I worked with a guy for years that chronically complained about everything. At least once a week he’d bitch about a coworker saying he ain’t happy unless he’s complaining!
Some people just don’t get it! Probably never will!
What about all those: “this is awesome” and “this is the best” posts. Are those better in any way?
I don’t think the situation is symmetric. For a post like that, one at least knows that someone (who may be familiar from past interactions, even if one doesn’t know them personally) is happy about some gear/software/video. Kind of hard to object to that.
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these don’t require community support, these are positive community support 
Unless it’s based on marketing which it usually is.
Everything I could possibly add has already been said, but I did want to drop in and say that I appreciate this discussion. It’s a topic that I have been pondering for quite some time now - not just in relation to this forum but also certain Reddit communities which I used to find very positive and friendly, and a couple other forums.
I’m not really equipped to tackle the deeper questions or provide solutions. I’m just thrilled that there are others who are having the same thoughts and also proactively looking at how the situation could be improved.
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No, they are not. I believe everything said here applies equally well to non-constructive positive posts. This, to me, is not a question about positivity or negativity (which probably deserves its own discussion). It’s about how to best improve the discussion (and forum as a whole) with every post, be it positive or negative.
That said, there are a few interesting differences…
- Someone who likes a thing has a button they can click to signal that without posting. Someone who disagrees with a thing has no such option.
- I have never once encountered a “this is the best!” person who, when pressed for “why?” got defensive and angry. But that is the only response I get from “LOL 𝑋 sux” people.
I’m not sure what to do with that. On one hand, negative comments do seem to be disproportionately non-constructive. But they don’t have a button to signal their non-constructive disagreement, so maybe that’s to be expected?
But also, everyone seems to agree that there’s good reason to not have a “non-constructive negative feedback button” — namely that it leads to the destruction of communities. Shouldn’t this apply all non-constructive negative feedback of any form?
Certainly the difference in outcomes when confronting a non-constructive positive poster vs. a non-constructive negative poster imply there’s a big gap here, and something particularly corrosive about negative posts.
But again, for the purposes of this conversation, I don’t see a big distinction. I think asking non-constructive positive posters “why?” would do as much to improve the forum as asking the same of non-constructive negative posters.
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More emotional support than technical support on this forum.
Go to superuser or stackoverflow, and you might see problems reduced to “Given A input, I want to produce B output.” A minimal example may be provided, and over time, the thread title may be modified to clarify the technical problem.
Contrast that with the Elektronauts forum. Problems expressed here are bigger, frequently involving the interactions of several pieces of gear. And we don’t really know, can’t describe exactly, what the desired output is. Maybe we’ll know when we hear it, but that doesn’t help anyone else help us. Our problem is too unfocused for a focused solution.
So we revert to dealing with problems with less specific, more general advice. Which is not always a bad thing. I sense that music making can be a frustrating pastime. And we enjoy emotional support.
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I can’t tell if this thread is a post asking for support… or a complaint.
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What I don’t like about this is the gatekeeper like response to this perceived problem.
The solution is for the same people posting to be empowered with a question mark button vs flagging.
This sets off an entirely different set of consequences and creates a very negative atmosphere. Maybe you don’t think so, but that’s also the point … people don’t agree.
They also don’t need to.
Changing things from what they are to whatever else is envisioned won’t come without losing community and probably the very thing that make this forum worth coming to….
The same people providing info, insight and assistance are usually the same people that don’t mind sharing a laugh or discussing something not music related.
Anyway, this is my 2 cents on the topic. I’m out because I don’t want to be part of the discussion further. It won’t end in a place that makes everyone happy. There’s no real solution for everyone.
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I think it’s easier to maintain civility and constructive interaction (and especially staying consistently on-topic) the more limited the scope of discussion is. My theory is, that’s why a forum like this is relatively refreshing in the first place. People are here because they have a shared interest, and because we’re excited by the same things, it’s easy to have enjoyable interactions.
