This is crossing into dangerous ground. In some other online communities I frequent, the moderators will sometimes invite a new and enthusiastic member to be an admin. But it is always by invitation only. When people put up their hands and say "I want to be an admin", such people are usually not the sort of responsible characters who will stick around and do a good job. Of course I haven't been on PS long enough, so I don't know whether such invitations have been offered in the past.

BTW, I do very much like PS the way it is. Of course everyone will have their own conception of the site, so it will never seem 100% perfect. But 90% perfect is certainly good enough--please do keep up the good work!

I, for one, do care. I don't want this cybercommunity going anywhere. It has served me greatly in my short months here as an avenue to communicate and exchange with other musicians of differing levels and persuasions (even if I don't know their actual names), and thusly has reopened a treasured door in my life and heart. I look forward to years of exchanges and contributions, so please, don't scare me this way!

Eddy,

I do care too. If I did not, that would not make much sense for me to spend my time typing here...

Best, M

To you guys who are stirring up all the trouble....you probably don't care, but I think that no one has a right to complain about the way we admins do our business. Really, I am quite angry now and especially because I just spent 45-minutes doing site updating and listening, when I could have been practicing or at least watching a little television - just unwinding from a long day. I do work outside the home now too, and don't get home until after 6:00 in the evening. And then I read all this complaining. Thanks a lot...

That's a good one. You should complain to the management. Can't get the staff these days can you....


As adults. What a wonderfully subtle way of saying I should grow up. I definitely see you are only here to help.

Not sure where you get the notion of an 'ignore list' or 'ignore button'. We don't have such a feature on this site. Though thinking about it, it might come in handy

But I'm really done arguing with you Marik. In that sense at least I'm moving forward. Feel free to continue this useful discussion without me.

Well Chris, I was hoping very much to a different resolution, but that was your choice...

It is clear, you did not listen, let alone understood what I was saying, but on the other hand, that's the human nature to hear only what we want to hear. I do not see any good reason for myself to stay in the place I feel un-welcomed and ignored, even if I found here some friends.

Again, we cannot drop this discussion, pretending as there is no problem and as if nothing happened. I was very clear saying we ALL, without any subtle hints at you, but including myself, as well. You chose to read what you want to read, so I am also moving forward, but unfortunately, (or fortunately for some ), already without this community. Chris, Monica (or management), please feel free to delete my recordings and messages, as you wish, and hopefully, you feel relieved now .

Thank you everybody for those fun moments we had good discussions and/or (sometimes) good fights .

Also, big thanks to those, who took time to listen and post critiques, as well as nice and kind comments about my playing.

Sorry Bohumir, all of this happened in your thread--I did not have an intention to hijack it, that just happened so...

All the best and good luck to all, Mark

I don't pretend for this to be a resolution. My choice is to leave the argument as it's not going anywhere. Your choice is to leave the premises. We all make our choices, sometimes good, sometimes bad.

Good luck, and I am sure you will find some other forum which will make you feel more at home among equals.

I do care, too, and would like to make some remarks, hoping it's not too late ( I caught this discussion yesterday...).
I joined in 3 years ago and even though we miss the interesting contributions and discussions at that time, I believe that PS found some improvements of its own from that time. We (amatures) have grown up to a certain degree as pianists (we certainly play better, we try harder, we really do our best). Not only by oneself, but through encouraging and helping each other. At this point PS serves pianists, and that very well. The quality of our recording can certainly be enjoyed better, by the numourous listeners, so PS serves the listener, either. It is all of us that achieved this, but without our admins it was not possible.

For pros' ears/eyes the level of PS could seem to be insufficient. But the very fact that PS has the room also for enthusiastic amateurs, attracted me an awful lot and this is still the most important point to me. I personally had hard times with harmonizing my passion for the piano and my other life and if I didn't find the PS, I would have quit playing.

But we amateurs don't want to exclude pros or those who were trained professionally, since PS is the community of piano lovers. Alas, if Marik leaves PS, since the others certainly could profit from his abilities in many ways and his willingness to help. And apart from pro or amateur, we need to have new "regulars", in oder to improve PS. Everyone has her/his own merits and the diversity of our members enriches PS.

I didn't follow all the problematic discussions scattered throughout the many forums on PS, but I see that there are utterances which could cause misunderstandings and offences to someone's feeling, even though they are not intended at all. I fully understand how the admins feel at the comments by Bohumir and Marik, but also found Chris' way of commenting on Marik's Chopin thread a bit strange, frankly speaking. (But I bet, Marik, there is no such thing as an "ignored list", definitely.) Cannot you guys try to find another conclusion, once again?

I do not see what was strange (or unrelated/OT, in Marik's words) about it. I just wanted to confirm whether or not Marik intended
to be listed as a PS pianist with this recording. After all, that is usually the goal when people submit recordings, and I find it strange when someone submits such perfect recordings and not want them it up on the site. The wording may have been a bit suggestive, indeed. That's because IIRC after his first Rach submissions we asked Marik if he wanted to join as a pianist but we did not get an answer.

Anyway once again, my only conclusion was that I want to stop arguing with Marik. If that makes him leave the site, well... it's a free country, as they say.

Indeed getting an admin is not so trivial. Ideally it requires a combination of skills in both IT and music, plus a willingness to devote time on learning the stuff (which is also a big investment for us as there are many things to learn) as well as doing the daily grunt work. Keep in mind this is not just a forum but also a large site with recordings we have to evaluate, tag and upload. People don't usually realize that. They think we just sit here in the forum playing the big bad moderator. Well anybody can do that

Over the years there have not been many people here who we think would qualify as an admin, but in those few cases, it was always the same: no time. Actually I can sympathize with people not wanting to do this. If only for the prospect they'd have to put up with me

Finally, something is happening...

Hyenal: +1

Others: Exactly now I can see the problem in a selfishness a little bit (I shouldn't talk about it, especially in this "Black" topic). As I can see, nobody can look at the thing globaly, nobody is able to see it from more than 1 view - somebody's own view. Nobody is able to say: "I want this, I think it is right but others want that and they also think it is good." Theese last posts looks like a children's corner where several children are in a quarrel about how they should play with a ball... Nobody is able to think about others opinions.

Chris: I don't know why you have started once again about moaning. I think everything was told before, I tried to write (but not so clearly) that I understand how you feel, I understand that it is a terrible work, I honour it because I know how it is but also I tried to write something from another view - to make a global objective complex. I feel sad that it has not been understood and that everybody is still "singing his own song".

I feel this discussion has stopped to be productive before quite long time. Nothing will change (at least I don't believe anything will change - it is ), only the relations between people will be worse. I am sure PS doesn't want this and it is dangerous for the comunity - to cut it even more to several camps or to divide more from the "medium level"...

Ha, that is an astute observation indeed. Good to have someone older and wiser step in


I did recognize the good intentions of your post (even though I did not quite agree with everything) and was going to reply in a constructive manner. But then Marik stepped in and things got a bit out of hand. I don't think I started it.


We'll have to see about that. I've said what I wanted to say, well most of it anyway, and am not taking anything back of it.

Let's just everybody go back to before this all started. Bohimur wants to move on and we are not preventing that. Nor is anyone asking Mario to leave. We did ask him several times if wants to become a member and he never responded, which is also a bit strange.
Have a nice day, everyone.

Sounds like a great idea
Too much has been said already. I seem to have over-estimated my skin thickness - it's still pretty easy to wind me up