r.j newsletter

[JJ Conductor]

Ten years ago the biggest problem with rec.juggling may have been that
there were too many posts. It was hard to find topics that were relevant
to any given juggler. Now most of that chatter has moved to Facebook and
other forums.

Today we have the opposite problem. Traffic on rec.juggling has slowed to
a point that it probably does not get read often by many jugglers. That,
in turn, means there is less reason to post (if jugglers think their posts
won't get read or appreciated).

One consequence is that I think communication among jugglers in the global
juggling community is down. My opinion is that we were a closer-knit
global juggling community 10 years ago than we are today. I think there
are many reasons for this, but rather than dwell on that, I'm more
interested in possible cures.

With this in mind, I'm considering sending out a monthly rec.juggling
newsletter. The goal is to help with two issues:
1) give jugglers more of a reason to post to rec.juggling
2) allow people to follow what is going on in the juggling world without
checking Usenet/forums or other sources every day.

The newsletter would be a recap of interesting juggling news/posts of the
month. This won't be a replacement for rec.juggling or anything else, but
a way to make juggling information more accessible to jugglers.

Don't know if this idea is the best way to unite jugglers, but it may help
and can be done without a lot of money, time or bytes.

--Dave, Juggle Junction Conductor



--
----== posted via www.JuggleJunction.org ==----

[Little Paul]

On 2013-06-26, JJ Conductor <fake....@example.com> wrote:
>
> With this in mind, I'm considering sending out a monthly rec.juggling
> newsletter. The goal is to help with two issues:
> 1) give jugglers more of a reason to post to rec.juggling
> 2) allow people to follow what is going on in the juggling world without
> checking Usenet/forums or other sources every day.
>
> The newsletter would be a recap of interesting juggling news/posts of the
> month. This won't be a replacement for rec.juggling or anything else, but
> a way to make juggling information more accessible to jugglers.

Question: How much crossover is there between this idea and the IJA ezine
"Juggler’s Scoop" fortnightly roundup of stuff that's happening on the web
(Seemingly apart from rec.juggling and The Edge)

I'd link you to an example, but juggle.org is throwing 403 forbidden errors
at the moment...

-Paul
--
http://paulseward.com

[JJ Conductor]

> Question: How much crossover is there between this idea and the IJA ezine
> "Juggler’s Scoop" fortnightly roundup of stuff that's happening on the web

It some ways a lot. It some ways they are totally different.

Reading "Juggler's Scoop" is similar to reading a current listing of
recent r.j posts. ( http://jugglejunction.org/newsreader.php ) It is, to
some extent, a summary of r.j. Any r.j newsletter would have common
content to it (or any other juggling news summary).

That said, the audience would be mostly totally different. The r.j
newsletter would not be designed for juggling news junkies. Frankly most
people reading this post probably check r.j often, so a summary of what is
posted here would have little value to us.

That said, 99% of jugglers (or some high percentage) do not check juggling
websites and/or forums often. My belief is that, nonetheless, most
jugglers would be interested in hearing some juggling news, and doing so
would help build* the global juggling community.

---

* One difference would be that we would link back to the rec.juggling
article. This promotes/encourages interaction with other jugglers. I/We
want an active community, not a passive one.

[Little Paul]

On 2013-06-27, JJ Conductor <fake....@example.com> wrote:
>> Question: How much crossover is there between this idea and the IJA ezine

>> "Juggler’s Scoop" fortnightly roundup of stuff that's happening on the web

>
> It some ways a lot. It some ways they are totally different.
>
> Reading "Juggler's Scoop" is similar to reading a current listing of
> recent r.j posts. ( http://jugglejunction.org/newsreader.php ) It is, to
> some extent, a summary of r.j.

Only it's not. June 20ths edition lists 17 links, of which I think I've
seen one posted to rec.juggling (although I may have actually seen that
elsewhere)

http://ezine.juggle.org/2013/06/21/jugglers-scoop-june-20th-2013/

Yup, juggling on the internet is alive and well, probably thriving more than
it ever has done - it's just not happening in here.

It's a sad fact, but a true one.

It's not even happening on The Edge (although the edge has decidedly more
discussion happening than r.j has these days) - I read every post in r.j
and every post on The Edge - and *still* the IJA ezine has managed to come
up with 16 interesting links I'd not heard about.

I know you're not an IJA fan any more than I am, but whoever is writing
jugglers scoop has their finger on the pulse of the worldwide, online,
juggling community far more readily than either of us does.

God that was difficult to admit. The IJA doing something right! ;)

> That said, the audience would be mostly totally different. The r.j
> newsletter would not be designed for juggling news junkies. Frankly most
> people reading this post probably check r.j often, so a summary of what is
> posted here would have little value to us.

A summary of what's posted elsewhere on the net (eg the content of Jugglers
Scoop - or MoM, CircusGeeks, or any of the other juggling news aggregation
blogs) would be more useful... on that we agree.

> That said, 99% of jugglers (or some high percentage) do not check juggling
> websites and/or forums often. My belief is that, nonetheless, most
> jugglers would be interested in hearing some juggling news, and doing so
> would help build* the global juggling community.

