[Debate] Using Music On Your ProBoard

[myke]

Music

Do you think forum admins should add music to their forum? If they do, should they make sure the music matches the forum theme (ie; not using Metallica on a Harry Potter forum)?

Do you feel often members finds music annoying, or inconvenient for people with slower connections as it will take longer for the forum to completely load?

What are your views on music?

Debate.

[Artemis]

I'm both ways on it, but I'm more towards not liking music on websites. Usually I come across sites that blare music, intentional or not. It's loud, it takes awhile to load, and it takes a while to find how to turn it off. I like browsing without music, and I do think it's a bit more annoying than it is useful.

It affects slower connections as well, which is why when I used to use dialup, I never put music on any of my sites. Even when running at its fastest, it loaded very slow.

In general, I think no music is beter than having music. Granted, it does give a good experience to some users, but to me, it's just annoying.

[Craig]

I personally believe that the cons far outweigh the pros as regards to music on a forum. Actually, music on a forum is one of my pet hates.

My main view on this is, if people want to listen to music, then they have plenty of media options around them to do so if they please - i for example sit here listening to the radio, and my CDs, and i bet i'm not the only one... which leads me to another thing that is annoying about music on any website, is that it interupts what you are already listening too, and can, alot of the time, come as a shock when you suddenly get a loud blast of music coming out of your computer.

Another con is that it isn't really suitable on a forum, simply because of the nature of a forum is that you will be clicking from page to page, and hence the music will keep restarting, which is a major annoyance... i know there are codes that will make the music come up in a seperate window, but do people really want another window open?

You also have to take copyright into account here. Almost all music is copyrighted to someone, and you cannot use it on your forum without permission (although alot of people do), but seriously, this can get your forum deleted because you need to pay for the rights to broadcast copyrighted music... so the options of what you can play is limited. Going on from this, can't it get a bit boring continually hearing the same thing over and over?

Finally, loading time... Music can take along time to load, and thus slow down the loading of your forum (if you are using music on your forum, i recommend putting it in your footer, and not header). This is a major put-off for potential Members, and more importantly, current members.

To be honest, i said the cons far outweighed the pros, and i meant it, i cannot think of one pro for having music on the forum.

[Ímþ®óvîšâ†ó®]

Ok here's my views on admins using music on their forums. I'm a music composer (unknown though) myself, so my views may be a bit predictable lol

Positives

Negatives

Gets the members on your forum interested. Meaning that they'll want to stay longer This gives the admin the idea that it would be cool to have music on their forum with the intention to believe that others will like it. (Only if the admin can compose music) The admin can create a song and upload it in a bid to teach members how to compose music,

Not ALL members will like the music played and will either "Drop-out" of the forum or demand that there be a mute button intergrated Music being played may require buffering - meaning more time to download the data from the host that it's currently on. May not suit the theme of the forum or the area that the music is being played in. Craig already mentioned this and I agree totally. The copyright of a song MUST be taken into account, because that's how most admins' websites get shut down because they are reported for copyright violation without permission.

Overall, I'll find that music played on a forum would in fact be unbearable, because that just deletes the purpose of playing your own music from your p.c. Many members I would imagine would hate that if they aren't allowed to play their own music whilst viewing a website that unfortunately has music playing

[myke]

I don't understand these two positives:

improvisator said:

• Gets the members on your forum interested. Meaning that they'll want to stay longer

How would it get members interested? Isn't the visual look, subject, quality of the forum as a whole that gets people interested?

improvisator said:

• This gives the admin the idea that it would be cool to have music on their forum with the intention to believe that others will like it.

This may be true, but I don't see how this too is a positive thing? Although the admin thinks others will like it, what if they don't?

[Lee]

Music is anoying. Maybe have a board for it. But every where??? No I wont stay for the fun. All that refreshing and restarting. Ug? I think forums are better with out the music
~Mark

[Slacker]

I can't stand music on forums, adverts, or any website. I like my own music, not some sounds I didn't even want played. I find that it really detracts from a forum. I was once surfing around at night, gently listening to my iPod through external speakers and had my laptop speakers on and went to site that had some crappy midi tune which starting blasting. Quite a shock to me and my parents who were sleeping.

