Just observing that it’s a very common, almost inevitable, occurrence, that thread topics degrade over time.
Particularly query threads that start: “Tell me about Xs that meet criteria Y and Z”.
Very soon the post are replies to “Tell me about Xs that meet criteria Y OR Z”.
Then “Tell me about your favourite Xs”
Then “Tell me about anything that occurs to you related to X, Y or Z”
Can be frustrating if
you’re researching old posts to find the answer
you made the query yourself.
I am NOT suggesting that we shouldn’t do this (1. I am probably being overly picky in even raising the topic, 2. Immensely difficult to moderate, anyway) because the digressions are obviously going to be worthwhile in some cases.
But maybe hang fire and keep the digressions till later if you’re not sure you’re on-topic ?
Maybe read the subject line and/or first post before responding ? (e.g it’s become a trend recently for a single reply that mentions AI to spawn a whole AI sub-thread that moderators have to cull).
I dunno, like I said I can see I’m probably being overly picky in even raising the subject.
There is in general a fuzziness to every thread. It’s partly a multiple perception thing, people have different ideas on things. If you tend to want tighter focus this can be frustrating. Often the first post, or the title is not specific enough. Things in that original post like specific things that are outside the topic can be helpful. Doing a good first post can be difficult and takes time.
On the other hand some fraying on the edge can bring out points of view, or ideas that are of interest ( at least to some readers ) and so there is a positive side to the process.
People often take a single post that was off toward the edge of a topic, as permission to go farther. This is a natural hazard of this sort of forums. Topics can go down hill fast in this way.
I’ve found it helpful to put certain members who frequently make careless unhelpful posts onto my personal “Ignore” list. It makes going back to reread a thread a lot smoother. Fortunately it is easy to view a single post that you have ignored to take a look. Most often in my experience it’s not worth the look.
It’s also interesting to read through old threads that have been renamed due to all the entropy.
Once I found an Elektronauts thread after googling something – the title was relevant to my Google search, and I saw one of my own posts in the top of the thread, but it seemed totally off topic… It turned out the thread was eventually renamed and my post (and several earlier posts) made little sense for the new topic name. When reading my post I even thought “wow, I totally missed the boat on this topic”
I think the digressions and disintegrations are hilarious, sometimes annoying but just for a second. To me it is like a real life version of a plot for a South Park episode… because… you know… people
That someone else talked about a variety of things in an on-topic post six months ago, is never permission to take a thread off-topic, with an off-topic post.
Good example of thread topic chaos that bibenu was talking about.
A community like this is a living thing, thus so will it’s output be. I’ve seen some posts/posters work HARD to keep it on point, which i think is ok. But some posts will derail.
One could always shut them down after they reach 30 replies, at which point it starts to become difficult for new readers to catch up properly and contribute in an accurate way, but i think that’ll most likely kill the vibe of this place too. Imho the vibrant nature of this forum with all it’s positives and negatives are what bring people here
In all fairness there’s quite apt thread governing in place on this forum. My impression is that there’s a lot of off topic flagging as well. So while there are chaos threads that admins have to rein in, i don’t think it’s bad here at all
Edit: and while keeping threads on topic can be a good thing, i don’t support heavier policing than what is already in place
Hi Jukka, you had made several references to the other instrument earlier in the thread which seemed fine to me. I thought that sharing experiences of an earlier, monophonic synth would be relevant to a largely speculative thread about a yet to be released, polyphonic version by the same manufacturer.
It still doesn’t seem that off topic to me - comparisons with other synths and hearing about other people’s experiences are some of the things I enjoy about Elektronauts. I like the humour, knowledge and generally supportive vibes of this place.
However, I respect that you started the Anyma Omega thread and would like to repeat my apology for any derrailing of that thread.