I'm not saying "don't write a newsletter" I'm saying "find out what's out
there first, and offer something different"

So far, I don't think you've managed that - but then you haven't written
a first issue yet either :P

-Paul
--
http://paulseward.com

[JJ Conductor]

Little Paul wrote:
> Yup, juggling on the internet is alive and well, probably thriving more than
> it ever has done

I'm not sure I agree with that. I'm willing to listen to you convince me
of it though. Where on the Internet is the global juggling community
hanging out these days?

> I'm not saying "don't write a newsletter" I'm saying "find out what's out
> there first, and offer something different"

One reason I started this thread was to find out if something is out there
that I'm missing. I'm hoping that you, or anyone else reading this, will
help answer that very question. Lets examine what is out there. Lets
discuss what is working and what is not.

I am/was already aware of "Juggler's Scoop". Having looked at it a number
of times over the last year, I'll stick by my impression that it has a
strong crossover to r.j and IMHO the most interesting content is from (was
on) r.j. The latest issue, as you pointed out, has 17 links of which only
1 is a story from r.j. All of the rest, the remain 16 links, are links to
videos.

While I think juggling videos are nice, I hope there is more to the
current Internet juggling community than watching videos. I do think a
juggling newsletter should have links to new videos. I'm hoping that it
will have more than just articles. (I'll admit I'm a fan of the written
word.)

Also, I don't know how many people are currently being reached by existing
juggling outlets. It may be that Facebook is bringing more juggling
stories to more people than ever before, but I know many jugglers who
won't/don't belong. I worry that we may be fragmenting the global
juggling community, more than uniting it.

Another worry is that maybe there is not enough juggling news to report.
What story in the last month or tow would actually be of interest to most
jugglers? What content would an average juggler want to see in their
inbox?

[Little Paul]

On 2013-06-28, JJ Conductor <fake....@example.com> wrote:
> Little Paul wrote:
>> Yup, juggling on the internet is alive and well, probably thriving more than
>> it ever has done
>
> I'm not sure I agree with that. I'm willing to listen to you convince me
> of it though. Where on the Internet is the global juggling community
> hanging out these days?

Well obviously they must be *somewhere* otherwise the ezine wouldn't have
found them.

I've heard tell of facebook groups with thousands of members, there's a
couple of active google+ groups, there are thriving non-english message
boards, youtube and twitter both have very chatty juggling comunities.

I don't really use social media, so I don't have direct experience of
the above, but I'm assured they exist.

Perhaps if you want to find out for yourself you should start with facebook.
Pick either the IJA or the BJC facebook presence and explore from there.

>> I'm not saying "don't write a newsletter" I'm saying "find out what's out
>> there first, and offer something different"
>
> One reason I started this thread was to find out if something is out there
> that I'm missing. I'm hoping that you, or anyone else reading this, will
> help answer that very question. Lets examine what is out there. Lets
> discuss what is working and what is not.

I'm pretty sure you and I are the only people who will ever reply to this
thread. I'm pretty sure r.j is *that* dead.

> I am/was already aware of "Juggler's Scoop". Having looked at it a number
> of times over the last year, I'll stick by my impression that it has a
> strong crossover to r.j and IMHO the most interesting content is from (was
> on) r.j. The latest issue, as you pointed out, has 17 links of which only
> 1 is a story from r.j. All of the rest, the remain 16 links, are links to
> videos.
>
> While I think juggling videos are nice, I hope there is more to the
> current Internet juggling community than watching videos.

The internet today is very video led, it's just the nature of the modern
internet usage experience. Text is a dying medium. That said, juggling
edge has had a lot of lively discussion on it the last couple of months
the tone of which is very reminiscent of the "glory days" of r.j

> I do think a
> juggling newsletter should have links to new videos. I'm hoping that it
> will have more than just articles. (I'll admit I'm a fan of the written
> word.)

Have you checked out circusgeeks and ministry of manipulation? They're
worth a look and have a mixture of written pieces and video content.

Actual discussion of the articles is sporadic, but that's just the nature
of the modern internet.

> Also, I don't know how many people are currently being reached by existing
> juggling outlets. It may be that Facebook is bringing more juggling
> stories to more people than ever before, but I know many jugglers who
> won't/don't belong. I worry that we may be fragmenting the global
> juggling community, more than uniting it.

Lets say generously, we've got 500 people actively reading r.j and The
Edge has 450 registered users. I think we can comfortably assume there
are 10,000 jugglers on facebook.

Facebook isn't fragmenting the community, it's uniting it. r.j and The
Edge are the fragments.

> Another worry is that maybe there is not enough juggling news to report.
> What story in the last month or tow would actually be of interest to most
> jugglers? What content would an average juggler want to see in their
> inbox?

I want to read interesting articles written by people who know what they're
on about (which I get from the ezine, MoM, CircusGeeks etc) and follow/take
part in lively discussions (which I get from The Edge and ##juggling) and
the occasional "you should watch this video, it's great" (which I get from
all of the above)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyOWj-ZZNc4 for example, I found on CircusGeeks
and shared on ##juggling this morning. Or this article comparing juggling
and running (which I've taken to relatively recently) from the ezine:
http://ezine.juggle.org/2013/06/22/how-running-is-like-juggling/ or this
helpful discussion about fixing a 5 ball pattern:
http://jugglingedge.com/smalltalk.php?ThreadID=815&SmallID=5189
Unicycles: http://jugglingedge.com/smalltalk.php?ThreadID=816&SmallID=5207
Or even completely off topic http://jugglingedge.com/smalltalk.php?ThreadID=817&SmallID=5235

All my boxes ticked, none of them ticked by r.j

I love usenet more than most, but my personal online juggling fix is served
by the above.

