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Has civility on ASR declined recently?

JustAnandaDourEyedDude

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Sad to say, but I have from time to time stooped to indulging in schadenfreude as a way of offsetting my considerable weltschmerz that stems from being an abject failure in life. This is of course akin to dealing with one's problems by going to the movies, but it is nearly as effective a distraction. Cultural influence on one's weltanschauung could certainly be embedded in the language one thinks in, consistent with the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, and this could lead to misunderstandings and unnecessary friction on an international site like ASR as has been discussed earlier. I've recently come across a couple of online reads about words in other languages that have no direct word or short-phrase equivalents in English:

https://getpocket.com/explore/item/...u-never-knew-you-had?utm_source=pocket-newtab
https://getpocket.com/explore/item/38-wonderful-words-with-no-english-equivalent
The Positive Lexicography project by Dr. Tim Lomas
 
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Robin L

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Sad to say, but I have from time to time stooped to indulging in schadenfreude as a way of offsetting my considerable weltschmerz that stems from being an abject failure in life. This is of course akin to dealing with one's problems by going to the movies, but it is nearly as effective a distraction. Cultural influence on one's weltanschauung could certainly be embedded in the language one thinks in, consistent with the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, and this could lead to misunderstandings and unnecessary friction on an international site like ASR as has been discussed earlier. I've recently come across a couple of online reads about words in other languages that have no direct word or short-phrase equivalents in English:

https://getpocket.com/explore/item/...u-never-knew-you-had?utm_source=pocket-newtab
https://getpocket.com/explore/item/38-wonderful-words-with-no-english-equivalent
The Positive Lexicography project by Dr. Tim Lomas
SPEAK ENGLISH!!! ;)
 

AdamG

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Robin L

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Well actually we must Type/write in English. Which can be far more difficult than Speaking.
[Part of the joke is that "English" is about as polyglot as it gets].
[The other is people getting all hyped up over nothing].
 

JJB70

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Something to remember is that one person's idea of being direct and to the point but not rude is another person's blunt and confrontational and very rude. Some cultures place great importance on avoiding confrontation (at least in public) and find it rude to go straight to the point, others find such behaviour infuriating. I work with people from all over the place and it can be awkward when people from countries like the Netherlands and Denmark meet with people from Japan and the Middle East. Most people are bright enough to adjust their communication to the environment but some do take a perverse pleasure in playing to stereotypes to make some sort of point.
 

killdozzer

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One other aspect we haven't discussed here is gaining reputation and starting to influence the public.

I don't think it is merely the linear process of more members - more of those rude ones (minority, but loud). I think it progresses faster because by growing in numbers, sticking to ruthless rigor with info and testing, not giving into leniency and laziness, you gain influence over people's choices. THIS then launches you straight onto the radars of people in the business. And this is where, whether we like it or not, snake oil prevails.

People whose business models get undermined by facts and measurements will be more and more motivated to come here and try to dispute and challenge this forum. This is to be expected. If I see people don't buy my stuff because they trust some Amir guy, I'm bound to come here with the usual weapon of something like "Hey, Amir, why do you belittle subjective, personal consumer's choice of hi-end speaker cable with your lab condition, artificial, non-real world tests" - or any other iteration of this like Harmon curve is dull and boring.

I remember in AH, after many threads, debates and tests, it was finally the right time to put an end to "cables-difference" debate and the final judgement was (as expected from a respectable site): when used according to the purpose and when adequate, no difference can be detected or was ever proven.
Some space was left for some personal choice of types of termination, pretty dressing, shielding and build quality. Still sticking to the general opinion that all of those don't really make up for the 10:1 ratio in pricing. As soon as this little wiggle room was left, we had a guy joining in with pics of monoprice cables breaking the banana tips and leaving them in binding posts. All of this happened in one of his cable-changing sessions and it happened on three banana plugs - that's 3 plugs to the same guy in one day after years and years of not having one single report of such case. Well, to me, it stunk to high heaven.
Same witht he debate on SQ 2ch-amp vs. AVR's. When Gene said he ads an extra amp to his system for power up, as underpowered speakers underperform, we had a guy with like 50 posts in AudioBS on FB citing that exact Gene's statement as a proof 2ch-stereo amps outperform AVR's.
We had a guy here saying he went for AudioQuest (I give it's possible it was some other BS company) because of build quality and another (or was it the same) citing the fact that Gene has overpriced cables. And so on.

The reason for the previous paragraph: even end consumers, and not only vendors, will, over time, get more and more motivated to recognize ASR as THEE battlefront where their opinions will be ultimately fought over and defended. Some will come to defend their businesses and some will come to defend their decisions and choices. More conflicts (and not less) will ensue.

