P&M stands for P*ss and Moan… I’m hoping that this becomes a sticky thread where people can take all their contentious issues.
Sean Doe posts something like “I just bought a high end Luxurio whistle and I think it sounds good”. Immediately, someone else chimes in saying “You don’t know what you’re talking about. It wasn’t made in Ireland by leprechauns, so it can’t be traditional enough”. Next thing you know, there are 18 pages of people arguing about the silly thing.
Julia Delaney posts “I heard The Warlords in concert the other night and really enjoyed it”. Result: within 3 hours, people are calling each other names regarding her opinion, bloody bodies lie heaped in the corners, and the moderators, brutes that they are, have to lock the thread.
Now, with the P&M thread, as soon as an innocuous thread “goes bad” the moderators can simply transfer the conflict over to where people apparently love this sort of thing and the rest of us don’t have to wade through the ichor and vitriol in search of what we’re really looking for-- information on the original thread topic.
I’m thinkin that’s why the flute board is so BORING lately.
Too PC.
Lately, nobody wants to start any provocatave threads, or ones that try to describe what their flute looks like, sounds like, etc etc etc. They are worried someone will jump all over them with their “You numbskull, it’s the player, not the flute” diatribe, and make things uncomfortable.
Threads are rarely locked there, but I have a feeling nobody wants to jump up with an opinion about much of anything lately.
But I look forward to those spicey threads!
Don’t you get tired of the “I like my flute” (whistle), “oh, yes, I agree, by all means, I like it too” Chip and Dale threads???
How I wish some of our olde regulars would come back…
You’ve got some nerve refferring to the flute forum as boring, and I don’t even hang there, baby! C’mon let’s get it on; you don’t know what yer talkin’ about, see? (How’s that?)
That’s funny, because I no longer want to post serious answers to people’s questions, or enter into discussions, since I always end up having to argue with people who don’t have a clue.
Yeah, I suppose it is boring, but I can live without the excitement of having someone who’s never made a decent instrument tell me they know better than I do.
I’m also no longer interested in offering suggestions on things like what CD’s to buy, because the mods don’t seem to appreciate the time spent doing this over and over and over again, enough to make things like that a sticky thread.
As for the griping about expensive whistles, I really am surprised that there’s pages and pages of blathering on about it. What’s the big frickin’ deal? You don’t like expensive whistles, don’t buy 'em. Big whoop. Why the crusade? Did someone’s old granny get duped into spending all her retirement money on the magical megabucks McChud Perfected whistle that she was told would instantly make her play like “fill in the name of your favorite whistle player here”??
If you don’t want to have a discussion, don’t post to a discussion board.
Those who just want to see their astonishing insights displayed in glory unmarred by comments can get their own webpage. The beauty and the challenge of message boards are that the discussions are fickle and unpredictable. Go with the flow. I think it’s an awful idea that moderators should purge threads of certain posts or types of posts just because whoever started the thread doesn’t agree or didn’t want to have that discussion. Once a post is out there, it’s fair game for any comment.
I don’t think it will work, Paul. Absolutely any thread can go off the rails. Any thread can be made to go off the rails very easily. It’s so easy I sometimes wonder what kind of person gets a kick out of it. Just misrepresent people persistently and mock them and sit back for a cheap laugh. We had a hit and run troll doing precisely that here yesterday.
If you have a special place for threads where that happens, it’s then dead easy for someone malicious to make sure threads by people they don’t like always end up there.
By just letting stuff happen, and leaving it, people do have to wade through a certain amount of silliness, but the good stuff in between doesn’t get lost and can’t be sabotaged by someone malicious.
Either you have iron-fisted moderation which I think few of us want, or you have to put up with a bit of garbage because there is always someone who wants to see how much they can get away with.
Actually it’s easy enough to avoid threads or parts of threads, so what’s the big deal? Also, it seems more often than not, there’s useful stuff in the worst of threads and people need an honest venting and feeling out every so often. As Bloomberg said (or implied), it’s a natural process and it’s ok. I even read every word of the tuning (just, etc.) thread, feeling every bit the ignorant lout in the corner, and got some level of enlightenment from it and found it interesting. I know that’s not what we’re talking about here, but it’s an example.
Also, I don’t know that it’s particularly healthy to designate an area for really bad pointless bickering threads - let’s take them as they come and continue to get at least some good or no harm from the worst of them. If bruised feelings are the concern, well we all have to buck up a bit and the moderators do step in when they or someone else notes a particularly bad taste or inappropriate thread direction.
Finally, if threads seem to at times blather on about the same old same old (how do I clean my whistle, clogging, which whistle is better, reverse snobbery re expensive whistles, ignorance re the music, etc.), so what? Life is rife with blather and we punctuate it with all manner of light, whimsical, helpful, candid, warm, poignant moments. If new people ask old questions, and you’ve the time and inclination to answer. perhaps even with a new twist, great. If not, so be it.
So long as I’m not forced to either read everything all the time or to respond all the time, I still enjoy this Board and the people on it immensely.
Are you guys nuts? You are not allowed to talk about frigid icebergs here. It’s not what the topic is about and how many bloody threads about Bloomfield’s non-existant sex life can the chiffboard handle? Now a moderator will have to come and move this to another thread, so we can get back to talking about how moderators should be moving stuff to other threads.
Yeah, I was a bit disappointed that my thread turned into an argument. I really was going for a thoughtful and insightful discussion. Alas. I guess if one wades through some it, a few good points can be found.
Please don’t stop. I learn a lot from you and I appreciate your “serious” posts.
You don’t have to argue with idiots, you know!
Paul, I just don’t see how it could work. As dfernandez77 said, the moving of posts would be too subjective and as Wombat pointed out, threads by one person could easily be banished to the P & M zone by someone with a grudge. I think that this could turn our beloved C&F into a war zone - a tool with which to administer revenge.
One of the problems with any Utopian idea is that the idea generally requires or assumes that everyone has the same way of thinking about something. There are no ideas that everybody shares in common - even concerning self-preservation. While I don’t like the personal attacks which occur on the board from time to time, I accept them as the natural consequence of interaction and I know that I would be cutting my own throat through any attempt to limit or confine it based on my own beliefs of what constitutes acceptable speech. I know that people’s feelings get hurt from time to time, and I feel bad when I hurt somebody else (generally not on purpose, folks), but nobody has come up with a better way to do this yet and I sincerely doubt that anyone ever will.
I really hope everyone comes to understand this, and will continue to participate in C&F, even when their feelings are hurt - even if they have to:
