Protecting UU forum! How to keep it going..

[Cluze]

It might have been more helpful to provide an actual link and an estimate of where in this 54 minute video there's a discussion about Kanile'a's purchase of UU.

This was discussed in another thread about this topic over in "Uke Talk". The announcement starts at about 21 minutes in on that YouTube video. There isn't much detail there, but there is a promise of more discussion to take place on the Ukulele Underground Podcast livestream on Friday 04 Feb 2022 at 1 PM Hawaii time. That livestream should appear in the normal podcast feed after the fact.

 

[jwieties]

Most here think of Ukulele Underground as this forum and I appreciate the potential concerns regarding the impact this could have on the forum. However, at its core, UU is a ukulele instructional/learning system. Recently signed up for UU+ and I’m amazed with the depth and value of their content. I believe this new relationship with Kanile’a will have a far greater impact on the learning side of UU with more resources (financial and guest instructors) and potentially larger audience. Much of this has been in place and is just more official now. It’s already the case that if you purchase directly from Kanile’a, you get a month of UU+ and the UU shop had recently started carrying Kanile’a ukuleles. This could have a huge impact on the UU podcast/jams/open mics, which if you don’t watch you are really missing out. I congratulate the UU crew and hope this is a business venture for them that allows them to cash in on their hard work. I also hope the forum aspect sees minimal impact as it’s best online community I’ve ever seen.

 

[don_b]

It might have been more helpful to provide an actual link and an estimate of where in this 54 minute video there's a discussion about Kanile'a's purchase of UU.

It might have been more helpfuI, but kerneltime had no obligation to go that far. We all know how to use the internet, or else we wouldnt be here, and kerneltime provided more than enough info to cobble together the search terms required to find the video. I dont really see a need to be disparaging for no reason.

 

[kozmoboxman]

I also notice on that site that there is no mention, or links to the UU forums, unless I missed it.

In the footer, tellingly labeled "Old UU Forum"

 

[kerneltime]

In the footer, tellingly labeled "Old UU Forum"

That’s my worry that for a big company like Kanilea, a forum such as this is one is of no purpose even though it means a lot to us..

 

[rainbow21]

That’s my worry that for a big company like Kanilea, a forum such as this is one is of no purpose even though it means a lot to us..

Maybe some should start by revisiting the Platinum 2022 thread and changing their negative comments to how much they really like what they see with the new release.

 

[kozmoboxman]

That’s my worry that for a big company like Kanilea, a forum such as this is one is of no purpose even though it means a lot to us..

all the more reason they should want to let us take it instead of them owning it, eh?

 

[anaka]

Let’s make a list of questions we hope to see answered.
1. Will we be able to complain about Kanile’a post-acquisition in this forum?
2. How will the forum continue maintaining neutrality?
3. What is the plan for the forum?
4. Will Kanilea upgrade and maintain the forum? Get rid of ads?
Any other?

As always, thanks for being a champion of the UU Forum - as you mentioned, the podcast on Friday with Kaimana from Kanile'a will go over what collaborations and future projects UU has planned, as well as answer any questions UUers may have about the future of UU.

Before then, I can answer any questions you may have (feel free to DM me at any time as well & I'll do my best to get back to you asap). The quick answer is that the UU Forum isn't going anywhere. There are currently no plans to change the UU Forum in any way and it will remain open for free discussion as outlined in the UU Forum Rules that the members of the UU Forum set for themselves years ago.

1. The UU Forum has always operated with no preference towards particular brands and no censorship of comments about any particular brand, unless comments don't abide by the Forum Rules. This will definitely be the case going forward.

2. In the past, the Forum was primarily maintained by community-appointed moderators. Last year it was apparent that many of the moderators had moved on and we tried bringing on a few more people to help. As of this posting, to my knowledge, I'm currently the only active moderator. That said, the UU Forum should be moderated by the community - if you would like to volunteer or appoint anyone from the community to be a moderator, please do. It would be a great help especially to maintain Forum neutrality.

3. As stated before, there are no current plans to change the Forum. Any community suggestions on how to make this a better place are welcome.

