I'm Never Giving Up On SBAF

Discussion in 'Random Thoughts' started by rhythmdevils, Aug 25, 2022.

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  1. crenca

    crenca Friend

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    All right, reasonable replies/explication @rhythmdevils and @jexby . Just to clarify, the story of a manufacturer who would only loan us a gear (which we wanted) if we agreed to another gear (which we did not) and SBAF allegedly agreed to this quid pro quo is fake news?

    Beyond this and as an active participant in the loaner program I stand by it as it is and the sensible "relationship management" incorporated into it via the "first post", etc.

    Still, to state the obvious, the program has a perception problem. This is not the any particular persons fault, just the nature of the hobby and forums such as this one. Soups and the others who are wrong about certain details, are nonetheless longtime posters who have contributed significantly over the years and this counts for something (or should). If they are misperceiving something, maybe it's for a reason. Integrity in Audiophiledom is simply not normal. If your wife catches you texting another women - or just thinks she did - it's going to take 10, 20, 30 "i love you's" to get the emotional bank account squared. This is the hard work that leads to actual "healing". Piling on from either side is not helpful.
     
  2. YMO

    YMO Chief Fun Officer

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    @purr1n go back on break.

    To everyone else: It’s f'ing Friday and people are angry on da internets.
     
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  3. jexby

    jexby Posole Prince

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    ^^ @crenca fair. thanks.
    i haven’t banned anyone (in a looong time) and no perma ban has been applied. I have heard of no quid pro quo, i try to lay low these days.
    Other mods don’t spend mega time here like RD, because of life stuff, work stuff, and thus there is no regular meeting of high council or conspiracy of the minds.

    Bans may be intended as a cool down period, often helpful when trying to get topics back on track, obviously some don’t get the hint and immediate posts return to inaccurate claims.

    IMO- this whole topic should be on rewind:
    Step 1: Does the SBAF community wish to revamp/expand the loaner program or not?

    Replies should be: Y/N/Maybe.
    (refrain from opining on the BS of everything that could go wrong or being manipulated, blah blah)

    If Y or Maybes show promise, only THEN we begin the SINGLE next step of:

    Step 2: HOW does a product get recommended and approved for the loaner program?
    Anyone who can’t stick to “this single question” and retreads “audio industry has controlled us for too long, release the hounds bullshit” gets ignored for *NOT STAYING ON TOPIC*.

    No one jumps ahead to:
    Step 3: what conditions or parameters are acceptable until later, IF IF IF Step 2 has been solidified.

    Stick to facts and process definitions.

    (i’m going to go back on vacation now)
     
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  4. rhythmdevils

    rhythmdevils MOT: rhythmdevils audio

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    Nice story. Audeze loaned us the Penrose first, which few people signed up to hear on the loaner. Then they lent us an LCD-X which few people signed up for (probably my fault for loaning out a modded version), then they lent us a Euclid which few people signed up to hear. Audeze never said anything about this. They just kept offering us gear generously. I felt bad about this and said that we had to listen to the gear they already sent us before I was going to ask them to send us more for free. Because I personally felt bad. I deal with a human being at Audeze @crenca. A human being. Not an internet bot. Or a username. Or an idea. A human being, who was at the Texas meet.

    Do you seriously expect staff to do this @crenca ? Do you want to hire me full time? I'm still not sure I would take this job for money though. Even good money. I'm not going to baby people's paranoia. They can listen to staff when they explain how things work or they can f**k off. Once again, this is not Qanon.

    If you think all the staff here are liars then you do not belong here.
     
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  5. rhythmdevils

    rhythmdevils MOT: rhythmdevils audio

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    Honestly, the way we do things now has worked really well for the entire duration of the loaner program. If Dan wants to do this then fine but I'm not up for trying to reorganize things in a way that does not work for the gearmasters to appease a bunch of conspiracy theories.

    The only thing that changed was me asking for help to spread out the workload so the gaermasters were not doing all the organizing and logistics and writing all the intro reviews. That's not sustainable. And due to all the bullshit, we have not resolved that problem. My solution of asking for volunteers to write the intro reviews was a great one that has been killed off because of the bullshti which I'm pretty unhappy about. Because my solution meant community involvement in making the loaner program more functional.

