I have a couple of objections, but the biggest is that the only ones journaling here are twocats and I, which is only two people (or one person and two cats). Maybe we should wait for journals to become more popular before creating a new tag for it.

    rsl12 I know rsl ... all we're saying is that using member recordings as a blog area will make it look like the equivalent of mis-using that area and taking focus away from the various new entries recordings that might normally be seen in the forum hall area.

    We're not saying it was being done at all ... because the members that started those journals have good intentions. The feature was just a consideration.

      Could we repurpose the Teachers Board? That forum needs saving anyway. We could have a sub-forum of it for Practice Journals or something? Please suggest a good name.

      This is an example of what a sub-forum would look like:

      An alternative would be hosting these in Learners Lounge or Pianist Zone... we could also consider a sub-tag there.

      --
      Beach L168, Wish, baCh, WOW Petrof, Fake Steinway, VS
      TIME

        All great ideas 😁 I know that right now there are only two "journalers", but it might have a lot of potential. It made Facebook great after all 😂

        But seriously though, I think there are many possibilities. People wanting to keep track of their sight-reading progress. Or building a piano from scratch. Keeping a journal of pieces learned. Mapping out all the pianos in Disneyworld. Etc...

        I thought it was a great idea of SouthPark 👍

          rsl12 the only ones journaling here are twocats and I, which is only two people

          Maybe if there's a dedicated category more people will join in! 🙂

          navindra Could we repurpose the Teachers Board?

          I don't think it belongs as a subforum of the Teacher's Board but if you want to replace it with a new forum, that could work? Or subcategory of Learners Lounge or Pianist Zone as you suggested could work as well!

          Sophia But seriously though, I think there are many possibilities. People wanting to keep track of their sight-reading progress. Or building a piano from scratch. Keeping a journal of pieces learned. Mapping out all the pianos in Disneyworld. Etc...

          I like this idea and if we want to be more generic to support future possibilities, I think Practice Journals is too restrictive. Maybe just Journals? I'm on another forum which is where I borrowed the concept from, and a journal "belongs" to the user who started it and they get to decide the tone and content. As in, don't barge into someone's house and be rude to them! 🙂 But hopefully that doesn't happen here.

                  navindra Possible name: Personal Journals (as opposed to just Journals). Just an idea 🙂 Perhaps that would make it double clear that entering a personal journal is like posting on someone's FB page - their place, their rules.

                  Also I'm thinking that Pianist Zone might be a better location? Learners Lounge is becoming a bit of a "garbage bin" (in a good way!) for "everything that doesn't fit anywhere else". But honestly I'm cool with whatever gets decided 🙂

                  Edit: oops, I didn't realize I double posted!

                    navindra I can create a Journals sub-forum under Learners Lounge, move the current journals over there and see how it goes? Note that journals will show up in the primary "Learners Lounge" forum as well

                    Works for me! I like Sophia's suggestion of the name "Personal Journals" to make it extra clear that it's basically someone's learning diary. And I think "Learner's Lounge" is a better place for it than "Pianist Zone" because it's about the learning process 🙂

                    Wonder if someone can come up with a good description that makes it clear that the owner of the journal gets to decide on the content, to ensure that @Josephine's previous bad experiences don't happen again for her or someone else?

                      Sophia What if it’s just an additional secondary tag like PianoTell Journals? Then you can post in the forum of your choice and add this tag. That would work for tech journals as well.

                      It wouldn’t stand out like a primary tag though.

                      --
                      Beach L168, Wish, baCh, WOW Petrof, Fake Steinway, VS
                      TIME

                          navindra would that solve @SouthPark's concern about the journals clogging up Member Recordings, since then they could go anywhere?

