RE: The Community

Irish Flute
1

I’m not upset, I am not throwing stones at anyone and I am not attacking anyone here.

Alright, not trying to rehash or restart a fight but there is a problem going on here. People who know accurate and valueble information are being driven away here. And this is a bad thing because many beginners come here for advice on flutes and playing ITM in general and they need to have around someone who actually knows something to answer there questions. If they don’t have somebody to answer to answer their questions and give them advice they won’t learn anything, or learn the wrong stuff or buy the wrong product or whatever. I’ve noticed over the years that the good players have really stopped participating in the forums at all and new good players aren’t appearing out of thin air. So unless you want a forum where good rhythm, rolls, ITM and everything that goes with ITM is not important, and every hack who can’t even hold a flute let alone play it has an 8 key grinter, we need to do something about it.

I have two proposals.

The first, people who actually know something around here should watch their tempers and watch what they post and how they word it. (God knows I’ve posted a hostile reply to something that really upset or got me going). And if you do reply to something that obvilously is not right and needs to be addressed and somebody doesn’t like it just let it be and level headed people will most likely back you up. Just watch your tempers if you can.

The second is to people who don’t know what they are talking about and enjoy spamming. If you don’t know what you are talking about don’t say anything until you do. Owning a few flutes and reading the forums does not qualify as knowing something. Don’t get upset, that’s just the way it is. It’s great to be enthusiastic but when you’re enthuasism is misleading and ircks the knowledgable ones, it’s better not to say it. When you figure out you’re ignorant and then except it, you might learn something. But until then don’t spam and don’t give advice.

Okay three (I know I said two) if you’re in a fight you already know neither one of you is going to back down so be the bigger person and let it go. And if you aren’t in a fight, don’t throw more logs on the fire.

Just a few thoughts I had cause I like our more knowledgable people around here and I would hate to see them go. And I don’t want to pay 15 grand for a flute or wait 20 years.

2

That’s a nice post on a needed topic. Basic civility has faded quite a bit from this forum as of late.

I’ll second you on nearly everything you say, but your second point would mean that essentially no one can post or offer advice. As most teachers know, even they can learn something from the students. Now granted, I think what you were saying is basically don’t spout off as an expert on something that you’re not an expert on, but there are a lot of topics that a newer play can reply to that could be of value to other newer players or even the more experienced if they’re willing to open up and accept that they, too, can still learn something new.

If I may add an addendum to your point, three: Ignore those who fish for a fight. It works with 3 year olds, it works with 13 year olds, and it works on 33 year olds as well - nothing robs one of power more than ignoring them. If no one fights with them, they’ll get bored and move on.

Eric

3

It seems like a good model for forum etiquette would that of an open session in a pub:

  1. Be friendly;

  2. Cheerfully ignore drunks – and flame warriors;

  3. Play tunes – and comment on topics – you know with tasteful enthusiasm;

  4. Sit quietly and attentively for tunes and topics you don’t

  5. Don’t be afraid to ask thoughtful questions without being a pest;

  6. Have fun. This is about music AND comeraderie – if it weren’t we could all just get copies of Grey Larson’s vast tome and sign out for good :slight_smile:.

[By the way, number four is most applicable to me – which is why I lurked here for over a year before my first posting and why I have plenty of non-playing time for Guiness at Quigley’s :slight_smile: – but you know, sometimes flute people just like to talk about flutes even if we, er, I, don’t know what I’m talking about :slight_smile: ]

MurphyStout – thanks for raising the issue. It needed it :slight_smile:.


Alan

4

Good. I like Prospero’s proposal as a code of ethics. And I’m a free speech advocate. This is the internet first, and a community second.

  1. Prospero’s Session Ethics is the proposal on the table for a vote.

  2. Internet protocol: Free speech, even if the Chinese government can’t control it. Anyone is free to say what he likes. But he may be ignored or kicked off, if it goes out of bounds. He can even leave the community. Who cares?

  3. And you know what, it’s perfectly acceptable to say a particular flute sucks. Applying Matt Malloy’s comments on a tune: you stand or fall on your particular comments. If others don’t like it, someone has to deal with it and go play the violin if he doesn’t like it–and take your beefs with others off line like you’d do anywhere else and sort it out. But…the community doesn’t need to coddle people on the internet.

Regards,
G

5

it’s an open forum with a moderator. It seems to work well for most of us. Let it be.

6

Just for the record – I’m just brainstorming here . . . not trying to be bossy. The forum works well for me too :slight_smile:. But clearly there are issues . . .

7

Overall, it makes sense.

I will (sometimes) comment on things from a beginner’s perspective - but I’ll make sure I note that upfront. And things like the merits of various flutemakers - it’s going to be years, likely, before I’ll even touch that beyond “he was courteous/honest with me”.

Though sometimes comments from another beginning/intermediate player are helpful (“I had to work much harder to make a sound on FlooChiffle than on a VanBoomer, and thought it had poorer workmanship”), it takes time and experience to earn credibility on comparisons of various high-end makers’ flutes. (I notice that many of the more experienced players here often preface their comments with “to my taste” or “my preference is” rather than an out-and-out “maker A good, maker B bad”).

But civility and courtesy go a long way - on the net, folks can’t hear your tone or see your expression - the bare words alone may convey a different, and more confrontational, message than the original poster may have intended.

8

Amen !

9

I think it boils down to: don’t offend, and try not to be offended easily. It’s like driving a car - you have to be aware that other drivers make errors, and “correct” their mistakes. If you insist that you’re right, you might both end up dead.

Just more brainstorming, I think this community works quite well.

