The Alizée Hub [girlpop.hopto.me]: A User Guide and FAQ

[digimaze]

this is the third time my entire FAQ has been posted from my Hub thread.

[digimaze]

Originally Posted by Antares

So let me get this straight... you're effectively holding the Alizée Hub ransom unless we conform to your musical tastes and spam the hub chatbox with "SUGOI DESU YO NE?" All because Rev asked an honest question about whether or not the information in the OP is current? A question that is made all the more valid by the fact that the information is not current (OP says you need to share 1GB, currently it is set at 10GB)? If it sounds crazy when I say it out loud like this... well, that's because it's crazy.

Like Scruffy said, chatting is incidental. Why should I feel compelled to write something nobody cares about and nobody will bother to read? I will say something if I have a reason to, but I've yet to come across one on the hub. That doesn't mean that I don't support the existence of the hub or appreciate it, just that I have nothing to say.

Why is it any of your concern what music we like? Outside of Asia, things like Kpop and Jpop are pretty niche tastes. There's obviously not going to be much overlap in interest between Asian pop and French pop, so you're fooling yourself if you think Alizée fans are going to start gushing over Psy and doing the Gangnam Style dance all of a sudden. And just because other French pop artists are French doesn't mean we have to like them.

"My requirements for sustaining the Hub have been ridiculously minimal and your shortsightedness and arrogance in following your own rules in MY HUB is what will directly result in the Hub going..."

Yes, the requirements have been minimal, and nowhere have they ever stated that we are required to use the chatbox and become Kpop fans. You're pulling arbitrary "rules" out of nowhere here.

Look, I appreciate what you've done for the hub, but I'm not going to sit back and pretend like this isn't ridiculous. Other users might too polite to say anything, but I'm sure we're all thinking the same thing.

No you don't have things straight... I am not "holding" anything "for ransom" or requiring people to download Korean Pop or any other specific kind of music, none of which is a "niche taste" and only restricted to Asia. Girls Generation, featured in the clip I just posted, sold out the Paris Olympio two days straight and Madison Square Garden in TWO HOURS. IF you kept current like most of the Hub members you would know that fact. I am asking people that are currently members of the Hub to contribute... something you don't seem to understand nor with the tone of your post, do I ever expect you to.

If you were a member of the Hub you would get that.. but you're NOT nor do I think you have the right to speak for all the members of this Forum or know what they think. Most of the members of the Hub are long time supporters of this forum (including myself), which I have personally promoted because hateful little rants like yours weren't allowed here .

Normally I don't respond to posts like this but something so blatantly untrue needs some sort of response.

If my Hub is so terrible, why do you continue to try to log into it? You are NOT a member of my Hub and after what you just posted, nor will you ever be.

Good luck... and calm down!

[Scruffydog777]

Originally Posted by digimaze

............Truth be told, she has never been much of a singer and as one Sony executive joked, the album "5" was named for the number of times Sony Music had to send her back to the studio to "fix" her vocals..........

I didn't want to let this go as being the last thing said about her voice in this thread. If she had to go back to the studio 5 times to fix her vocals in the making of the album, it wouldn't have surprised me because it "seems" fairly obvious that she has never put much work into her voice and we've seen quotes from a singer like Linda Ronstadt who had an incredible voice that she had to work on her voice all the time.

In my opinion it all goes back to something I've complained about a million times and that's the fact even though losing the music of Laurant Boutonnat and the songs of Mylene Farmer was a huge loss, the most damaging thing to her career was the loss of good management.

We see her making appearances singing songs that sounded terrible and you wonder how she could make those mistakes and it's obvious that decisions that bad, have to be coming from her because if she had a manager, I can't believe a 'manager' could be making such bad decisions, year after year, and still remain a manager.

Though she may not have a strong voice, I think she's shown a voice that has at times shown a uniqueness of it's beauty. Blonde I feel, should have been a successful album, but something again I've said many times is the outfits she wore on the stage added nothing to her performances even with the dancing she did because she looked so blah and how often can you say that about her? She's still an incredibly beautiful woman and to not take advantage of that was a fatal mistake.

The other big mistake they made with Blonde was again with her beauty and her great dancing ability was not coming up with some good videos. All they had was the very lame one for Blonde

I still think the potential is fully there, but can she find a way to manage it? Certainly she can't do it on her own. But I think another baby will be the next course she will follow and I'm sure that will be the end of me following her career. Either way, I wish her the best!

[digimaze]

Originally Posted by Scruffydog777

I didn't want to let this go as being the last thing said about her voice in this thread. If she had to go back to the studio 5 times to fix her vocals in the making of the album, it wouldn't have surprised me because it "seems" fairly obvious that she has never put much work into her voice...
In my opinion it all goes back to something I've complained about a million times and that's the fact even though losing the music of Laurant Boutonnat and the songs of Mylene Farmer was a huge loss, the most damaging thing to her career was the loss of good management.

