Has civility on ASR declined recently?

[Walter]

The mods here do indeed do a good job. No argument there.

 

[audio2design]

It is what it is.

If I was to ban anything it would be use of the words subjective and objective presented as things that never meet. There are objective truths and subjective impressions. Subjective impressions don't overrule objective truths, but objective truths don't define subjective impressions either.

As noted above there is a tendency to aggressively take a single measurement and extend that to all use cases as an absolute objective truth. That is not very "scientific". In some cases those measurements are compared for quality against subjective references, i.e. room response preference curves, something based on a rather thin amount of data.

Having spent now decades in audio, acoustics, psychoacoustics, electronics and signal processing from academia to industry, I tend to be a little aggressive against obvious BS, but I have seen, heard, measured, tested, and observed enough "stuff" that I try not to dismiss out of hand both use cases and the complexity of what happens after the signal leaves the electronics.

I would caution against a tendency to label all artifacts as inherently bad. People go gaga over objectively great SNR meanwhile before the music even reaches you, someone may be adding noise or distortion because it increases subjective preference. There is too much tendency to dismiss that out of hand as "preference" or "learned" without trying to understand the objective reasons why that is preferred. Is cross talk inherently bad, or does it offer objective benefit psychoacoustically in a typical listening room given all the flaws of 2 channel stereo with speakers?

That all said I find more raw acrimony here when there are two opposing objective sides

 

[BDWoody]

I believe that a bit of diplomacy would be a useful ingredient. Posters with low knowledge on a topic can be brought along. I agree that its a balance. Plus some tolerance of differing subjective views on product appearance, enormous differences in price-sensitivity, and what are, in effect, lifestyle decisions would help a lot. Not everyone here is chasing the SOTA.

I have no argument with that. For the most part, I believe people that come here in good faith are responded to in kind. Those who come in stomping and huffing might get more than they bargained for.

That said, we have quite a few ankle biters who seem to relish pushing buttons in ways that may be less than helpful. Those members can cause more grief than the occasional troll to be honest...

 

[garbulky]

It was pretty rough for me at the beginning. But I feel like things have improved somewhat recently.

 

[xaviescacs]

As the population of ASR grows, it will keep asymptotically approaching the whole population

 

[M00ndancer]

That said, we have quite a few ankle biters who seem to relish pushing buttons in ways that may be less than helpful. Those members can cause more grief than the occasional troll to be honest...

Who? Me?

 

[JaccoW]

Or, they aren't used to debating people with actual knowledge on a subject, as opposed to information based primarily on sales propaganda.

I don't think many newcomers realize the level of expertise represented by the members of this forum, and can't handle the deep end as well as they had hoped.

It's a balancing act as moderator...and we definitely rely on the membership to keep it from getting out of hand.

Oh I'm definitely not a fan of the "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge" mindset.

I was referring to more off-topic threads where the main subject is opinions. Stating opinions as facts is a good way to get me going.

 

[Phorize]

I have noticed an increase in combative and insulting posts on ASR over the last couple of months--mostly, but not always, by new members. The posters definitely have not seemed to heed the message at the top of every forum page to Come here to have fun, be ready to be teased and not take online life too seriously. For those of you that have been here longer than I have, is this normal, or is it truly getting worse? I have been a member and sometimes moderator on a lot of Internet forums on many different subjects over the last 25 years. This behavior is not at all uncommon--except here. I have seen it destroy other sites by driving off the posters that had genuine knowledge to share. One thing I really like about this site is that the members generally do a very good job of leveling their disagreements at ideas, not at people, and are usually open minded and ready to learn. Is the site's popularity starting to attract a different kind of poster, or have these types always come, flamed out, and then slunk away? Or am I just reading the site more and seeing posts I might would have missed in the past?

Note to moderators: If this is the wrong forum for this, please move it. If it is unacceptable for any reason, please delete it.

It’s been worse at points, but never that bad even when things have been at their spiciest. It’s normally just a bit of idiotic trolling or someone having a hissy fit because someone laughs when they say they can hear a dac with an snr of 130 db.

 

[Ron Texas]

It's worse lately. The EV thread isn't helping any.

 

[_thelaughingman]

It's worse lately. The EV thread isn't helping any.

I'm all for freedom to discuss opinion' but lately there has been a proliferation of "opinion threads" on subjects that aren't related to ASR and audio related things and it's getting a bit tedious to see those threads get attention.

 

[Zensō]

I've noticed a slightly increasing number of trollish posts over the past year. As others have stated, this is expected given the increase in traffic. It's nothing to be concerned about in my opinion as most trolls only drop in to get a rise before moving on to spread discord elsewhere.

 

[_thelaughingman]

I've noticed a slightly increasing number of trollish posts over the past year. As others have stated, this is expected given the increase in traffic. It's nothing to be concerned about in my opinion as most trolls only drop in to get a rise before moving on to spread discord elsewhere.

I should add, there is correlation to seeing trolls drop in whenever there is an expensive headphone or an expensive audio gear reviewed at ASR.

 

[Doodski]

I should add, there is correlation to seeing trolls drop in whenever there is an expensive headphone or an expensive audio gear reviewed at ASR.

Also when a test results in a bad review. That seems to annoy some peeps.

 

[billyjoebob]

Amir must really be raking in the advertising dollars.

Oh, wait...

Help me out with this one of you will.

 

[pkane]

I'm all for freedom to discuss opinion' but lately there has been a proliferation of "opinion threads" on subjects that aren't related to ASR and audio related things and it's getting a bit tedious to see those threads get attention.

I blame the "Humor" thread! There are simply not enough posts there, otherwise everyone would be in a much better mood.

 

[muslhead]

It's worse lately. The EV thread isn't helping any.

EV?
Electrovoice?

 

[BDWoody]

Help me out with this one of you will.

There is no advertising...

 

[_thelaughingman]

Help me out with this one of you will.

This forum runs on donations and Amir' personal investment in ASR, he reaps no monetary gain from it.

 

[MakeMineVinyl]

It seems to be about the same as when I joined. I've noticed though that if somebody pushes the 'subjective button', they sometimes get trampled way out of proportion to what is civil. I've been attacked myself early on for saying that I conducted subjective tests during the research and development phase of a new amplifier. I had performed objective tests which confirmed that listeners were hearing differences which were in fact measurable. That didn't matter though because some people here were so fixated on the fact that I conducted subjective tests.

Intolerance looks ugly.

 

[Doodski]

I've been attacked myself early on for saying that I conducted subjective tests

Hehe. My first few minutes on ASR I was gabbing on about a Ruby DIN phono cable that I converted to RCA and found it to have sharper sounding top end. The only cable I ever found to sound different. Peeps where firm but decent about it.