Sputnikmusic
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Sputnikmusic is an website and online community archiving user-submitted compact disc reviews and music-related aids articles.
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History and Background
Sputnikmusic was launched by Jeremy Fewerda, founder of the discussion board Musicianforums.com (now Sputnikmusic forums) and MXTabs.net, in January 2005. It was conceived as a replacement for the CD Reviews section of the forums which had at that point grown large enough to demand a more specialised setup. Initially only tending to CD and music DVD reviews, Sputnikmusic has grown significantly as an independent website and now boasts a twenty-one strong staff, regular featured articles and an active news section.
Development
In the short period since the launch, a number of user features have been added, including:
- Individual user ratings for each album
- Wiki-style band biographies
- Extended chart of former and current band members (temporarily disabled)
- Music news section
- Dynamic user profiles focused on user's musical interests
- A music lessons sister-site for guitar, bass, and drums (temporarily down)
- Journal section
- Music-related list-making feature
- Sound-offs (short reviews)
- Streaming audio
Staff
In response to the site's raised profile and level of influence, a rank of staff writers was created, separate from but including members of the moderating team. Summer 2006 saw ten staff writers hired, and shortly before Christmas this number was increased to twenty-one. Staff maintain their own section on the reviews site and are required to recommend albums for the "staff picks" section of the site on a regular basis.
The current staff list is as follows:
- Amanda Murray (Moderator)
- Andrew Hartwig
- Andrew Kotick
- Chris Jackson (Moderator)
- Constantly Depressed (Moderator)
- Daniel Incognito
- Dan & Joe Katz
- Dave de Sylvia (Moderator)
- Derek MacArthur
- Jared Dillon
- Jens Classen (Moderator)
- Jeremy Ferwerda (Administrator)
- John Cruz
- John A. Hanson
- Jom Dotcom
- Nick Greer
- Robert Crumble
- Tyler Fisher
- Tyler Munro
- Zach Powell
News
The music news section was created in December 2005 and quickly became one of the most-viewed sections of the site. News is 100% user-submitted and maintained by both regular mods and two additional news-specific moderators. Users are encouraged to write articles in their own words or to cite their sources when copy/pasting and are checked for accuracy and presentability.
Music & Musician Forums
Formerly known as Musicianforums.com and part of the mxtabs network, it became secondary to Sputnik after the closure of mxtabs and the focus on the new review site. The forums, often called "MX" by its users, is the largest music-theme message board in the world. It currently has approximately 115,000 members, with over 432,000 threads and over 11,000,000 posts. Members can discuss a diverse range topics from sports to videogames to politics and movies, however music is the core motif throughout.
Notable Forums
General Discussion
General discussion of virtually any topic. Originally called The Pit, it was renamed to General Discussion and moved to the bottom of the General section as the original name was now perceived as referring to the forum's reputation as "a cesspool of hacking and spam" rather than a moshpit. The majority of users still refer to it by its original name, however. Despite several warnings from the administrator about the amount of flaming, spamming, and hackings in the forum, it was finally permanently removed in July 2006. Many of the threads remain in the archive forum for users to view. The forum was re-introduced on August 16th with far stricter rules. A user may only post in General Discussion if they have been a member for more than two weeks and have a postcount of over 100. Posts in the new General Discussion forum do not count to a user's total postcount.
Politics, News and World Issues
Lifted from a subforum of The Pit to a forum in its own right, PN&WI (as it is known) is for the discussion of serious topics such as news items, morality and politics. Although religious topics were originally banned, the rule was never strictly enforced except when it suited moderators, and religious topics are some of the most fiercely debated, with the Official Christianity Thread at several hundred pages.
Video Games/Movies
Formerly titled Video Games, and then Video Games and Movies, and then the Media Center, and then Entertainment, Video Games/Movies is now a forum which only the aforementioned media is discussed, ie video games, computer related issues, television shows and film. The forum previously housed threads pertaining to other forms of entertainment such as literature, but this is no longer the case.
Guitar
Arguably the most high-traffic section of the site, the guitar forum offers vast resources for beginner, intermediate and advanced guitar players. Thanks to a large userbase with misinformed musical knowledge, information and advice about amplifiers, electronics, pickups, effects pedals, music theory and so on is also widely available. The guitar forum goes in cycles of being biased towards certain equipment and seemingly randomly changing its mind (e.g. Valveking amps or whether EMG pickups are good).
Bass
The bass forum is the best part of the Sputnikmusic forums. The bass forum features a Featured Artist archive, containing detailed biographies of over 60 top bassists, as well as the Equipment Reviews section, with alphabetised reviews of a wide range of gear, and is said to have the best mods. These sections have been collaborative efforts by the members of the forum. Also worth noting is the Ask-A-Pro archive, where professional bassists answer questions and field comments about their gear, playing style and career, among other things. At present, Michael Manring, Jean Baudin and Steve Lawson have registered and answered many questions, and Victor Wooten has conducted an interview by email.
Also of note is the new Lutherie subforum. Opened in early May 2006, this subsection of the bass forum is already popular, with articles on DIY electronics, instrument building, repair and modification. This subforum is also shared with the guitar forum.
Drums and Percussion
Rock & Metal
Easily one of the most popular forum on the site, Rock & Metal covers any band from the Beatles to Black Sabbath to Slayer. It has a vast database of featured genres, featured artists, and serial threads run by some of the more prominent members. These serial threads often focus on one or two artists to introduce them to the forum, but often they have more adventurous topics and are always great fun to read.
Punk
Forum for discussion of bands like The Clash to Against Me!. The punk forum also features a subforum, titled "Hardcore/Emo". Not to be confused with the pseudo-emo of Dashboard Confessional and Taking Back Sunday, the forum offers discussion of emo bands like Saetia or hardcore bands like Minor Threat.
Alternative & Indie
Forum for discussion of bands like The Smiths to Devendra Banhart to Velvet Underground. The members of this subforum tend to have tastes further reaching than the rest of the site, and can include music found in Rock and Metal, Punk, Pop-Punk, and Jazz and Funk.
Pop-Punk
Forum where people can have discussions about bands like Blink 182, Green Day, Simple Plan etc.
IRC Channel
The Sputnikmusic IRC chatroom can be found on QuakeNet as #sputnikmusic [1]. Users are invited to join and discuss a wide range of topics perhaps not suitable for the forums.
