Hi rallentando,
I'm a member at both Piano Street and Piano Society. If you posted pieces at Piano Society's Audition Room, understand that the purpose of the Audition Room there is quite different from Piano Street's Audition Room. Here at Piano Street anyone can post just about any music as long as it's in mp3 format. So here there is a wide collage of Classical, Jazz, Pops, Covers, New Age, and other music. What gets posted at Piano Society is Classical only. That's their sole focus.
The reason most people post in the Audition Room at Piano Society is to be considered for the site's Artists roster and to continue submitting recordings thereafter. Piano Society does insist on certain standards. A recording needs to reflect musicianship and artistry; the recorded sound has to be of acceptable quality; mp3 format also requires that standards for bit rate and bit sampling be within certain limits; and pianos must be in reasonably good tune. Also professionals are expected not to post recordings and run, but rather to participate in the forums and to critique the recordings of the other pianists.
"Candidates" (my word) to attain inclusion on Piano Society's Artists roster must submit three pieces. These are heard by the Administrators and other interested members and are critiqued. The administrators have the final say on whether or not the recordings pass muster. If so, the pianist is then asked for a musical bio and a photo in order to create their artist's page under their real name. The pianists at Piano Society do have Usernames for the purpose of logging in, and the username will also appear on submitted postings. However nobody can be anonymous there, which is a another rule. We all know many of the other pianists present. That deters some from joining Piano Society if they prefer to be anonymous.
Accepted recordings at Piano Society go into a permanent Archive, while still being displayed as well in Audition Room. A major goal of Piano Society is to build an archive of recordings of standard repertoire as well as music by lesser known composers. At Piano Street virtually all recordings are automatically accepted and remain in Audition Room, although they may appear in Index to Audition Room.
The administrators at Piano Society work at day jobs but dedicate themselves to the Piano Society website in their free time, and they work very hard at site maintenance, critiquing recordings, setting up artist pages and transferring recordings to the archive, responding to member requests, updating notices, etc. etc. They're very busy. Their critiques of recordings are very honest and candid, but often they make helpful suggestions for improving recordings too. Many members believe that critiques from the administrators and other members have helped them to improve their playing. And I should add that the administrators do celebrate fine recordings too. Anyone may resubmit improved recordings to the Administrators Board for further reconsideration to be added to the Artists roster.
I have not observed them being unfriendly, however, except on rare occasions when hoaxsters have been involved, unauthorized advertising has appeared on the site, or similar reasons.
None of the above is meant to imply that one website is better than the other or vice versa. I am merely pointing out that they have different goals and requirements.
If you feel you were treated poorly at Piano Society, what I would suggest is that you go to the website Contacts page and send a message stating your complaint or concerns. That would be the best way to resolve it in my opinion.
I hope this information is useful.
Best,
David
Topic: Piano Society