4. Ukulele Underground is still operating as it's own entity, so Ukulele Underground will continue to maintain the Forum to the best of our ability. (Ukulele Underground and Kanile'a are independent of each other, but fall under the same umbrella in the business structure. Sort of similar to the way that Pixar and Marvel Entertainment maintain their own projects). The Forum was migrated to new software last year, so hopefully it doesn't require any major upgrades in the foreseeable future. As for now, the auto-generated Google Ads in the Forum will still be displayed, though if anyone has input on better ways to help the Forum to be sustainable, suggestions are welcome.

Hope that helps! Again, thanks for the concern and for helping to keep this place safe and functioning. Please reply or send a message directly if you need anything else!

 

[anaka]

In the footer, tellingly labeled "Old UU Forum"

Haha to be fair, this UU Forum was started in 2007, so it is pretty "old" by ukulele community standards. The link in the footer was labeled that way years ago when UU added a private UU+ Forum for members who signed up for UU+. So it's mostly to distinguish between the two different Forums on Ukulele Underground.

 

[John Colter]

I, for one, find Anaka's comments to be most reassuring.

 

[mountain goat]

thank you very much for your post anaka.

i've been reading, sharing music, buying and selling ukes,
learning and participating here since mid 2010
and helped moderate the boards for a couple of years.
i can't imagine a life w/out this community.
i and many others are full of gratitude
for everything you fellas have made and maintained here
these many years.

jon (AKA eugene ukulele AKA hippie dribble AKA mountain goat)

 

[EDW]

I am very pleased to see anaka's comments. That is very encouraging.

 

[captain-janeway]

Agree that I like forum format as well. I've tried discord with another group and I hate that it doesn't save past info. I don't know how many others use discord but it's beyond repetitive because answers to questions are only there for a second

 

[merlin666]

That’s my worry that for a big company like Kanilea, a forum such as this is one is of no purpose even though it means a lot to us..

Kanile'a is not a big anonymous company but rather a small family run business like the other K brands. You can actually visit or call them and talk with the owners directly.

 

[kerneltime]

As always, thanks for being a champion of the UU Forum - as you mentioned, the podcast on Friday with Kaimana from Kanile'a will go over what collaborations and future projects UU has planned, as well as answer any questions UUers may have about the future of UU.

Before then, I can answer any questions you may have (feel free to DM me at any time as well & I'll do my best to get back to you asap). The quick answer is that the UU Forum isn't going anywhere. There are currently no plans to change the UU Forum in any way and it will remain open for free discussion as outlined in the UU Forum Rules that the members of the UU Forum set for themselves years ago.

1. The UU Forum has always operated with no preference towards particular brands and no censorship of comments about any particular brand, unless comments don't abide by the Forum Rules. This will definitely be the case going forward.

2. In the past, the Forum was primarily maintained by community-appointed moderators. Last year it was apparent that many of the moderators had moved on and we tried bringing on a few more people to help. As of this posting, to my knowledge, I'm currently the only active moderator. That said, the UU Forum should be moderated by the community - if you would like to volunteer or appoint anyone from the community to be a moderator, please do. It would be a great help especially to maintain Forum neutrality.

3. As stated before, there are no current plans to change the Forum. Any community suggestions on how to make this a better place are welcome.

4. Ukulele Underground is still operating as it's own entity, so Ukulele Underground will continue to maintain the Forum to the best of our ability. (Ukulele Underground and Kanile'a are independent of each other, but fall under the same umbrella in the business structure. Sort of similar to the way that Pixar and Marvel Entertainment maintain their own projects). The Forum was migrated to new software last year, so hopefully it doesn't require any major upgrades in the foreseeable future. As for now, the auto-generated Google Ads in the Forum will still be displayed, though if anyone has input on better ways to help the Forum to be sustainable, suggestions are welcome.

Hope that helps! Again, thanks for the concern and for helping to keep this place safe and functioning. Please reply or send a message directly if you need anything else!

Thank you for the reply! I did email Alderine and Kahai but I did not have your email. I fully support taking UU to the next stage of its journey and I think Kanilea is dedicated to improving the ukulele world. Looking forward to the podcast.

 

[KohanMike]

I too appreciate Aaron's comments.

