I tried, I really did. To be relevant, to be helpful, to be witty and polite. To provide information and input to promote the product and music making in general. Early raising and checking in through out the day. All those gear and effects sales I pointed out... Heck do you remember my inspirational "Stupid Question for Guitarist" tread? What more can I do? But there are folks on this forum who are like a force to be reckoned with! I guess as I drop off the list, I will just have to tip my hat to the forum top guns who keep this place rockin and rollin.

Keep up the good work Dan!

The User Showcase is where a lot of those top posters come in.

I try too mr. Dan, but I am woefully inadequate in these areas. I guess I’m just not having near as many problems as I used to, and I must be far less helpful than I could be. I need to step my game up! Or ... eat pie, not sure which yet ......... depends on the pie!

Yep, probably 90% or more of our posts are responding to the folks who take time to both listen and comment on our productions and “reviewing” other members efforts.

IMO the most posts offering help, counsel, amusement, general musings, etc., to members at large are here and on several of the other general discussion forums.

Keep ‘em coming.

Bud

Dan,

You made the list! I didn't Congratulations.

All the best,
Noel

Noel, yes you were conspicuously absent. Don't think it was not noticed.

You are not taking up a new hobby are you?

This is true. A real count of the top guns would be the total count minus the showcase count! I believe the showcase reviews shouldn't be counted in the first place. YMMV

Or maybe a breakdown of top posters by sub forum.

Well, I was surprised by the list, who was on it and what position they hold. I try to be relevant and not post just for the sake of posting.... but sometimes I fall short of that goal.

I recall back in the old Cakewalk forum days there was one poster who must have done nothing but post. He was posting on everyone's threads as well as starting dozens of his own. Over there, they really didn't like to see people bumping posts and replying with "DITTO" that was frowned on especially if it was only for the purpose of boosting post count. But a lot of folks would use it on occasion.

Post count matterith not..... at least that's what is claimed.

and yeah.... ditto

After the proliferation of forums a few years back, there are only a few forums I can read faithfully including BIAB, production, tech, beginners, Wishlist, off-topic, and the testing area. I’ve almost never been to the showcase.

Out of polite curiosity why not?

Bud

When you have people posting an individual message that just says "Thank you" every time they post a song, these numbers are meaningless. I have seen threads with 80 replies where 40 of them were those plastic "because I have to" based "Thank you" replies after a song post. How about wait until the post loses momentum and post ONE thank you to everybody who commented? But thee are some who love to see their own name, so....

Think of it this way. As acerbic and salty as I can be, you REALLY want to see more of me? I can get on that list by tomorrow. I have that kind of time! LOL!!!

Those are just attention whores who are either insecure or lonely. I still frown on them! And we have them here.

Also out of polite curiosity I will answer from my perspective. (Did everybody see that? MY perspective. Not trying to tell you I am doing it right and you are wrong. You do you.)

That forum is usually extremely "cluttered" with stuff not worth seeing. 1st of all, I don't believe in god and have no faith based interest, so all of those "praise jesus" songs have zero appeal to me. Add to that the fact there are people there who feel the need to respond to EVERY REPLY individually, so half the 100 post thread is "Thank You". That eliminates about 75% of that forum for me, and I don't feel like spending time sifting through and eliminating songs that don't interest me. 2nd, some of the users began to have a certain "sameness" where every song they do is like 5 others they have done. (I at one point posted that in that time period, however long ago it was, I was going to focus on writing songs that were out of my comfort zone. Thus came a big band song, a jazz instrumental, a techno song, a Johnny Cash/Waylon Jennings-ish country ballad...) It got to where as soon as I saw the poster's name I knew what the song was going to be so I didn't bother listening. I probably haven't listened to a song in that forum for over a year. And for the most part, I also don't think I have posted one in the same time frame. Why? Don't mistake this for ego, but frankly I write for me and don't really care about other opinions. Songs are a personal thing. Every song I wrote was a story from my life, and who can really tell me I am telling MY story wrong? Know what I mean? I mainly posted as a "This is what this great software is capable of producing" thing when I was more active. 3rd, I have really lost my "zest" for this. Playing is painful anymore and life has been so vanilla for the last 6 months or so that I have nothing to say in song. When I finally say goodbye to this old dog of mine I will probably have a few more in me, but songwriting for me is a catharsis more than anything and catharsis requires inspiration through life events. When she is gone and Covid is less intense I will probably write some, but I don't even know that I will even bother posting them.

And that's my dime (that you didn't really ask for).

IF I have the time, like I do right now, I will thank everyone who posted a comment about my songs. When time is tight I will write on big thank you. I think these are the right things to do.YMMV

I don't think I could be of much help. I prefer to spend my time here on topics where I might make a difference.

