support to Paul.

hi

Gregory





--- In motm@yahoogroups.com, "Paul Schreiber" <synth1@...> wrote:
>
> A bit of ground to cover in this one :)
> 
> UPDATE
> =======
> 
> Will be shipping kits/modules Mon-Wed of this week, then taking off
until 
> Mon Dec 1 for Thanksgiving. While wife is out scouring the malls for 
> bargains, I usually have a massive office cleaning. I also need to
gather up 
> the remaining MOTM-730 SMT parts, program the PICs, and send over to
board 
> stuffing on the 1st. I will not be able to ship all the MOTM-730s on
order 
> this year but probably 60% of them. I'll still work on them the week
after 
> Christmas during 'video game madness' (I did my gaming computer upgrade 
> yesterday, I didn't blow up the motherboard so I'm OK).
> 
> This week I am ordering the last of the sheet metal: MOTM-380 and
MOTM-700 
> panels. I am also ordering more rack rails to keep up with demand.
MOTM-940 
> panels ship to me on Tuesday.
> 
> SALE
> ====
> 
> Dec 15 to Dec 31 I am running a 15% off sale for assembled modules. The 
> shopping cart will automatically reflect the new prices during that
time. I 
> expect the lead time on these modules to be 6-8 weeks dropping to
4-6 weeks 
> by April. The main issue will be ordering more Spectrol and Bourns
pots and 
> when they show up. Both are quoting 12 weeks now. With 600pc *minimum* 
> orders.
> 
> WEB SITE RELAUNCH
> =================
> 
> I'm going to overhaul the website, essentially starting over from
'ground 
> zero' (the shopping cart will be about the same). The current source
code is 
> so thrown together that it is difficult to edit/add/delete content.
I'll 
> have 'test pages' put up after Christmas, so everyone can verify
they work 
> with browsers I don't use (like FireFox, Eudora, etc). I hope to add
new 
> features, more content, better organization, etc.
> 
> NEW FORUM
> ===========
> 
> I'm going to move away from the current yahoo group to a 'self
contained' 
> forum on the site, using phpBB3 (www.phpbb.com). This is the
software that 
> www.modularsynth.com uses. If you go to the phpBB site, you can look
at the 
> different styles offered ('skins'). I personally like the PS3 and the 
> fisubice2 ones. The reasons I'm changing are:
> 
> a) I'm NOT the moderator of the Yahoo Group
> b) I like the fact the php-based forum has categories, and it's much
easier 
> to find stuff
> c) I'm going to allow anyone to join/post, but trust me I'm going to
boot 
> folks off if they misbehave
> d) the Yahoo group is 'hidden' and no other synth forum is. I've had
several 
> people tell me that joining a forum *before* buying was very useful
> 
> I have not decide if I'm going to do this before of at the time of
the new 
> site roll-out.
> 
> I consider 2009 to be the 'official' MOTM 2.0 start-up. It will be
11 years 
> and ~ 8,500 modules with 650 MOTM customers after starting. I know what 
> people expect now versus 10 years ago. I understand the marketplace
better, 
> the expectations and the 'hot buttons'. And, I am reacting
accordingly. I 
> just hope the economy improves so that there continues to be a
market for 
> the new modules coming out. I still have LOTS of modules, in various 
> formats, that I want to do. I also hope that my suppliers continue
to offer 
> the parts I need without jacking the price up 15%/year 
> (cough....Tyco....cough) to the point a 100K pot costs more that a
500,000 

> gate FPGA or a 32-bit, 75MIPS ARM processor.
> 
> Paul S.
>

On 24 nov 2008, at 09:09, Jason Proctor wrote:

>> I'm going to move away from the current yahoo group to a 'self  
>> contained'
>> forum on the site, using phpBB3 (www.phpbb.com).
>
> i hope this forum software allows delivery of forum posts via email.
> email is asynchronous nonblocking. forums are synchronous blocking.
> if i have to remember to check a forum for new posts, then i won't
> get to it. didn't we discuss this a while back and the consensus was
> "leave it how it is" ?

