Administrator StereoNET Posted June 27, 2021 Administrator Posted June 27, 2021 Dear Members, Over the past months, we have been consolidating our regional and independent StereoNET publications onto the one stereonet.com domain while maintaining regional independence with localised editorial on the regional extensions (/uk, /au, /sg, /us). This has proved beneficial in many ways from a management, analytics, resources, marketing perspective, and helped our growing brand itself in many ways. There is an unprecedented amount of global knowledge within our membership, and this deserves to be shared universally for the betterment of our industry and our community itself. It is my vision and belief that just one large and unified forum can serve as a truly excellent resource to our members and readers from around the globe. I've been reminded of the initiative by Formula 1 over the past two seasons - "We Race as One", representing Sustainability, Diversity, and Inclusion. While StereoNET itself, as a relatively young company, has a long way to go for its betterment in those and other socio-economic areas, it did plant the seeds for the idea of "We Post as One" - serving as our unofficial motto that can guide the development of this forum and our international brand. I hope and trust you will join me in welcoming our friends and members that have found themselves at home now on this international forum, and together we can enjoy the fantastic resource that is StereoNET. Read on below for the more detailed explanation Recently you may have noticed small changes around the forums. It's now time to explain what has been happening and what will change going forward. StereoNET originally started as an Australian message forum, and as we know, over twenty years has grown steadily. Over the past decade, we also acquired the Australian based DTV forum, and New Zealand focused AudioEnz forums. Both of these forums were merged into the existing Australian forum quite successfully. In 2020, mid-pandemic, we also acquired the long-established Singapore based forum, XtremePlace which was revamped and rebranded as the StereoNET Asia Forums. The Australian StereoNET forum has also attracted much international traffic and member registrations which has rapidly increased over the past year. While I always believed a forum was well suited to being localised within its geographic region, I have come to realise that you cannot limit or control organic growth. With StereoNET's expansion across UK/Europe, Asia, and more recently, North America, we maintained individual forums for each of these regions. Yet, despite the localised forums, each one was attracting members from outside that geographic region. This led to what ultimately just became mirrored and duplicated forums. The conversations were the same, and in many cases, the members themselves were duplicated across regions. Our forums are highly customised and developed and continue to evolve all the time. One of my highest priorities has always been security and privacy; maintaining four independent forums with state-of-the-art servers proved time-consuming and very costly. Then there is the sharing of knowledge which is essentially why people are drawn to forums in the first place. Across the four platforms, there was an unprecedented amount of knowledge and resources. Yet, it was divided across the member bases and regions. Over the past months, we have been consolidating our regional and independent publications onto the one stereonet.com domain while maintaining regional independence with localised editorial located at each publication's regional extension (/uk, /au, /sg, /us). As mentioned in my shorted explanation above, this has proved beneficial in many ways. But this also presented a dilemma on what to do with the forums themselves. Some months ago, we realised that the forums also needed to be consolidated into just one forum. The UK and US forums were recently closed, and this specific forum has been receiving those members and traffic for some time now. You may have noticed this with the increase of the registrations from members in those locations. Overnight, the large StereoNET Asia forum and excellent resource, content and member base, has now been merged into this forum (some of the content is still being processed in the background). Most of the sub-forums are not region specific, so all content is being merged, with the exception of Classifieds and Events sub-forums, which will always remain separate and relevant to their region. After months of consideration, it is my vision and belief that just one large and unified forum can serve as a truly excellent resource to our members and readers from around the globe. There is an unprecedented amount of global knowledge within our membership, and this deserves to be shared universally for the betterment of our industry and our community itself. The current location of this forum at the .net.au domain is temporary. Soon, the entire forum will move to the less regionally focused location of stereonet.com/forums and in line with our unified approach to our publications. Finally, a sincere thank you to all the members and particularly those that have remained active since the very early days. Is the word of mouth between enthusiasts that keeps this place alive, and I am humbled by the support of the readers and the industry itself. Thank you for your continued support, and also to the moderators (including some new ones) themselves who work tirelessly to keep the forums in order, allowing us all to enjoy this site. Again, I hope and trust you will join me in welcoming our friends and members that have found themselves at home now on this international forum, and together we can enjoy the fantastic resource that is StereoNET. Sincerely, Marc 17 2