---

Michael Kohan in Los Angeles, Beverly Grove near the Beverly Center
8 tenor cutaway ukes, 4 acoustic bass ukes, 12 solid body bass ukes, 16 mini electric bass guitars (Total: 40)
•Donate to The Ukulele Kids Club, they provide ukuleles to children in hospital music therapy programs. www.theukc.org
•Member The CC Strummers: www.youtube.com/user/CCStrummers/video, www.facebook.com/TheCCStrummers

 

[anaka]

Agree that I like forum format as well. I've tried discord with another group and I hate that it doesn't save past info. I don't know how many others use discord but it's beyond repetitive because answers to questions are only there for a second

Really appreciate your input here! For the record, there are no plans to change the current forum format.

Back in 2020, it became obvious that the software that powered the UU Forum at the time (vBulletin) was not dynamic enough for moderators to efficiently continue moderating all of the spam and requests. We were also informed by our hosting provider that support would be discontinued for VBulletin by the end of 2021. We briefly floated the idea of moving the community to a Discord server, but the community response made it clear that most of our core community members did not support the change, so the decision was made to keep the Forum format as is. The closest replacement software that would maintain the forum format was XenForo, so the migration to that new software happened in 2021.

In regards to Discord itself - a well-managed server can be formatted quite nicely with sections and sub-sections that users can monitor depending on their own interests. It does save past information, although for very active Discord groups you may have to scroll up really far or use the search function to find older replies. It is a very different format than the traditional forum and takes a lot of getting used to (granted it does capture a similar feel to the notorious "Ahnko Honu Takes The Lead" Poho threads that were so popular on this forum once upon a time. You really had to keep up with the discussion in order to know what was going on at all).

Again, the UU Forum is not moving or changing in any way. The forum software that we're using now maintains the same forum format and allows mods to address reports and adjust parameters around spam to hopefully cut down on that. We're still learning and adjusting, but it's getting a little better. Please keep reporting any spam that you come across & let us know if you have any other questions!

 

[captain-janeway]

Really appreciate your input here! For the record, there are no plans to change the current forum format.

Back in 2020, it became obvious that the software that powered the UU Forum at the time (vBulletin) was not dynamic enough for moderators to efficiently continue moderating all of the spam and requests. We were also informed by our hosting provider that support would be discontinued for VBulletin by the end of 2021. We briefly floated the idea of moving the community to a Discord server, but the community response made it clear that most of our core community members did not support the change, so the decision was made to keep the Forum format as is. The closest replacement software that would maintain the forum format was XenForo, so the migration to that new software happened in 2021.

In regards to Discord itself - a well-managed server can be formatted quite nicely with sections and sub-sections that users can monitor depending on their own interests. It does save past information, although for very active Discord groups you may have to scroll up really far or use the search function to find older replies. It is a very different format than the traditional forum and takes a lot of getting used to (granted it does capture a similar feel to the notorious "Ahnko Honu Takes The Lead" Poho threads that were so popular on this forum once upon a time. You really had to keep up with the discussion in order to know what was going on at all).

Again, the UU Forum is not moving or changing in any way. The forum software that we're using now maintains the same forum format and allows mods to address reports and adjust parameters around spam to hopefully cut down on that. We're still learning and adjusting, but it's getting a little better. Please keep reporting any spam that you come across & let us know if you have any other questions!

Thanks for the info. Maybe I'll at least look at it again to see if I can find past info. Maybe it was the set up for one one I was on. I'm always willing to check out something new.

 

[mds725]

It might have been more helpfuI, but kerneltime had no obligation to go that far. We all know how to use the internet, or else we wouldnt be here, and kerneltime provided more than enough info to cobble together the search terms required to find the video. I dont really see a need to be disparaging for no reason.

I obviously found the video, although my search turned up a few videos, only one of which was this official Kanile'a video. I never said that kerneltime (who is a friend, by the way) had any *obligation* to pot a link to the video, but I stand by my comment that it might have been more helpful if he did, since he already knew which video he had watched in where in the video he had seen the announcement. Unfortunately, I didn't, and don't have the time to watch a 54-minute video, but I would have had time to queue it up to the portion of the video where the announcement was made.

 

[GVlog]

It might have been more helpful to provide an actual link and an estimate of where in this 54 minute video there's a discussion about Kanile'a's purchase of UU.

I think the UU discussion begins at 17:00.