Menu
What's new
By:
Filters

Arbitrary Decisions by Moderator

wunderflo

wunderflo

Active Member
I put a lot of time and thought into creating a few posts on the Adachi (now "everyone vs. 8dio") topic. I created multiple posts instead of one, because I got constructive critical replies that I then felt the need to reply to (all in a well-behaved constructive manner - we actually had a good discussion, imo).

Those posts tried to contextualize the discussion and tone it down from personal attacks to the question what we as a community could learn from this discussion to prevent such cases in the future (including being willing to pay more for better working conditions). I tried to find explanations for the cases by trying to paint the bigger picture, explaining some socio-economical and organizational relations (as someone who studied the sociology of organizations), and deconstructing why something might come across as one repeating pattern of immoral behavior by individuals, without that necessarily being the case (without saying that it can't be the case), simply because I refuse to judge individuals without knowing them personally, and I'm convinced that blaming it all on individuals is too simplistic.

I was polite, didn't insist on my interpretation being the only correct one (but rather food for thought) and explained my reasoning why these posts are on-topic. My intention was to add value to the discussion by bringing in a new perspective in a thread where the same statements have already been repeated over and over again for at least 100 posts.

My posts were deleted for derailing the thread.

A message would have been enough, and I of course would have copied the posts to start a new thread and deleted my original messages.

At the same time, @Mike Greene posts general musings about the US justice system in the very same thread. This is relevant? The thread was originally about Adachi and then about allegations that Sarah made regarding an assumed "deal" that didn't work out. It was not primarily about 8dio allegedly threatening Cory and who else with a law suit. Sarah's case isn't a legal question, as far as I can tell based on what I learned from the posts.

How is that not completely arbitrary? And how is that fair towards @Troels Folmann when voices that take a bit away from the personal attacks are deleted? That makes the discussion quite one-sided.

I'm not a spammer. I post when I feel I have something to say. That resulted in "only" 245 messages and 559 likes so far. I know, this all doesn't matter. Just a discussion on the internet. But when it all doesn't matter, why are we even here in the first place? Why does this forum exist when people aren't allowed to discuss?

This completely demotivates me from further contributing to this forum. I expect an apology and my posts to be restored. Otherwise, just delete my account. It's not like I'd have any benefits from posting here. Thanks.
Click to read more...
 
Last edited:
wunderflo said:
It was not primarily about 8dio allegedly threatening Cory and who else with a law suit.
Click to expand...
My update to the thread OP was, in fact, about 8Dio threatening Cory with a lawsuit. I had been more or less content to let things stand as they were until I found out about that event. Then others chimed in with their own experiences, establishing a pattern, after the initial round of "where is the proof?"

My posts were not a direct response to any deal falling through. The Adachi deal fell through long before the thread was ever posted (I wouldn't have posted the work-in-progress publicly if there were still ongoing negotiations to sell it!), I explained my side of events there in response to Troels attempting to rewrite history around it.
 
That 8dio thread is very tricky to control, but it's also an important one, so I'm not locking or Drama-Zoning it yet. Until then, it's obviously a very difficult thread to keep focused, so I've been deleting a LOT of posts. Otherwise there are all sorts of tangents that develop and the thread turns into a mess.

In your case, just in the last few hours, there were already almost a dozen posts debating you specifically, and thread derailment was on its way. (I deleted their posts as well, of course.) My decisions on that might not always be right, but these are tough calls, especially because it's all decided in real-time, and there are a lot of factors to consider. (Not the least of which is making sure I don't get sued myself!) But I do the best I can.

Now, I don't deny your posts were thoughtful (albeit very long) and I do feel bad about deleting them. So my general recommendation: Heated threads like this do occur from time to time, and I don't get to choose when they happen. So I often don't have time to write notes to each person explaining the deletion. It would be great if I did, of course, but I often simply can't, because when it comes to threads discussing ethics, everybody has an opinion, so things happen fast. So on your end, you'll want to read the room, and if you see me delete one of your posts, then assume that subsequent posts might suffer a similar fate.

Regarding "Mike Greene's general musings about the US justice system" - Bear in mind the thread is mostly about people being threatened with legal action for posting negative opinions. That's obviously something I take seriously, since we don't want members here feeling intimidated. The forum was founded on the idea that this would be a place where we could speak honestly.

So my post was meant to inform people that, in fact, if someone ever does try to sue you for posting honest opinions, then you have recourse, in that you can countersue for "malicious prosecution."
 
Deleting threads, except perhaps for the most extreme reasons, basically legal/ethical reasons, is not a good idea in my opinion.
You could use the spoiler BB Code with a reason for encapsulating the original post.
That way, only reader who do want to read the post would read it, the other would skip it.
 
disclaimer - I am a moderator here, so take this with whatever you wish...

