What's new

[OLD] New Rules Regarding New Members, Anonymous Members, and Drama Magnets

I always believed and still do, that all problems in the world would be solved pretty fast if everybody would listen to the inner compass of right and wrong behavior and would behave according to it. (I believe there is such a compass within everybody- but more often than not ignored) There would be no need for laws, punishment, cults, priests and a lot of other time wasting things.
Obviously the world of humans doesn't work like that unfortunately. But the forum and the way Mike handles the issues of members that seem to be a bit separated from a well balanced feeling of right and wrong comes close to a world where we are directed by an inner compass and not rules. This to me is what "Don't be a jerk" is all about. I mean we more or less all know what it means without rules.
So I enjoy this environment and learned an awful lot during the years from this forum and I'm thankful that there are some guys that take care for vi control being what it is. (I hope this is right english 🙂).
Anyway I think you do a great job Mike.
 
I always believed and still do, that all problems in the world would be solved pretty fast if everybody would listen to the inner compass of right and wrong behavior and would behave according to it. (I believe there is such a compass within everybody- but more often than not ignored)

I wish I still believed that, but there are too many sociopaths for that to be true. Estimates range that from 1-4 % of the population are sociopaths.
 
Last edited:
I wish I still believed that, but there are too many sociopaths for that to be true. Estimates range from 1-4 % of the population.
That's why I said it's ignored more often than not. And in the worst possible manners. Ignoring or consciously acting against your conscience doesn't mean there is none. If it wouldn't be like that nobody would understand what "Don't be a jerk" means.
The reason why this is so seems to me one of the big secrets of humanity. And btw it's the source for most stories that are told and we support through our music.
 
I wish people would recognize this notion of a so-called self-moderating forum for what it is: we are mostly made up of respectful and aware contributors each day, yes, but the trade-offs for such self-declared autonomy will be these periodic contentious and/or exploited threads.

To me, after several years here, it strikes me more that the belief in self-moderating is the thing unto itself, like a shared perception, but where it’s not necessarily a tangible thing (just my view). But even as we espouse such an idea, we must also own up to these moments when so-called self-moderating fails. The thread in question is also a failure of appropriate moderating, no matter how it can also be blamed on trolls.

These cartwheels to reassure everyone’s autonomy, after a Moderator or Admin intervenes, has never made sense to me. Only where some prize their untouchable autonomy over the public pummeling of a forum member do you then see threads go on for page after page. To me, it exposes the limitations, if not the myth of a forum experiment that seeks to moderate itself. I’m not saying it can’t be tried, and most definitely the better voices do defend and diffuse. But I just think we need to be honest about the ups and downs, and how intervention also has its place, rather than constantly touting this ideal of virtue in the form of a self-moderating clan.

It’s not about the heated or contentious discussions themselves. It’s about the duration, and the failure to recognize when or how to put on the brakes when accusations fly. It’s about forgoing mechanisms that in other realms, actually get triggered in tandem with stated rules - not just after the fact.

I recently read about this referee under review for letting a fight go on too long, when it was obvious to everyone else the loser was injured and still being pummeled by the opponent. I immediately thought of our forum.
 
The new rules sound fine to me.

The thing about user anonymity is that whilst there are good reasons why some members would require it, the need doesn't apply to most of us. I can't help thinking that many of the more toxic conversations would never happen if everyone had to identify themselves. It's a tricky one.

I'd also like to take this opportunity to thank Mike and the rest of the mods. I couldn't believe the amount of prose in the aforementioned Westworld threads and I gave up reading them pretty early on. I don't envy anyone who had to spend time moderating it. Thanks guys for your hard graft.
A
 
I can't help thinking that many of the more toxic conversations would never happen if everyone had to identify themselves. It's a tricky one.

You'd think that, but of the top of my head some of the most toxic people we've seen here were posting with their real full names (or at least linked to a website with their full name in their signature, makes no difference imho) and they weren't total nobodies either. Those people don't think they're doing anything wrong, so posting under their full name isn't a concern for them. They think all the others are the jerks and they're just defending themselves. Not thinking of DJ by the way, just to be clear!


I'd also like to take this opportunity to thank Mike and the rest of the mods. I couldn't believe the amount of prose in the aforementioned Westworld threads and I gave up reading them pretty early on. I don't envy anyone who had to spend time moderating it. Thanks guys for your hard graft.