Sonja

10

If I make an erroneously informed post, I depend on others better informed to correct me. This has worked well in the past. I come away more educated, and others benefit as well. But if my mistakes are dealt with by furtive PMs or emails behind my virtual back, what has anyone gained? Simple correction works for me, and I appreciate it. As for differences of opinion, I have to reread my posts as if hearing my voice. Often enough, in my posts I’ll find qualifiers or other modifications to be in order for the sake of civility. I’ve found that I can’t assume that print can contain my intent with the same nuance as a face-to-face exchange would likely do.

If silly posts count as spam, sorry. That’s something I’m not likely to give up.

Jason

11

Me neither :slight_smile:

Do nine word posts count as spam?

12

I think the board is set up pretty well–talking about the number of moderators, at which point they tend to intervene, and what they do when they feel the time has come when they must act.

When you have an open forum like this one, where it is moderated but there is no prior censorship of or approval process for posts, you are going to have folks who sometimes go a little too far. That’s human nature, and we are all human–even little ole’ me. :sunglasses:

I do think it is a shame and a lessening of our community when folks feel like they need to leave. I don’t make much distinction on who leaves, I would feel just as sad if little Kimmie Kaboodle leaves as if master flutist (and classical lisper!) Fermoy “Gummy” Flutelock does.

I just hope the rest of us who remain make the place friendly enough that Kimme and Gummy both want to come back someday.

–James

13

Fair play Murph for raising the issue.

I don’t frequent the flute forum a lot, I owned a flute or two once but got separated from them at some point and nearly bought one off Eamonn Cotter last month but I left it at that.

I think the issue applies enough to the rest of the forums to comment from a background participating and reading the other forums more than the flute one.

There is a tendency on all the forums to be more gizmo driven than music driven, this is at times extremely frustrating, by the end of the day what is an instrument worth if the player can’t make a fist of playing it. If you go to the piper’s forum you’ll notice Harry Bradley giving out to the pipers for only prattling along about Sean McKiernan’s pipes rather than giving any notice to the fact he is one of the greatest living pipers around. Civility out of the window or venting pent-up frustration that something you care about is ignored in favour of peripheral issues?

I have just had a welcome break from the forums for a week or two, I had over the Christmas reached saturation point. I sometimes wonder does ‘the community’ want a forum in which Irish Music can be discussed, the number of digs and downputs aired on some of the forums re ITM and the people who do want to discuss this music have been extremely numerous in recent months. Often and obviously they get aired by people who are ignorant of what is being discussed and who don’t really realise the level of their ignorance [an interesting analyses of this was written by Bloomfield recently, he didn’t post it to the forums though but it was circulated around the off board e-mail circuit]. Still, these things create an atmosphere which is not inviting to participate further, why would you after all bother if the music you are talking about is decribed as ‘tootling’ or if you are into traditional music remarks like ‘some like it to be a museumpiece, others like it to be alive’. I have no interest in discussing that sort of ignorance really.

I agree the aim should be to be as civil as possible and to be honest I think by and large and barring a few outbursts the forums are not doing too bad. Misunderstandings do arise sometimes, remarks thought of here as harmless slagging are more often than not read as deeply offensive on the other side of the ocean. Equally some American polite/defensive response can rub people everywhere else very much the wrong way. I recently responded to a request for comment by someone who wanted to start teaching the whistle. I looked at the website after several people via e-mail drew my attention to the thread, the teaching method was obviously set up by someone with general teaching experience and a lot of effort had gone into it. Soundclips posted on the webite however revealed the person just couldn’t play herself. I responded carefully initially, suggesting the poster should listen to herself before taking up teaching [and I did that for a good reason]. The response I got was very defensive, basically saying I had it all wrong suggesting that because she was a fine player. I think that is where cultural differences kicked in and my response became less gentle. Which I regretted after. What I am saying is, these things happen from time to time in the heat of the moment.

To keep people from leaving, well, one way would be to let interesting discussions flourish. You can talk the merits and de-merits of a particular make of flute-whistle or pipes until the cows come home, and that needs to be done sometimes too [though in moderation please], but if you want musicians to contribute and talk what it’s about, music after all, the nuts and bolts of the music should be discussed maybe a bit more and a bit more in depth than is the case at present. And if discussions move around a music that doesn’t interest you overly, well, you can ignore it without taking a stab at it at every occasion [or go whine on Gaeliccrosings that these guys on fipple are all unfriendly and only into Irish music].

14

I agree with all the above. I don’t think many of us have the patience to deal with conflicts, rudeness, and control freaks anymore. It’s good to just have a thread to point them to for counsel…
http://chiffboard.mati.ca/viewtopic.php?t=17146

Look familiar? It should match the address at the top of this page! :smiley:

We had a new member that ranted and raved for pages on the UP forum, one of his threads even got lock, and finally the whole thing got deleted by Dale. We hardly hear from him anymore. Don’t know what’s responsible for that, but I like to think it’s because we finally asked him the right questions that revealed his nonsense. We asked for a picture and measurements of his chanter. Come to find out, the thing looked more like a fife compared to a flute, and there is no such thing as fife-sized chanters. Someone had apparently made a complete anomaly, and he was trying to discuss the thing in terms of normalilty. And when we implored him for precise measurements, suddenly, his chanter was gone to various and sundry places, and he dissappeared too for the most part.

15

Peter Laban wrote:

“To keep people from leaving, well, one way would be to let interesting discussions flourish.”

Hear Hear! There isn’t enough time to work on the music, let alone the flame wars there have been recently!

regards,

Pamela

16

I agree with all that Peter Laban said, and i remember the thread he mentioned about the whistle classes, and i agreed with him there too.