I was a penniless university student before the fire sale. I could just about afford the groceries back then, no way could I afford an empeg. I don't wish to offend but I get the definate feeling that some people on this board regard us firesale buyers as something they scraped off their shoe, not fit (or affluent more accurately) to have owned an empeg at its full retail value.

No, but that's what some of us expected, and, for a while, we were proven right. But as Tony points out, the cream rose to the top, and many of you are our best posters. We had much the same discussion before you guys showed up.

The one big difference between that situation and this is that you still had to go out of your way to buy or even know about an empeg. The Karma will be available at BestBuy.

I don't think any offense is intented. It is just that the player (in the MarkI, MarkII and MarkIIa form) had been around for years before the firesale. The community was still around. Much smaller, certainly. It is not a matter of affluence or anything, just that there had been a core group of users back then and then there was a sudden, huge influx of new people, nearly tripling (I would be curious about the numbers some day) the users on the board overnight.

Disclaimer: I am a mid-comer. I was not involved in the MarkI, but I did get a MarkII.

not fit (or affluent more accurately) to have owned an empeg at its full retail value.

Damn it, I so did not want to go here in this thread...

If you think everyone who owned an empeg before the fire sale was "affluent" you are very mistaken.

I can't speak for anyone else, but I didn't anticipate anything changing when the prices went down, but things did change. A lot of straight up dopes started frequenting the BBS. They went away. The fact that they were dopes had nothing to do with their income, they were just dopes.

If I come-off that way to you, I am sorry. I really never meant to imply that, nor do I think that way.

A lot of stuff has been said here that I agree with. i certainly dont want to see the forums overrun with 733t 5p34k1n6 testerone-overloaded teens who think that they are the Shiz cos of their phat kazaa-leached mp3 collection yet cant be bothered to punctuate their posts let alone use the search feature - y dont u just tell me how 2 do it cos i dont have time to search

It is important to remember that out of 4000 empegs sold, maybe 200 (?) owners are regular posters on this forum, ie 1 in 20. If 1 in 10 of Karma owners ended up being regular posters here, that could easily exceed 10,000 new people. (Obviously I don't know what the target sales figures are, but I think that 100,000 units is probably on the low side).
I doubt very much that the culture of this BBS would survive as it is - face it, if you take a small town of 200 Chinese people and then add a population of 10,000 Germans, you can be sure that before long the Chinese culture would become marginalised.

That all being said, I am sure that there will be plenty of Karma owners who would prove to be valuable forum members, and who would add to the wonderful atmosphere that prevails here. I am sure that the Rio Marketing Department aren't only marketing their new flagship product to the annoying folk.

I'm in favo[u]r of a non-spiderable Karma forum being added to this BBS, but preferably in conjunction with a separate more complete set of Karma-related forums elsewhere. Let the masses use the other forums, and leave the one here for those who have the intelligence and inclination to discover and use it.

I hate being cliquey. But I'm too fond of this place.

I don't wish to offend but I get the definate feeling that some people on this board regard us firesale buyers as something they scraped off their shoe, not fit (or affluent more accurately) to have owned an empeg at its full retail value.

I certainly didn't mean to give that impression! All I meant was that one of the things that I like about this board is that its membership is relatively small. It is actually possible to remember names and information about most of the regulars. A massive influx of members regardless of how or why they join would ruin that for me. I can find enough time in the day to scan a couple hundred posts, but if the board gets much more popular than that (like it did during the firesale) there is just to much traffic and too many people to keep up with.

-Mike

If you think everyone who owned an empeg before the fire sale was "affluent" you are very mistaken.

I think I was 18 or 19 when I bought my MkII for $1300. Affluent I certainly was not. I just knew what I wanted.

Having read the arguments thus far, I cheerfully accept the friendly amendments proposed by robricc and genixia.

While I do like the idea of having sections devoted to the Rio Karma, I do have to wonder what additional load it would put on the servers

Yeah, I was going to mention that. Much as we love you lot, we're rather hoping to sell whoppingly more Karmas than we ever did car-players.

Peter

I just don't get why you'd wanna risk the integrity of this board just to make it more convenient. Why not just start a new board or add the forum to the already existing rioworld.org, which is all about portable Rio's? This is an empeg/rio car BBS.

The cream could rise to the top just as easy on a new board as it could here. It seems to me that the few of us (relatively speaking) who will own a Karma and that would benefit from the forum being here doesn't outweigh the majority of us who could possibly be negatively impacted by it. If some of you guys mention the empeg on the seperate forum, and that attracts new folk, it would seem a better bet to me.

