there's certainly more to cluas.com that just the discussion boards, but i think the criticism voiced by rba was of the boards, not the site as a whole. the reviews, mp3s etc on this site are great, and that was what impressed me most when i first found cluas. but i think that the discussion boards are the most important part of the site - both for increasing traffic, and for the future of the site itself. regular users of the boards will surely visit the site more frequently than those who just check back for new reviews/mp3s etc, simply because those updates don't happen every day. (that's not a criticism, by the way...) while these boards are quieter than some others, they're far from dead, and i'd imagine most regulars check in every day, or most days. so more users of the boards will increase traffic for the whole site. i'd also imagine that those who contribute reviews, features etc started participating in cluas on the discussion boards. the larger the community grows here, the more material for the rest of the site is likely to be created, which should in turn generate more traffic for the whole site, and on and on. so whatever the answer, it's worth asking the question: is there anything about these boards that might be turning people off? eoghan wrote that there are no plans to please all of the people all of the time, and rev jules pointed out that cluas doesn't give fawning uncritical praise to musicians just to appease fans. but surely (and i'm talking about the boards here) cluas "is" all of the people who use the site, which should include fans (and anti-fans) of pretty much every kind of music/musician there is (even singer-songwriters). moderators are not journalists. it's not their job to decide what the tone of the discussion/opinion that this board generates will be. it is their job, i feel, to maintain an atmosphere (for the want of a better word) that encourages those who want to post to do so, and thereby to let the users of cluas.com decide what it does or doesn't "do". (hey, i used the word 'thereby'! bonus point for me). i don't think that more is always better, and i do think that there are great, entertaining posts to found here, and i even like blue and mauve-y/purple. but i think that it's in the interest of the whole site to have a thriving community on the discussion forums. and i think the most important thing to help that happen is tolerance - one man's fawning uncritical praise (of a talentless, irritating hippy) is another man's considered, informed opinion (of a talented, irritating hippy). or woman's.

Interestingly enough Cluas doesn't have links to any other Irish music pages/resources, nor have I ever seen a link to Cluas on any other Irish music site. This might go some of the way towards explaining the lack of traffic and forum activity.

Myself and another Cluas writer spent a few weeks putting together pages of links on Irish bands, recording studios, radio stations, labels etc...as well as label and studio links for abroad - all of which were really quite useful - but it failed to materialise on the website. Likewise I put togther a page of biographies (!) of the regualr reviwers and writers which was quite funny - the writers had contributed their own pieces and in the end it read well. Again never turned up. Shame.

Eoghan does have the pages I did get around to coding by the way Dromed (roughly half that "encyclopedia galactica" of links), he's obviously finding getting them finished just as depressingly mind numbing and time consuming as I did. Seems harder to work from a word doc, than just to code from scratch, and I don't have anything nearly as fancy as Macromedia Dreamweaver at my disposal. I know that you can convert word docs straight to HTML but the results were undesireable with too much extraneous code to strip out. Learn HTML?

Yeah doing the pages was pretty mind numbing and time consuming and I had told Eoghan that I wouldn't be able to do the web coding and that I don't have HTML. However it was deemed a worthy exercise to carry out as we'd agreed that the pages would be useful. I did my part...don't know what happend after that cos I wasn't told.

