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Thread closures and controversy versus reality. Spoiler [Fact on the ropes]

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Dave Zan

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I have noticed over the last 20 years the way the West has become more Orwellian - sort of post-truth, "reality is whatever people believe" society.
We have even surpassed Orwell, in "1984" (and Stalinist Soviet Union) the authorities had to erase the physical evidence, the photos and documents.
Now even that is not required, just claim it's "fake news", who cares about facts, we believe.
In the audio context, on some websites it is prohibited to even discuss blind tests, I have read.
I assume it's rationalised as "too controversial" and creates too much work for the moderator.
So it seems that it is possible to remove a subject from the domain of rational debate if opponents just make sufficient trouble.
This website is very proud of it's "Science" basis but looks not to be immune.
After the closure of the latest CoVid thread I waited a while, so as not to post too rashly.
But it continues to disturb me.
So this post is not to restart the Covid debate but rather to unpick the closure of discussion.
I understand Thomas's frustration with some of the rubbish in the thread but why not ban the culprits rather than close the thread?
There is some real expertise in this forum and I miss their contributions.
The Covid information is now of less immediate concern to me because Australia has almost stopped community transmission.
But it saddens me to see liars and deniers win, and a closed thread feels like a step in that direction.
Whether that's a DBT thread elsewhere or a Covid one here.

David
 
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sergeauckland

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Yes, I too deplore the modern 'all opinions are equally valid' approach.

I don't think so.

If I want legal advice, I'll give a lawyer's opinion more weight than a plumber's.
If I have trouble with my heating, I'll consult a plumber, not a lawyer.
If I have a pain in my stomach, I'll consult a medical doctor, not an engineer.
If I have a hifi question I'll take the opinion of an audio engineer, not some random bloke on a forum.

All opinions are NOT equally Valid, and people should stop opining about things they're not qualified to spout about.
Twitter and Facebook have done Truth a great disservice.

S.
 

raif71

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What covid thread was closed? I must have missed it. Only closed, right? Not gone forever, right...people can still access and read it only cannot post in it?
 

Killingbeans

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Religion and politics. Two things that are poisonous to any forum.

Blind tests can only be debated on sites that keep the conversation secular. ASR for the most part manages to do that.

Covid is so hopelessly entangled with politics, that keeping any threads about it going would be haphazard to say the least.

IMO, it has nothing to do with freedom of speech or the search for truth. It's just an unfortunate side effect of people using the Internet.
 

Neutron

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When it comes to evolving situation and understanding into a hot topic like that, many don't realize that the information they could get are mere small peices of a huge body of knowledge that is to yet be well understood. Scientists around the globe are now very busy doing experiements, and I have not seen a lot of good literature reviews that were written to sum up the current progress and understanding of the virus. This is really unlike dealing with audio science, which is actually old technology and was already summarized very very well, that you can just back up an idea with one paper without major knowledge issue.
 

Neutron

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Some of the earlier covid threads had a lot of useful information in them, when they were discussing the hard sciences, I'm sad to see that go, but the recent thread was mainly drivel, so I get why it was closed.

Well covid is a rapidly changing situation and even scientists are on active dispute (e.g. on covid reinfection case documuented last month in HK). If you meant for amusement in reading scientific writings, you will have plenty. But eventually it will turn into something mentally exhausting if you are after information. Information changes by day as more research progress is made.
 
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JeffS7444

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Somewhat off-topic, I found the Netflix documentary "The Social Dilemma" most interesting, as it suggests that the very sorts of techniques used by social media companies to keep users engaged may be a major cause of the fake news phenomenon, by feeding users a stream of media judged likely to be of interest based on past behaviors. In other words, a person can now readily find others who support pretty much any belief system.

Yes, in the USA we are granted certain freedoms, but these can be a double-edged sword, and as long there's good money to be made by spreading fake news, you can bet that someone's going to cash in.
 

North_Sky

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What covid thread was closed? I must have missed it. Only closed, right? Not gone forever, right...people can still access and read it only cannot post in it?

Nobody wants to read yesterday's scientific health news, in particular with new discoveries every single day on this virus...SARS-COV-2.
The only way to keep track of health news we can use is to be up-to-date as things change constantly almost every hour. It goes very fast, exponentially fast, @ the speed of light...almost.

What is the purpose of enjoying accurate music reproduction distortion-free if we are sick, or dead? Good music listening goes in tandem with good health...physically and spiritually...body and soul, blood and mind.
 

Unclevanya

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My 2 cents as someone who ran my own hobby site.

Politics are poison to constructive discussion. Religion isn't quite as bad as fewer people seen as passionate and uninformed.

My site banned all discussion of both topics. It was hard enough to keep discourse civil without that distraction.