Genixia's argument about the number of people is valid. There are a ton of people who luck this board that rarely or never post.. the number that would do the same on a Karma forum would be way bigger and could potentially triple the bandwidth. It's all speculation of course... and in the end it's up to Drakino.

I lean more towards the "do not install a karma forum on this BBS" platform. Like I said earlier. This is an empeg BBS, not Empeg Ltd. BBS.

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DiD J00 DOwNL0@d TH4T nEw koRn cD? 1+ ROCK5!

*sigh*
case in point.

Your karma belongs to us.

Anyway, I've been a casual lurker on this forum since it started - I got one of the Mk1:s to prove it

But the volume right now is about the max for me to be able to keep up with - any more, and I would drop off again.

OK, I'm going to chime in since I'm somebody about whom you're directly talking. That is, I am somebody who searched "Rio Pearl," then joined this forum for no other reasons than:
1. It seemed like the best place to keep up on "pearl's" status
2. The people posting here seemed like a most excellent community. (Hell, a clear majority here not only punctuate, but also spellcheck posts. That's more than "chodes" do to resumes and marriage licenses.)

As an aside, 'though I don't own an empeg/Rio Car unit (*yet*), it's got a near-mythical reputation among people like me, as you know. So methinks some "Karma people" will know just what they're getting themselves into.

So, here are the points I'd like to make. First, the site is already a resource and can be found via web searches, so that cat is out of the bag already. Don't know if "hiding" Karma forums until after login solves that or not (e.g., are you going to scrub the existing forums for any passing reference to pearl or karma?).

Secondly, I saw RioWorld.org and disagree with robricc that it's somewhat successful. 1144 lifetime forum users for *all* Rio handhelds vs. your twice as many for just empegs? Say what? Then I read a few. Seems like an awfully high s/n ratio. I came to the same conclusion as loren: not so good. Of course, that's not your fault, and that's clearly the proper place today for Rio handheld stuff. So, the question is what to do about the fact that this existing audience would be underserved if you choose not to establish Karmatalk here. The answer indeed may be yet another, separate board (Hey, I've got it: RioKar.org or is that scary?)

I tend to think genixia has the right balanced view.
He said: I hate being cliquey.
But here's what's funny about that: I consider the Internet the greatest communication tool of the 20th century (counting phones as 19th c.) precisely because of how it has helped people erase national/international boundaries that separated them from participating in open, shared communities. Y'know, precisely like the one whose integrity you are so jealously (and absolutely rightfully) trying to guard here.

So good luck. I'll keep coming back until I'm banned!

Greetings!

Oh, I don't think anyone would want to ban you. There are very few instances of that here, and usually for specific reasons. It is truly pretty pointless, anyway, being that this is still an open board, searchable to the world.

I agree that this really is the best place to keep up with the new developments in Rio technology. You have the software and hardware developers here, and probably a bunch of the alpha and beta test crowd as well.

I also agree that this community is something usual to the internet. I do not linger on any other board, because of the signal / noise ratio you mention. Also, there are no other boards that really have the span of people, skills, interests and that get along (most of the time) well enough to discuss almost anything intelligently. (Please see the posting about "Other Off Topic Forums" in the Off Topic forum.)

I think the greatest concern is having the community become diluted to the signal / noise ratio so common on other boards. The thought of this board becoming another slash-dot / "leet speak" / "me too" threaded board is horrifying to myself and probably a lot of other people here. (With the possible exception of the "me too" postings seen on the Karma Pre-Order thread...)

You are a valuable addition to the board: keep posting!!! And, if you are interested in getting an empeg, post - I am certain someone here will be able to help you out...

I tend to think genixia has the right balanced view.
He said: I hate being cliquey.
But here's what's funny about that: I consider the Internet the greatest communication tool of the 20th century (counting phones as 19th c.) precisely because of how it has helped people erase national/international boundaries that separated them from participating in open, shared communities. Y'know, precisely like the one whose integrity you are so jealously (and absolutely rightfully) trying to guard here.

I don't see it as being cliquey. I think a good analogy (music-related, of course) for this discussion would be:

I would not like to see Leo Kottke (acoustical guitar playing god) open for the Offspring (punk rock demi-gods) because the audience and venue would not suit his playing style. He would be better off in a small coffeshop with people who already listen to his music. They are both good musical acts, they should just be good separately.

I think that while there is overlap within this BBS of Karma owners, the majority of Karma owners will not care about the Empeg at all. they will just use aux-ins for the Karma or tape adapters in their cars.

Agreed. It's the overlap in the other direction you want to be serving: namely empeg owners who want to discuss Karma. Let the enterprising Karma owners without a connection to empeg found their own board, or just use the one at RioWorld.

