wikiloops springtime news 2020

Dear friends of wikiloops,
Thanks for checking out these wikiloops news - I sincerely hope they find you well!

One day I'll browse back the wikiloops developers blog as I sometimes do, and will stumble across todays post.
To put it in perspective for future readers, let me mention that these are the days when the Covid 19 virus forced quite a lot of countries around the world to shut down a large part of social life, keeping people in their houses and prohibiting any public events.

I'm neither a virology expert, nor a political leader, nor do I have any "solutions" to share with you, but as the founder of wikiloops, I'd like to share some thoughts on the wikiloops music collaboration project,
and how the current situation will be dealt with in wikiloops-land.

[b]Let's stay positive on wikiloops[/b]
That might not be as easy as we used to think,
so let me talk about what I believe are the necessary ingredients in times like these.

Let's start by reminding ourselves that all of us are comparably well off.
How do I know? No matter which country you are in and what the situation is out there, you obviously still have access to the internet & wikiloops, and are probably set up to record music at home.
That gives you something creative to do, right?
Us home studio musicians might be the ones who can stand being stuck at home for some time, at least entertainment-wise.
If you know any musicians who might be happy to escape musical isolation - please do invite them over to wikiloops,
this open mic party is not closing anytime soon.
So, first positive ingredient for us: we have wikiloops, and that's something positive we can share with isolated folks.
I can only rephrase/repeat what Wade wrote to the wikiloops forum this morning:
A comment below ones track or a one-click thumbs-up feedback can become extremely valuable for someone stuck in isolation, so let's be aware we have something positive to give, and let's not miss our chances to mentally support each other.


[b]Let's welcome new members[/b]
I am already seeing an increase in people visiting wikiloops (especially from Italy, where the situation seems to be the worst in Europe at the time of writing), so, the situation I'm talking about is already happening, so let's be aware and ready to welcome quite a lot of new members in the next few weeks.
To open wikiloops door towards new members a little wider,
I have modified the limitations of the free membership accounts today.
New free members who would like to check out wikiloops will no longer have to wait for days before being allowed to up- and downloading music on wikiloops, as I believe people will appreciate that.

[b]Again: Let's stay positive on wikiloops[/b]
If there is one thing which I feel scared off these days, then it is not the virus itself or the economic crash that seems to follow, but its people loosing their temper and acting aggressive because they fail to cope wih the changing situation, or people casting blame in the middle of a crisis instead of collaborating to solve the crisis.

The peaceful state of a society is a fragile thing (especially when there is a toilet paper shortage, as we recently learned in Germany...), and one reason I am reaching out to the wikiloops community today is to encourage all of us to stick to the friendly & useless-conflict-avoiding way with which we have been getting along for almost nine years now.
In other words: No matter what is going on, let us keep wikiloops the hate & fake-news-free place it has been,
and instead of taking out our frustrations on wikiloops, let's rather try to keep up the mutual encouragement. We (the moderation team of wikiloops) have reviewed the code of conduct page of wikiloops a few months ago, and I believe the rules stated there should do - but in the current situation, I'd like to explicitly ask you to be careful not to bring adversity to wikiloops. We have unlimited supplies of digital toilet paper on wikiloops, let's stay calm and have fun making some music.

[b]wikiloops forum now featuring a designated board for exchange on the "Corona-Crisis"[/b]
As I have explained in more detail in the new boards initial post, I do believe it does make sense to give us all a choice whether we want to run into crisis-related thoughts and users personal news on wikiloops.

[b]wikiloops meeting 2020 at risk[/b]
As some may have noticed, I have closed the wikiloops meeting 2020 registration list a few days ago, since there is no telling whether it will be possible to gather in Germany this august at this time.
The event is not yet officially cancelled, but the participants have been informed and we'll have to wait some more weeks to see where things are going.
If all else fails, we'll meet to celebrate the 10th wikiloops anniversary in 2021 instead :)

[b]Interface upgrade in the works[/b]
Some user responded to one of my mailing by saying something along the lines of:
"Dick, wikiloops is fantastic, but you need to rework the interface. Do not drop one single function, just change the looks!", and that pretty much describes the task I have been working on for some weeks. Hopefully I'll be able to present a sneak preview on some BETA-testground on the upcoming 9th wikiloops anniversary on April 1st 2020.

[b]Personal note[/b]
We (the Kaiser family now) would like to once more thank you all for the well-wishes, postal presents, wikiloops songs and positive thoughts sent on the occasion of our sons birth in January.
To see our son welcomed by friendly people from all around the globe is a beautiful experience, thank you all very much.

Take good care out there!
Richard



Ending with the traditional wikiloops stats of the day:
wikiloops offers 145,630 tracks today
54,604 folks have signed up in almost 9 years and
2,721 musicians shared music