Hi Rory,
the description of the group pretty much sums up the intent of the
groups founders:
"This moderated group is interested in techniques, issues and general
discussion of recording natural sounds. Topics include, but aren't
limited to recording techniques and equipment, recording venues and
discussions of various animal vocalizations and communication. Other
natural sounds, such as water, weather and wind-generated sounds are
valid topics."
My understanding of the focus of the group is that sounds caused by
human activity, or made by human artifacts tend to detract from
recordings of natural sounds. It seems that the exact boundaries are
somewhat contested and the recent postings of recordings made in
Manhattan illustrate the problem quite nicely. The city sounds
situate the natural sounds within an man made environment, and I
think there is a definite need for these kind of documentary
recordings. They might not be the kind of thing you play as a
pleasant ambience, but they do illustrate how nature interacts with
the cityscape. The example of foghorn and wildlife recording seems be
of a different order all together, and I would suggest you are moving
into the realm of "musique concrete" which uses natural environmental
sounds and other noise to create musical compositions.
While there is a web interface to yahoo groups, I believe you are
missing a significant aspect of the list if you regard it as a web
based group. Perhaps email lists are outmoded to a generation weaned
on forums etc, but it allows users to maintain a sense involvement
with group interaction in a way that is simply not possible using
forums. A forum requires active intervention by the user to access
any of the information that is posted. A mailing list allows a
subscriber to "filter" the data stream - everything that is said on
the list arrives in your mailbox where you can process, filter and
access it how ever you choose. Lists are certainly a much more
dynamic form of interaction than the imposed data organization of a
forum. Btw seeing blackberries use "push email", I would have thought
an email list was better adapted than an WAP version of a forum :)
cheers
Paul
On 22/08/2007, at 11:23 AM, Rory wrote:
> As a matter of curiosity, is there a reason why this forum is run
> as a Yahoo Group instead of a regular (password protected if
> desired) forum with, say, Simple Machines software?
>
> Maybe I'm in a minority of one, but Yahoo Groups strikes me as
> based on outmoded software that is quite out of step with how
> people use the internet these days, and with the emergence of
> devices, such as Blackberries, that provide mobile access.
>
> And unless I am missing something, following discussions/threads is
> kind of unnecessarily complicated/cumbersome, not to mention
> frustrating/annoying.
>
> Of course, maybe people like the forum this way. I'm just asking.
>
> Cheers
>
>
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>
>
>
> "While a picture is worth a thousand words, a
> sound is worth a thousand pictures." R. Murray Schafer via Bernie
> Krause
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
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