Anyone else seeing a drastic drop in community activity for Support forums?

Community Building
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If we think about it, everything in life can be converted into a question, right?
But when I say “answer questions” is not that type of question, because those are more like the type of question you would ask a friend as well: how have you been, what have you been doing, what kind of movies have you been watching, etc.

What I mean by “answering questions” is more like: I have this problem. What’s the answer?

And this is what LLMs are answering.

And to be honest, all the questions you asked, can be answered by an LLM. You might not like what it gives you, but I’m yet to find an LLM that tells you “No comments” when you ask it something. They always have something to say. And some people actually don’t mind that type of interaction. For example I have a friend who’s been trying to create an app using LLMs and when I look at his chats, more often than not he talks to the LLM like “hey brother”. So… there’s also that.

But yeah, community to me is more than “here’s my problem, what’s the solution?” Which your questions don’t seem to cover. A community needs to be more of a place to hang out, than to just help solving problems.

I stopped visiting Keyboard Maestro’s forum because 1) I know a lot more than 4 years ago, of course, but 2) when I have a question, I ask Claude and it always gives me the answer I need. So that forum brings me no real value, because it has been a forum for “offering solutions to problems”.

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63

I think we may be in agreement: my forum is not there, mostly, to answer questions which solve problems.

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64

Funny story my other half used to say please and thankyou to ChatGPT

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65

I do the same. Partly habit, partly based on the idea that LLMs role play according to their instructions and the conversation. If the conversation seems to be with cooperative intelligent like-minded entities, it might be more the kind of conversation I want. Even for a programming problem.

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66

Yeah, I sometimes use “please” and "thank you: “can you please top messing with me code, you f*** moron?*”
“thank you for finally understanding what I’ve been asking you for the last 30 minutes!!!”

You have no idea how many times i find myself insulting it…
But actually, I realized that I’m not really insulting the LLM. I guess my anger is more towards the people working behind these tools, because deep inside I feel like “you are selling me this amazing tool that is supposed to revolutionize the world, yet a simple request is giving me a headache for the past 15 minutes”

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Forums vary in purpose, where one exists to enable people to find help and answers, there will always be transactional users that will come and go, but the brand will keep filling the funnel.

The trick is to build places around that which are more and invite engagement and provide access to people and global skills not easily found.

We’re pretty much saying similar things in different ways.

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I never engage with it like I would with a human (apart from the insults, which funny enough, I would never do that to a real person…)

Even when I’m very abrupt and insulting, I end up getting what I asked, so I don’t really spend time being polite or anything. It’s just a bunch of machines processing electricity :wink:

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I think the trick is not so much what we are sharing, but how we are sharing.
The global skills you mention will soon be easily found. That’s the role of the LLM. Now, if we treat the community as a place to hang out instead of always being a place to seek help, which most groups and forums are, we build something different.

Imagine for example, if a famous artist like Michael Jackson had a community and engaged every week, sharing behind the scenes, talking to his fans, etc. Or people asking questions (not just comments in a post, like we do on social media) and he would answer them? The difference between an Instagram by Michael Jackson and a community, would be that users can also post. On social media, the comments are always related to that particular post. It’s very limiting and it becomes boring. At least for me.

On social media, the followers can’t start new topics and talk to other people. Imagine Michael Jackson fans starting topics and talking to other fans, but on top of that, Michael Jackson himself being involved in that.

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In our context that is unlikely due to the nature of the field, technology and complexity. Sure it can manage with the generic aspects but once you dig deeper the wheels do come off. It’s a bit like chatgpt will never unblock your toilet for you, the technology has its limitations.

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Your post prompted me to ask YOU a question:

What is the easiest way to learn music? - my gut feel is that Standard Notation makes the process unnecessarily difficult . .

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But now you are mixing things up. ChatGPT will not unclog your toilet, but will definitely tell you how. That’s the whole point. You come to a forum to ask how to do things, not for the forum to actually do them for you. As much as you talk to a real human in a forum, with super expertise in a field, they will never do those things for you, right?