-Paul
--
http://paulseward.com

[JJ Conductor]

Little Paul wrote:
> All my boxes ticked, none of them ticked by r.j

Yet it is obvious that you have checked (and posted on) r.j at least a
couple of times today (pun intended). I think it clear that you and many
other jugglers still do value, or at least use, r.j. Lets not give up on
it yet.

I think we've shot ourselves in the foot. Personally I dislike it when
someone makes a post on r.j primarily telling people to go elsewhere. I
think if jugglers would support r.j more and make new threads here, then
we would do much to reverse the current trend.

I do think the global juggling community (including r.j) is doing poorly
and has been for the last few years. Your post and links I think support
this more than refute it. Ministry of Manipulation is a fine website, but
the article marked "new" has a 2007 copyright on it. CircusGeeks is great
too, but the last non-video is dated May 3rd. IJA has a forum, last post
was Oct 29th of last year. The Gatto forum has closed. None of this
looks like a healthy Internet juggling community to me.

Yes, I have looked into Facebook. Juggle Junction even has a facebook
page ( http://www.facebook.com/pages/Juggle-Junction/469051513105280 )
While I think Facebook (and other social media) works great in some cases,
I don't think it should ever be considered a main source. In part,
because many jugglers don't want to be on Facebook.

If I wanted to pretend that the Internet juggling community is going
strong, I could mention that the JuggleJunction.org server got over 15,000
hits yesterday (an average day). We have over a thousand registered users
and two or three people sign up every day. I don't know if they are
coming for r.j, but they are coming.

These jugglers, however, rarely post and mostly seem to be quiet
observers. I don't think they return to r.j daily or even monthly. I
know many of those 15,000 hits are bots or irrelevant (most web stats are
meaningless). I don't delude myself into thinking JuggleJunction.org is
"the place" to go or that JuggleJunction.org is *proof* that juggling is
prospering on the Internet.

It seem to me that there are many jugglers out there but most of them are
not "in the loop". As I said in the first post, I think a r.j newsletter
might help these jugglers stay connected with the juggling community. I
think r.j is still the best place and best hope to reach the global
juggling community, and a newsletter would give people further incentive
to post news to r.j.

Perhaps my optimism and hopeful outlook is based in part on the recent
success of JJ's global jugglers page. (
http://jugglejunction.org/globalJugglers.php ) We had many people tell us
that it was nice to feel part of the juggling community again. This could
work.

And again as I stated, I don't see a downside to a r.j newsletter. And
again as I stated, the target audience is those jugglers who are not
reading r.j every day. This is my best guess on a way to make things
better that is within my power. I'm very willing to hear other options or
opinions.

Dave

--

Note to self: If I want people to read these posts, I need to make them
shorter.

[billy]

Just to prove Little Paul wrong. (Appropriate emoticon here)

[Aidan]

JJ Conductor wrote:
> Little Paul wrote:
> > All my boxes ticked, none of them ticked by r.j
>
> Yet it is obvious that you have checked (and posted on) r.j at least a
> couple of times today (pun intended). I think it clear that you and many
> other jugglers still do value, or at least use, r.j. Lets not give up on
> it yet.

I think Paul is right. r.j. is dead, in the sense that there's about one post
per week and often that post is duplicated on the edge, where it generates
more response. That's not to say that it can't come back to life at some
point, but obviously that would require interesting stuff being posted here
and generating a lively response.

r.j. died mainly because the juggling database vanished and there wasn't an
adequate replacement already up and running. Also it coincided with a time
when facebook was gaining momentum. Now there is jugglehub and jugglejunction
(and maybe others), but they had their teething problems and the horse had
bolted so to speak.

As you may know I like sudoku. I follow a sudoku forum too. Five or more years
ago, that was thriving, but now it too is very quiet. It also suffered with
the site having to move at one point. My point being that maybe forums in
general are in a bit of a decline at the moment.

A slightly related point is that a predecessor to facebook, friends reunited,
is virtually unheard of today. Despite facebook's dominance at the moment,
people may tire of it too, especially when they realise the power that they've
given them by volunteering all their personal data and likes and dislikes. The
internet is a relatively young medium and in five or ten years from now it
will look very different!

As for the juggling community, I think it's thriving! You just have to look at
all the club listings and events on the juggling calendar. These days you get
listings from places like South America and Asia. I'm not saying that they
didn't have clubs and events before, but generally we didn't get to hear about
them.

Also as a club passer, when I go to a festival, there's a strong community
among club passers, more so than there used to be.

Having said all that, if you have an idea to try and resurrect interest in
r.j. there's nothing to stop you giving it a go!

Aidan.

>
> I think we've shot ourselves in the foot. Personally I dislike it when
> someone makes a post on r.j primarily telling people to go elsewhere. I
> think if jugglers would support r.j more and make new threads here, then
> we would do much to reverse the current trend.
>
> I do think the global juggling community (including r.j) is doing poorly
> and has been for the last few years. Your post and links I think support
> this more than refute it. Ministry of Manipulation is a fine website, but
> the article marked "new" has a 2007 copyright on it. CircusGeeks is great
> too, but the last non-video is dated May 3rd. IJA has a forum, last post
> was Oct 29th of last year. The Gatto forum has closed. None of this
> looks like a healthy Internet juggling community to me.

