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In Reply to: What is the purpose of Isolation Ward? posted by Todd B. on March 12, 2007 at 00:57:36:
It's for horseshit like this.
Follow Ups:
;-)
Yes, that's a great example. That thread does not belong on Prop Head. In a quick perusal of it, I don't really see any "technical and scientific discussion" taking place, which is what Prop Head is for. Yet, the thread has remained there for going on two days. The question is, where to move it?If what the mods were trying to do with IW is provide a place to send threads like that, then I completely understand, because such threads repeatedly and predictably devolve into a tedious death spiral argument about the nature of reality. Regardless of which side of the issue one agrees with, those threads never seem to accomplish anything, they clutter up the board, and I'm sure they engender a flood of complaints to the mods.
However, addressing that problem is not in the current mission statement of IW. With the mission statement it DOES have, along with burying the forum under Cables, AND not giving the forum a link from the main page, there are implications with it that I don't like. Are we to take it that The Bored's position regarding "controversial" tweaks, and by association audio cables, is now that they are superstitions best kept from bothering the sensible folk? So, say, if the likes of Ray Kimber wants to talk about the color of dye he uses in his dielectrics, is his thread going to be kicked out of sight, over to the dark IW corner? Or if Curl starts chatting about the sound of the different caps he's tried while designing his amps, is that thread also going to disappear into IW obscurity? And, as Clark asked there, what determines whether a tweak is controversial? A lack of consensus regarding it's effectiveness? What has consensus got to do with what any particular person says they can or can't hear?
I realize such implications are probably not what the mods had in mind with IW's creation, but it could appear to some as if that WAS the intent. I am also well aware that moderating here is a thankless job, and that's it's easy for me to criticize this decision without also having the responsibility of keeping the board running. I haven't spent much time at AA in recent months, but in the past I've thought the mods usually do a pretty good job of herding the masses. However, I think creating IW was a snap decision that was not well thought out. That's understandable, I'm sure the mods are frustrated with having to repeatedly address the types of threads that prompted IW's creation. I'm also not surprised that no mods replied to my post asking about IW. Again, it's understandable, I'm sure they're tired of dealing with it.
However, since the gist of those types of threads seems to be a philosophical one of Measurement vs. Experiential, maybe a better solution would be the creation of something like a Philosophical Phorum, where the people interested in that debate could have it out with each other to their hearts' content, without making the rest of the board suffer through it. IW could be killed off, a great deal of subjective clutter could be removed from Prop Head, and there should be much less need for mod involvement, since it would be understood that the forum existed expressly for that debate. Although I'm not particularly interested in it, I do think the philosophical debate has it's place, but I don't that place should be buried under the Cable forum, nor do I think it's fair to the denizens of Prop Head to foist it off on them. If the people who ARE interested in that debate had their own forum, then they would be the only ones who would have to wade through the resulting mess.
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I concur that drawing the line is a very sticky thing to start doing. However, I see no viable alternative. Prop is a cesspool, and the types of discussion over there are neither technical, innovative, or civil.There's a huge bi-wire discussion going on over at AH, and yet my attempt to bring it over to prop is lost in the noise.
I'd have been better off trying it over at AR, for goodness sake.
Sigh.
Todd B.'s concerns were very well articulated.
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