Oh lord. I’ve been snared rapid. And rightly so. Those ½ coded links to other sites have been sitting in my lap now for a while since Binokular sent them on to me. And – more shamefully – the excellent writers biogs that Dromed put together have been utterly neglected by me. For what it’s worth I offer my genuine apologies to Dromed for my inaction – she did a stellar job, I just took my easily distracted eye off the ball. I’m now going to make these a proper priority for the site and get them – links and writer biogs - live on the site ASAP. The work done will not go to waste. As if I wouldn’t be embarrassed enough by my admissions above of inaction, I today noted another colossal oversight. Since July 20 it has been – and wait for this – impossible to register as a new member of this board because of a change I made to the server that day back in July. Yes, not one single new person could register from July 20 up to today. To cut a long story short, I now realize that the change – unbeknownst to me until today - screwed up the ‘member registration’ function. I think I have now corrected it fully. But this is a major screw up on my part. Several 100 people tried to register as members in the intervening period but could not. Good news is I still have their email address and they still are in the user database (but their accounts are not yet activated). I will tonight email them all so that they can activate their accounts and start posting to the board if they wish. This I am now sure is a MAJOR reason why traffic on the discussion board was not higher then some may have expected in the last few months. So yeah, I am majorly embarrassed. Sorry to all who have been inconvenienced. Sometimes I just feel like a crappy juggler who has too many balls to keep his eye on. eoghan

While I’m at it, I wanted to pick up on two comments in Stacy’s considered posting above: • She spoke of the “the moderation of the forum seems a bit over the top at times”. Yes I agree, there have been some moments where moderators (myself included) were over-zealous at times but I think the moderating team have now fallen into the right groove, so to speak. And I would not hesitate to say that I think it is thanks (partly) to the moderation that there is a relative lack of sarcasm and cat-calling on this board, compared to other similar boards. Going a step further, the high quality (or what me finks is high quality) of engaging and informed discussion that goes on around here I think is also due partly to the moderation. The rest of the credit goes – obviously - to the community of active and constructive members who post here. • Stacy also said she did “not think the amount of traffic warrants separate new release/gig/general discussion -boards. Some threads have 5 views.” Yes, some threads have only “5 views” but they are a very insignificant minority. If we stuck all messages – pure discussion, gig announcements, musicians wanted, etc – into one big “catch all” mega discussion board things would get very messy, very quickly. eoghan

Eoghan...deep breathes...you are a fine juggler! These things happen and it's pretty tough to fit this stuff in when it's not your full time job. Just hope the links and biogs are up-to-date still - that's the danger with these things!

I really enjoy cluas for some of the reasons listed above as negatives - few replies are often a really good thing. I hate having to wade through random comments and little personal asides to fellow posters - cluas is about the bare essentials - people just say what needs to be said and no more. There's no point in everyone contributing the same recommendations etc. Like stephen, I sometimes post but most of the time I just browse - almost daily at this stage! I don't feel the need to repeat what's already been said or what's already obvious. Thankfully most people who use these boards have a similar attitude - unlike other boards! Cluas is an efficient and enjoyable read. What more do you want???

f**king Thumped queers...

Ok, lets not get into mudslinging here Aggrojoe, one (non)word dismissive replies to a post someone has actually taken time and thought to write are not big or clever, even if you don't agree. So don't do it, OK?

Remember my screw up that meant no new members who had joined the board since July 20th could ‘activate’ their account? Well the damage limitation effort on that front is going okay. I last night emailed the 200+ plus people who tried to register on the board since July 20th to tell them all had been fixed and already over 40 of them have since activated their accounts (as he wipes the sweat off his brow and releases a deep breath). eoghan

its a good thing , sorry but its pretty local.

You think that a group of people obsessed with the obscure and pretentions of the world would ENJOY a site with such little traffic and interference?... I joke, I joke. Cluas is a fine message board, populated with a small concentration with a fairly decent pool of knowledge. That's what is most important for a specialist site. I can't bear message boards where 285 conversations are happening on each thread. And the kind of conservative seriousness of the administration and general tone is endearing, in my opinion. We have all attacked and been attacked on the board, both fairly and unfairly, but so what, that is merely a symptom of healthy debate. Of course, it could be better, but so could every other element of life. Apart from my writing. Zing.

I'd like to comment on what you've just said Una, but I'm transfixed by the '666 posts' under your name...

I'm only an occasional poster here but I enjoy the lenghtier (is that even a word?) discussions a lot.

only new here,as i couldn register for some reason but i find there is alot more useful info here,where with thumped there is lots of "Favourite Album Cover?" discussions.