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Important news regarding moderation team....

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I think the mods’ position makes sense. Of course Amir can do what he wants with his site, but I wouldn’t want to be trying to enforce rules that aren’t followed from the top down, either.

The problem as I see it is that, when you decide this one issue is worth violating the rules over, you have inherently introduced politics by what you’ve decided *isn’t* worth breaking the rules over.

Politics will snake its way into every corner our lives if we let it, and people with righteous attitudes will declare their area of obsession the most important. But things can be important without needing to be discussed everywhere. Non-political spaces are incredibly valuable, and I think in the long term have more positive societal impact than any amount of single-cause politicing.
 
I’m not keen of having political discussions here because we are dominantly white, middle aged, and with slightly above average disposable income. We have the data how that group voted.
Agree, except that the existing (now previous) moderation team, in my opinion were bias towards, what appears to be, political views they share, where they are very selective on what violations they want to enforce and not enforce. If you do a search, someone actually wrote "MAGA" on posts (not in reference to but in support of), and on more than one occasion those posts, and other similar posts are not deleted. I personally have reported on multiple occasions of these violations in the past, and not only these posts of politics go unpunished, but at least one moderator even hit the like button (I talked about it on page 5).

But I don’t understand the issue of discussing policies that affect our hobby.
100% agreed. Not to mention, it will change the products Amir is physically able to review and us consumers will be interested in, let alone buy. More importantly, if you read Amir's posts and comments, none of them are political in nature, it's about practical economics and day to day pain.
 
They've done a good job, haven't seen anything get really out of hand and plenty of stuff shut down early to everyone's benefit. Thanks guys!

Just read Amirm's clarifying post a few pages back. While I appreciate the moderators, it's Amirm's website he can do with it what he wants. Its effectively a free newspaper, the publisher can write a "Letter from the Publisher" that sits apart from the editorial page and indeed, its a single thread on the site, so if you don't want to read it, don't. This seems a silly reason for the moderators to leave but again, everyone's doing what they think is right.

@amirm thanks again for all you do for the hobby!
 
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There's probably a million other bust-ups like this going on on every "forum" out there. From pocket-knife review sites to after-market alloy wheel review sites. Principled moderators throwing in their collective towels and site owners stating 'my way or the highway' etc.

Stick to your knitting I say.
 
What a hill to die on. One quick venting session from a clearly exhausted, overburdened man on an audio forum. What foolishness, lol. Good riddance.
 
My view: Your forum, you can do what the hell you like with it. Including one rule for you, and a different one for everyone else.

As I see it, I'm a guest in your home. I'll bloody well show respect for the way you want to do things in your own home - as I'd expect the same from people visiting me in mine.

Well put!
 
None of the consequences we normally worry about exists because of that thread as members can't go after each other.

@amirm I think this point of view might be a little too simplistic. In this very thread some people have made their political views known. Some people will take note of those views, and hold it against the person who shared them.

As with any other topic where people hold strong beliefs, some people will hold a grudge, and they will go after the other person when the opportunity is available. I've moderated forums over the years, and people can go after others in numerous ways and not technically break the rules. Thinly veiled insults, intentionally curt responses, mild antagonism etc. It builds up over time, and in some cases explodes out into the open. I've seen it myself several times, I've cleaned it up several times, and I've caused it a few times as well.
 
Honestly I'm surprised this thread has remained open this long. A good testament to everyone that uses this site that it has not completely devolved into pure degeneracy.
 
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 :)
 
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@amirm I think this point of view might be a little too simplistic. In this very thread some people have made their political views known. Some people will take note of those views, and hold it against the person who shared them.
I am the only one posting in that thread and am perfectly fine with anyone developing a negative view of me. No one else is allowed to post or share anything in that thread.
 
I’m indifferent to those topics, I may check them out but as usual I can just not click on a thread that is irrelevant to me. Maybe that seems shallow of me but I don’t have time for anything that is not of interest to me. I thank them for their services.
 
Thanks to the mediators but perhaps this tariff thingy is all ado about nothing. Hopefully the Trump's tariff about exception on electronic devices will also apply to audio gears.
 
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@amirm I'm sorry to say that I strongly agree with the moderation staff, and believe you are currently in the wrong! For example, I believe that if members are allowed to openly discuss our points of view on only the "human aspect", nothing good will come of it. I'm sure my personal views would invoke a strong and hostile response from many users.

Imo, if you continue down this road, you will systematically undo a lot of things this site has achieved.
Come on. The point was price increases.
 
I am the only one posting in that thread and am perfectly fine with anyone developing a negative view of me. No one else is allowed to post or share anything in that thread.
With respect, what’s the point of that thread? Do you think it’ll change anyone’s mind, or have any political impact at all?

The only possible outcomes I can see are a) you get something off your chest, b) you lose a really good admin team, c) you open yourself and the site up to criticism for hypocrisy, d) you undermine the culture of the forum.
 
I’m not keen of having political discussions here because we are dominantly white, middle aged, and with slightly above average disposable income. We have the data how that group voted.
You left out a critical variable in our demographic: strong belief in science. I bet that will strongly skew your presumed voting pattern.
 
In this very thread some people have made their political views known. Some people will take note of those views, and hold it against the person who shared them.

IMMHO:The bolded text above is THE biggest issue we have in America today, and possibly in the World. Until we can find a way to have civil discourse with people who hold different views from our own and not result to the childish name calling and pigeonholing so prevalent today we will never find common ground and solve many of the issues we as a society face today.

I don’t think ASR is the place for those discussions and it seems most here agree.

I love this site and contribute what I can. Thank you Amir.

Martin
 
With respect, what’s the point of that thread? Do you think it’ll change anyone’s mind, or have any political impact at all?
Yes, it will change people's mind. It is also informative as evidenced by many compliments I have received about it. It is rare that one can so easily explain the flaws as put forward by the proponents.
 
Essentially it's ignorance which lead us here. Tons of people obviously didn't like the post-covid economy inflation, but then...they voted for tariffs. Such a shame.
As soon as UK had their Brexit I haven't really made many purchases from there either...and many companies are unwilling to send in the first place. It complicates things.

(The talk about Panama canal, Canada, Gaza and Greenland should make it clear to folks that we're living in a very backwards and dangerous time... it's almost that I can't stand jokes about all these matters...)
 
You guys did a tough job as well as I’ve seen on any forum!
We at ASR are all very disappointed in you visiting any other forum. :p
 
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