Policy discussion

Whistle
1

Rich, in responding to a previous
thread, pointed out that we all have input
into policy and can discuss it.
How is it best for us to have
that discussion? On the board
itself, or in e mail communication,
or…?

It’s necessary to have some
rules and to draw lines, unfortunately.
And I know that sometimes there is
no clearly right place to draw a line
when one needs to be drawn. An unpleasant
and often thankless task. So I err
steeply on the side of respecting
the moderators’ decisions, even when
I don’t agree. I felt odd about
the response to Loren’s ‘whistle blowing’
about the TWA whistle postings, in fact,
but said nothing–didn’t want to
start a ruckus and the moderators
have my sympathy. Now not so sure
that’s a good idea for the board. General
silence sometimes covers
stuff that comes out later. Confused
as to how to proceed. Thanks to all,
especially to Rich and Dale.

[ This Message was edited by: jim stone on 2002-01-23 11:45 ]

2

On 2002-01-23 11:38, jim stone wrote:
Rich, in responding to a previous
thread, pointed out that we all have input
into policy and can discuss it.
How is it best for us to have
that discussion? On the board
itself, or in e mail communication,
or…?

On the board is probably best, although you’re always free to send either of us mail with a suggestion, too. :slight_smile:

I felt odd about
the response to Loren’s ‘whistle blowing’
about the TWA whistle postings, in fact,
but said nothing

Now that it seems safe to say that Manuel/Paul/Jonathan aren’t coming back, I can explain why it’s important to send mail to us rather than posting publicly: I wanted them to keep posting, in order to generate enough evidence that they were the same person in order to send a complaint to their Internet provider.

I also would have liked to keep it going enough to get the person who signed up as Andreas to post; while pretending to be three different people is pretty doltish, impersonating a known maker is much more serious, but without a post from that user, we couldn’t really do much other than remove the user’s board account.

I hope this clarifies things.

    -Rich
3

Lots of times I refrain from replying to posts after weighing the potential benefits against the potential losses. If I really want to root for someone’s comments but I am afraid of contributing to the ruckus, I will privately email that poster. I’m always learning to hold my tongue here and everywhere. If I don’t act impulsively on my urge to respond to something, if I think about how necessary it really is for me to respond, I won’t say something I’ll regret later. But, if I have a caveat emptor, I won’t hold back–that is unless someone beats me to it. I appreciate C&F members telling me that a whistle might not be all its “cracked up to be.” There’s a serious side to WhOA. Sounding the best we can by obtaining the best tools for us means enough to all of us that we participate in this forum. If this forum were limited to discussions of techniques, tunes, and technology, it wouldn’t be nearly as useful to me. The more open our channel of referrals is, the more likely we will have the best instruments possible available to us.
So much thanks to Dale and Rich and any moderators or other techies I neglect to mention for their thoughtful attention, and to everyone here generous enough to share a caveat emptor in spite of potential bickering.
Lisa

4

I recall a thread on this board from about a year ago wherein people were complaining that the board policy was not a democracy, whatever happened to free speech, etc.

Some astute poster pointed out that the Bill of Rights is only concerned with the freedoms guaranteed by a GOVERNMENT for its people. Hence, the message board operator/moderator can set the rules, no matter how restrictive, biased, bigoted or otherwise.

Now I for one have always cringed at the amount of Christianity that gets shoveled around this board…tough luck for me; I regularly return here anyway, because the majority content - i.e. whistles and music - interests me greatly and is worth all the rest of it. But more importantly, whatever flies with Dale/Rich is the way it’s going to be here because it’s THEIR board…free speech can be realized by visiting a message board administered by our government.

[ This Message was edited by: Raymond on 2002-01-23 12:34 ]

5

On 2002-01-23 12:33, Raymond wrote:

Some astute poster pointed out that the Bill of Rights is only concerned with the freedoms guaranteed by a GOVERNMENT for its people.

A specific government, at that. :slight_smile:

I’m probably confusing astuteness with smartassedness again, but I figured this would be a good place to emphasize that the message board is in Canada.

I will do my best to ensure that no harm comes to the server when the igloos start melting in June, though. :slight_smile:

    -Rich
6

Thanks, Rich. The difficulties I had
were these.