> shorter.
>


--
----== posted via www.jugglehub.com ==----

[thegoheads]

Hi Dave,

I would absolutely love a r.j newsletter. I would pretty much subscribe
to any newsletter about juggling I guess. What type of stuff would you
try to include? I stay away from facebook for a number of reasons, and
I'm not yet fond of the IJA ezine (don't like the layout so much, or the
fact that some of it is members only, but perhaps I haven't given it much
of a chance) so I really just keep up with juggling news via youtube/JTV
videos, JugglingEdge, and r.j.

I like getting the IJA newsletter, and I love emails from vendors about
what's on sale (even though I hardly ever buy anything! ha!). I would also
love to see hot topics on other juggling related forums. There are diabolo
and contact forums that are (or at least used to be) pretty busy. I
wouldn't want to read everything there, but if there was any exciting
debates I would definitely read it to pass the time while at work. Maybe
contests or giveaways could be a cool idea too, but it seems a lot of
things like that don't get much attention anymore. Maybe some Q&A with
some famous jugglers in each newsletter? Surely that shouldn't be too
difficult, you'd just need to find a famous juggler that wouldn't mind
answering a quick email. Just some suggestions, I hope maybe it's helpful!

The Edge is pretty busy right now, and I guess you could say that some of
the most active posters on r.j have simply migrated there. I wouldn't
mind seeing r.j become busy once again though, and maybe a newsletter
could help. Good luck! :)

-Steve

[thegoheads]

Rant about facebook in relation to this topic:

In a way, facebook is the biggest thing since the internet. The majority
of big companies no longer list their own website in their ads, instead
they just invite you to like them on facebook. In some cases, they simply
have the facebook logo in lieu of any kind of contact info or website.
Just like when the internet became big, major companies started listing
their website rather than physical addresses/phone numbers.

Without going in to great detail, Facebook is too cluttered for my taste.
It seems a lot of the content there is just short random bursts
of...whatever. The short time I was using facebook I found that I wasted
so much of my time sifting through nonsense and checking notifications
that ultimately led to more nonsense. I guess that's the main reason I
stopped using it very quickly after I started. Is there really any useful
juggling discussion happening there? If there are juggling groups with
thousands of members posting often, wouldn't it be very cluttered and hard
to follow? Or at least, not very interesting to follow? Especially if
it's all done in the tradition of the normal nonsense that people post on
their facebook feeds?

I strongly agree with what LP said about Facebook being the uniting force,
and forums like r.j or the Edge being the fragments. Personally, I'd
rather be part of the fragments. Bigger is not always better. Imagine if
juggling conventions grew so popular that they drew hundreds of thousands
of people. Wouldn't that totally suck!?!? I'd rather go to a convention
with only a few hundred people, so I would perhaps get to know a lot of
people rather than just fighting my way through the chaos. That's how I
feel about using these slower forums as opposed to using facebook.

I don't think r.j is dead either. Forums come and go, but, as I
understand, r.j is different and much more permanent, being a usenet forum
accessible in many different ways and not just someone's website that will
inevitably shut down. Dave, you said JuggleJunction already has a
facebook page? If you could be bothered to sift through all the nonsense
on FB and find the good stuff to include in a newsletter (without links
that just lead to FB please!) I would absolutely love you for that. And
again, I think that would help generate more traffic here too.

THERE! LOOK! I'M MAKING DISCUSSION! R.J LIVES! :D

-Steve, happily inviting any avid facebookers reading this to simply click
the dislike button rather than explain their thoughts. :P

[JJ Conductor]

to continue the Facebook (FB) sidebar ....

thegoheads wrote:
> I strongly agree with what LP said about Facebook being the uniting force,
> and forums like r.j or the Edge being the fragments.

I may agree with you, but I wouldn't phrase it like that. It appears to
be true that there are a lot of jugglers who use FB. But I don't think
that means they are being united on FB. FB reports that 177,896 people
"like" the term "juggling". Yet I'm nearly certain that there is no way
to to reach these 177,896 people even using FB. These people may be on
FB, but they are NOT united there and they do not form what I call a
community there.

In a discussion elsewhere about this thread, one juggler said something
which I think explains it better. FB is really good at creating cliques.
(clique:
n. A small exclusive group of friends or associates) I think FB is really
good at creating/uniting/fostering lots of small communities or cliques.
What it doesn't do, and probably hurts, is create a single, united global
juggling community.

Furthermore, I don't believe that even FB jugglers who belong/"like" a
group are certain to see posts to that group. From my experiments with
Juggle Junction's FB page, most of people did not see the posts I made
there. This is for several reasons. FB decides which posts the readers
are most likely going to want to see, and only passes those on. In FB's
defence, I think they do a good job of this; showing everything would be
overwhelming. Nevertheless, the result is that FB users often do not see
/ are not shown messages even in groups they have "liked". (Plus if they
don't check FB often, any message will quickly get buried.)

> THERE! LOOK! I'M MAKING DISCUSSION! R.J LIVES! :D

good use of shouting. :)

I do think r.j still lives, as this thread indicates. I also think it
only takes a few of us to keep it going. Regardless of what other
forums/FB/Tweets/emails jugglers use, when we see something interesting
and relevant ask ourselves if it has been posted to r.j yet. If not, make
a quick post.