I’m not saying that LLMs and any other AI stuff will ever replace humans. I’m not that kind of person, but I can see how some things will be replaced. The same way that people use Wikipedia instead of using a real Encyclopedia. It’s faster, easier, available anywhere, updated constantly, etc.

The thing I always say though is: the more we have AI in our lives, the more we will feel disconnected, because now we can’t trust anything that’s online. Text, image, video, audio, interactions, everything can be manipulated. So, the role that some people think AI will have, is, in my opinion, doing the opposite. People will eventually go back to being engaged in real life where no manipulation can be done. And to me, that’s the best outcome from this whole AI (nauseating) hype.

AI can be a great tool, but it’s just getting out of control.

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73

This is a very off-topic subject, but here it goes anyway. If any admin feels like this should be sent to another topic, please do it.

When you say “Standard Notation” you mean writing music in music sheets? I will assume that that’s what you mean:

I started playing with my first keyboard back when I was 8 or so (1987-ish). I was just exploring, but I would spend hours playing with it. Then in 1991 I got my first drum kit and that was when I actually started making my own songs with my first band. I never learned music theory, not until 2016. I knew the basics, but now really what a Gm7 chord was, for example, which is a pretty basic concept. And when I started learning theory, a whole new door opened for me.

Up until that moment I was able to make music that people liked, I had some success in Portugal, my country, so it was never a matter of knowing theory or not, writing music sheets or not. It was about emotions and knowing what sounds good and what doesn’t. Learning theory just gave me another tool that allows me know to go different paths when I want to, unlock endless loops, etc.

Music to me is about emotions, not about just that chord X goes well with chord Y, because it’s mathematical compatible, which sometimes that’s what happens when you start learning music theory as the first method of learning. I believe that learning music, depending on your goals, of course, should always be with you spending years just messing with an instrument and seeing what feels good. You eventually end up learning that some things never sound right, even if you don’t know why. And to be honest, that’s the best approach, because most listeners don’t care about the “why” anyway. They either like the song or they don’t.

A lot of musicians, like Jacob Collier, for example, never clicked for me. His music may be very intricate and “well created” when it comes to the theory and all that, but it doesn’t resonate with me emotionally. That’s probably the issue I see with knowing too much theory. You start making things because you can and not because you you should.

When you make things because you can, you are thinking about yourself. When you make things because you should, then you are thinking about the song, which to me, is the most valuable thing. I want the best for the song, and the song will tell me constantly “this is too much, I don’t need this right now”.

So, back to your question: I don’t know if my suggestion of messing with an instrument for years is the “easiest” way, but it’s definitely the one I got more pleasure from and I’m grateful for that path. Learning music theory is easier and faster, it’s like a math equation, but it can lock you inside a cage right away, which can be a trap (no pun intended).

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74

One of the nice things about this topic, is that I can feel confident I’m reading the thoughts of other people. After months of wading through Claude’s overly verbose output, it’s nice to see people just chat about stuff that’s important to them. I like that I’m writing with people for a change…

I suspect that will become more and more attractive. Even as the llms improve, I’ve reached what feels like a point of no return after the last few years - I’m sick of reading llm output. Just so damn sick of it. Even the good stuff that is concise and accurate is tiring and un-enjoyable.

I long for messy human text. I want my words to impact another person, and theirs to impact me.

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75

You missed the point a bit.

It will provide a wide range of options that it has learned from the public, which may or may not be correct or relevant since it, and the question asker, don’t necessarily know why it is blocked.

It is a provider of generic, lowest common-denominator advice based on an imperfect source and the quality of the request.

So, it will help some, but not others, something that typically appeals to those least capable of rating the quality of the response.

Models are flawed, any language model is. They have strengths and weaknesses. Anyone who has spent time building agents will have experienced this. Their capabilities are over-hyped. Those that will be the most interesting and valuable members of a community will appreciate this and value the difference, those that don’t are the transactional noise-makers.

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