The future Of Roots Archives

[seb]

Following some posts in our forum, I'd like to share here what is the future of RA.

First, I'd like to say that a lot of work has been done in this website, taking hours and hours to mat (the programmer) & I (who adds albums). Also, our devoted moderators has made a fantastic job here, to maintain the forum without any assistance of mat or I. Hans has made a huge job by adding categories to albums and keeps working on it. As well, a huge thank you to all of you who contributes to our website, sending covers, info, etc...

That being said, I feel like I have reached the top of what I can do for this website for now. Everything I do now seems more like a "work". You can imagine that after adding more than 4500 albums in the database, it's hard to find pleasure to add more. Don't misunderstand me, I won't stop adding albums or artwork. It's just I can't be involved more than I am now for the RA project.

We've been thinking a lot past months of what we could do next. Mat was interested in adding more features for the users and the idea of audio samples, maybe even selling legal downloads. As for myself, I don't think it's worse the amount of work for now.

So, after debating for a long time, we have decided to move to another project which will be www.soul-archives.com .
No need to explain in deep what this website is, it's just roots-archives extrapolated to soul music. I've always loved soul music and I think many of you love it as well, reggae and soul are very close and I have to say many of my favorite reggae songs are soul music covers.

But we have decided to add features to soul archives, the great one being that users will be able to add albums by themselves. It makes a huge difference. We'll probably allow people to add singles as well in soul archives. I expect to launch soul archives late may or june 2008, September if everything goes wrong.

Once Soul Archives will be launched and the technology allowing people to add albums/singles will be tested in deep, we'll launch www.reggae-archives.com . Reggae Archives will cover the whole reggae area from the 60s to today, probably allowing to add singles as well. As Soul Archives, people will be able to add albums. I'd like as well to make a special account for artists and bands playing today where they would be able to promote their music and show concert dates.

I won't participate much to reggae archives as I don't like post 85 reggae music, it will be up to you to complete the database. Of course, every albums in roots archives will be added to reggae archives when we launch it.

I'll use the reggae archives database to complete the roots archives one when people add singles/albums that should be in roots archives regarding the recording dates.

Of course I'd like to have your opinion about all of this. Let me know if you consider it's a bad move. If any of you is a great collector of soul music lps and would be interested in adding albums even before the website is online, please send me a PM and we'll talk about it.

All the best

Seb

[jahganja7]

that sounds great, i just dont want to see RA change or lose any of the features that make it so amazing!

[Well Charge]

great work. Been looking for something like "Soul Archives". Lots of respect for the work!

[Rootikalist]

allowing people to add albums/singles will be tested in deep, we'll launch www.reggae-archives.com

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Reggae Archives will cover the whole reggae area from the 60s to today, probably allowing to add singles as well

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That's great , i'd like to partecipate adding some of my reggae singles and i like the idea to add prelisten to the description! I collect 90% singles so it will be great for me!

I love reggae from 60's to now so i'm happy to see that you are going to include all the reggae genere from 60's to now! That choise will complete 100% this reggae database making everyone happy!

[Survival]

How to decide if the info that the users add is correct?

[ton1]

Will everybody be able to upload and will it be without checking by a admin or mod ?

Great idea about soul, RA made me discover so many albums, I hope SA will be as useful !

Thanks and congratulations for all the work !

[seb]

How to decide if the info that the users add is correct?

self moderation ... we'll add some privileges to some of the users that come with the best info so that they can make corrections of other albums whereas most of the users will just be able to add album, maybe through a "submit" page for the first albums they add. Nothing is decided yet about it.

[bonga]

I've sended several messages in the past with info & artwork about missing albums, but never got any response.....
Why not make some sort of wiki/web 2.0 of this site ( why another/new site )? so it isn't depending on a handful of persons...

[seb]

I've sended several messages in the past with info & artwork about missing albums, but never got any response.....
Why not make some sort of wiki/web 2.0 of this site ( why another/new site )? so it isn't depending on a handful of persons...

We try to reply to everyone who offers help. I notice your email is at hotmail which stop most of our emails for unknown reasons.

I send you our email where you can send info & artwork via PM.

We can't allow people to work on the roots archives database for technical reasons. It has not been designed for more than one user or being available through internet. It's all a local database on one computer only and changing it would take a lot of time.

[ras_gaks]

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