Using Bhangra Mixes board versus Media Center

[Saleem]

I'm starting to test the new forum platform, and we don't yet have a Media Center there. However, I'm seeing more and more music getting posted to the Music Board that's linked to SoundCloud or YouTube, rather than attached files.


This means the Media Center itself has become less important. In searching through the usage data, the media center seems to drive about 0.2% of BTF unique pageviews, so it doesn't seem like cutting this feature will negatively impact people's consumption of mixes and music. Instead, we'll improve the automatic embedding of SoundCloud, YouTube, and other sites' links.


Sounds good? Thoughts?

 

[sangeensingh]

I <3 the media center

 

[voxanimus]

i don't want the existing batch of files sitting in the center to become unaccessible though


plus uploading things to the media center is often the only way to prevent them from becoming prey to overzealous copyright vultures

 

[Basim]

:'( Don't do it Saleem! Media Center is one of the best things of BTF!

I sometimes want a digitial copy of the of a song or a mix and having to go elsewhere to look for that will be a major disappointment.

I think having the ability to embed Soundcloud, Mixcloud, Youtube, Vimeo, etc links has it's own place on a forum. I mainly check out those links out when I'm on a PC. We still need a place to share mp3's so people can have music to jam to in their cars, at the gym, at work, while on the toilet, etc etc.

My $0.02,

~ Basim

 

[hardeep_singh]

as a btf user with 383 files uploaded to the media center,
http://bhangrateamsforum.com/discuss/profile/?area=showposts;sa=attach;u=4959
(probably the most by any user), i highly object to this course of action.

seems like you wanna save some money on hosting costs

also can we possibly get a ranking for biggest uploaders, just out of curiosity.

 

[rnarang]

Don't think this is particularly common, but when I first joined (and I occasionally still do this), I went to the media center and sorted by # of downloads to find popular older mixes. Whether or not the media center is valuable for recent songs/mixes being posted to soundcloud, youtube, etc., I think it can be helpful for discovering older ones!


(Not to say this use case can't be resolved in other ways, but just pointing out)

 

[HarmanToor]

media center is one of the best features BTF has to offer, keep it on the new platform for sure.

whenever I'm in need of a track, the first place I look is BTF, and back in the day when users like lil sandhu, somi115 and a few others stepped up and uploaded the newer tracks when they came out, it worked almost every time. maybe if you guys find some volunteers to keep that tradition going, it will revive the media center to its former glory.

 

[Saleem]

Awesome feedback guys, thank you! I understand how important it is, and we'll need to develop a custom page to keep a media center even after migrating away from this platform.

Just to clarify two things:

- The media center is just a listing of content that is already uploaded to forum threads. There is no content *only* at the media center, and we won't lose the many many many gigs of information stored on BTF.

- You can still upload to BTF in forum threads, we're not removing that. And given the feedback here, like I said above, we'll do our best to develop a custom solution to make a new media center.

Just one more thing on the gigs of uploads: these go through routine differential backups off-server, and occasionally a full backup to a cold drive. It has all files going back to 2008, with the exception of content I've received copyright notices on-- those files are immediately removed from the site and server!