Wondering What Happened To Minidisc Community Forums?

[Christopher]

We have merged the forums with Sony Insider Forums. The merger is complete. Your same login from Minidisc Community Forums will work here. Please e-mail me at christopher ( at ) sonyinsider ( dot ) com if your login isn't working.

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Let me explain why I am doing this:

Thereis obviously need for me to explain myself and the reasoning behind this move. First off, I want to say that I am NOT an agent of Sony, I am not on their payroll (although they do advertise on the site through Google Adsense, and we have run contests with their help). I do communicate often with Sony, we are on good terms, and I have many contacts there now. They have treated me very well in the past at trade shows, and accommodate any question or request I submit to them. Thatis the extent of our relationship. While one day I would love to work for a company such as Sony, that is not what I am doing right now. Sony Insider is not a pro-Sony site. We are simply covering Sony news. Ihave written news posts on Sony Insider that heavily criticize Sony,and praise them. I am not trying to merge MDCF with Sony Insider forums and make it pro-Sony. I want the Minidisc forums at Sony Insider to talk about all Minidisc products.

I, like many others, am still disappointed to this day how Sony handled the Minidisc format and I wish that it was still as popular today as it was ten years ago.However, we must face the facts and realize that it is 2009, and that the format is fading into obscurity because Sony (and other companies)are not investing themselves into it anymore. I don't need to explain why, but that is an undeniable fact.

I, like many others, have spent thousands of hours making MDCF what it is today. I wish you could have seen how this place looked when I took over in 2002. I knew nothing about websites, nothing about html, php, SQL, and all the other stuff that makes a forum experience work. I had to teach myself, which I did because of people like you supporting me, and things improved greatly (visually/content wise). It has come so far from then, and has exceeded any expectations I ever had. At one time it was one of the most important things in my life. We were guiding the format, and we accomplished a lot of things together. The MZ-RH1 is proof of that. All of the Sonicstage updates are proof of that. However, it has grown old to me because of the format not being supported anymore and the only thing really left here for me to do is discuss things with the rest of you. That is difficult for me to do right now because I am investing agreat deal of time into Sony Insider, school, another job, and a girlfriend. MDCF went to the bottom of that list very quickly.

It also doesn't make sense for me to pay for two Invision Power Board licenses, nor have separate hosting, and continue to be invisible here as I've been for quite a while now. When we move, logins, profiles,post count, posts, topics, and anything else you can think of will remain the same. You won't have to re-register. This is about as seamless as it can get.

I want to reconnect with all of you - I miss talking to some of you and I want you to join me in this new venture I'm a part of. It's the most exciting thing I've ever created,and it is taking off far faster than you would believe. Sony Insider is a visually attractive site that is rich in functionality, has relevant and interesting content, and has the opportunity to grow much larger and impact more people than MDCF. Minidisc is a Sony technology. The forum software at Sony Insider forums is much more advanced than the already advanced software here. It became clear to me as I was crafting the Sony Insider forums that there was an opportunity for me to bring all the years incredible discussions, content, and people from MDCF and ATRACLife to Sony Insider forums and create a place that has 100,000members and 200,000+ posts. Centralizing all of this is a huge boost in resourcefulness to Sony Insider and makes a lot more sense looking ahead long term. Centralizing all of the research and help we've done for one another will be much more beneficial to people who need it.

I asked myself when I made this decision - do I want MDCF to be the same right now five years from now? Ten years from now? Do I want to sit on all of that data from ATRACLife and have nothing to do with it?

It just makes more sense to bring this all together guys. I understand that when its all said and done things won't look the same and feel the same. I understand that I am going to lose some of you, which really saddens me. I don't want to lose anyone that still goes here when I complete the move. I am begging you to come with me. I really think that all of us could get along very well, and help people just as much as some of you are doing now and have done in the past. It will not be a pro-Sony experience, and I will encourage discussion of all Minidisc products, just as we do today. There will be no change in attitude.