I fully concur with you and John. It is the main reason I'm not  
following e.g. electro-music.com and other web based forums as much as  
I would like to. Usually when there's something interesting going on  
there (e.g. the Klee sequencer) I hear about it on one of the Yahoo,  
sdiy or ah lists.

mailing lists = analog (works well, is familiar, easy overview of all  
the subjects, has lots of local control)
web based forums = digital (takes more work to see what's happening/ 
get something done, end result is frustrating)

Paul, you seem to have already made up your mind, so if you could,  
please add at least an option for an RSS feed of all messages.

Thanks,
Ben

I'm with Andre, Jason, and Ben in that I prefer email discussion 
lists to forums. A forum has higher "friction".

Forums do have some advantages, as John Rice said. In actual use, 
though, the categorization does not hold up. The topic of a thread 
usually deviates from the title (subject) assigned to that thread -- 
just like with email lists, but it's worse when it happens in a forum.

Forums are never as organized as they are supposed to be. Email 
lists, of course, don't even pretend to be organized. ;-)  But, with 
email lists, it's easy to scan through every message. Serendipity favors email.

It might seem that a forum is better for archives, but in reality you 
need a good search feature for a forum or an email archive. For truly 
archive-worthy reference material, a wiki is a better solution, anyway.

Whether you switch to a forum or not, I suggest that you add a wiki, 
too. (With a password that's given on request to keep out the spammers.)

John

I can appreciate all of the points of view on this subject, both pro &
con web-based forums as opposed to an email group. I guess I'm
interested to see how this will work out because I've never been a fan
of the Yahoo group and have had my share of issues with it over the past
ten years.

However, speaking as a web developer, I'm kind of astonished that an
application couldn't be developed to answer for the shortcomings that
people are expressing here. When I'm digging for information, a
categorized forum is a help. A search feature that works across
categories alleviates the problems of topic drift. A sidebar showing the
last 25 posts to any forum helps reveal what might not be seen in a
category. A flexible emailing feature seems pretty straight-forward, so
those that want instant emails or daily digests can opt into them...
Those that only want emails when their thread has been updated can have
it that way. Even making an annual text-file "dump" of the forum is only
a SQL query away.

I can't think of a reason why a fairly simple application couldn't
provide all of the features of both worlds, and more.

Are there really no apps that provide these kinds of features...? Is
there money to be made in this area?  :)

Well, I don't care where and how I get the messages from the list, but it is
a pity that the sale doesn't include the PCB's ect...
 
Cheers,
ToAd
<http://geo.yahoo.com/serv?s=97359714/grpId=88644/grpspId=1705032277/msgId=3
1497/stime=1227537826/nc1=4025338/nc2=5349272/nc3=5170419>

I'm with Andre, Jason, Ben, and John. If I can't get the posts  
delivered in real time via email, I will never use the forum. I only  
go to the Yahoo group web page to see why it's not delivering emails  
to me! I've seen a lot of forums and none has ever provided the ease  
of searching and archiving I get from a mailing list. John's points  
about this are right on.

skw

On Nov 24, 2008, at 8:40 AM, John Mahoney wrote:

> I'm with Andre, Jason, and Ben in that I prefer email discussion
> lists to forums. A forum has higher "friction".
>
> Forums do have some advantages, as John Rice said. In actual use,
> though, the categorization does not hold up. The topic of a thread
> usually deviates from the title (subject) assigned to that thread --
> just like with email lists, but it's worse when it happens in a forum.
>
> Forums are never as organized as they are supposed to be. Email
> lists, of course, don't even pretend to be organized. ;-)  But, with
> email lists, it's easy to scan through every message. Serendipity  
> favors email.
>
> It might seem that a forum is better for archives, but in reality you
> need a good search feature for a forum or an email archive. For truly
> archive-worthy reference material, a wiki is a better solution,  
> anyway.
>
> Whether you switch to a forum or not, I suggest that you add a wiki,
> too. (With a password that's given on request to keep out the  
> spammers.)
>
> John
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>

I'm in full agreement with this as well. I've been on a few email  
lists that were converted to web forums over the years. To date, I've  
never had time or initiative to wade through any of those forums and  
since nobody but me is still on the email lists, I've seen little  
reason to post to those lists anymore. It's likely the same will  
happen with MOTM. Luckily, there is still SDIY and ModularSynthPanels  
email lists. Look for me there.

