Oh no! I’m very sad to hear about the loss of the moderating team, and this coming right after I made a thread that included my admiration for them!
Thanks Adam Brad and James! You guys did a tough job as well as I’ve seen on any forum!
As to the tricky problem of discussing world events like tariffs here…
1. On one hand, it strikes me as reasonable to discuss the impact of tariffs on audio gear.
The cost of gear is a routine discussion here, and it makes sense that anything that impacts the cost would be a subjective discussion. And given the enormity of what’s going on with the tariffs, including how it affects Amir’s work on the forum, it would seem almost a bit bizarre to pretend it’s not all happening at all and just ignore it.
2. On the other hand, I do think it’s a bad idea to let discussion of extremely divisive subjects like politics, religion, etc, in an enthusiast forum like this. Not a few forums have gone down in flames once that has been allowed. I mean, I get it. When I see the subject raised, I have very strong opinions on it, and it’s very tempting to jump in on subjects you feel strongly about. But it’s been my observation that good and strong moderation has been responsible for many forums (and blogs and comment sections) remaining a nice and civil place to interact. Yes there is a certain cost to it, and yes, I have to bite my tongue like many others on some stuff, but in the end, I think it’s worth it to keep these subjects at bay and concentrate on the hobby we all came here to talk about.
I am not much moved by arguments that rely on essentially “ but this subject is so important and affecting so many people, and tyrants and fascism and…”
One problem with this is that it often comes with his sort of scolding or moralizing tone that implies that if you don’t want to discuss those things here, well then you don’t care sufficiently about these subjects and aren’t sufficiently outraged or don’t care enough. Basically the type of moralizing (and often tribal) purity tests that have made much of social media so noxious.
The problem is, this sentiment could be raised about virtually anything. There’s an endless number of topics about which people can feel deeply morally concerned, but which don’t make sense for an audio forum. Otherwise, we may as well be having threads on abortion, on every war that is going on, on every social injustice subject, we could have evangelical Christians trying to save our souls because after all TO THEM that is “the most important thing in the world so why should it be censored on an audio forum?” We can’t be beholden to any non-audio subject for which somebody feels a burning moral passion, and become their soapbox.
So in the end, I guess my position is that I think discussing the effects of tariffs on audio equipment, and if Amir wants to tell us about how it’s affecting his operations, that makes sense.
But letting it widen and out to the type of political discussion has riven the USA and much of the world, and which pretty reliably ends up with noxious effects on a forum… I’d be very cautious about that.
And that’s where I think good moderators come in, which is why it’s so sad to hear about losing the moderating team.
Amir, I appreciate that you are on your own with this for now, and I’ll do my best to refrain from producing discussion that requires moderation