You WILL have more and more of them. Me saying somewhere on fb that AudioQuest is utter BS and only an idiot would buy such an overpriced product, makes no difference. If all of a sudden some measurements might indicate there could be some truth to that and a lot of consumers will take advice from such measurements, it becomes a problem and one might expect some "Waldrep" scenario. One may also expect a lot of trolling or efforts at trolling. The model of moderation will also evolve along the side.

Civility shouldn't be regarded as a constant, nor is it all up to moderators. There will be new challenges.

It's the price of going against the mighty dollar.
 
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killdozzer

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Something to remember is that one person's idea of being direct and to the point but not rude is another person's blunt and confrontational and very rude. Some cultures place great importance on avoiding confrontation (at least in public) and find it rude to go straight to the point, others find such behaviour infuriating. I work with people from all over the place and it can be awkward when people from countries like the Netherlands and Denmark meet with people from Japan and the Middle East. Most people are bright enough to adjust their communication to the environment but some do take a perverse pleasure in playing to stereotypes to make some sort of point.
Very good. I'd like to ad that I honestly believe (just an opinion, don't know if anyone proved this) that the communication devoid of voice tone, body language and facial expression is far more triggering.
 

killdozzer

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Good thing you said that. My English course did not answer that.

This reminds me of a funny situation when a comedian Lee Mack was too fastidious over some irrelevant error another contestant made, so this other contestant called him out saying:
- Oh aren't you the chief of grammar police...
To which Lee Mack replied:
- It's deputy to the chief!
 

JJB70

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Very good. I'd like to ad that I honestly believe (just an opinion, don't know if anyone proved this) that the communication devoid of voice tone, body language and facial expression is far more triggering.

The normal control measures for behaviour do break down a bit on message boards. Most people are pretty good at monitoring body language, tone etc and although many enjoy winding others up very few will risk a full on confrontational situation (though it does happen, I have been in a few meetings where it has gotten worryingly aggressive). On line there are keyboard warriors happy to cause trouble from the safety of anonymity.
 

TheBatsEar

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On line there are keyboard warriors happy to cause trouble from the safety of anonymity.

I hole-hardedly agree, but allow me to play doubles advocate here for a moment. For all intensive purposes I think you are wrong. In an age where false morals are a diamond dozen, true virtues are a blessing in the skies. We often put our false morality on a petal stool like a bunch of pre-Madonnas, but you all seem to be taking something very valuable for granite.

So I ask of you to mustard up all the strength you can because it is a doggy dog world out there. Although there is some merit to what you are saying it seems like you have a huge ship on your shoulder. In your argument you seem to throw everything in but the kids Nsync, and even though you are having a feel day with this I am here to bring you back into reality. I have a sick sense when it comes to these types of things. It is almost spooky, because I cannot turn a blonde eye to these glaring flaws in your rhetoric.

I have zero taller ants when it comes to people spouting out hate in the name of moral righteousness. You just need to remember what comes around is all around, and when supply and command fails you will be the first to go. Make my words, when you get down to brass stacks it doesn't take rocket appliances to get two birds stoned at once. It's clear who makes the pants in this relationship, and sometimes you just have to swallow your prize and accept the facts.

You might have to come to this conclusion through denial and error but I swear on my mother's mating name that when you put the petal to the medal you will pass with flying carpets like it’s a peach of cake.
 

TheBatsEar

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It's a text snippet i collected somewhere, the original author is unknown as far as i can tell. :D
 

Thunder22

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I hole-hardedly agree, but allow me to play doubles advocate here for a moment. For all intensive purposes I think you are wrong. In an age where false morals are a diamond dozen, true virtues are a blessing in the skies. We often put our false morality on a petal stool like a bunch of pre-Madonnas, but you all seem to be taking something very valuable for granite.

So I ask of you to mustard up all the strength you can because it is a doggy dog world out there. Although there is some merit to what you are saying it seems like you have a huge ship on your shoulder. In your argument you seem to throw everything in but the kids Nsync, and even though you are having a feel day with this I am here to bring you back into reality. I have a sick sense when it comes to these types of things. It is almost spooky, because I cannot turn a blonde eye to these glaring flaws in your rhetoric.

I have zero taller ants when it comes to people spouting out hate in the name of moral righteousness. You just need to remember what comes around is all around, and when supply and command fails you will be the first to go. Make my words, when you get down to brass stacks it doesn't take rocket appliances to get two birds stoned at once. It's clear who makes the pants in this relationship, and sometimes you just have to swallow your prize and accept the facts.

You might have to come to this conclusion through denial and error but I swear on my mother's mating name that when you put the petal to the medal you will pass with flying carpets like it’s a peach of cake.
Fucking glorious! Thank you.
 
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