Sayonara, amigos, and a last Challenge idea

July 30, 2010 5:44 PM

If you happened to read this comment, you'll know that I am stepping down from my position as Unofficial Mod for the MeFi Music Challenge. This post is just to say thank you to all the wonderful people here who've sent suggestions for the Challenge, and to thank you all for putting up with my evil and wicked ways over the past, um... however long it's been. It's been a pleasure to do this, and I'm hoping someone else will step up and take this gig over. I'd also like to apologize to anyone whose idea didn't get put into motion. This was sometimes due to my own feeling that it might not have been the greatest idea, or more often that there were too-similar ideas that had already been used, or were in line to be used. Well, I did my humble best. Anyway, thanks again to everyone.

I'd like to make special mention here of one deep regret: during my tenure here, there came a suggestion, from our fabulous micayetoca, that I was unable to enact, and this was due to the extra mechanism needed to make it work. I suggested it to cortex a couple times a while back, but it was during a period in which he was just too swamped, I think, with other duties and matters of importance to address. So it never happened. But here's the idea, and here's hoping that when the technical requirement can be sorted, it can become a Challenge someday...

Anonymous Music. As exists at AskMe, there would be the anonymous username attached to your musical submission. The idea would be to make a piece of music that is very different from anything you've posted to MeFiMu in the past. An accompanying Music Talk post would serve as a place for people to guess: WHO made this music?

Badass idea, right? I think it's one of the best that ever came in, and I sincerely hope that it can happen at some point.
posted by flapjax at midnite (15 comments total) 1 user marked this as a favorite

Badass idea, right? Dead right. We have to do this. I suggest naming it "The Flapjax Challenge" and running it on an annual basis. A splendidly cunning and devious plan, that not only honours your efforts in the past but means we need only find 11 other challenges each year! [sitting back, lights small cigar and smugly grins showing appalling British dentistry]
posted by MajorDundee at 7:38 AM on July 31, 2010


I'd hate for this to sound like one of those standard farewell messages: "We really appreciate your work, thanks for all you did, it wouldn't have been the same without you". I'd hate that because I really do appreciate what you did. As many people here will know, I'm one of those that is very 'emotionally invested' in the site. We've grown into a community and we've seen each other come and go - participate a lot during some periods, almost disappear for some other periods, etc.-

Feeling that, (the emotional attachment to the site), I inevitably realize that it must have been really hard to keep pulling during those times where there were very few responses. You offered a consistent push for the site for a very long time, and perhaps without that the overall participation or involvement would have waned.

Having been here for a few years, I've seen the site (Music, that is, not Metafilter as a whole) boom, fade away and come back. I really like this place, love being a part of the collective that contributes to it, and I really, really appreciate what you did with the Challenges. Thanks a lot, flapjax. I care a lot for this place, and you are one of the people who made it into what it is.

As for the anonymous challenge. I didn't even remember that! I'm sure I had an ace up my sleeve when I proposed that, but I can't even remember what it was. As for the logistics: couldn't we send our songs to this person and have him/her submit them?

Again, flapjax, thanks. A lot.
posted by micayetoca at 9:41 AM on July 31, 2010


i hope that your abdication doesn't mean less musical contributions. i like your tunes!
posted by peterkins at 3:46 PM on July 31, 2010


Thanks for keeping this up, Flapjax. And the anon idea is a great one. Sounds fun.
posted by umbĂș at 3:47 PM on July 31, 2010


As for the logistics: couldn't we send our songs to this person and have him/her submit them?

Hmm. Is the Anonymous account just like a regular person account? If that's the case, it should be easily doable, for a definition of "easy" that includes "we mail everything to cortex, and then cortex has to go in and upload everyone's contribution manually himself."

(The best part will be when someone who's not a regular over here in the black looks at Anonymous' profile, discovers that Anon's apparently been making songs, and dashes over to MetaTalk in bewilderment.)

I think it sounds pretty neat, anyway.

P.S. Thanks again, flapjax, for all the stuff you've done and do.
posted by Karlos the Jackal at 4:43 PM on July 31, 2010


i hope that your abdication doesn't mean less musical contributions. i like your tunes!

Oh, I'll still be posting tunes from time to time!

Thanks for your comments, friends.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 4:20 PM on August 1, 2010


Oh man, the anonymous music idea! Yeah, that was a good one that just came at the wrong time and I never got back to trying to figure out how to work it.

And, yeah, heh. Posting them as Anonymous would definitely be one way to. The concern there is it being confusing to almost everybody not likely to be reading this thread why an account otherwise totally associated with a specific Ask function would suddenly have taken up eclectic music production.

Perhaps a new Anonymusician account instead, to do the same fairly simple thing but without any possible weird site-function baggage. If folks who are into the Anony Music idea are all okay with having their songs live not just temporarily but permanently anonymously in the db, this would definitely be a really simple way to try and handle things.

I'd see this is a sort of event thing, yeah, make a Week Of Anonymity or something with a talk thread, rather than having it be a constant Music feature.
posted by cortex at 11:02 AM on August 2, 2010


The anon idea is great and I'd be up for just sending it along to you to post, cortex (mainly because that seems the easiest way to deal with it, given the site's parameters). That seems better than making the anon profile available to everyone with possible misuse in mind.

And thanks for all you've done, flapjax. I hope that your contributions to the subsite don't diminish and that the thing known as real life is good to you.
posted by sleepy pete at 11:28 AM on August 2, 2010


Yeah, I could just register it as a sockpuppet and ask pb to lift the posting limit for that account so we couple put up more than one a day if things come in in volume. People email mp3, post text and tags, I regurge it onto the site.
posted by cortex at 11:46 AM on August 2, 2010


seems the way to go if you're up for regurging (ugh, nice usage there).
posted by sleepy pete at 2:42 PM on August 2, 2010


The concern there is it being confusing to almost everybody not likely to be reading this thread why an account otherwise totally associated with a specific Ask function would suddenly have taken up eclectic music production.

feature not bug
posted by Karlos the Jackal at 2:49 PM on August 2, 2010


I agree with Karlos above. That was the whole purpose for this thing, wasn't it?

Jokes aside, perhaps we could send the mp3s to vacapinta and not cortex, so that he can also take his wild guesses, otherwise we would be killing it for him, no?
posted by micayetoca at 3:25 PM on August 2, 2010


otherwise we would be killing it for him, no?

Softly. With your song.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 5:39 PM on August 2, 2010 [1 favorite]


flapjax, I salute you and all your important work here. thanks.
And I love the anon song idea. Must happen.
posted by chococat at 6:14 PM on August 2, 2010


perhaps we could send the mp3s to vacapinta and not cortex, so that he can also take his wild guesses, otherwise we would be killing it for him, no?

good point. it could be any mod, or rather, any mod besides cortex since he's the one who seems to interact the most on this subsite.
posted by sleepy pete at 8:48 PM on August 2, 2010


« Older music.metafilter meetup?   |   Open Call. Newer »

You are not logged in, either login or create an account to post comments