But this success proves dangerous. The forum, because it is one of the few enjoyable spaces left on the internet, becomes very important to its users. They want it to be their space not only for gear chat but discussions about everything else under the sun - because they feel like they’re among friends. But, this very widening of the discourse makes it impossible to maintain the focus and civility of the original forum, and it’s at risk of being just another social media toilet, another void to crap your passing opinions into.
How to stop this cycle? My only suggestion is to encourage stricter moderation. Nuke threads that are off-topic. Nuke comments that are clearly not constructive in spirit. And double-nuke comments complaining about the moderation. Leave Fin’s ‘miserable git’ thread open as the one place where we can all post our irrational griping and enjoy being cynical.
People dislike being moderated, but all unmoderated sites degenerate. Embrace moderation. Encourage posters to act like adults.
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I am not a fan of “Maybe there’s a problem (not convinced), but everything you might do is going to make things worse”. Sometimes that is the case. More often, this response is a way of maintaining the status quo (whose evolution over time is part of the perceived problem), or of deflecting possible restrictions on the part of those who are perfectly content with their current liberties. I’d like to start with the premise that improvement is possible (not certain, not trivial), even if that means we have to alter how we do things.
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Understood.
The problem here is who is doing the alterations, and what is suggested so far is policing others. Not themselves. This is worrisome.
I don’t think the discussion is about policing. There is a lot of talk about persuasion.
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Who do you perceive to be doing alterations? This is a community discussion, happening in the open, amongst members of the community. Any alterations (to the extent that is even possible) will be from the community.
Where do you see “policing others” as a proposed solution? In the interaction you quoted, nothing was being policed. I asked for more detail and explained why it was important. Engagement similar to this seems to be the most commonly suggested solution. “Just ignore it” is also represented. None of that strikes me as policing.
The most police-like suggestion is flagging and moderation. But of course that’s under purview of the moderators and is how the forum has always worked. No change there.
So I know you don’t want to get involved, and feel free to ignore all this. But I do think it’d be helpful to have some examples of your concerns. At the moment I’m not understanding them and would like to.
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I came to believe that the famous quote “The medium is the message” is quite accurate in most situations when using communication tools.
The examples above with the vomiting emoticon is quite revealing. It reminds me that facepalm emoticon that used to fire up so many discussion on Gearslutz back in the days. The use of such emoticons can generate high emotional response among forum users.
I think that removing any polarising emoticon such as the vomiting one might be a smart move to keep things a little more on the civilised side.
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The community that participates in this specific conversation?
It’s already a select conversation.
A good example… I’m literally typing this while listening to my eurorack/KOii patch play out. I don’t want to be more involved than saying this is already a good group who have more interest than most in results because most are performing, or producing or just paid a heavy cost as a passionate hobbyist.
I don’t see the same problem and think things will change in many directions overtime. Adding controls, attempts at persuasion are not necessary. That’s my take.
I’m back to jamming.
There’s nothing selective about it. It’s open to all. There’s no time limit on contributions. No minimum investment necessary to be taken seriously. All you have to do is show up — and even when and how you do that is completely up to you.
You could be touring on a sub and only have signal once a month when you come up to take on diesel. The thread will still be here and ready for whatever you have to say when you decide to say it. And I, at least, will definitely be reading it.
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I’m from gs. This place is a relaxing walk on a beautiful beach compared to there
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I don’t think good moderation is about censoring people. It’s about maintaining the quality of the conversation. Without moderation, every thread will devolve into the two least emotionally competent people on the forum throwing nonsense insults at each other. And that is not offensive, it’s just boring. Very, very boring.
“But who are they to decide what is boring and what is legitimate discourse??” Well, someone’s given them that authority because they trust their judgment. Someone pays to keep the website running, and they have a right to edit its contents to make it less boring. Because if they don’t, the loudest and stupidest voices inevitably dominate. It’s like throwing a party with free booze. If you don’t have bouncers, at some point shit-kickers will turn up, and the whole space will soon be dominated by the most drunken, obnoxious, violent people there. Everyone else will leave. And if someone asks them to leave, they’ll loudly insist that they’re being persecuted and have every right to be there.
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