Pops110 Posted June 27, 2021 Posted June 27, 2021 Hey Marc, Geez mate you’ve been a busy boy. In essence I agree that having a global base of knowledge to share can only be a good thing and is a really great idea but I wonder if it may dilute somewhat the sense of local community that most of us longer term members value so much. Would this also make the classifieds a much harder place to moderate? Not just the classifieds but just topics in general? In saying that being able to access the Singapore classifieds will open up some great deals I think. Cheers Dave. 5
Guest Posted June 27, 2021 Posted June 27, 2021 1 minute ago, Pops110 said: I wonder if it may dilute somewhat the sense of local community that most of us longer term members value so much. Was always my concern, but as per my more detailed comments on that above, it has already been morphing into an international forum by its own organic nature anyway. I think keeping the local events and local classifieds entirely separate are key here. 2 minutes ago, Pops110 said: Would this also make the classifieds a much harder place to moderate? Not just the classifieds but just topics in general? Well we were already moderating Classifieds across four sites, so doing it all on one has to be easier surely. I'm also looking into, in the near future, a new member group that members will be automatically upgraded to after certain conditions are met (length of membership, number of positive trading feedback etc) that may make these members have their ads automatically approved. It's a constant evolution. 3
Luc Posted June 27, 2021 Posted June 27, 2021 1 hour ago, Marc said: a new member group that members will be automatically upgraded to after certain conditions are met (length of membership, number of positive trading feedback and number of beers they've bought me at the HiFi shows and other events) that may make these members have their ads automatically approved. Nice! 1
Volunteer sir sanders zingmore Posted June 27, 2021 Volunteer Posted June 27, 2021 Makes sense to have one StereoNet to rule them all one question regarding classifieds: The guidelines in the Australian section still state that items must be in Australia or NZ, is this still relevant now? Or put another way, has the list of possible locations effectively expanded to include Singapore?
Guest Posted June 27, 2021 Posted June 27, 2021 I was thinking of adding a field to the Classifieds template for International Shipping in both the classifieds -leaving it up to the seller to decide if they wish to entertain buyers from outside ANZ. Obviously the guidelines will need to be updated to reflect that change if so. 2
petetherock Posted June 27, 2021 Posted June 27, 2021 So Stereonet Asia is gone.. Please set the rules for sales properly, it's going to be a minefield: - there will be misunderstanding on shipping arrangements, currencies etc - things are way cheaper in Asia, except TVs. So someone selling in Sydney will post a much higher selling price, and someone in Oz who sees much lower prices in Asia may be tempted to call out the higher selling price posted, but the original seller may have bought it much higher and feels he is entitled to a higher price.. - many nicks will overlap and long term reputations, post counts etc will need to be managed... Good luck Marc! 1
Neo Posted June 27, 2021 Posted June 27, 2021 So we are interacting with people in Vietnam now? ( as an example ) It’s tricky enough dealing domestically. Neo
Guest Posted June 27, 2021 Posted June 27, 2021 No doubt, there are some teething issues to resolve, which we fully expected. There are many successful international forums though who have navigated this and I am sure we will do the same. 1 hour ago, petetherock said: - there will be misunderstanding on shipping arrangements, currencies etc Yes, this needs to be clearly stated and clarified. 1 hour ago, petetherock said: things are way cheaper in Asia, except TVs. So someone selling in Sydney will post a much higher selling price, and someone in Oz who sees much lower prices in Asia may be tempted to call out the higher selling price posted, but the original seller may have bought it much higher and feels he is entitled to a higher price.. That would be "white-anting" and is already not allowed under the website guidelines. It is actively moderated too. 1 hour ago, petetherock said: many nicks will overlap and long term reputations, post counts etc will need to be managed... This has already been managed and done. Accounts that were exactly duplicated are automatically merged and updated. Those that didn't line up with an email address will find their existing username continues to work, and there's another with the same username and a number string on the end of it. We are able to merge these very easily like we have done when we have merged forums previously. Again, never said it would be easy, but we have done this before and become a better place for it. I have no reason to think this will be any different. 21 minutes ago, Neo said: So we are interacting with people in Vietnam now? ( as an example ) It’s tricky enough dealing domestically. Neo This is not ideal, and I have a fix for this I will implement shortly so depending on your region, will determine which classifieds you see. 2
petetherock Posted June 27, 2021 Posted June 27, 2021 3 hours ago, Marc said: I was thinking of adding a field to the Classifieds template for International Shipping in both the classifieds -leaving it up to the seller to decide if they wish to entertain buyers from outside ANZ. Obviously the guidelines will need to be updated to reflect that change if so. Remember my suggestion for offering shipping so members in Oz can enjoy the prices from SG? Maybe it can be done via your offices, a good trade instead of just relying on ads.. Eg a Denon PMA 2500 streets for 4k or so in SG. In pre-Covid days, the difference could cover the cost of an air ticket and some change...
