[Antares Boyle]

Dear community,

As some of you know, our interest group currently maintains a group page on Facebook. The initial idea behind this page was that it would be open to anyone (as long as the Facebook account appeared legitimate), since individuals outside the SMT orbit might still want to engage in productive dialogue about music analysis with us. However in recent weeks we have seen a dramatic uptick in the number of requests to join the group. The group now has over 600 members, the vast majority of whom have no connection to SMT or academic music theory/analysis. We feel that this renders it less useful for its intended functions, such as sharing announcements and generating dialogue within SMT. It seems that others agree, because the page is also very inactive—no one is posting much of anything. It’s also tedious for us to constantly vet new requests (upwards of 50 in the last three days) when the group isn’t actually serving much of a purpose any more. We’d like to hear from the you all what you think we should do about this.

Should we:

(a) shut down the Facebook group entirely — we don’t need it anyway, since we have Humanities Commons

or

(b) continue the Facebook group, but create a higher barrier for entry (if so, what, and how will we enforce it?)

Best,

Tara and Laura

[Amy Bauer]

Hi Tara,

Those who know me well know that I am militantly anti-Facebook. I know that many academics and musicians have determined that they need a facebook profile (there are of course personal reasons as well), but I feel that the fascist and racist policies Z has pursued the past two years are at odds with our institutional values (only one of the reasons that I applaud the move to HC). I wasted a lot of time monitoring that group before I left FB, and I think it should simply be shut down. You should keep the FB group only if a volunteer wishes to spend inordinate amounts of time monitoring it.

Thanks for asking the membership!

All my best,

Amy

[Matthew Schullman]

Hi, all,

As someone who still receives FB requests for the group, I can attest to this issue. And to second Amy’s gratitude, thanks Tara and Laura, for reaching out to us. My proposed solution is as follows: yes, dissolve the FB group (with proper notification to members of it); but when events are to be publicized (CFPs, sessions, etc.), have someone who belongs to FB repost those events to SMT’s FB page to increase their visibility. Those are my two cents, at least.

Best,
Matt (Schullman)

[Sara Bakker]

Hi All,

I am also not on FB any longer, so our decision doesn’t impact me at all, but I think HC is a much more appropriate venue for professional discussions and sharing information about relevant events.

Best,

 

Sara

[Noah Kahrs]

Hi all,

Even if the new members aren’t in academic music theory, it might be nice to keep the platform as a way of just having our research have a bit wider of a reach. That way our research might be read by a few more people.

Of course, there’s a risk of a heavy moderation burden if the group ever stops being quiet. My suggestion would be to not abolish the group, but only allow a few people to submit posts—either by manual post approval, or by simply disabling posting for all but a few people (maybe make all the SMT members “moderators”). This way it could continue serving the way it is now (exclusively as an announcement board, i.e. for journal articles) while remaining visible to non-specialists who might be interested.

[Joshua Banks Mailman]

Hi all,

As long as all the official business of the the Post-1945 Group takes place on HC Commons, I really don’t see any harm in keeping the FB Group.  (And I don’t find approving new members particularly burdensome.) In fact, I would say: if the post-1945 group only sees itself as focused on SMT exclusive business, it has somewhat lost sight of its greater purpose, which is to cultivate knowledge of and interest in analysis of art music from post-1945. In a time when “public music theory” has started to take flight, and the relevance and appreciation of music in general are–shall we say–under scrutiny, it ought to be a good thing for people outside of SMT to be aware of the scholarly activities of post-1945 music analysis. That’s 600 more people out there in the world who might be willing to opine that the activity is worth supporting, or at least that it exists. For the same reasons that SMT has open access journals like SMT-V and MTO (which I suspect are  viewed and read mostly by people who do not attend SMT conferences) I see it as a good thing for the post-1945 music analysis group to maintain an outreach presence that visibly extends beyond academia, and so why shut down something that hundreds of people have already flocked to purely out of interest in this completely non-lucrative nerdy subject? Anyway, those are my thoughts on the subject.

Josh

• This reply was modified 2 years, 7 months ago by Joshua Banks Mailman.
• This reply was modified 2 years, 7 months ago by Joshua Banks Mailman.

[Antares Boyle]

Hi everyone,

Thank you so much to those who weighed in on this. Based on this small sample, it seems like we’re split between those who would like to shut the group down and those who would like to keep the group going as a space for sharing research.

I tend to lean toward Amy’s position… I avoid posting on Facebook in general, and am not inclined to share research or initiate dialogue in a large public internet forum anyway. We all know how friendly those spaces are to professional women.

Here’s a compromise: What if we left the site up for those who are enjoying it, but officially severed it from the SMT interest group, and stopped posting our interest group announcements there? (One recent comment from a group member even expressed irritation at these announcements!)

Tara

[Amy Bauer]

Hi Tara,

That sounds like a good compromise.

All best,

Amy

[Roger Admiral]

Hello Tara,

I do not have a Facebook account, and would not necessarily go there for this Interest Group.

Best,

Roger

Roger Admiral

[Author]

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