policy poll

Sob.
No, it was a "why" relating to the thread as a whole. Why should anyone want to ban a topic, unless it be donwright offensive in some kind of way. Surely accuracy/blind testing/double blind testing aren't offensive. Boring, tedious, tendentious to some, but offensive? No ban for me (ban me if you like!)

 

I just tend to ignore them anyway.

 

I'm with Eisenach on this one. If an issue is boring we don't read the thread - should be the same if it is contentious. There are policies to deal with rude and aggressive behaviour and moderators to police such behaviour.

Free speech is important and banning a topic is the thin end of the wedge. By all means use the forum policies to control unruly and obnoxious behaviour, but I think we'd rue the day we started using policies to control the subject matter of what is being discussed.

 

I agree with the majority too, topic censorship is not the way to go in a forum.

What I find irritating is that when a good flame war is going on, the contributors often find it necessary to invade numerous other threads to try and make their point over and over again. If somebody starts a thread to seek advice about re-wiring their speakers or to recommend a new i/c they have tried, is it really necessary to have the cables don't make any difference debate all over again. If the thread ever gets back onto topic, most people will have lost interest and miss any relevant replies.

As a suggestion, if you feel the need to make a post that is likely to make the thread go off topic, wouldn't it be a good idea to start a new thread and provide a link to that thread in the post so giving it some relevance?

This is after all the season of good will to all men, believers and non-believers alike

 

I think the split thread 'fundamentalism' is a perfect example of bemcsa's point.
The fundamentalist attitude and absolutism of some is making it unenjoyable for others.

 

On some forums its dealt with by the moderators taking a fairly active role in moving this kind of stuff to the playpen, or at least moving these kind of off topic posts to the relevant thread. It might help, but realise its more work for the moderators - also don't know if the forum software used here allows that sort of thing to be easily done - it happens a lot on some MSN forums I have lurked on in the past.

 

Splitting a thread is a little bit fiddly as you have to select each individual post that you want split into the new thread. With a very long thread that can be quite tedious, especiallly as you can't see complete posts in the thread split "window". Moving entire threads is straightforward but isn't usually applicable in cases like these.

Active moderation is a difficult line to tread, not to mention time consuming! Deciding when/whether a thread should be split is not always easy.

Michael.

 

position understood Michael,
I think it needs more thought from actual posters to curtail the problems, but i doubt that can happen.

 

Forum : A place of or meeting for public discussion ; which provides an opportunity for conducting a debate.

My dictionary says nothing about censorship.

What about trying a little self-censorship ?

 

Understood. Thought that might be the case, but even so if a thread hijack can be nipped in the bud with stern warnings to repeat trangressors, then maybe it would help. You wouldn't be censoring then, but you might prevent some of the shenanigans and make transgressors think twice about what they post to what thread. Maybe a special "HiFi Fundamentalists Shoot Out Forum" to keep this stuff out of the main forum. Those who want to can take their Jihad there and not bother the rest of us.

 

I should probably answer, as I started the thread.

Some forums ban such topics as dbt, psycho-acoustics etc because they find them counter-productive and unhelpful.

I've had a lot of mini discussions regarding the relevance of these topics in the forum and how best to manage the way they often get out of hand.

One possible solution is to ban them - but is this what people want?

I want to make it clear banning subjects wasn't on the cards (as far as Im aware).

I wanted to sound out the forum on this contentious topic to see what people's reactions would be. The poll results are fairly conclusive IMO. Thank you for the 50+ responses which indicate the forum viewpoint.

I also wanted to start another poll to see if people think we moderate enough - i.e. should threads be pulled earlier/later, more/less temporary bans, more/less strictness around forum aups. I didnt know if that was a poll too far though.

 

We could always have a poll to decide if it's a poll too far

 

:lol:

 

Allthough I'm not in favour of banning certain topics it does seem to work well on some other forums. The Cable forum of AudioAsylum is classified as a "DBT Free Zone" where discussion of DBTs and ABX tests are banned. Here's their reasoning:

http://www.audioasylum.com/audio/dbt.html

...and there is some value in that, allthough I'm not suggesting we do the same here.

Michael.