Guest francishuang Posted June 27, 2021 Posted June 27, 2021 (edited) The merger should have been consulted with the members at stake before a decision of this magnitude is made. Edited June 27, 2021 by francishuang
Guest jonlee Posted June 27, 2021 Posted June 27, 2021 Any mention of prices in the technical discussion thread gonna get confusing. If someone mention $2k, how to differentiate is S$/A$?
Volunteer sir sanders zingmore Posted June 27, 2021 Volunteer Posted June 27, 2021 3 minutes ago, jonlee said: how to differentiate is S$/A$? I guess we just use S$ or A$ ( or we could get fancy and use the ISO codes AUD or SGD)
Luc Posted June 27, 2021 Posted June 27, 2021 5 minutes ago, jonlee said: Any mention of prices in the technical discussion thread gonna get confusing. If someone mention $2k, how to differentiate is S$/A$? Err just use your friendly currency converter via google or innumerable phone apps, that's how.
Cafad Posted June 27, 2021 Posted June 27, 2021 4 minutes ago, jonlee said: Any mention of prices in the technical discussion thread gonna get confusing. If someone mention $2k, how to differentiate is S$/A$? A few initials in brackets after the price is all it would take. eg $2K (US), $2K (AU), $2K (SGD). 1
Pops110 Posted June 27, 2021 Posted June 27, 2021 19 minutes ago, francishuang said: The merger should have been consulted with the members at stake before a decision of this magnitude is made. Really? Maybe if you were a shareholder in a company would be warranted but you’re enjoying this site for nothing. 2
Volunteer sir sanders zingmore Posted June 27, 2021 Volunteer Posted June 27, 2021 (edited) 12 minutes ago, Cafad said: A few initials in brackets after the price is all it would take. eg $2K (US), $2K (AU), $2K (SGD). That works too, but $2k (UK) would be a bit confusing . My vote would be to convert everything into Ethereum Edited June 27, 2021 by sir sanders zingmore 2 3
Luc Posted June 27, 2021 Posted June 27, 2021 5 minutes ago, Pops110 said: Really? Well you could look at it from another angle: "Hi SNA Australia members, we're going to amalgamate with SNA Singapore and we're expecting good things to happen here with the joining of two vibrant communities. The future looks bright! 1 1
Telecine Posted June 27, 2021 Posted June 27, 2021 3 minutes ago, sir sanders zingmore said: That works too, but $2k (UK) would be a bit confusing . My vote would be to quote everything into Ethereum How about some Non-fungible tokens. 1
petetherock Posted June 27, 2021 Posted June 27, 2021 Luckily a dollar is worth around the same on either side of the pond, but a GBP will be harder to figure out, so Marc: you might want to add a requirement for denomination or have separate classifieds for each location. Fixable in any case, but the cross cultural differences will make for some fun... and a nice distraction from Covid..
The Rock Puppy Posted June 27, 2021 Posted June 27, 2021 Sounds like the whole thing has been well thought out, and there is an expectation of teething problems that should, if they do arise, will be easy enough to fix. We'll just have to wait and see how it goes, but I hope it goes well. 1
Volunteer sir sanders zingmore Posted June 27, 2021 Volunteer Posted June 27, 2021 2 minutes ago, Telecine said: How about some Non-fungible tokens. Shhh…I’m busy inventing my Ethereum Ethernet Isolator (with NFT upgrade). It uses blockchain to ensure the packets are properly authenticated 1 1
Volunteer sir sanders zingmore Posted June 27, 2021 Volunteer Posted June 27, 2021 Back on topic, @Marc is there any need now to split the reviews in “Content Feed” by location?
Pops110 Posted June 27, 2021 Posted June 27, 2021 23 minutes ago, Luc said: Well you could look at it from another angle: "Hi SNA Australia members, we're going to amalgamate with SNA Singapore and we're expecting good things to happen here with the joining of two vibrant communities. The future looks bright! I have a few reservations about the merge but think it will be a good thing overall. Maybe it would have been a good idea to ask members their thoughts beforehand. But the decision is really not up to us. I suppose if people don’t like the merge they will leave, which would be a shame as we have lost some great members in the last few years.I’ll be hanging around for the foreseeable future as I like seeing what you mob are up to.
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