I was taken in by the postings, until
Loren’s message, which struck me
as moderate and reasonable under the
circumstances, caused the scales to
fall from my eyes (and numerous others’
eyes, I’ll bet). What happened
worked well in instantly
protecting quite a few
of us from
buying whistles on the basis of
these phony testimonials.

If we had been waiting for whomever
was posting to post again (your plan), well,
maybe quite a few people would have been
taken in and sent their money off to
Germany to buy heaven knows what.
Protecting people from blowing
their bucks is more important, I think,
than bringing the most serious
charges against the culprits.

It wasn’t clear to me how we were
going to find out about what was
really going on, or when–and
a timely warning was important.

In addition, I don’t think fairness
was compromised. For you and Dale have
the wherewithal to fill us in
quickly, after the whistle gets blown,
as to your information about the
culpability or lack thereof of the
whistlemaker himself. That is, almost
immediately I received from Dale
a couple of emails, one of which
contained a response from Andreas
Joseph–and you’all could have
used the board, too. So I have
withheld final judgement about the whistlemaker himself.

I thought, reading your request,
that your were indeed concerned about
about fairness, but also it sounded to
me like somehow you were afraid of
gettin sued. The statement that ‘There
is no evidence at all that the postings
came from anybody professionally
associated with the whistle maker’
struck me as inaccurate.

Evidence consists of facts that
make a proposition more likely. The postings
themselves provided at least
some evidence of involvement from
people professionally connected to
TWZ whistles. First, the poster(s)
were not fluent in English. Second,
people professionally connected to
TWZ whistles had a motive to put up
those postings and it’s hard to see
who else would (barring bizarre
scenarios). Third, the poster(s)
had information that people professionally
connected to TWZ whistles would have
(e.g. the website of an American
distributor of TWZ whistles) and other
people abroad not fluent in English
probably wouldn’t have.

These facts provide some, but not conclusive, evidence that someone professionally connected to TWZ whistles made the postings–they make the truth of that
proposition a lively possibility.
That Andreas Joseph emphatically
denies involvement makes me
refuse to reach a final judgement.

The board worked well, all concerned,
I thought, both in protecting us
and in protecting fairness.
We do some things well, and I figure,
as long as it works, maybe
we shouldn’t fix it.
The alternative may expose us to
bigger risks.

Thanks and best wishes, Jim

[ This Message was edited by: jim stone on 2002-01-23 13:19 ]

7

On 2002-01-23 13:15, jim stone wrote:

If we had been waiting for whomever
was posting to post again (your plan), well,
maybe quite a few people would have been
taken in and sent their money off to
Germany to buy heaven knows what.

This is probably worth a general warning – please, everyone, keep in mind that there’s no vetting of whistle reviews on these forums. It’s up to each of you to decide whether or not you trust the opinions of the people whose posts you read.

There are a few tools you can use to help do that. First, look at the statistics under the posters’ names on the left-hand side of the post – that gives you an idea how well-established they are in the community. There’s probably not much difference between 20 posts and 200 there, but if someone only has one or two posts, it might be worth being cautious about blindly trusting their opinions.

Second, you can take a look at the poster’s previous posts to see if their posted opinions mesh with yours – someone might post an entirely genuine review of a whistle, but when you read through their posting history, you see that what they look for in a whistle is nothing like what you look for. You can see a poster’s posting history by clicking the “profile” link at the bottom of their post, and then clicking “View posts by this user” beside their username on the profile page.

Lastly, caveat emptor – Manuel/Paul/Jonathan made it very easy to figure out that something strange was going on, but that doesn’t mean that they all will. Play it safe with makers of expensive whistles – it’s unusual to buy an expensive instrument without an audition, so always make sure that you can return the whistle if you don’t like it. I’d be cautious of a maker that doesn’t provide such a policy – unless it’s custom work, even with a waiting list a returned whistle can go to the next person on the list.

Cheers,

    -Rich
8

I don’t really know what’s this talk about what we can and can’t say on this forum, but the day a person deletes one of my postings, he’s better delete the whole username with it, because I’d leave the board for good. I guess I’m just waiting for that day to happen, because I don’t really care about the board’s policies, as long as I stay polite…

9

Azalin,

I’m thinking I won’t delete your post.

Dale