One of the common threads (pun unavoidable) in the moderation here is trying to keep threads focused. When they wander about they lose their usefulness. I don't want to dig through a lot of unrelated stuff anymore than the rest of you.

Is some of that unrelated stuff interesting, or valuable for our members? You bet. But if no one ever sees it then it loses its value.

Years ago a friend of mine and I tried to extend a then popular forum package to allow for sub-threads. It's a pretty neat idea, I think (we thought). But asking posters to decide when they needed for split off into a sub-thread is unworkable. Asking moderators to make those choices is not a lot better. If you ask three moderators for an opinion you will get at least four, and it just adds to the time required to moderate.

I am sure the the OP feels stifled, and I too feel bad about that. That thread is still here ought to demonstrate to everyone that Mike (and the rest of the moderators) really do have everyone's best interest in mind when they deletes a comment, or an entire thread.
 
wunderflo said:
I put a lot of time and thought into creating a few posts on the Adachi (now "everyone vs. 8dio") topic. I created multiple posts instead of one, because I got constructive critical replies that I then felt the need to reply to (all in a well-behaved constructive manner - we actually had a good discussion, imo).

Those posts tried to contextualize the discussion and tone it down from personal attacks to the question what we as a community could learn from this discussion to prevent such cases in the future (including being willing to pay more for better working conditions). I tried to find explanations for the cases by trying to paint the bigger picture, explaining some socio-economical and organizational relations (as someone who studied the sociology of organizations), and deconstructing why something might come across as one repeating pattern of immoral behavior by individuals, without that necessarily being the case (without saying that it can't be the case), simply because I refuse to judge individuals without knowing them personally, and I'm convinced that blaming it all on individuals is too simplistic.

I was polite, didn't insist on my interpretation being the only correct one (but rather food for thought) and explained my reasoning why these posts are on-topic. My intention was to add value to the discussion by bringing in a new perspective in a thread where the same statements have already been repeated over and over again for at least 100 posts.

My posts were deleted for derailing the thread.

A message would have been enough, and I of course would have copied the posts to start a new thread and deleted my original messages.

At the same time, @Mike Greene posts general musings about the US justice system in the very same thread. This is relevant? The thread was originally about Adachi and then about allegations that Sarah made regarding an assumed "deal" that didn't work out. It was not primarily about 8dio allegedly threatening Cory and who else with a law suit. Sarah's case isn't a legal question, as far as I can tell based on what I learned from the posts.

How is that not completely arbitrary? And how is that fair towards @Troels Folmann when voices that take a bit away from the personal attacks are deleted? That makes the discussion quite one-sided.

I'm not a spammer. I post when I feel I have something to say. That resulted in "only" 245 messages and 559 likes so far. I know, this all doesn't matter. Just a discussion on the internet. But when it all doesn't matter, why are we even here in the first place? Why does this forum exist when people aren't allowed to discuss?

This completely demotivates me from further contributing to this forum. I expect an apology and my posts to be restored. Otherwise, just delete my account. It's not like I'd have any benefits from posting here. Thanks.
Click to expand...
I’ve had posts removed too. Most of the time it was justified because my temper got the best of me and I wrote something silly in the heat of the moment. However there have also been a few times where “proper” posts of mine were removed, every time with no explanation etc. To begin with I got upset, but I’ve found a way to think of it which works well for me: I’ve stopped taking it personal, meaning, I’ve come to understand it’s not about me when I see a post of mine got removed; it’s simply a case of a moderator making a judgement on how to keep the thread I had posted in under control, and if they had to write a message to every person every time a post of theirs was removed, it would quickly become a lot of arguing the moderator had to engage in.

I know it sucks to have what you believe to be valuable input removed, but I can only encourage you to write the post in a Word document or whatever first so you have a backup of it. Then if it’s removed, at least you have the option of making a new discussion thread with your post as the opening post, possibly edited if relevant etc.

Basically what I’ve learned is that you can’t always get things exactly how you want them here on Vi Control. You just shrug your shoulders and think “oh well”. Then tomorrow is a new day and life continues 🙂
 
I've had posts deleted as well. My first thought was "what the hell?" but then I've come to the conclusion that this isn't my forum, I don't have to police it, don't envy anyone who does, and while I may wonder if there is some bias to the deletions—and I could be absolutely wrong about that, since this is an entirely subjective opinion—I figure this is Mike's forum and he can do whatever the hell he wants. And if he wants to delete my posts, so be it.

I've found that it's simply easier to bow out of the conversation and move on to other topics. Getting upset over a post deletion is a first world problem.
 
