Is criticism to be frowned upon?

[ddk]

My question now to the membership is, do you want the forum to change to comply with the list of requests and complaints above? How valid do you find those complaints? And here, I am not asking the people who have created the list. I already know your feedback. I am interested in hearing from the larger membership.

Ultimately we as a forum need to make a decision. The worst thing is indecision. We either cater to these change requests or we tell them it is what it is and if you leave, that is just fine.

My position has always been clear on this. A forum is a hang out for different personalities and participation is 100% voluntary, you will find people you dislike and/or disagree with and so what? Deal with it, bitch about it openly and/or in private, leave, whatever, but don't preach behavior and ask everyone to conform to your sensibilities! I don't know the number of active members here but mostly see the same small group of regulars who on and off get along together or not which makes me wonder about the actual no. of members demanding change or else. What makes them anymore precious? Personally I think that the forum and the group is quite capable of handling its differences with members without heavy handed moderating or the melodrama unfolding here. If not it will fall apart anyway. I find nothing wrong with Andre's use of "Bitch" or your position on the "Bitch" maker. My only recommendation here is to decide wether you're a participant or a moderator/priciple you can't be both, that's why I think people are critical of you more than others. And don't delete other people's posts!!!! Unlike Tim I don't see the problem with the data or subjective/objective sides or even audio, its about the personalities.

david

 

[Al M.]

My position has always been clear on this. A forum is a hang out for different personalities and participation is 100% voluntary, you will find people you dislike and/or disagree with and so what? Deal with it, bitch about it openly and/or in private, leave, whatever, but don't preach behavior and ask everyone to conform to your sensibilities! I don't know the number of active members here but mostly see the same small group of regulars who on and off get along together or not which makes me wonder about the actual no. of members demanding change or else. What makes them anymore precious? Personally I think that the forum and the group is quite capable of handling its differences with members without heavy handed moderating or the melodrama unfolding here. If not it will fall apart anyway. I find nothing wrong with Andre's use of "Bitch" or your position on the "Bitch" maker. My only recommendation here is to decide wether you're a participant or a moderator/priciple you can't be both, that's why I think people are critical of you more than others. And don't delete other people's posts!!!! Unlike Tim I don't see the problem with the data or subjective/objective sides or even audio, its about the personalities.

david

Apart from agreeing with you, David, I want to second a particularly important point that you make: "And don't delete other people's posts!!!!"

 

[Johnny Vinyl]

Apart from agreeing with you, David, I want to second an important point that you make: "And don't delete other people's posts!!!!"

As a Moderator myself I've learned that you cannot moderate any thread in which you are consistently involved.

 

[microstrip]

Amir
My friend, and I hope I may call you that, I don't agree with your analysis of what has occurred at all. I feel you mischaracterise it as a personal insulting attack on you. It isn't. I found on other audio forums a separate subforum for objective and technical discussion to be particularly valuable. Abit like blind testing - a debate that is forever circular.

I also feel you are hopelessly compromised in your ability to be a moderator and poster, as it is apparent to me at least you are unable to separate yourself from your moderating duties. And that is just because, I suggest, you are passionate in your beliefs. And I actually really liked your posts a year or so ago - you were humourous and self depreciating, in the main. I am serious when I say you are better than this.

Please do not escalate this, as you apparently seem to want to do. For what it is worth, in my view Mike is absolutely correct in what he says, and you most certainly are not. Please just apologise to Mike, and lets all return to regular programming. As for Blizzard, he is in my judgement a young man who is desperate to be noticed and validated. What he craves is attention and recognition. Well he is getting that, but not in the way perhaps he wants.

I say this as a relative outsider, with no axe to grind. This is not a forum I have much attachment to, and have seen all this before elsewhere.

In any event, I leave you with the thoughts above and will now bow out and get on with my day. For me, this morning, Bach Partita's have much more interest than posting here.

A case where an "outsider" immediately got a quick and enlightening view of the situation. Thanks for posting. I have scheduled for later today the Britten Cello Suites.

 

[microstrip]

As a Moderator myself I've learned that you cannot moderate any thread in which you are consistently involved.

I have referred to this aspect explicitly several times.

 

[Al M.]

As a Moderator myself I've learned that you cannot moderate any thread in which you are consistently involved.

Good point. Then let others do the moderation and refrain from the task yourself. I guess Amir should learn to practice that if he doesn't already know.

 

[treitz3]

Agreed Al, microstrip and John. I think everyone is in complete agreement that a moderator should not moderate a thread that they are intimately involved in. With the only exception of a member clearly breaking one of the TOS rules. "Steering" members to cater to a moderators wishes so that said moderator can get his agenda out is an abuse of power and should not ever be tolerated. I do believe most, if not all of us could agree to that.