[thegoheads]

JJ Conductor wrote:
> thegoheads wrote:
> > I strongly agree with what LP said about Facebook being the uniting force,
> > and forums like r.j or the Edge being the fragments.
>
> I may agree with you, but I wouldn't phrase it like that. It appears to
> be true that there are a lot of jugglers who use FB. But I don't think
> that means they are being united on FB. FB reports that 177,896 people
> "like" the term "juggling". Yet I'm nearly certain that there is no way
> to to reach these 177,896 people even using FB. These people may be on
> FB, but they are NOT united there and they do not form what I call a
> community there.

That's true. Giving it a second thought, I shouldn't phrase it that way.
And it also reinforces my opinion about FB being cluttered and useless, so
I shall recant my above quoted statement about FB uniting jugglers. My
point was supposed to be that even though lots of jugglers may find FB
useful for their juggling news, I think it sucks balls :D

There, that's better :)

-Steve

[billy]

JJC:

I'm here on r.j to stay.

Just went to the Freiburg, Germany Juggling Fest
a couple of weeks ago. They've been
holding it since the '90s. It's a
great fest with a good public show.

I only found it by continually googling
juggling in Germany. It finally came
up within about 2 weeks of the date. In
other words, we almost missed going even
though we were within about 10 miles of it.

I'd like to see a good calendar of
juggling fests around the world. Is there
a repository of them now?

[JJ Conductor]

thegoheads wrote:
> I would absolutely love a r.j newsletter. I would pretty much subscribe
> to any newsletter about juggling I guess. What type of stuff would you
> try to include?

Good question.

At its simplest, the newsletter would be a summary of the biggest news
items on r.j. The goal of the newsletter is to promote (and unite) the
global juggling community. As such I think it important to get jugglers
involved in the process, not just as passive readers of the final product.

With this in mind, when jugglers read a r.j article on JuggleJunction.org,
they can flag the article. The current (non-exclusive) categories are;
"big news", "worth reading", "niche item", "video", "event", "spam", and
"not spam". The goal is to allow readers of r.j to help decide what the
major stories are (in a very easy, non-time-consuming, way).

Given that the Juggle Junction database has information about where the
reader lives and where upcoming juggling events are, We'll try to include
upcoming local festival/events in the newsletter if it isn't too hard
(time consuming) to code.

Beyond that, it depends on resources. I already spend (too) many hours a
week on JJ related stuff. I think I can commit to the above, but beyond
that it probably will be contingent on who and how much help we get.
(There is a spot on JuggleJunction.org to volunteer if interested in
helping.) I think all of your ideas are good.

The last day or three I've looked into what it would take to summarize the
juggling video scene. It appears that at least 40 juggling related videos
a day are added to youTube. I'm not sure how best to utilize this or sift
through them.

If/Once the newsletter gets going, I think it will be easy to recruit help
for interviews and other cool content. But getting to that point may be a
challenge. Nevertheless, I think even the simplest newsletter model would
be a plus and a move in the right direction both for r.j and for the
global juggling community.

[JJ Conductor]

billy wrote:

> I'd like to see a good calendar of
> juggling fests around the world. Is there
> a repository of them now?

We (JuggleJunction.org) listed it here:
http://jugglejunction.org/event.php?Freiburger2013

There are several listing of upcoming juggling events out there. This is
an area that we are still trying to improve on JJ. I'm not happy with the
ease of looking up events yet. I also would like to list more juggling
related (eg unicycle, flair, flow, acro, ...) events and even performers
schedules.

But enhancements should probably be discussed in a separate thread
(preferably after a newsletter is on track)

[Aidan]

Given the topic of this thread, I feel terrible saying that at the moment the
juggling edge seems to have the best calendar of events, although as Dave
points out jugglejunction does a pretty good job.
In Germany, inbaz used to have an excellent calendar. Now that it's been
resurrected, it seems to list central European conventions. It has missed a
lot of Uk conventions for example. I think most of these sites get their info
from the same source. Afaik jon from the edge offers his calendar data to
other developers.
Aidan.

[Miark]

There is a listing of Juggling Events around the world on Juggling Edge at

http://www.jugglingedge.com/events.php

Juggling Edge supplies the event listings on the IJA site, Juggle Junction
and others. It also has an archive of all the past events (including those
listed on jugglingdb).

For Europe there is also www.juggler.net/calendar and for Germany there is
also www.inbaz.org

m

billy wrote:
> JJC:
>
> I'm here on r.j to stay.
>
> Just went to the Freiburg, Germany Juggling Fest
> a couple of weeks ago. They've been
> holding it since the '90s. It's a
> great fest with a good public show.
>
> I only found it by continually googling
> juggling in Germany. It finally came
> up within about 2 weeks of the date. In
> other words, we almost missed going even
> though we were within about 10 miles of it.
>

> I'd like to see a good calendar of
> juggling fests around the world. Is there
> a repository of them now?
>

[Orinoco]

Ok, perhaps I will bite. As someone who has been accused of 'killing'
rec.juggling I wasn't going to say anything but here we go, a few thoughts
in no particular order...


JJ Conductor

> That said, 99% of jugglers (or some high percentage) do not check
> juggling
> websites and/or forums often.

I would say that 99% of jugglers (or some high percentage) check Facebook
dozens of times a day. Some are constantly connected to it.