On 24-Nov-08, at 10:08 AM, Scott K Warren wrote:

> I'm with Andre, Jason, Ben, and John. If I can't get the posts
> delivered in real time via email, I will never use the forum. I only
> go to the Yahoo group web page to see why it's not delivering emails
> to me! I've seen a lot of forums and none has ever provided the ease
> of searching and archiving I get from a mailing list. John's points
> about this are right on.
>
> skw
>
>
>
> On Nov 24, 2008, at 8:40 AM, John Mahoney wrote:
>
>> I'm with Andre, Jason, and Ben in that I prefer email discussion
>> lists to forums. A forum has higher "friction".
>>
>> Forums do have some advantages, as John Rice said. In actual use,
>> though, the categorization does not hold up. The topic of a thread
>> usually deviates from the title (subject) assigned to that thread --
>> just like with email lists, but it's worse when it happens in a  
>> forum.
>>
>> Forums are never as organized as they are supposed to be. Email
>> lists, of course, don't even pretend to be organized. ;-)  But, with
>> email lists, it's easy to scan through every message. Serendipity
>> favors email.
>>
>> It might seem that a forum is better for archives, but in reality you
>> need a good search feature for a forum or an email archive. For truly
>> archive-worthy reference material, a wiki is a better solution,
>> anyway.
>>
>> Whether you switch to a forum or not, I suggest that you add a wiki,
>> too. (With a password that's given on request to keep out the
>> spammers.)
>>
>> John
>>
>>

Me too. I can pretty much guarantee that I won't look at an MOTM web
forum regularly, whereas I do read the email that arrives in my inbox. 

OTOH in recent months the traffic on this list has consisted most of
Paul's announcements, responses to those announcements, and for-sale
postings. Maybe a web forum would serve just as well as a list for
this sort of traffic, which isn't as much a discussion as a series of
monologues.

I hang out on SDIY also. Nobody talks much about actually using
synthesizers on either this list or that list. OTOH people do talk
about building them on on that list, and since half of my interest in
synths lies in building them, I find that list more interesting.

--Adam

--- In motm@yahoogroups.com, Scott Juskiw <scott@...> wrote:

>
> I'm in full agreement with this as well. I've been on a few email  
> lists that were converted to web forums over the years. To date, I've  
> never had time or initiative to wade through any of those forums and  
> since nobody but me is still on the email lists, I've seen little  
> reason to post to those lists anymore. It's likely the same will  
> happen with MOTM. Luckily, there is still SDIY and ModularSynthPanels  
> email lists. Look for me there.

Adam,
>>OTOH in recent months the traffic on this list has consisted most of
Paul's announcements, responses to those announcements, and for-sale
postings. Maybe a web forum would serve just as well as a list for
this sort of traffic, which isn't as much a discussion as a series of
monologues.<<

That's right.  This list is somewhat dead, however that's one reason why it
doesn't make a lot of sense to have a full fledged hierarchical forum.
Those kinds of forums are usually only good when there are huge numbers of
threads and super high traffic.  For the tiny trickle of posts from this
list, a mailing list is way better.  And Yahoogroups is a hierarchical forum
anyway if you choose not to get email and just go to the forum.  That's how
I use it for synthesizers.com and everything else.  There's way too much
pointless talk on those other yahoogroups forums that I don't want to sift
through daily in my mail, so every couple of months if I randomly think
about it, I'll just pop over and see what's being talked about.

-Elhardt

I can see why this might be since it's probably easier for Paul to be
flexible with his own labor costs then the cost of materials.

 

John L Rice

From: motm@yahoogroups.com [mailto:motm@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Tom
Adam
Sent: Monday, November 24, 2008 9:04 AM
To: 'MOTM List'
Subject: RE: [motm] Update/sale/web site relaunch plans/new forum

 

Well, I don't care where and how I get the messages from the list, but it is
a pity that the sale doesn't include the PCB's ect...

 

Cheers,

ToAd
<http://geo.yahoo.com/serv?s=97359714/grpId=88644/grpspId=1705032277/msgId=3
1497/stime=1227537826/nc1=4025338/nc2=5349272/nc3=5170419>