Tom

 

[NorthStar]

I'm going to add something here, from learned experience.

The number of posts a poster has, or how active he is; has none to do with anything.
Mike mentioned it before; one small little thing where I have a different opinion.

At another site I was asked to reduce my posting because some members were annoyed; they have a "Hatred" system, where people click on a a small "Like" logo to approve a post without talking. There was 30+ members there, plus I was politely asked by a mod in PM. I thought to myself; Bob you've got to listen to that group. And 24 hours after I was roughly down to 50%. Now for the last couple months plus, I'm down to about 30%. Other sites I'm down to zero percent.

I planted trees for almost 30 years, and you plant the number according to your physical skills and endurance. I was always among the top guns ("highballers" we call them in my trade). Well, I've seen people complaining because of that! Yes, they were not happy because others could plant more trees than them! For almost 30 years and close to 100 companies I worked for, it was always present. I even worked in co-ops where everyone get paid the same, and there were still complainers because other members of the co-op could plant twice as many trees than them! Do you understand what I'm saying here?

So the numbers reflect the activity, the work, and how rich the people are financially, knowledge wise, anything wise, you leave them alone as you leave the high posters alone as you leave the people with high activity alone. If someone plant three times more trees than I, and there were some, I leave them alone, and I even embrace them.
When I see dictators trying to rule the world according to their own "pancakes", and judge others by their own "luminosity", I said to myself: "Bob, you need to get out of there and find better more evolved peaceful pastures, where everyone's free to express and work as they are able to".

You will never see me active here anymore, ever! And that's not only fine by many but by me too.
And leave Mike alone; his post count is his who he is. His energy you cannot object to it. You don't like it, don't blame others for your problems. And don't amass gangs of complainers to support your problem. It's your problem.

You know what, Al is 100% correct; the complainers they complain about their own difficulties dealing with themselves.

* Gearslutz; any of you posting over there? And do you remember Ultra High-End Audio and Home Theater Review forum?

 

[ddk]

Agreed Al, microstrip and John. I think everyone is in complete agreement that a moderator should not moderate a thread that they are intimately involved in. With the only exception of a member clearly breaking one of the TOS rules. "Steering" members to cater to a moderators wishes so that said moderator can get his agenda out is an abuse of power and should not ever be tolerated. I do believe most, if not all of us could agree to that.

Tom

It's not a question of particular threads.

david

 

[treitz3]

What do you mean, ddk?

Tom

 

[andrew_stenhouse]

I need to quote you because it was the last post of the previous page; normally in a discussion of the moment I don't quote.
I was also @ another site, and came back here specifically to delete my post, the one with the 4 points in it.
But no use now as you read it and replied to it.

? http://www.nsaero.com/ ... ;-)

________

¤ I believe that it is when everyone try to give directions, recommendations, suggestions, ... that we lose our touch.
I like listening to music too. Do I advice others to do the same? ...Lol that's truly up to them, and what I post is totally free; no advice, no recommendation, no suggestion, no direction home (Bob Dylan). We all vibrates differently, and that's the magic of life.

I don't like personal matters, but they are real. Mike is contributing a lot, and I don't care about what people think of his style.
Amir is a super duder, the type you cannot find @ every corner's street. He is the glue of our electronics.
Mike Lavigne is a super cool guy; friendly, inviting, highly respectable, fantastic to learn from, musically involving to the highest plateau.

I can mention all the great qualities I see in everyone here, but I won't because the forum doesn't have enough space (data) for multiple encyclopedias.

Andrew, share with us the good sides of you, because I want to discover them along with you and my own sharing.
Leave Mike alone, he's doing just fine in the book of life. You don't have to be stuck with anyone; the real force is in you only to rise above it all.
I never met you, I never met Mike, I never met Amir, you never met me; but we all meet here. And here are 5,000 members. They all have the goods.
What's yours?

? http://earthsky.org/brightest-stars/polaris-the-present-day-north-star

(((?))) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northstar

* http://www.northstar-audio.co.uk/

Goodness, I appear to rubbed you up the wrong way. I am sorry if I have. Truly. I think you may mischaracterise my posts as exhibiting something other than a good side. Again I can only apologise if I have left you with perception. Perhaps it is the language barrier. I am after all Australian, and we see things from a slightly different perspective.

Perhaps you might care to focus on the issues at hand rather than me personally, as I have endeavoured to do.

Both Mike and Amir are big boys who don't need any assistance from me. I know that. That said, I would have thought as with each of them and you I am free to share my observations.


