Manoucheries forum down-- what's going on?

gatsby

Good old Manoucheries has been down for 3 days or so now...
What happened? Any news?

PapsPier

Django has decided to shut it down! Too much irrelevant posts on this forum from Grozob, Alain etc.

Bob Holo

You can gain access to limited parts of the site through archival services such as archive.org for grilles & such:

https://web.archive.org/web/20140224232431/http://guitarejazzmanouche.com/grilles/

Too bad that site is down. I LOVED that site. It was among my first sources for all things GJ related back in the day. I hope he brings it back.

That said, owning a web board is a lot more work than it appears. Michael does a lot to keep this board open and welcoming but civil and focused. He has a very light-handed "laissez faire" touch and only steps in at the last moment if absolutely necessary. It reminds me a bit of managing an open jam. At what point do you tell the guy who gets drunk and picks fights that he needs to tone it down or jam elsewhere? Too soon and everyone gets upset. Too late and someone gets hurt. And you'll always have the guy who comes to the jam because it's closer to his house than his normal bluegrass jam - so he comes to the GJ jam to call bluegrass tunes and eventually invites his friends who also call bluegrass tunes because they also like your jam and want it to become a bluegrass jam.

Owning a web board is like that... like managing a jam... times about... 1,000. There are very few web boards as well managed as this one.

Scoredog

I have to say the people on this board are as well behaved as any music board I have seen, that helps.

Matteo

Yes, it's too bad to see the site down. It's been pretty civilized there lately too. I loved the threads on new photos of Django, the personal recordings and long ensuing discussions of tunes like Body and soul, Are you in the mood etc.

Matteo

True, Scoredog, I don't think I've seen one single serious fight here. Learning to play this music is so demanding in itself, there's no energy left for meaningless fights?

woodamand

What a shame! For a neophyte like me, not having access to a web forum like this would be a killer, and I REALLY appreciate the fact that everyone here is so good to deal with. Thank you all for that!

Bob Holo

Yikes. I just re-read my post. It sounds sort of like I'm bagging on the guy who ran Manoucheries. Far from it. Very far from it. I loved that place and I hope he brings it back in whichever form he has the time to maintain - even without a forum, just having access to his charts and links and such... great stuff. I did a domain check on it, and VDG owns it for a couple more years so its in no immediate danger of being snapped up by arbitragers. So that's good.

I was just saying that it's more work to run one of these things than it appears, so I understand why he might hang it up.

When you look under the "Today's birthdays ===> on that side of this site and you see the red "User banned, Carry on" tag, each one of those represents someone the board owner had to unsnarl and block by DNS or email account etc. most likely, today (because spammers frequently enter their birthdate as the current day) Something like 3 to a dozen nimrods try to advertise or troll or hack this forum every single day. I catch a few of them, I guess the other mods do as well, but most of it is Michael. He's the guy keeping the roads clean and our contact data private.

Anyway. enough of my prattle. Much love for the gents and ladies of this board.

spud

i know its been said before, but it's amazing the difference between this forum and the french one, on so many levels. everyone here is so nice and well behaved and over there... oh my goodness. let's hope it does get back online soon though

Bones

Yes, I really appreciate this forum as well. Everyone is in it for the love of this music and mostly leave the ego and negativity out of it. Thanks to everyone who share all this great info!

PapsPier

Over there, there are a lot of really nice people spud, too! People who share information, pictures, scores, music generously and there is a few people (no more than 5) who spoil the posts with useless, incorrect information. The main difference between Djangobooks and Manoucheries is the moderation (and the spirit of moderation).