LP

> A summary of what's posted elsewhere on the net (eg the content of
> Jugglers
> Scoop - or MoM, CircusGeeks, or any of the other juggling news
> aggregation
> blogs) would be more useful... on that we agree.

An aggregation of an aggregation of an aggregation...? No no no no no no
no! We need more *sources* (that are aggregatable).


JJ Conductor

> Reading "Juggler's Scoop" is similar to reading a current listing of
> recent r.j posts.

I can't by any stretch of the imagination see how you could think that.
The link to Todd Strong's stories about Robert Nelson is the only item
featured in the entire (er... let's see) 36 scoops that I recall being
taken from rec.juggling.

Most of the links in the scoop I believe are ones doing the rounds on
Facebook.

So far nothing that has appeared on the Edge has been featured in a scoop
(I'm discounting the 2 announcements that the Edge exists as they weren't
highlighting any specific content).

Which is as it should be.

Activity on the Edge is still far too small to be worth summarising.
Nathan is focusing on filtering out the mundane from the deluge of stuff
going through Facebook which is the right thing to do & he's doing a very
good job of it to boot.

I feel there are times when the scoop offers little that a youtube search
for "new juggling videos" wouldn't but that is just the nature of the
content that is being created.


LP

> Text is a dying medium.

Not while I'm alive & going to festivals!


JJ Conductor

> Personally I dislike it when
> someone makes a post on r.j primarily telling people to go elsewhere.

Aidan

> Given the topic of this thread, I feel terrible saying that at the
> moment the
> juggling edge seems to have the best calendar of events

Now this is where I see a problem. Rec.juggling is a place where you feel
posting links to or even recommending external content is a no no? Do you
really want to see the juggling community thrive? Or do you just want
people to use rec.juggling & nothing else?


billy

> I only found it by continually googling
> juggling in Germany. It finally came
> up within about 2 weeks of the date. In
> other words, we almost missed going even
> though we were within about 10 miles of it.

Have to question your Google-fu there. That event has been listed on the
Edge since October last year, as Mïark mentioned Edge data is used by the
IJA (which updates from the Edge daily & is the top result for most
juggling event related searches) & JJ (who picked up the data 2013-04-11
by the look of things). Non Edge sources include
https://www.inbaz.org/convention/54 & the festival's own website:
http://www.jonglieren-in-freiburg.de. So there are plenty of places you
could have found the info. Are you saying that *none* of those came up
during your searches?

Searching for "juggling in Germany" in Google turns the Edge events list
up at number 9 for me, if you changed your search term to a more useful
"juggling events in Germany" you could have used the I'm feeling lucky
button which would have taken you to the IJA events listings. If you
don't like using Google then there are better alternatives to which ever
search you are currently using.

Given that this thread touches on why no one is posting to rec.juggling
it's interesting to note that you didn't post a message asking if there
were any events happening while you would be in Germany which I know at
least one of half a dozen people I know would have responded to. :P


--
Orin
http://www.jugglingedge.com

[billy]

Orinoco wrote:
>
> billy

> Have to question your Google-fu there.

> Searching for "juggling in Germany" in Google turns the Edge events list
> up at number 9 for me, if you changed your search term to a more useful
> "juggling events in Germany" you could have used the I'm feeling lucky
> button which would have taken you to the IJA events listings. If you
> don't like using Google then there are better alternatives to which ever
> search you are currently using.
>
> Given that this thread touches on why no one is posting to rec.juggling
> it's interesting to note that you didn't post a message asking if there
> were any events happening while you would be in Germany which I know at
> least one of half a dozen people I know would have responded to. :P
>
>

Orinoco:

My Google Fu is lousy. Always has been. I never thought of posting that
question here. I just figured Googling Juggling Germany would turn up
what I
wanted. I didn't know there was an event near where I would be, so I
wouldn't
have been looking for "Events/Festivals" I did find the Freiburg group,
and e-
mailed them at their site. I have yet to receive a response. I probably
wouldn't have checked the 9th entry as you did. I even had a difficult
time
finding the Freiburg festival that I had been to the day before and I
couldn't
bring up a link. And I was in Germany. I had to change the search to a
German
Google before it would come up. Something like Google.de.

This stuff is readily apparent to you and other computer savvy people but
I am
not one of them. I have never seen Juggling Edge. I don't ever look at
FB. If
I see FB on anything on my screen, I hit delete. I'm not an IJA member
and
don't look at that site.

My computer is 10 years old. I would like to see a newsletter of the
latest
juggling info. If it was a push. If I have to look for something I get
frustrated easily and give up.

But thanks anyway for trying to educate me.

[JJ Conductor]

Orinoco wrote:

> I would say that 99% of jugglers (or some high percentage) check Facebook
> dozens of times a day.

What is this statement being based on? I'd like to see your support for
it.

I've done a lot of asking around on this subject and I'd guess that the
percentage is MUCH lower than not, ie not a "high percentage".
Furthermore, as stated before, just being on Facebook doesn't mean the
juggler is connected to the (or any) juggling community. Saying someone
is on FB is a little like saying they have email, it indicates a possible
communication channel, but does not say anything about what content they
are actually receiving.

> ... As someone who has been accused of 'killing'
> rec.juggling ...