In any event, happy listening to you all.

 

[NorthStar]

Goodness, I appear to rubbed you up the wrong way. I am sorry if I have. Truly. I think you may mischaracterise my posts as exhibiting something other than a good side. Again I can only apologise if I have left you with perception. Perhaps it is the language barrier. I am after all Australian, and we see things from a slightly different perspective.
Perhaps you might care to focus on the issues at hand rather than me personally, as I have endeavoured to do.
Both Mike and Amir are big boys who don't need any assistance from me. I know that. That said, I would have thought as with each of them and you I am free to share my observations.
In any event, happy listening to you all.

Not at all, I simply replied to what I believe is fair. My tone was firm because talking about people is less rewarding than talking about audio gear.
...And some music too of course.

It's not my usual routine to give my opinion on what I read in people's posts talking personal matters; I'm just human and my emotions I can share also, that's all.

I'm sure you're the best guy around Andrew. Criticism about audio gear is delicate. ...About people even much more so.

* My wish: people getting on with life and concentrate on the essence; music reproduction @ home. ...High Fidelity Sound.

I am French, but I can read English. I do make a lot of typos and spelling and grammar errors and verb tenses are not always correct and I also put words sometimes in front of others when it should be the reverse way, lol. That is truly my French heritage with all my faults.
I am sorry if I sound "firm", ...it affects me when people like Mike, Amir, anyone, is not fully appreciated, and criticized unfairly.
I know, you said that you have no problem, but in your book Amir should apologize to Mike (Lavigne).
And Mike (Blizzard) has too much good spirit going for him right now.
That's your opinion, me I also have an opinion on that. Amir and Mike and Mike they know best.

 

[ddk]

What do you mean, ddk?

Tom

The point I made initially was that Amir is an active and aggressive (not a problem or criticism) participant on the forums, imo moderating any thread wether he's involved in it or not is wrong.

david

 

[Don Hills]

... My question now to the membership is, do you want the forum to change to comply with the list of requests and complaints above? How valid do you find those complaints? And here, I am not asking the people who have created the list. I already know your feedback. I am interested in hearing from the larger membership. ...

I vote "no change". Within the Terms Of Service and the charter for each forum section, it "is what it is".

Much has been said about the shortcomings of forum based discussion, but it does have one big advantage over "face to face" discussion.
If you don't like what someone says or the way they say it, in "face to face" your choice is argue, remain silent or walk away. Regardless, your action is noted - you don't have the option of remaining neutral. In a forum thread, you can remain silent or walk away and few will notice. If you lack the self control to skip-read or skip over posts, most fora have "ignore list" tools to do it for you. It took me a long time and many arguments to learn to do this, but it was worth it - I enjoy following forums a lot more nowadays.

An argument has been put forward that Amir shouldn't participate in discussions because he "runs the place". This isn't logical. He has as much right to participate (and argue) as anyone else. The only restriction I see is that he should, where possible, leave the moderation of such threads to another moderator.

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

Does anyone have an example of Amir "moderating" when he wasn't addressing a violation of TOS? No, I didn't think so.

Tim

 

[ddk]

Does anyone have an example of Amir "moderating" when he wasn't addressing a violation of TOS? No, I didn't think so.

Tim

Its not another "prove it" thread Tim, Amir asked for opinions and he's getting them.

david

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

Its not another "prove it" thread Tim, Amir asked for opinions and he's getting them.

david

That's not an opinion, it's an accusation, and every accusation is a "prove it" moment.

Tim

 

[ddk]

That's not an opinion, it's an accusation, and every accusation is a "prove it" moment.

Tim

Which accusation Tim?

david

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

Which accusation Tim?

david

Read the list above of comments Amir received from members. He was accused of a lot of things. But the stated "need" for him to recuse himself of moderating threads for anything other than violations of the TOS implies that he's been doing that. I'd like to know if anyone has any examples of him doing that. I haven't seen them.

Tim

 

[ddk]

Read the list above of comments Amir received from members. He was accused of a lot of things. But the stated "need" for him to recuse himself of moderating threads for anything other than violations of the TOS implies that he's been doing that. I'd like to know if anyone has any examples of him doing that. I haven't seen them.

Tim

First of all that's not accusation of any kind and no one made it conditional. This is what I wrote in response to his request for opinions, how is this or anything others wrote accusatory?

My only recommendation here is to decide wether you're a participant or a moderator/priciple you can't be both, that's why I think people are critical of you more than others. And don't delete other people's posts!!!! Unlike Tim I don't see the problem with the data or subjective/objective sides or even audio, its about the personalities.

david