Welcome back!

[Alan Howe]

BORING!!! What was once a great site is now closed minded.

It always was. We excluded almost everything pre-1800 and the avant-garde.

[Christo]

The whole discussion is about neither. But about accessible, neoclassical (in the broadest sense), even 'romantic' music from the past century. A sincere loss it's now being excluded from this forum, IMHO. 

[Alan Howe]

I understand your feelings and I'm sorry.

[Greg K]

Mark and Alan probably won't be willing to elaborate, but I'd be curious to know (post mortem) just what kind of proposals were made by other parties to take over UC (and I assume there were some) and what  made them unacceptable.

[Sydney Grew]

. . . of course, I will be signing up for Sidney Grew's forum as well, and I suggest close contact and cooperation between the two.

Agreed; and I think it will be important to construct and maintain combined lists, both of downloads and of composer references - so as to avoid duplication and too much hopping back and forth when searching.

[shamokin88]

A propos Greg K's comment: that might be very interesting.

[Ilja]

To me, this is a very welcome re-focus - mainly from the point of organization. As the forum grew in scope and size, it became harder to pick interesting discussions - for everyone, I should imagine - and my interest began to waver as I had to search harder and harder.

But, honestly, I would have understood if the re-orientation had gone in a different direction. Sites like these need assess their priorities every now and then. To keep it interesting for newcomers, to keep things clear for visitors, to simply keep things manageable within the confines of restrictive software, but most of all to maintain a collective identity both broad enough and narrow enough to keep everyone motivated.

Over the years, few musical resources have brought me more revelations than this site (and its predecessor at Raff.org), so I'm very pleased to see it carry on. To Mark, Alan, and Semloh, you have my thanks - again - and best wishes for the future.

[Alan Howe]

Thanks very much, Ilja.

[Mark Thomas]

Thanks, Ilja.

Greg K wrote:

I'd be curious to know (post mortem) just what kind of proposals were made by other parties to take over UC

No problem. We had only two expressions of interest, neither of which developed into a firm proposal. One was, I hope he doesn't mind me mentioning this, from Sydney Grew. Sydney proposed what he has now done, but on a bigger scale. It would have meant the end of UC, though, and the loss of all the posts and the information which they hold. Clearly that wasn't an option, which Sydney understood, and so he withdrew. I'm very pleased that he has resurrected his idea on a smaller scale. The only other approach we had, which was also never developed into a concrete proposal, failed because of differences between a former member and ourselves which it would be quite wrong for me to go into.

I'm most grateful for the understanding of those of you in particular who, whilst strongly regretting the return of UC to its original focus, appreciate how and why it has happened and accept it.  Maybe you'll understand the frustration which I now feel at the continued complaints of a minority of members who don't? We offered to give away UC to a team who could develop it as they wished and that opportunity wasn't taken up. So I am entirely unapologetic about refocussing UC onto romantic music, because the alternative was to close it down. I'm afraid that I'm impervious to attempts to change that policy. The definition we have of what we mean by romantic may not be watertight but it is as clear as any definition is ever going to be and you may be assured that Alan and I, soon to be joined by Semloh, will be making sure that we stick to it.

In common with the other threads in this section, I'm going to lock this thread now, but will leave it prominently displayed for a while.