                          I personally like the idea of a subforum or even a main forum dedicated to the journals (especially since it could have a blurb with expected rules e.g. "don't be rude in someone else's house"), which would make it an official place for them and maybe others will feel inclined to start their own journals! I also like feeling like it's my own safe space where I can say anything without it derailing someone else's thread. Maybe for some people it would be about their general piano journey (what they're learning, what they're listening to, various thoughts of the day about various piano-related stuff) and not as specific as practicing specific works. For example, last night I heard a performance of Beethoven's Hammerklavier sonata which is apparently one of the most challenging piano works. I'm not so interested in discussing it that I'd start a new thread just for that, but I could mention it in a comment in my journal and maybe someone wants to discuss, or maybe not. It might also help to reduce thread clutter from people who are inclined to create a new topic on every little thought that crosses their mind 🙂

                          I'm actually getting pretty keen on the idea of having a Journals forum/subforum. On the other forum I'm on, having this area has really created a sense of community.

                            navindra Yes, that was my original suggestion (though worded clumsily, lol). I can see twocat's viewpoint too though so really I'm fine with whatever gets decided 🙂

                              I'm all for it, particularly if Navindra is on board. One of my other concerns was one expressed by Navindra a while ago: too many forums makes the main page cluttered. But it sounds like he's not worried about it, so I won't either. I hope the idea takes off. I prefer twocat's idea of a separate forum over the subforum tag idea. It's less fiddly.

                              Draft description:

                              Personal Journals - Users sharing their piano-related journeys/projects. Please respect any commenting guidelines users have stated in the first post of each discussion.

                              Then users can put something like this in their first post:

                              Commenting Guidelines: Positive comments only please.

                              I worry that guidelines will be easily overlooked, particularly if users are viewing from the "All Discussions" page. It would be nice if a warning message popped up any time someone was about to post a comment: "WARNING: You are posting to a personal journal. Please respect any commenting guidelines the user has stated in the first post of this discussion." A search didn't yield an appropriate Flarum extension, but I did find one other person looking for the same thing: https://discuss.flarum.org/d/21754-tag-instructions-warning-before-post

                              EDIT: Maybe a similar "please respect the commenting guidelines" message would also be good to have in the "Member Recordings" section.

                              EDIT 2: Maybe add the following line to the "description" and "warning" above: "If no commenting guidelines are provided, assume that only positive comments are allowed." (Our old discussion regarding the Learner's Lounge rules inspired this idea: rsl12 )

                                  rsl12 I was hoping you'd come up with a blurb! You're very good at it 🙂

                                  Regarding guidelines, if a journal owner feels uncomfortable with a post they can flag for moderation and I hope the mods will make sure that the owner's preferences are respected. But hopefully it's not really needed!

                                    rsl12 One of my other concerns was one expressed by Navindra a while ago: too many forums makes the main page cluttered.

                                    @navindra suggested maybe repurposing the Teacher's Forum? If it is going to be inactive, perhaps that's a good idea. Also, it can always be started back up if teachers come here and ask for their own space.

                                    I think PT evolving into its own thing is wonderful 🙂

                                      True. A teachers forum could always be started up again. Or if a journals forum is about the only other forum addition needed, then keeping the teachers forum and adding a new journals forum should sort it. And having the journals forum would most likely be another significant one-up on PW.

                                      19 days later

                                      Hey @navindra, is this supposed to be like this?

                                      On the home page, I see a horizontal scrollbar at the top nav row, even at full width. There's also a "More..." link that just reloads the home url https://forum.pianotell.com.

                                        Gombessa Weird. I see that too now. It definitely was not there before... I can do a quick CSS hack to remove it but I'd like to know what causes it.

                                        Edit: I think it's related to the new tag recital-submission-open that I added recently, not exactly sure why. I've added a CSS hack to suppress this though. You might have to force reload to pull down the new CSS.

                                        --
                                        Beach L168, Wish, baCh, WOW Petrof, Fake Steinway, VS
                                        TIME

                                          Thanks! The hack did the trick, I just had to refresh the page. 🙏

                                          I have a request. I haven't read everything written above, and I apologise if it has been discussed before.
                                          I would very much like to see pages within threads. For instance, the Neuroscience-based efficient practice schedule thread is so long that it is difficult to handle. It is very good that I can click to Original post and to Now, but scrolling through the whole thread isn't easy at all.

                                          *
                                          ... feeling like the pianist on the Titanic ...