It's Sickening

Phil Hardy · Post by **Phil Hardy** » Wed Jan 23, 2002 4:33 am

After a couple of innocent post's just to put things back on track,I can't believe the amount of bickering that can come from just one person.
This is a forum ...Right,for info and anything else...Right,even way off topic...Right,like sharing good and bad news.
Well,I got to thinking about how precious the odd person gets about this board and how unnecessary alot of the bickering is.
So,last night I desided to post up a new message forum on my own site(mentioning no commercial names as not to upset anyone)It will take about 1 month to organize and it will have complete FREEDOM OF SPEECH.Traders ,buyers, makers ,players interested parties,in fact ANYBODY cane say what they like .NO SHERRIFF.
I like to think that we live in a democracy with freedom of speech,but on this board there is always some up your a....!"You can't say this ,your not aloud to post that!"
Some of my friend who are not musicians have taken a look at this boared and found it tiresome ,and quite frankly,I have to agree with them.So I'm removing all control on this new board and anyone can say whatever they want,OPEN AND FREE,this world of music is of such a nature and I really admire Dale and Rich for what they have created,but in trying to limit what can and cannot be posted ,it leaves it open to backbiting and bickering amoungst the few who need to get a life .LIVE and LET LIVE.
Ive desided to name the new forum"The Board Whistler"
Smiles and giggles
Phil.

[ This Message was edited by: DaleWisely on 2002-05-26 12:34 ]

[ This Message was edited by: Phil Hardy on 2002-05-28 08:53 ]

Tony · Post by **Tony** » Wed Jan 23, 2002 4:54 am

Phil... I take no sides, but don't act in rage. I've seen some open boards. Many are filled with profanity & hate messages and are often out of control. Dale & Rich don't have an easy time here as it takes a lot of work to keep things running smoothly. You're a part of this online community and I'm sure many of us would hate to see you go.

Jens_Hoppe · Post by **Jens_Hoppe** » Wed Jan 23, 2002 5:42 am

Hey Phil,

Please don't overreact! As you yourself note, only one person complained about anything - which to me means that the rest of us don't object to your postings.

Jens

hillfolk22 · Post by **hillfolk22** » Wed Jan 23, 2002 6:50 am

This may be a little ot. But I went back to the other post you made Phil to see what all of the hub bub was about.

My concern is How your ex-wife is doing?
She is in my prayers.

All this bickering when some-ones life is on the line. That sickens me also.

PEACE my friends.

Laura

jbarter · Post by **jbarter** » Wed Jan 23, 2002 7:05 am

Would it be possible to set up a commercial forum? Would it cause too much extra work for Dale and Rich or raise a lot of technical problems?
Apart from being somewhere our commercial members could cry their wares without bothering anybody who doesn't like such posts it could also serve as a self help area for those, great or small, involved in whistle business.

keiths · Post by **keiths** » Wed Jan 23, 2002 7:21 am

On 2002-01-23 08:05, jbarter wrote:
Would it be possible to set up a commercial forum? Would it cause too much extra work for Dale and Rich or raise a lot of technical problems?

This has been mentioned several times before (just about every time this subject comes up, in fact). It would appear that Dale/Rich doesn't want to go down this path (though Dale did at one point imply that he was willing to give it a try).

[ This Message was edited by: keiths on 2002-01-23 08:22 ]

JessieK · Post by **JessieK** » Wed Jan 23, 2002 8:02 am

Phil, if you create a board where people are encouraged to have totally free speech, you have no idea what you are getting into. BAD IDEA!!!

Bloomfield · Post by **Bloomfield** » Wed Jan 23, 2002 8:07 am

Phil,
just put up with the occasional silly or annoying posts. This place has so very little of them. I for one like to hear about you website and your whistlemaking. And I wish you, your mother, and your ex-wife all the best!

Claus von Weiss · Post by **Claus von Weiss** » Wed Jan 23, 2002 9:16 am

Phil,

do you really believe, that "no sheriff" means "freedom of speech"? I don't think so. To guarantee freedom of speech there have to be some rules, or it's "the loudest person is right".
I think Dale and Rich are doing a great job making sure this board sticks to certain standards of behaviour and fairness without cutting off anybodys freedom. And I hope, they'll continue doing so. Good luck with your board, if you're really up to it.

Claus

Vinny · Post by **Vinny** » Wed Jan 23, 2002 9:28 am

Hey Phil,

I saw nothing wrong with your post and have to agree with Tony. It can be infuriating when you do something with good intent and get slapped in the face. But I don't think what you have in mind is the answer.

A while back we went through a time when there was less control of the board and ended up wasting a lot of time and board space on one person who got attention by being crude and insulting to everyone. Lots of anger and looooong threads telling this person to cool it while they continually antagonized everyone.

An "open board" sounds utopian but unfortunately most people aren't ready for utopia. You can certainly do as you wish, but I think you'll find that Jessie is right, it's a bad idea. And I'd hate to see you leave the C&F board. Keep in mind that one opinion does not make the majority. Don't be driven out by one voice.

Take care,

Vinny

ndjr · Post by **ndjr** » Wed Jan 23, 2002 9:44 am

Freedom of speech really isn't an issue on this forum. Dale and Rich own the place, and if we want to play here we have to follow their rules. Fortunately for all of us, their stewardship is quite gentle -- if anything they tend to step in late, but better that than otherwise. In this age of spam and telemarketing I do appreciate the fact that, while whistlesmiths and music shops are allowed a post to announce new products and the like, advertising is generally absent.

