New Loaner Participation Expectations

This reminds me...I wrote up a review of Sundara and never posted.

Thanks for the reminder.

 

This is silly, the bar is being set pitifully low. When you get a loaner, you're getting to try a several hundred to a few thousand dollar item for the cost of shipping! A 100% participation rate consisting of a simple paragraph isn't too much to expect for the privilege. The fact that you're having to threaten people to post something at all is absurd.

 

Agree. Esp for limited loaners where being on the list entails someone else not being on the list, posting impressions should be a standard required part of being on the loaner. It also helps the site not suck by providing actual content for people to have actual conversations about. Regardless the length of loaner or how many people on it, participation in discussion should be 100% or else don't participate in the loaner and find other ways of demoing or just read the ongoing discussion on the site to form a guesstimate.

Edit: requiring participation may also help fight a bias of only posting impressions if you have positive impressions. This leads to a bias due to a perceived lack of negative or meh lackluster impressions.

 

That's fine man, and I wasn't calling your resume into question. Posting impressions doesn't have to be done with an air of authority, as it is also interesting what someone without a ton of experience with varied gear thinks of something and how that differs from those that do have more experience. Either way, I'm not advocating a system.of keeping tabs on people, just establishing a rough norm tbat one should participate in discussions of loaners that one participates in.

 

It's more transparent to set a general norm that people participate in discussions of loaners, rather than set an ambiguous and arbitrary 50% mark which has no oversight, imo. Norms are powerful motivators of behavior and even if people don't participate 100% of the time, the expectation that they do so will generate more discussion than a soft and ambiguous target.

 

If posting one paragraph about a piece of gear after hours of free time spent listening to it doesn't fall under the domain of "reasonable and achievable" we have far more serious problems than community norms.

 

I bust my f'ing balls through chronic medical bullshit to contribute impressions whenever I have the opportunity, and I’ve never even been on a loaner.

You porkers need to pull your god damn socks up, because you’re abusing a privilege others sacrifice their personal time to maintain, and you can’t even be bothered to share so much as a cunting paragraph.

Exercising that privilege, especially given the demise of IF, is what allows SBAF to be one of if not the last line of checks and balances in an industry full to gills in bullshit and lies.

Extenuating circumstances notwithstanding if you don’t contribute something back you do not deserve to have the status of Friend, because when it came down to it what kind of friend were you really?


@Vansen there’s clearly wisdom in your reply, but this is a fairly simple transaction. Even in regards to people calibrating to SBAF, SBAF also needs to calibrate to them, and they should use it as an opportunity to practise describing audio under the stewardhip of others. Out of curiosity how do you enforce 50% in your line of work without it being arbitrary, and everyone just assuming/hoping they’ll be in the other 50%?


EDIT: Please excuse the level of anger and profanity used above. I generally try to be calm, considered, and constructive even if direct and blunt. But this one really got my goat and I feel it needed to be said in an unfettered manor.

 

Yeah sounds good. I think establishing a norm that you participate in discussions via a review, some impressions, and interaction with other participants is required imo. What happens otherwise is the site depends on only a few people to generate content and discussion, with the rest of people just speculating about things they haven't heard, fave anime characters, shipping dates, and the direction of wood grain on a Japanese headphone. If we want to stimulate discussion and a sense of actual community involvement then this kind of norm should be expected/required or GTFO

 

Yeah agreed, of course. The site is mostly quantity over quality these days. Could name over a dozen ppl here but you know who you are.

 

Agreed, participation is key.

You should also have a link in the first loaner post that has a link to the discussion.

I know some post impressions in thr loaner forum. This way, we all don't have to search for the official discussion thread about product X.

 

I whole heatedly agree something should be required. People can be timid, since we have a culture of (mostly good natured) ball busting, so maybe might be afraid of getting it 'wrong', but shit they're just impressions. If I post something that someone doesn't agree with, I might actually learn something. Even if that something is we have different preferences, or maybe I'm using a descriptor in a way other people don't understand. In the end it's really not so hard.

 

It would be very helpful if people would also mention what gear they are using. Synergy is an important part of gear evaluation. I’m sure I’ve been guilty of not including up stream gear in my posts.

As to posting loaner impressions, sometimes if you are at the end of the loaner most everything has been said. But a short blurb even if it’s just “my impressions are pretty much the same as @whoever” would still add to the conversation.

If you aren’t willing to at least post a short impression, don’t ask to be on the loaner program. That said if I spaced out and didn’t leave an impression my apologies. Let’s all commit to doing better in the future.