If an admin is to have music on their forum I think they should give th visitor/member the option of having it play or not. Either by having it in another window, or not having it auto-start but the user actually pressing play.

[Ímþ®óvîšâ†ó®]

myke said:

How would it get members interested? Isn't the visual look, subject, quality of the forum as a whole that gets people interested?

Yes, true. That's correct however, on many different forums (such as Star Wars forums for example), you would expect to have some kind of star wars songs playing somewhere on the forum (sometimes they are played in a thread, for naming this song competitons etc). For star wars fans, they'll most likely stay on longer because of this.

myke said:

This may be true, but I don't see how this too is a positive thing? Although the admin thinks others will like it, what if they don't?

If they do not like it, they simply should not join. Everyone has different music tastes to other members, so joining a forum with music that you do not like (just to tell them that their music 'sucks'), would be a waste of valuable time, because others may not have the same opinion. Meaning that to take down a really cool song just because some unknown guest said so, would be deemed useless to do. Cause then on the foum. Members that DO like it would wonder where it has gone.

[bsf1002]

I hate it when people put music on their forums. My computer is pretty slow and when they put music on it, it makes it even slower. I also usually listen to music while on the internet and the forum music just annoys me, especially when it takes a minute for the page to load and be and be able to take it off.

[Enchant]

I personally do not like music on the forums...but if they do have them on the forums, then I think they should give the guess the option to turn it off. I dont like it when i go to a place and I have to listen to thier music selection and can't turn it off. Some say well turn your speakers down, first off I shouldn't have to and second, I might already be listening to something.....the best thing to do is ask your members and guest what they would want.

[uare]

A ''what I'm listening to'' thing would be alright, to add to peoples profiles like. I dont think that music should be added to forums though, Mainley because of all the people that would complain: ''Z0MG MATELICA LULz YOU MOOSIC SAWX!!!'', ''RAP? LMAO BIG GANGSTER LISTEN TO SOMTHING GUD LEIK SLIPKNAT!!''. It'd be painfull and constant.

[andyy]

I had Midis playing and it just slowed my site down, which is why I host an online radio show instead so people can listen to the music on the show instead of on my site.

[∞ ConqueringWolf ∞]

Personally I think music on a forum is a bad thing if you have it set to autoplay in the BG. I think music itself is not bad if you give your members a way to turn the music off or on so they can choose to either listen or not listen. To force people to listen to music in the BG that reloads every time they change pages is not good, also after a while I am sure the members get tired of hearing the same thing over and over again and will get tired of coming to the forum if they keep having to listen to it. Overall if you give people the option to turn it off I think you would be ok with it.

[andyy]

conqueringwolf said:

Personally I think music on a forum is a bad thing if you have it set to autoplay in the BG. I think music itself is not bad if you give your members a way to turn the music off or on so they can choose to either listen or not listen. To force people to listen to music in the BG that reloads every time they change pages is not good, also after a while I am sure the members get tired of hearing the same thing over and over again and will get tired of coming to the forum if they keep having to listen to it. Overall if you give people the option to turn it off I think you would be ok with it.

I agree, if i cannot turn music off, i tend to leave the site without looking at the content. I got complaints from the people who are on dial up about the speed of the site when it was on, so removed it.

[mrsyukisohma]

If you're going to use music for your forum, I think that it should be about the theme, but it wouldn't hurt to maybe have a surprised song. It might also help if the members got to be the ones to choose the song, instead of the admin or the other staff members - whoever is in charge of it.

If you have an anime and manga forum, anime music, J-rock, and J-Pop (J stands for Japanese) is very popular among the fans, and will most likely be enjoyed.

For those of you that don't like the music that's playing, instead of leaving the site, why not just turn your sound off? Either that or suggest to the admin to find a way to turn it off or on when a member wants to.

If an admin is going to have music on their forum, it would be better for the member to have a choice to listen to it or not such as an on or off button. Then there is the other option of just allowing the members to choose the songs as stated above.