We see her making appearances singing songs that sounded terrible and you wonder how she could make those mistakes and it's obvious that decisions that bad, have to be coming from her because if she had a manager, I can't believe a 'manager' could be making such bad decisions, year after year, and still remain a manager.

I agree. I had hoped that with her DALS win she would move on to a role as a "celebrity who used to be a Pop singer" much in the same way as Paula Abdul did...an incredible dancer/choreographer for Janet Jackson (among others) who had a turn as a Pop Idol that was purely a result of studio artistry. Her unprocessed voice is AWFUL as those that got duped into buying concert tickets discovered back in the day. But the public loved her: she was sweet, warm, charming and humble and parlayed that into a lucrative career as a celebrity judge for shows like American Idol.
I thought the same might happen for Alizee, and fantasized that DALS might ask her to join the show as a judge.... but then something was said and the next thing you know not only Alizee was unwelcome to return but her boyfriend too! Now I'm not willing to speculate what happened, but clearly it was another case of Alizee shooting her own career in the foot.

As far as the Hub goes, I am unwilling to provide that service to a handful of virtually inactive accounts: it seems like it's time to explore other options. I've got a dedicated computer online 24/7 churning away as the Hubs' server that I can re-purpose for other uses. I see that new Alizee files do appear here from time to time (I won't mention any names but he's in my Hub 24/7). Posting them in main chat so that they could be a part of the Hub's collection could have made a difference but you all chose NOT to do so. It mystifies me: you REFUSE to participate in Hub activities yet then get ANGRY with me when I decide I might phase out the Hub due to "lack of Activity!" (lol) You are thereby saying farewell to the most comprehensive collection of Alizee (and French Pop for that matter) available anywhere. Good luck to you guys... I don't know what you'll do when and if your hard drive crashes.

[deligna]

Originally Posted by digimaze

you REFUSE to participate in Hub activities

What hub activities? The only hub socialising i've heard of is the vip section you've told me about, and maybe people speak in the main hub chat every once in a while, but i havent heard of any activities. I'd love to participate in something, like having a chat about our favourite clips or photoshoot or whatever once a month or something. I've never heard anyone hosting this kind of stuff though.

[digimaze]

Originally Posted by deligna

What hub activities? The only hub socialising i've heard of is the vip section you've told me about, and maybe people speak in the main hub chat every once in a while, but i havent heard of any activities. I'd love to participate in something, like having a chat about our favourite clips or photoshoot or whatever once a month or something. I've never heard anyone hosting this kind of stuff though.

I thought I explained this to you in private chat, so in a way your post seems intended to be inflammatory, but in case you forgot or I was somehow unclear, I'll go over this again: the way the Hub is arranged, main chat is for Alizee and French music, VIP chat is for "other music." This arrangement was due back in the day to constant complains from Alizee fans about "Posts we don't care about." I guess the posts have been a little lacking of late... which explains why I'm resigned to having to take some drastic action. You can't have things BOTH ways!

Pointing that issue in the other direction, I might have missed it, but I have yet to see you post Alizee content or initiate a conversation in main chat. Maybe that's a more productive tactic you might want to take rather than looking for "some other person" to make the effort. Also, if you (or anyone else) want to deal with your personal issues with the Hub, might I suggest that you direct it towards me at the HUB's CHAT? I certainly am open for discussion, having spent over TWO HOURS in private chat with you presenting you with different options to make you more active within the Hub.

Yes, the VIP part of the Hub is where the action is and right now I'm refining a post of highlights of all the New Years music specials that weighs in at over 60 GB. When you've got the whole world to draw from, finding cute dance Pop singers and soulful Pop divas with catchy songs is an easy matter.

I personally offered you the opportunity to join as a VIP member because you now technically qualify but when I explained to you that the posts and chat have very little to do with Alizee you turned me down. So what exactly is your point here???


A week ago I made an announcement that I might place the Hub on hiatus due to lack of activity... yet you just complained about the LACK OF ACTIVITY. If you really think about it, you just validated my point.

[Scruffydog777]

As I said before, I hope to become more active in the hub in the upcoming weeks with a fair amount of stuff fans will like. Most of the fans in AAm are already familiar with it. I just posted an "Alizee football referee" video. I've been working on that for years. I tried finding football clips that were funny, then I had to crop out certain logos and it was a lot more difficult than i envisioned and took way more time than I thought it would in the begining.

This past election, to put it briefly, I saw things I thought were wrong and became very active on FB trying to let people know what I think was the truth and this has consumed a lot of my time too. A lot of what I've been doing concerns what's been going on in Europe and that's a sad, sad, story. I've been trying to let people here know, it could happen here and as opposed to the election, that's an ongoing story.