+1
 
Might well be true. I met some sociopathic musicians but most of the time we can get along quite well with each other. Regardless of culture and opinions. As long as you play in time and don't f***up the changes of course😀.

It's funny you should say that -- it's often struck me that you can perform for years with people and never know anything much about them other than whether they sing flat or something.

It's a curiously intimate relationship on one level, performing together, and yet not at all.
 
they're mushy on purpose, since they're principle-based, not prescriptive. The SEC uses the principles approach in some areas so that clever people can't comply with the letter of some rule while blatantly violating its spirit.

I tried to clarify above (in this thread) the distinction between "principles-based" and "rules-based." It's talked about by lawyers with some frequency.
Lawyers love to write contracts in legalese that no one including a judge can understand just so they can explain what their words mean depending on which side of the fence they are on at anytime. Other than a very small handful of lawyers in the world that are honest and do good, the rest should be ejected and jettisoned with the garbage the next time the Imperial Star Destroyer is about to go into hyperdrive.
 
Well, I don't have such a dim view of lawyers as you do. Maybe humans just aren't so hot?

Amazing to witness how people can twist the shining principles of liberty and compassion for others into justifications for cruelty, bigotry, "othering," and oppression.

Nothing new, of course; been reading a bunch of Plutarch's Lives over the years and nobody's invented a new form of awfulness for quite some time!
 
What is the dividing line between anonymous and non-anonymous (un-anonymous, dis-anonymous)? Take my profile, for instance. I give a general geographic area, an occupation and an admission that I try to play guitar in addition to virtual instruments.
I too must confess to playing the guitar. Ah, at last it's out in the open!
 
Well, I don't have such a dim view of lawyers as you do. Maybe humans just aren't so hot?

Amazing to witness how people can twist the shining principles of liberty and compassion for others into justifications for cruelty, bigotry, "othering," and oppression.

Nothing new, of course; been reading a bunch of Plutarch's Lives over the years and nobody's invented a new form of awfulness for quite some time!
Actually, many entertainment attorneys in London are rather nice people because they are not driven by the greed culture in the States. Because Hollywood entertainment attorneys typically charge 5% it doesn’t create the inherent problems that come with non-entertainment attorneys, especially if you are paying by the hour where their entire motivation is to milk 🥛 the clock for all it’s worth and allow things to go on and on. Too often attorneys are either too motivated by greed or simply lack character. I’ve had the pleasure to work some wonderful lawyers in my lifetime, but from my experience this is an absurdly short list of people. I don’t think humans have changed much for thousands of years. Every blue moon you run across someone so exceptional, but more often than not that is not what one normally has to deal with.
 
If you consider for a minute, I think you'll agree that avarice is not confined solely to the US. Unfortunately, over time, most people's behaviour can be predicted by two feelings: fear and greed. What do you think built the British (and Egyptian, Assyrian, Spanish....) empires?

That doesn't mean everyone is irredeemable, but it takes, in the words of Mad-Eye, "constant vigilance."
 
If you consider for a minute, I think you'll agree that avarice is not confined solely to the US. Unfortunately, over time, most people's behaviour can be predicted by two feelings: fear and greed. What do you think built the British (and Egyptian, Assyrian, Spanish....) empires?

That doesn't mean everyone is irredeemable, but it takes, in the words of Mad-Eye, "constant vigilance."
I didn’t mean to imply that Her Majesty’s Royal Navy when it ruled the world’s seas was earnest in its practice. Yet, John, if you were a producer and needed an attorney to negotiate the contracts for the Broadway director and writers and print out the red herrings for investors you would be paying $160,000 or more to a Manhattan lawyer while his counterpart in London for the same work for your West End play only charges $7,000. How does that make sense even slightly?
 
Maybe the lawyers in Manhattan are better?

I mean that mostly facetiously; not better, exactly but more to worry about. My agreements with non-US production companies, studios, whatever are far shorter; sometimes a quarter the length for a similar project. At Disney, when I wrote cartoon music they required -- for each cue -- huge long agreements that each had to be notarized (a less onerous process in the US than in England, but still).

Call it whatever you want -- greed maybe -- but the machinations of commerce in the US grind exceeding small (as the saying goes) and lawyers here have to anticipate problems that are omitted in my non-US agreements.

I don't really mean "better" of course. But more thorough? Yes.

Plus, shop around. It's not considered in poor taste to negotiate in the US.
 
Top Bottom