A completely free forum is a fond idea, but, like utopia, never seems to last. All such schemes eventually founder on human nature. Even if those who are genuinely interested in the music behave themselves, eventually others who are genuinely interested in disruption will find it and do what they do best. In knocking about the internet these 10 years and more, I've never seen it work.

We are only so free as we are willing to discipline ourselves, and the wonder is that so many discipline themselves as well as they do.

Loren · Post by **Loren** » Wed Jan 23, 2002 9:53 am

Yes Phil,

Please, let's have a totally open forum. Perhaps the first thing we could discuss are the details of what happened between you and the person who taught you whistle making - Bernard Overton. Maybe we could even invite Bernard over for a chat, Hmm? I wonder what his thoughts are on your Kerry Pro line.

It would also be interesting to discuss openly and in detail how and by whom your machine and hand made whistles are made.

We could also talk about sales and marketing practices during the years just after Bernard yanked you license to make Overtons.

Yes, I'm sure people would find an open forum very interesting indeed....

Loren

Sara · Post by **Sara** » Wed Jan 23, 2002 10:02 am

I am for freedom of choice and speech - but I'm quite glad to have a message board which is not filled with profanity and inappropriate subject matters - I've been to other message boards and it was awful - but even if you could say anything on here, I doubt you'd ever hear anything bad because the people on here are too nice to use profanity and such.

Because this board has been given limits as to what the members can say and do, the result has been that the members all get along, help each other out, share ideas and opinions (and disagreements) civilly. As I have noticed from the message boards which have no rules, every time someone has a minor disagreement, profanity, hateful remarks and overall flame-throwing takes place. As well, you always have to take into consideration that teens and kids may be on a message board. Just my opinion.

Keep up the good work Dale and Rich!

Sara

[ This Message was edited by: Sara on 2002-01-23 11:05 ]

Post by **rich** » Wed Jan 23, 2002 10:14 am

On 2002-01-23 08:05, jbarter wrote:
Would it be possible to set up a commercial forum? Would it cause too much extra work for Dale and Rich or raise a lot of technical problems?

(I apologize for the length of this post; there's quite a bit of board history involved here. I do encourage you to plod through it, though; I address the question of a commercial-post-specific forum at the end.)

It's not really a technical issue. There are a bunch of issues involved; none are technical, some are social, and some at this point are historical.

First of all, one of the reasons we ended up running the board ourselves rather than going with an "Add a free web-board to your site!" provider was that we had a particularly bad experience with Coolboard, who hit resource limits (read: ran out of monkey) and started putting ads everywhere to try to make up for it -- multiple banners and popup ads and on-close ads and so on. So one of the selling points of this board -- although not the main one -- was that it was ad-free.

That was particularly important because of the board's first home. For the first few months, the board was hosted on a server at Concordia University, who was then my employer. They're really open about providing resources for free to interesting projects (even when they're not particularly academic), but they've a very strict rule about commercial use of their systems -- namely, that there isn't any. So that's the historical grounds of the restrictions on commercial posts.

Now, Dale and I didn't really think about text posts when we were keeping it non-commercial, but it soon became apparent that there was going to be a lot of self-promotion on the board. Eventually, something had to be done; there were enough commercial posts that I felt I was stretching Concordia's acceptable use policy (which it was my responsibility not only to obey, but enforce!), and there were a significant number of people sending mail to us complaining that it was getting out of hand. Since we had both legal and social reasons to limit it, Dale came up with a series of rules (the first one or two didn't have the intended effect) in order to keep things reasonably noncommercial.

When I realized that the board was busier than I expected it to be by about an order of magnitude, I decided that it was inappropriate to use Concordia's resources for it (since bandwidth to the commercial Internet is relatively expensive compared to that to other academic sites) and moved the board to a server owned by a friend of mine, Chris Petro. His machine is a perk of his job, so he lets friends use it for their own projects. There wasn't any official anticommercial policy there, but most of the projects were open-source software, so there didn't seem to be any reason to change the previous policy, given that the complaints about commercialism had, beyond the occasional incident, stopped.

I've now got my own server colocated in Montreal, and the board was recently moved there. So there are no more contractual reasons for the commercial-posts rule, but I don't think that's a reason to change anything. Back when the board saw commercial posts proliferating, there was too much of it, and the complaints certainly had a valid basis. We obviously don't want to go back to that point. Given that the only problems with the current scenario (excluding the "problem" of not being able to post commercially more than once a month) is that occasionally there's a bit of heavy-handedness and hurt feelings regarding it (which, if anything, suggests that there is still a need for the rule!), I don't see any incentive to change the status of the existing groups.

That said, jbarter suggests a commercial forum. This would, admittedly, give those who want it a place to make their commercial posts, and keep them out of the discussion forums for those who don't want them there. But I'm really not particularly thrilled with the idea of using resources that I pay for out of pocket to provide a free advertising venue. Now, don't get me wrong -- I'm more than happy to provide a place for the board, and I don't expect any compensation for that -- but a forum specifically for advertising is pushing things a little farther than I'm prepared to donate.

Apologies again for my longwindedness. I hope that sheds some light on the historical and social context of the rules on advertising on the forums.

Yer webmonkey,

<ul>-Rich</ul>

jim stone · Post by **jim stone** » Wed Jan 23, 2002 10:22 am

Phil, By all means set up the new
board, and I hope you will stay with us,
too. I'll miss you, in fact, if you
go. You know, in a few days this
stuff will matter little--it's
an imperfect world. And however
much you are frustrated by the board,
it isn't just the board--it's us
and you. Stay with us, old buddy! Jim