How has this Piano Forum changed over the years?

[pianistavt]

This question is for those who have been here a long time, preferably at least 10 years, though I'm not sure many of those folk are still posting..
It certainly was more active years ago, presumably before FB took the lead on discussions (?)
Also, reading some of the old posts, there was some serious mud-slinging, personality criticism

[lostinidlewonder]

Squabbles is the nature of the internet  that doesn't change.

Facebook and places like reddit, I've found the help and advice often is quite superficial, forums often are a better place to really "peel the layers of the onion" and thoroughly discuss/debate ideas.

I think as new generations come by certain ways to communicate becomes more popular. 20 years ago discussion boards were much more popular. Today it seems the younger generation prefer more streamlined communication.

It has got to a point where much of the discussion and questions have been asked before. So perhaps that's also why there is less discussion because it can be searched up already.

[brogers70]

I think that there are more and more high quality video resources available on line. If I want to learn how to do a trill, why would I try to figure out exactly what someone means in their text description, when I can find good on-line teachers who make clear (often free) videos about it. I won't get feedback on my own trills, but I wouldn't get that here, either. You have to have a certain critical ability to look at the sources and decide what's probably reliable and what's not, but lots of people (myself included) who post advice here don't post a lot in the audition room, so it's hard to know how reliable the advice might be.

You can find good tutorials, often free, on lots of the pieces many people want to play. If you're willing to pay subscription fees you can get videos made to answer specific problems you are having. There are lots of great ways to get help outside of predominantly text-based fora.

It's still fun to chat in here sometimes, but I suspect competition from other resources accounts for the reduced traffic. Compared to many fora people here are generally pleasant and helpful, so that's a plus.

[thorn]

I joined in 2005. I remember sheet music requests being significantly more active since IMSLP wasn't a thing. It was easier to make friends via forums back then because MSN was a thing and adding each other didn't feel intrusive as MSN didn't give people access to each others private lives in the way Facebook and the like do. On a tangent, it's sad because people grew out of MSN and while our back were turned the thing closed down so I lost touch with everyone from those days and they don't come here anymore.

I think as new generations come by certain ways to communicate becomes more popular. 20 years ago discussion boards were much more popular. Today it seems the younger generation prefer more streamlined communication.

It has got to a point where much of the discussion and questions have been asked before. So perhaps that's also why there is less discussion because it can be searched up already.

Also agree with this. Though I don't mind people asking the same questions/reviving ages old threads because it keeps forums alive, even if not in the way they once were.

[thorn]

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[ted]

As I have been here longer than most I suppose I ought to comment. I do miss many of the people who posted fifteen to twenty years ago. Most of them were genuine music lovers with tolerance and sense of humour, who took their music seriously but not themselves. I never had much interest in deadly serious, combative arguments about what notes to play, how to play them, who is the best and so on. Pianoworld has become frightful in that way, here much less so. Art is not an exact science with clearly defined, universal rights and wrongs but a completely subjective means of inner happiness and self-transcendence; neither is it a tennis tournament with winners and losers.

That is the main change I have noticed, things and people here and on the internet generally have lost their easy going nature; but I rather think the malady is ubiquitous and I am uncertain exactly why.