Well, this is getting interesting....

I feel that if a person has taken the time to listen to my song, and then taken the action and time to reply with any sort of comment, the least I can do is to at the very least say THANK YOU to that person for commenting.

Yeah, it's hard to think of new things to say after about the 5th comment or so unless they say something specific about the song. SO at times, I can only thank them for listening.

If I have the time to address each one individually, I will take the time to do that. Often I am pressed for time and I will put 3 to 5 or more into one thank-you post.

Ditto.... at least I don't say that.

You know, ...... thinking about it.... I might just go back to one post a day on my songs and thank 3 to 5 people in each post.... Nahhhhhhhh what's the fun in that? and yeah.... post count numbers would suffer.

Herb, some day I am going to write a total piece of crap and post it JUST to see how many attaboys I get. Of course now that I said that I'd expect nobody would even acknowledge the posting. (My critics might say I have been doing that for 10 years.) Might just be a fun experiment. There are people here who's opinions matter more to me than others based on their songwriting skills. I always preferred to reply in a PM. In that context those replies are somewhat personal. I now haven't posted in so long....

Just remember Eddie, I'll always be around to harass you. It's what I've been put here for.....

Why I don't frequently visit the User Showcase:

There are some great songs on the showcase but I don't visit that section often for a couple of reasons.
1) I never know what I'm going to hear. While I like some music genres there are many others I don't care for at all. NOBODY ever states their song is such and such genre.
2) I seldom know why I'm listening. Why did the poster upload the song? Is the song a songwriting exercise, a new user learning how to use Band-in-a-Box or RealBand, a song to feature the musician?
3) What styles, loops, midiSuperTracks or RealTracks were used while making the song? Some posters give this information religiously but I'm constantly amazed how many do not. When I hear something I like I want to know what it is.
4) I enjoy participating in other forum sections more than the User Showcase.
5) I rarely post songs to the internet. When I do it's a cover or just a snippet.

AND record it from your drone!

I do! I use it as kind of radio station.

I probably should post responses more often but I do enjoy listening to everyone.

...Deb

Well from what I understand, unless you post songs in the User Showcase (a good time I believe to post a bucket load of them is from October onwards) then you don't stand a chance of winning the next years band in a box.

So in a sense its like entering a competition, if you're not in, you can't win.

Post counts mean nothing except that you have too much time on your hands. Or, you're retired or unemployed.

An interesting metric to watch is "views" on a song post. That lets you know how many times someone has come in to view that post....and perhaps to listen to the song multiple times.

AND yes.... I agree with Jim, it would be a really great idea to post the genre in the OP.... but to me, that's not all that important. I like hearing what people are doing on other genres of music with BB. I try to post the tracks used and other info.... I often forget to include the style I used. The 5 points are more or less valid points to make.

I kinda disagree with that in some regards.
For the cited source in the OP, I wholeheartedly agree; 'most posts in 30 days' is pretty meaningless, changes regularly, and is a small sample size. One year we realized Beta testing comments were showing up in the count and skewing things terribly. That has since been corrected.

Under usernames on a post are their total post numbers.
To me this is a little more meaningful.

/this info is also available via the Users link at the top of the forums
//there was a while when Trolling was an issue here and seeing this provided data helped decipher things (like creation account date etc)
/// Please tell me I didn't just somehow summon Igor

I think all is good as is at the User Showcase Forum. PG Music has two SC "radio" stations that are solely to feature select songs from many members. They also have genre specific playlists of all posts although the genres are big tents

The forum is by far the largest forum here and is a wonderful community. The opportunity to learn from the pro level posters is always there and that is what originally captivated us. It has been a tremendous resource for us beyond simply throwing our songs on it. We have met people from around the planet and have become friends with members with whom we are in frequent contact. And it is, hands down, the most civil forum I have ever participated in. And I've been the admin/mod of one forum and a moderator on another very large forum. Never seen a group of folks like this in my forum roaming from the earliest days.

Although we have many interests other than music our "musical world" at this point in our lives would be dramatically different w/o that forum.

FWIW, Old Guy Rambling, etc.

Bud

I think you may have just resurrected Ivan. Oh, man, that was horrible. But I won't say it's your fault.

Excellent post Bud.

Not sure I agree. Actually, I don't agree at all. I'm neither retired nor unemployed. I definitely rarely have any spare time available. I try to make time to help others whenever I can. Sometimes it's at 3AM. There's a saying: "If you want anything done, ask a busy man". I think I'm one of those persons.

Don't have any hard number to prove this (I may be retired but I do have other things to do ), but I would guess that while the order may rearrange on a regular basis, many of the names on the top 10 list are pretty consistent over any long period of time. But then who's counting.