I don't think anyone here has accused you of anything, or even mentioned
you by name. I can see how you might read that into it, but that wasn't
my (or I think anyone's) intent. Sorry if it came across that way.

I think all of us are aware that r.j declined before IJDb ever closed
down. As I've stated elsewhere, I was excited about your "Big Talk" idea,
and saddened that it didn't take.

> Now this is where I see a problem. Rec.juggling is a place where you feel
> posting links to or even recommending external content is a no no? Do you
> really want to see the juggling community thrive? Or do you just want
> people to use rec.juggling & nothing else?

I think that we all would like to the juggling community thrive. And I
think we all agree, know, that posting links or external content is a yes
yes on r.j. We need more of it. That said, I think a large part of r.j
traffic over the years has been a fairly small group of primarily British
jugglers that have now mostly moved to the edge. Whether this is helping
or hurting the global juggling community is probably largely
insignificant. If you, or anyone, has a plan for uniting the global
juggling community without using r.j, then I think that is worth examining
too.

[Little Paul]

On 2013-07-01, JJ Conductor <fake....@example.com> wrote:
> Orinoco wrote:
>
>> I would say that 99% of jugglers (or some high percentage) check Facebook
>> dozens of times a day.
>
> What is this statement being based on? I'd like to see your support for
> it.

I thought I'd go looking, and its actually a really hard thing to find out.

http://www.statisticbrain.com/social-networking-statistics/

Doesn't say anything about the polling methodology, or the demographics
of those who answered (eg I would expect the percentage of 18-25s who drive
their life through facebook to be higher than that of 45-60 year olds)

From talking to jugglers at festivals in the UK though, I very much get
the impression that I could count the number of them who *don't* use
facebook regularly one no more than two hands.

Of those who do use facebook, I would expect a majority of them check
it at least once a day, probably more often than that, but actually finding
(good quality) stats to back that up isn't easy.

I know.. I know.. anecdote is not data, and self selecting surveys are
next to worthless

> That said, I think a large part of r.j
> traffic over the years has been a fairly small group of primarily British
> jugglers that have now mostly moved to the edge.

I think the number of people who have "moved" to the edge is smaller than
you might think. I would wager that the majority of people who have signed
up for The Edge who are rec.jugglers of old - are still reading r.j

However, there are a number of active posters on The Edge who have never
posted to rec.juggling. Which I think is a nice thing.

At the end of the day though, chat breeds chat. No one wants to post to
an empty forum, and if there are signs of lively discussion people will
join in.

Especially if that discussion is started by an excited newbie who has a
problem and wants help - which is a trend on The Edge at the moment (and
is the norm on reddit), but which hasn't been the case on r.j for quite
some time.

The old farts have already asked/answered all the questions so don't tend
to start threads, new blood is rather useful for that.

-Paul
--
http://paulseward.com

[JJ Conductor]

> http://www.statisticbrain.com/social-networking-statistics/

I think this matches what I've seen, and what these sources report.
http://mashable.com/2011/02/24/facebook-twitter-number/
http://www.prdaily.com/Main/Articles/Study_51_percent_of_Americans_use_Facebook_7826.aspx#

From all of this, it appears about half of people on the Internet use
Facebook. From my experience this matches what I've seen among jugglers
too.

Of the people using Facebook, the people checking many times a day is said
to be about 23% (so about 12% of population uses facebook many times a
day). Again this matches what my personal experience/queries. There are
also many people who technically are on FB, but rarely use it.

I'll add that I think it varies widely with the group. If one belongs to
a group that primarily uses facebook, then those people are likely to use
it often. If not, then not. But all of this is mostly irrelevant. It
isn't as if someone can post something on FB and have all 1.1 billion FB
users read it. Any given FB page is likely to reach far fewer jugglers.
How many is debatable (and indeterminable). Oddly, the more the juggler
is into Facebook, the harder it may be to actually reach him as he is
likely being flooded with lots of non-juggling chatter from other friends.

To return this to the topic; a r.j newsletter is in some respects a way to
make r.j a little bit more like Facebook. Facebook provides its users
with a feed of information. A r.j newsletter would do the same,
delivering juggling news to the juggler and inviting them to discuss it
.. and they won't have to list their birth date to get it.

[Jay Linn]

On Mon, 01 Jul 2013 16:29:16 +0100, JJ Conductor <fake....@example.com>
wrote:

<snip>

> Saying someone is on FB is a little like saying they have email, it
> indicates a possible
> communication channel

Just not so at all Dave. Not by design, but by fact - lots of people
check Facebook constantly; lots of people get alerts pushed to their
phones and tablets; even the refuseniks like me get email alerts from time
to time. Facebook is *pervasive*, more than you perhaps imagine, with a
really insidious ability to engage people. I'd not be surprised if
Facebook is bigger than email right now, just in terms of sheer bandwidth.

<snipped the rest>

--
Jay Linn

C'mon Engerland lager football oi rah!

[Jon Peat]

>Snip<

> I'm pretty sure you and I are the only people who will ever reply to this
> thread. I'm pretty sure r.j is *that* dead.

Not true, I think that there are plenty of lurkers out there just waiting for
something interesting to happen. ;-)
Unfortunately, not a lot interesting is happening here..

> Snip<

> I've heard tell of facebook groups with thousands of members, there's a
> couple of active google+ groups, there are thriving non-english message
> boards, youtube and twitter both have very chatty juggling comunities.