I really can't disagree with that approach.

So, comments?


This bbs encompasses the most extraordinary group of people with whom it has ever been my privilege to associate. The depth of knowledge, skill, compassion, and willingness to share is unparallelled.

A large factor contributing to this is the nature of the original "entrance requirements" to be on this bbs: if you weren't an audiophile computer geek willing and able to spend $1500-$2000 on a toy to put in your car, then you would not likely have come here. When you put that sort of filter on the participants, then chances are you are going to get some good people. Yes, those entrance requirements changed somewhat with the advent of the fire sale(s), but I think that the example set by the original core group served to guide the newcomers and maintain the quality of the bbs.

Adding Karma to this bbs will have two (at least) negative effects that IMHO will far outweigh any advantages of convenience to the minority of users who will have both empeg and Karma players. (1) The sheer quantity of posts will make it difficult if not impossible to keep up with the bbs, and will impose an excessive load on the bandwidth of the server; and (2) the very large influx of new Karma users will dilute and overwhelm the empeg users.

While there is nothing wrong with being a Karma person, remember that the vast majority of Karma owners ("Karmelians"?) will have an agenda that is much different from that of the empeg crowd.

This bbs now stands as a shining beacon illuminating what internet discourse could be but almost never is. Please do not put it at risk.

tanstaafl.

I'm kinda mixed on the entire issue.

While I do not post here much, I do keep an open dialogue with Tom, since we both live in Colorado, and talk to eachother often. I do however enjoy all of the posts that are on here, and I try to read as much as possible on a daily basis.

Though, I do think that this board does have a high posting volume already, I think the influx of Karma posts will be insanely high, and it will be hard keeping up with things that I want to keep up with. I did like the suggestion of having the Karma boards only visable once you are logged in, which should keep out most of the crap that a lot of the people here do not want.

I personally plan to have my empeg in every car I own up until it breaks (which will be a VERY sad day), or uhh... it breaks.

I love to people that are here and I've never seen bad or even moderately heated discussions going on here. People are very educated, and just nice to read posts from.

I wish I was here more at times, because I want to post on some subjects while they are already 40 deep, and changed topics, so I always just keep my thoughts, to not bring up old news :P

So I would have to say, if there is a Karma BBS (I sure as heck want to get a Karma!), I would think that it being a already members only forum would be best for everyone.

Hey, the address is empeg.comms.net....note the empeg part. We wouldn't want to confuse the poor Karma people would we?

All kidding aside, you can turn this around too; it wouldn't be fair to them either, they would always be second class citizens here. Let's face it, if we started a public Karma board here, we would monopolize the Karma talk across the net. We would have a serious head start in knowledgable people with them and we have some of the creators of the software posting here. So that would make us the de facto place to go. It is going to be hard for them to forge a community of their own with the Empeg community ever-present. Hell, it is going to be hard enough if they all go someplace else and the 50 people who are going to be getting Karmas from this board (and I am going to be one) descend on them en masse. Let them have their own home where they don't have to fight us to be heard.

Thanks guys, this is only forum I frequent and I have to say I really do feel at home here.

On the subject of the Karma, I think a General forum for us and a dedicated site for everyone else.

I don't know why there's any argument - this is the empeg car BBS. Hopefully someone will start a Rio Karma BBS, and possibly it might even be Rio (as we are keen to develop a user community).

Let's keep this one on topic! (Apart from "Off Topic", for which Karma would not be off topic enough!)

Rob

possibly it might even be Rio

Well, make sure that they cough up the cash for a copy of the BBS software used here, then. The software used on the RioWorld BBS is utter papp in comparison.

I've used (and currently do use) much worse. At least it keeps track of what you've read.

don't know why there's any argument

There isn't. I was just making a suggestion. I mentioned some potential drawbacks in my original post, and the discussion here has raised some other possibilities. Clearly the overwhelming majority of the BBS doesn't want to mess with a good thing, and as one of the longest-tenured (and longest-winded) members here, I respect and understand that position.

I didn't want this to become the official Karma support BBS, but I thought that it'd be nice to keep the Karma threads that will inevitably pop up here in their own separate forums. But the positives seem to be outweighed by tthe potential negatives, so let's leave it alone. I respectfully withdraw my motion.

Wouldn't the best way to stop the harvesters from picking up on threads be the use of a ROBOTS.TXT file? Picked that up from /. and it covers one aspect of getting "picked up" by the bots.

As for a separate Karma forum, I'd be leaning strongly to support the idea of a alternate host site. I too much enjoy the pure refreshment of this forum too much to risk contamination. We certainly don't want to burden our gracious service providers further

Cheers,
- Tim