Yep. It's their own sandpit so they can do whatever they want.
But let's accept that bias and personal bias is involved.
Fair enough. If we want in. Their rules.
 
my thread about film scoring techniques thread got removed , with the reason I posted 7 threads this month. Detail: try to find my 7 threads ! I am curious to know. I opened one thread about muted trumpets, another about live composing , where many youtubers can participate and get help from, by the way. Two super essential areas of knowledge not touched by the forum yet. One thread was still to promote the requiem made for the 11 september considered already "a national treasure", not amateur symphony trying to imitate Mozart, not another recipe trailer track, and the last one was teaching proper film scoring theory in a place where people don´t stop to quote film composers...

All the threads were the first in one month for the respective forums. The forum Composition & Technique has many things missing, many unrelated things, and absolute lack of content for film scoring theory. I was adding information to one of the most searched and discussed topics here, and giving an opportunity to people talk about it.

Instead of creating some vague polemic discussion in taste and "crisis" of film music that ends in a salad of unaccountable opinions, I added actual knowledge. This should not be simply deleted.


I am not kidding here, like many do. This is why some also do not care if their post is deleted: their post is not essential either for them or for someone.


I honestly would like to know: which are my 7 threads of this month? And what made the others be too much, considering what awas happening already in the forums and also how many threads are opened by the SAME person there. I am not the guy posting every interesting link he finds on youtube opening a new thread "duh, i found this cool".

THis policy makes the gatekeeping a bias succeed, good people gave up with some posts, while flattering and favoritism wins.


Kind Regards



*
By the way I am curious to know what happened to Ed Bullers thread on youtube links. It was a good thread creating a miscellaneous list of links.
 
Last edited:
Emanuel Fróes said:
Detail: try to find my 7 threads !
Click to expand...
Seriously? A simple search reveals:
September 2
September 3
September 5
September 7
September 11
September 16
The seventh thread was deleted (as you mentioned), so no link for that.

That's a lot, and even for regular members, I'd probably ask them to slow down. (When I get a chance in the next week or two, I'll write a thread about people over-posting, which has become more of a problem lately as a core group of people dominates most conversations.)

In your case, though, there's an additional factor that you're selling courses, so there's always that underlying motive of posting for publicity purposes that I have to watch for. Why, for instance, would there be any need for someone who teaches composition/orchestration to post three new threads this month in the Members Compositions section? That section is for people working on their skills, with the *occasional* showcase by more seasoned composers. Your posts have the appearance (whether intentional or not) of "Here's my work! Want to sound like me? Then click the link in my signature!"

The number of people selling courses has exploded in the last couple years (we even have a guy selling MIDI packs!), so I've been keeping tighter reigns on that. Even with more traditional commercial ventures, you'll notice there are now about half the commercial and deals announcements than there were a few months ago. (They aren't happy about my dictator rules, either.)

There is worthwhile information in your posts, of course. (Although I really wish you would proofread after posting and delete the excessive line breaks.)

But appearances matter, and from your "Try to find my 7 threads!" challenge, you're apparently not even aware that you're starting new threads at a 3 per week pace. Clearly, that's a lot, right? One per week should be an absolute maximum, and even that raises an eyebrow. (If it makes you feel less attacked, for some of the smaller developers, I limit them to one per month.)
 
Mike Greene said:
(When I get a chance in the next week or two, I'll write a thread about people over-posting, which has become more of a problem lately as a core group of people dominates most conversations.)
Click to expand...
Whenever you mention this issue, I feel like I'm probably part of the posting-too-much-group, but you've never called me out on it as far as I remember. In terms of how many posts I make, it's almost exactly the same average over the years as Emanuel, but I post less than one new thread per month on average. If the thread-count is more disruptive than the post-count for the forum, then maybe it could help to try and funnel a couple of "common thread types" that tend to be posted often but get few replies, into "mega-threads" for that topic? I don't have a good enough overview about the common thread types though, so I can't really say whether this makes any practical sense. My rationale would just be that it potentially makes the latest posts feed move at a slower pace and might shorten the number of threads listed in the "what's new?" list. Or maybe it's just enough to encourage everyone to favor posting into active threads instead of making new threads? I don't know and don't envy your position at all...

<ADMIN NOTE - I deleted this second paragraph because I'm not looking for sub-forum reorganization suggestions and I don't want a side discussion on that.>
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Mike Greene said:
That's a lot (7 posts), and even for regular members, I'd probably ask them to slow down. (When I get a chance in the next week or two, I'll write a thread about people over-posting, which has become more of a problem lately as a core group of people dominates most conversations.)
Click to expand...
Hey Mike, are you referring to launching a new post or does that include replies? If it's replies also, then I'll just head down to the Principal's office right now, I'm toast.
 
ed buller said:
Did I do something wrong Mike ?
Click to expand...
Our listings (which include deleted topics and posts) don't show any of your threads (or even posts) being deleted since a duplicate Fugitive thread back in June. No moves to the Drama Zone or anything like that, and I can't imagine why we'd delete a thread of YouTube links.

