🎹 Piano | Tell — feature requests and suggestions

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?

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.

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.

BartK If the post title is displayed at the top, I hope it can still be clicked (on mobile) to bring up the ability to jump to new/old posts.