You can be consistent at a certain average count, but drop off the chart or rise to the top depending on where the scale is at any given day.

Lighten up people.... it was a joke.

Hey, I'm really OK with it. World's got bigger prob's at the moment

Seems to me the list is an appropriate mix of posters (not that the numbers matter). Although I think it should be "heavier" with "Showcase posters" - Dan's picture actually shows that it is non-Showcase heavy.

When I first came to the forum, Off Topics (and those who "lived" there) was king.
That was where all the activity was. The counts of posts, threads and views in Off Topics far outnumbered any other except the "Band In A Box for Windows" section. (They were neck-and-neck).
The Showcase was a step-child forum at the time.
(no offense to real step-children intended).

And, yet, the Showcase was what really mattered to me at the time.
I had never actually even BEEN on a forum before.
But I was truly wanting to know if BAND-IN-A-BOX could POSSIBLY be the product that I had dreamed of finding for years.
I had purchased BIAB years earlier (version 5, 1990?), but gave up using it because I could never make MIDI programs sound "real". (I did use it to check that the timing of my Nashville Numbers charts were correct by entering the chords of a song to check that).

So, when I first encountered the concepts of RealTracks, I desperately wanted to know if they were as "magical" as they were being touted to be.
And I found these forums. Mid-2012.
At the time, very few people were posting to the Showcase.
A lot of those early Showcase posts were pretty basic and did not convince me that BIAB was worth the hefty price tag (hefty for me, anyway).
BUT...there were a small number of posters there who were doing some pretty good stuff (production-wise).
I found that encouraging.
I REALLY wanted to include some fiddle and pedal steel in my productions.
But I was still not convinced enough to open my wallet.
Then I found a Showcase post from Steve Young.
Steve's production was studio quality.
And it was mostly BIAB.
I then walked through the entire Showcase to find everything I could that Steve had posted.
It was well worth the effort.
Steve's work convinced me that BAND-IN-A-BOX was "for REAL".
I bought it the following week.
(Thank you, Steve!!)

To this day, I consider it one of THE best purchases of my life.

Since that time, the Showcase has grown. By leaps and bounds.
The number of good producers posting to the Showcase has grown exponentially.
(I think of it as a "producer showcase", not a "songwriter showcase" - because it is about BIAB, the product, as far as I am concerned).
There is some AMAZING music posted to the Showcase.
And the VARIETY of offerings has continued to expand. What a great thing!
And, hopefully, some of those posts do what they did for me...convince the next guy/gal to BUY BAND-IN-A-BOX.
Every songwriter, every musician, every producer on the planet should own this software.

AND...the Showcase is a great, positive community (as Bud so elegantly described it).

If you think about it, the Showcase and its ability to convince someone to buy BIAB, must be considered by PGMusic to be THE most important part of the forums.
Certainly the Off Topics forum is never going to serve that role.

So, if the "Top Posters" list is dominated by "Showcasers"... that is a very good thing.

(Personally, I don't like when I show up in the list. I've got too much music to write and produce to be spending time doing anything else)

You're right, it was Ivan, not Igor .. funny how the mind can do that.

ahh the 'good old days' (not)

Ivan: the infamous sociology experiment in disrupting a forum.

Even now, those of us who remember are 'on guard' for this nonsense.

Do ya reckon?

Those were the good old days. It was so simple and all the chatter in one place. Today its like a jungle around here.

Now I know you're having a lend...

I might go in the User Showcase forum rarely if some tittle might catch my eye,
but I have been blown away by some as they sound like a shop bought CD and should be on CMT !
I think the last post I put in there was trying to encourage users to create a video for their songs.

The first (and last) time I found myself on that list made me rethink a bit.

A couple of observations:

Some of the most "thank you" giving people in the Showcase are also some of the most generous with comments for new posters and others--even when some of the new posters haven't posted outside their own showcase threads a single time. Some of those generous posters have also appeared in this thread.

You can't make people do "right" on the internet any more than you can herd kittens.

I'm a bit out-of-love with the showcase at the moment. It's probably been the various lock-downs, but it has been impossible to keep up. A few weeks ago, I spent most of an hour or so listening/commenting on five or so tracks. When I finished, I refreshed the page and and found more new posts than I had just commented on. No can do. I'm eating into my own "creative" time just typing this blather.

Everything in moderation. I'll still hang out there. I agree with Bud and Floyd, for the most part. But a man can only do so much.

Still quantity vs quality. 87 "Gee. Thanks!!" posts mean zero if the poster has little idea what they are doing outside of running their "script". Number of posts is irrelevant if there is no quality to them.

Until this thread appeared, I hadn't looked at the top posters list in a loooong time. I'm just saying it's possible for someone to do what they do without thought to it.