In fact, going all the way back to 2012, I don't see any other thread deletions of note (aside from a couple you requested be deleted), so I'm stumped on this one.
 
It's hard to know which thread of Ed's that Emmanual is referring to since there are multiple that match the description given, but I suspect he's referring to this one -
Thread 'My fav youtube educational videos:' https://vi-control.net/community/threads/my-fav-youtube-educational-videos.88868/
- Which was moved to the videocasts subforum since the thread itself was hijacked by other people consistently promoting their own channels.
 
Jdiggity1 said:
- Which was moved to the videocasts subforum since the thread itself was hijacked by other people consistently promoting their own channels.
Click to expand...
Oh, that's just too funny. It's not fair to Ed, of course, but there's such a sweet irony to Emanuel closing his post with a complaint that sends us full circle to why I took the actions he complains about in the first part of his post.
 
Thanks for showing, now we can talk - despite the huge amount of accusations towards me, that confirm the suspicion of arbitrarity started in the thread, making me very time-consuming to answer.

1.

You see how the threads are for very different disciplines of music and also purposes, like a post honoring the 11 September. They have engagement despite the frequency because are addressed for different folks interested in different disciplines of music. I also open threads focusing on the best that the most "proeminent" members would be able to answer, like the one on live composing.

Conclusion: 6 threads, being two ABOVE AVERAGE ACHIEVEMENT pieces of music posted, did not look like an issue against the spirit of the site and went unnoticed, also unwarned. But the number 7 was an issue.

Anyways, you set the rules and decide the best policy for the site according to the "damage" being done, and if you want to please the requests or not. We just expect that rules are 1) universal 2) announced before the "game". Here is the decisive factor for the issue with arbitrarity.

2.
Mike Greene said:
Mike Greene said:
There is worthwhile information in your posts
Click to expand...
Click to expand...


If this is the case, I don´t see the problem with :
Mike Greene said:
"Here's my work! Want to sound like me? Then click the link in my signature!"
Click to expand...

It is exaggerated to frame me, as a member who contributed to this forum, this way. People dm me wanting to actually learn from me. When they can´t pay i guess they might be happy getting in touch with me for free. I even did some free feedback videos. People said they like to read my posts. And most of them are me stopping what else i do in my day to answer someone! I don´t see the problem since this helps your own site.

But i might not answer or give feedback for many threads people are starting any longer. Actually, I deleted my feedback from the My First Symphony post: low reward, too much risk. I can focus on who pays me for this. Sure this "self-promotion" (as you see it, not me) might end soon, since it might be hard to be available now that i start a music school.

Concluding: Despite me understanding that you want to organize the "clutter", I don´t see how "frequent worthwhile information" in a music forum might be nocive.

___

Anonymous and unaccountable hobbyists faking being some authority by telling whatever they "feel" is right, this is more concerning if you care about these high standards you are trying to set. It is the best way to keep talented people unemployed. But they also should be free in my opnion. We start from somewhere; later we change the mind and see 10 strange planets where we saw just a simple and cute one. The beauty here is the interchange between hobby, beginners, people recovering from GAS, and also more experienced people being paid to be better each day and having their families this way.

The worst we can have is a silent and intellectually empty forum of people - principally the most professional ones - afraid to answer, to ask, or to share. This thread here is a sign for something. You decide what this is going to be, and we decide which values we want to support.


kind regards
 
Emanuel Fróes said:
Anonymous and unaccountable hobbyists faking being some authority by telling whatever they "feel" is right, this is more concerning if you care about these high standards you are trying to set.
Click to expand...
Pros can just put a link in their signature to their bio or IMDB. Nobody here is fooled by a random anonymous account.

Emanuel Fróes said:
The worst we can have is a silent and intellectually empty forum of people - principally the most professional ones - afraid to answer, to ask, or to share.
Click to expand...
Obviously this is a forum, so communication is the whole point of it. But that's not really the issue Mike is concerned about.

Personally I'm very happy with Mike's policies. I don't want VIC to turn into KVR.
 
Pier said:
Pros can just put a link in their signature to their bio or IMDB. Nobody here is fooled by a random anonymous account.


Obviously this is a forum, so communication is the whole point of it. But that's not really the issue Mike is concerned about.

Personally I'm very happy with Mike's policies. I don't want VIC to turn into KVR.
Click to expand...
what is KVR?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom