Separate Forum

• May 12, 2014 - 19:44

I'm wondering if there shouldn't be a separate forum for "Music Questions". Any thoughts?

Comments

• May 13, 2014 - 19:34

My experience in the forums shows that people here are eager to help in proportion to the legitimacy a question has as it relates to the MuseScore application and its use. I'll give some examples:

1. A person asks: 'How do I enter a note?'. The answer is usually: "Please read the handbook - especially note entry.' :-)

2. A person wishes to enter two notes on the same beat having different durations. In this case, it's just a matter of knowing the correct terminology - to know where to look in the handbook. This happens quite often and results in a referral to 'voices' in the handbook. The same also occurs with 'tuplets'.

3. A person has a fundamental misunderstanding and wonders what's 'wrong' with MuseScore. See, for instance:
http://musescore.org/en/node/10593#comment-38175
Here the responders go the extra mile. (The entire post is a good read.)

The third example above shows exactly why these forums excel. They often go far beyond the initial question.

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Additionally, there's the 'splash over' factor (uncertainty over where exactly to post):
How many times have questions been posted in the wrong forum, not to mention a completely unrelated (oftimes very old) thread?
This especially happens when 'Technology Preview' questions are posted in 'Support and bug reports', since more people are now trying the nightlies.
Furthermore, as MuseScore 2.0 approaches, with all the new bells and whistles, the existing forums will be jumping!
Version 2.0 is not even here, yet see this 'splash over' post:
http://musescore.org/en/node/25582#comment-100171

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So:
A separate forum for 'Music Questions', I fear, will become home to questions not specifically related to MuseScore: e.g. 'What's a time signature?'
Presently, inquiries like that are often directed towards a notation primer.

Perhaps topics like composition, theory, etc. can be relegated to MuseScore.com. Don't groups for 'composers', 'pianists', etc. exist on that site?

Best regards.

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• May 13, 2014 - 19:45

Not sure why you'd "fear" the new forum being a home for questions like "what's a time signature". My impression is, that's exactly the point - the suggestion is that we add a forum for exactly that purpose. Yes, there probably exist grouups on musescore.com for this, but I don't see a problem with also having a forum like that here.

As it is, I think the General forum is not entirely off topic for this, but really, the distinction between that and Support is already pretty vague. And half the things in Feature Requests turn out to be support requests - people not realizing the feature already exists.

If we were looking to improve forum organization, I might suggest the Support forum could easily subsume Feature Requests and the current General Discussion, then a separate "General Music Discussion" could exist for questions like "What's a time signature".

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