The Facebook group 'Juggling Rock' (I don't know why its called that, but
that's a separate discussion) currently has 3772 members of which about 48
have joined 'recently'. Correct at 13.36 UK time 2/7/2013

This group mainly has juggling videos, of which I have not seen them posted
anywhere else, but also has a lot of traffic which would normally have been on
Rec.
Such as: David Cains Juggling Versatility test, 'I need advice what clubs to
buy' and 'I'm trying to learn this trick..any advice?' posts.
Bread and butter posts which normally appeared on Rec. have now migrated to
other avenues.

Speaking as an everyday juggler, I can't be bothered to become involved in
every online community and group to keep a track of everything that is going
on online. There are too many and I am lazy, I would rather be juggling. :-)
(I wish I had never joined facebook and so have no intention of joining any
other online groups!)

> Snip<

> I want to read interesting articles written by people who know what they're
> on about (which I get from the ezine, MoM, CircusGeeks etc) and follow/take
> part in lively discussions (which I get from The Edge and ##juggling) and
> the occasional "you should watch this video, it's great" (which I get from
> all of the above)

I would love to sign up to a group/newsletter somewhere online which rounds up
all the best bits of juggling news from online. To include all the above which
Paul has mentioned, which includes links.
That way, one could scroll through the headlines and pick which ones to
investigate further.
This would be perfect and amazing for lazy 21st century jugglers like me as it
saves me doing all my own research in all different areas of the web. Big
selfish thumbs up from me!


But surely thins is a massive undertaking?
Does anyone have the time and the drive to do this for a serious length of
time?

Within the framework of being a lazy 21st century juggler, I would love to
help. :-)

What if someone was entrusted to watch 'the edge' someone to watch 'facebook
group 1' someone else 'circus geeks' someone else 'juggling tv' and so on and
so forth.
They could then submit any interesting articles / news storys / amazing videos
ect for inclusion in a internet juggling news roundup?

There could be an online 'link box' where people could post links to
interesting things for inclusion in the roundup?

Just my thoughts
Best, Jon

[The Void]

Jon Peat wrote:
> What if someone* was entrusted to watch ... 'juggling tv'
> They could then submit any interesting ... / amazing videos



I wonder why we didn't think of that before. Oh, wait,...
http://juggling.tv/blog --> facebook --> twitter

;-P

The Void
................
*About 10 people are that "someone" in this case.

[Jon Peat]

The Void wrote:
> Jon Peat wrote:
> > What if someone* was entrusted to watch ... 'juggling tv'
> > They could then submit any interesting ... / amazing videos
>
>
>
> I wonder why we didn't think of that before. Oh, wait,...
> http://juggling.tv/blog --> facebook --> twitter
>
> ;-P
>
> The Void
> ................
> *About 10 people are that "someone" in this case.
>

It must be a good idea then!!! ;-P

The JTV blog is an excellent example of how this can work really well! I don't
feel I am missing videos from other sources as the JTV team collate the
majority of good ones in one easy to view place.

Cheers, Jon

[Orinoco]

On Mon, 01 Jul 2013 16:29:16 +0100, JJ Conductor <fake....@example.com>
wrote:

> What is this statement being based on? I'd like to see your support for
> it.

Based on lots of things really, but all anecdotal of course.

During the last 2 BJC business meetings organisers have complained that
lots of people asked questions through Facebook for information that was
easily available on the main convention website.

At festivals these days there are a lot of faces I don't recognise. They
are not coming into the scene through rec.juggling or the Edge, the ones
I've talked to mostly told me they found out about the festival through
their university Facebook group.

Coming back from a festival & seeing hundreds of updates made during the
festival (Seriously? What a complete waste of festival time!).

A certain well known juggler who'd probably prefer to remain nameless
getting stuck in a sauna & appealing for help on FB/Twitter rather than
calling the festival organiser who published his phone number on the front
page of the festival website! :)

> I don't think anyone here has accused you of anything, or even mentioned
> you by name. I can see how you might read that into it, but that wasn't
> my (or I think anyone's) intent. Sorry if it came across that way.

Oh no, not here. I think the worst I've been accused of here is
'fracturing the juggling community' which amused me greatly.

> I think that we all would like to the juggling community thrive. And I
> think we all agree, know, that posting links or external content is a yes
> yes on r.j. We need more of it. That said, I think a large part of r.j
> traffic over the years has been a fairly small group of primarily British
> jugglers that have now mostly moved to the edge. Whether this is helping
> or hurting the global juggling community is probably largely
> insignificant. If you, or anyone, has a plan for uniting the global
> juggling community without using r.j, then I think that is worth
> examining
> too.

I do have a plan: http://www.jugglingedge.com :)


--
Orin
http://www.jugglingedge.com

[JJ Conductor]

Jon Peat wrote:
> I would love to sign up to a group/newsletter somewhere online which rounds
up
> all the best bits of juggling news from online.

> ...

> But surely thins is a massive undertaking?

I think that is a major question here. I'm looking into how to reduce and
distribute the workload. Another touchy bit is how to determine what the
"best" bits are? What one person thinks is very cool, someone else may
not want to read/see. I think if people are willing to flag/rate stuff
they view, then this can be done with little effort. That may be a big
"if". Regardless I think it important to realize that every story/video
is going to be important to some people. We must not trivialize that.