I literally never open any thread not about audio here, this isn't a place where I expect to find political or medical advice so the thread in question seems out of place to me.

As a former site owner, my advice to users is to understand the real contributions made by mods. Simply removing a user from a topic isn't always best. That user might be a superb contributor outside of these topics. The thread cleanup also might be very difficult. The users are the lifeblood of a site, but the mods are the immune system keeping it healthy.

My own suggestion to people on my sure who disagreed with it no politics rule was that there are other forums that specialize in this. I allowed them to post a link to outside discussions if they wanted others from our site to participate.

I have never thought of this as censorship even when I was merely a user. I find specialization in forums to be a defining characteristic of those that succeed. Political discussion can poison a place that isn't about it as the primary mission.

I'll step down from my soap box now.
 

North_Sky

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Music is good; music has zero politics, zero sex, zero religion, zero rebellion.
Audio Science is good; objective audio has zero politics, zero sex, zero religion, zero rebellion.
 

Unclevanya

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Music is good; music has zero politics, zero sex, zero religion, zero rebellion.
Audio Science is good; objective audio has zero politics, zero sex, zero religion, zero rebellion.
This site seems less about musical expression and more about musical reproduction. Good use of irony however.
 

North_Sky

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A thread starter could moderate his own thread if he's a responsible mature adult.
The experienced members they know the score very well, the newcomers (only very few) they only need a reminder once in a blue moon, everyone is not perfect but we all aim for it, @ the service of higher knowledge...for the art of advancing science, in audio as in health as in clean air we can all breathe.

The politicians (a fair bunch) are like a fair bunch of news media an hi-end audio dealers...in it mostly for the money. We don't care about them people, we care about good common sense, our health, the honest experts on viruses, in learning more so that we can protect ourselves and our families and friends better.

That, is one of the true essences of life.

I think it's not fair for people to be punished in knowledge advancement because of few disagreements or a mention of a name, like say Trump Tower.
It's a name, we don't discuss it because we all know it's only vapor. ...Boris, Vladimir, Xi, ...
 

Vasr

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I assume it's rationalised as "too controversial" and creates too much work for the moderator.
So it seems that it is possible to remove a subject from the domain of rational debate if opponents just make sufficient trouble.

This thread was not even peripheral to the goal of this site so I don't care about the closure much.

But I do think there is a value in having such off-the-goal topics on sites because it allows people to discuss with others they can calibrate via their posts in the main threads and respect the opinion of and so to listen even if they don't agree. It becomes more of a discussion amongst peers than a site dedicated to a single topic since you don't get to calibrate the participants in the latter. Equally, you get to know who are trolls, social misfits or otherwise not worth listening to. The ignore lists work well for that, you don't need a moderator. But you are correct that such trolls can get a thread they don't like closed provoking a "both sides" situation.

To be fair, it is impractical for any moderator on any relatively high-traffic site to parse the arguments and figure out who is out of line and who isn't based on content. Usually, someone hits below the belt, the opponent punches back below the belt and punches fly and the moderators step in based on the form rather than content to not let things get away. Trolls can exploit that by not being overt while provoking others.

I didn't think this particular thread was the above though so the closure surprised me a bit (unless there were some nasty exchanges that were deleted before closure that I didn't see). It was one of the most civil threads relatively speaking I have seen in such a potentially "controversial" topic perhaps a bit high on the noise front bringing down SINAD value. I though this was more like a referee stepping in to stop a one-sided "fight" on the topic of herd immunity out of sympathy for the view that couldn't get up from the mat without resorting to punches that could have led to a total breakdown. Pre-mature but I can see the justification. :)
 

leeroy 85032

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I will also suggest that people need places they can escape the current news cycle to avoid unhealthy obsession and overload.
one might find that the internet (in it's entirety) is evil , hobby or not , there are no filters ,where there are no filters the uneducated and those without intellect that gather are influenced (unduly) by sources with means .. financial or technical .. so literally those with money meet those with tech knowledge, money goes into tech , tech becomes evil.. it's inevitable .. the only ones that don't see it are the ones that participate (which is an overwhelmingly large group)....example amazon meets tech .. amazon becomes bigger than law can contain.. i would comment on trump meets twitter , but that would start a fight.. and prove my point further as well;) btw :to the op's thoughts: i support thread closure rather than thread bans .. i won't go into the reasons . they are many...
 
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North_Sky

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Is it restricted strictly to Audio Science? No it's not because we also have excellent topic threads on our solar system, black holes, the galaxy and beyond, cars, movies, iPhones, nature, wildlife, ecosystem, geology, biology, geography, ecology, chemistry, energy, etc.

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