I'm also still trying to keep interest up on our FB page which is a full time job, but I have a good amount of stuff I do want to upload to the hub. I just need a few more days to get organized.

[digimaze]

Originally Posted by Scruffydog777

As I said before, I hope to become more active in the hub in the upcoming weeks with a fair amount of stuff fans will like. Most of the fans in AAm are already familiar with it. I just posted an "Alizee football referee" video. ...I have a good amount of stuff I do want to upload to the hub. I just need a few more days to get organized.

Great! That's what I am asking for. There is also no problem posting clips that you are still working on. I do that myself ("I think there's a better version of this clip out there so be prepared to replace this. Consider this version 1.0"). Just make sure I am ONLINE when you post it and that I've grabbed it before you go offline (I am online 23.5/7) so I can create a re-post and re-post it over and over again so everyone including those that are offline at the moment can get your contributions.

My re-posts are a result of one of the issues of the Hub which is you have no access to the live chat stream when you're offline and you lose previous private chat posts when you reboot. The previous messages being stored is easy: that's a settings issue that's easy to fix. Just ask when you're online if you don't know how. I've seen the "football clip" and it's hilarious... I will be happy to make it or any other contribution from the good folks at AAm a part of the Hub and add it to our roughly 200 GB of Alizee goodness.

As far as the recent election is concerned:

"In a democracy, people get the government they deserve"
--attributed to Alexis de Toqueville

Contact me if you have any questions or concerns regarding the status of the Hub or tips and tricks with posts. Private chat at the Hub is always the best bet for dealing with narrow issues like that.

[comjoz]

Originally Posted by digimaze

...You are thereby saying farewell to the most comprehensive collection of Alizee (and French Pop for that matter) available anywhere. Good luck to you guys... I don't know what you'll do when and if your hard drive crashes.

Do you guys, digimaze and others, who know well about those internet technologies, have some idea what could be an alternative to the Hub if it go closed any time soon, or in the future?
Fans of Alizée would like to have some alternative since it's obvious from the posts in this thread that there is no more (substantial) interest in the Hub.
Is there some place where all that huge Alizée collection that is still on the Hub can be transfered to, and can stay on the internet available to the fans for easy downloading, and upload of the new content? What could be a new alternative to the Hub?

[Scruffydog777]

Originally Posted by comjoz

Do you guys, digimaze and others, who know well about those internet technologies, have some idea what could be an alternative to the Hub if it go closed any time soon, or in the future?
Fans of Alizée would like to have some alternative since it's obvious from the posts in this thread that there is no more (substantial) interest in the Hub.
Is there some place where all that huge Alizée collection that is still on the Hub can be transfered to, and can stay on the internet available to the fans for easy downloading, and upload of the new content? What could be a new alternative to the Hub?

Well I'm no expert on the subject, but with Google drive, you can share files, but you can only have up to 15 GB before you have to start paying for more and in today's high def world, that gets used up with only a few files. Of course you can have more than one Google account, each with 15gb more, but that's still a drop in the bucket.

I have most of the files from the eary years, up till 2004, but not that much as far as the albums that followed. I have most of her appearances on Les Enfoires and several other tv shows and DALS and SAGA and I'm sure many others have more than me. The big problem is more and more fans are losing interest and the way things are going, it will be very hard at some point to find all these files that were so accessible from the hub.

Ray I think has much more of her newer stuff than me and probably all the old stuff. Rob Rhein is still going strong and will probably be a good source of files, but his living situation and computer situation hasn't been that steady and I know at times compromised his files. Bottom line is there will probably be good sources to get files for the next couple of years, but beyond that depends on what happens with Alizee, other wise I can't see anything that will match the capacity and ease of access as the hub without paying a price.

I uploaded 3 files (2 interviews and a tv show) to my dc hub file. I put them in a "Subtitles added to Interviews,blah, blah, blah" folder, and I will add more during the week.

[Scruffydog777]

Mostly what I'll be adding in weeks to come is videos I added subtitles to. At first I was going to add 'subtitles' or 'with subtitles' to the end. I don't think there is a need to add 'English' with that.

But I think it might be best to add subtitles early in the file name so when a computer just shows the first part of a title, you will know right away it has subs in it.

For instance one file I added subs to was....
2015-07-25-Alizee-50mnInside-UneStarUneHistoire-TF1(720)
So I changed it to 2015-07-25-Alizee- (Subtitles) 50mnInside-UneStarUneHistoire-TF1(720)

Can anyone think of a better way of doing it?

In some cases where I added subs, I cut out some sections of the original clip in which case I'll probably add 'shortened' to the end to make sure people know the original was longer.