    With regard to changing how the loaner program works to appease conspiracy theories, my solution is that if you think that me and Dan are eating children in the basements of pizzerias around the US, then don't participate in the loaner program.
     
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  6. jexby

    jexby Posole Prince

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    I don’t think there’s any conspiracy happening, nor that changes are mandatory.
    I’ve helped to intro products (iFi) into the loaner program, and did write initial reviews about iFi Gold Bar, but in a thread before loaner program started.

    I’ll go back and re-read the posts from yourself + Dan because i trust that ya’ll aren’t bending over accepting vendor conditions / demands.
     
  7. rhythmdevils

    rhythmdevils MOT: rhythmdevils audio

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    Oh that part wasn’t directed at you John. I know. Don’t bother rereading anything. Dear God.

    you do plenty and I know you’ve reviewed a lot of gear and contribute a lot around here.
     
  8. crenca

    crenca Friend

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    Yep I spent some time with him (and the other guy). Nice folk who talked technicalities with no bullshit or "sales pressure".

    Ha! No I don't have that (quite unreasonable) expectation ;)

    Thing is I don't think Soups and the others really think anyone is intentionally lying, they just believe that in the Audio Circus that this market is requires a certain "firewall" (to choose a name) to prevent a slippery slope. That said I believe you, cha cha, Jexby, and others are right in that the program is good enough (from this "slippery slope" concern) and your right in that those with this concern are usually not even participating in it so have less room for criticism.

    In any case I stand corrected. As much as I like Jexby's proposed survey, it's probably too "communal" and admit you and any other gearmasters have to be given wide leeway to do their volunteer work.
     
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  9. rhythmdevils

    rhythmdevils MOT: rhythmdevils audio

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    Thank you @crenca

    I'm going to listen to some really f'ing loud music now. Please don't continue to make me respond to this bullshit.
     
  10. brencho

    brencho Friend

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    I love this forum and what it represents. Some of us disagreed with what we perceived to be a deviation from what we love about the forum. If that’s the direction it takes, then so be it. If it was poorly communicated and not actually much of a deviation, then so be it (that post was edited so it’s hard to establish that post hoc, but at the very least it was worded in a way that created concern). But disagreement is important to decision making and group functioning, and avoiding or not allowing disagreement poses risks to group functioning. What follows is not about the loaner program and possible miscommunications about it but rather how everything was handled.


    Disagreement isn’t the same thing as disrespect. Referring to people who express disagreements as “those assholes” on the other hand is somewhat disrespectful but much more importantly, unnecessary and polarizing. So are bans for rules violations based on expressing disagreements, even if the disagreements were as poorly expressed as the post that led to them in the first place. The loaners can and should be run in the way deemed best for the forum by its members, or by marv as the forum’s progenitor, as it should be. And that’s all fine with me. But let’s try to calm down on the name calling, allow for disagreements, and work on communication across the board. RD sorry man, if soup got another ban for his post, which raised at least some good points even if you don’t agree with them all — and i mean this in the best way possible — perhaps you should just step away from the keyboards, take a few deep breaths, and re-center a little bit. Loud music I’m sure will help so I’m glad you’ll do that now.

    Looking forward to healthy disagreements and actual fun discussions about audio and music here, which is what brought us here to begin with.
     
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  11. SoupRKnowva

    SoupRKnowva Official SBAF South Korean Ambassador

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    This is going to be my last reply on this, but I can't stand for the misrepresentations in this post. I am not the boogyman you are making me out to be, nor did I ever accuse anyone of conspiracy theories.

    This is just blatantly false, I repeated nothing in that thread. I replied to it twice. Once here, quoted in full:

    and the once again here, to post a dumb YouTube video.

    Both of these posts were before any clarifications occurred. I also wasn't even subbed to the "bitching" thread as it was split off after I made my posts and didn't feel the need to reply ever again, I had said my piece.


    I respectfully brought a concern to bear, and yet still received a ban.



    This is also blatantly untrue, and makes it clear that you didn't even bother reading my post here from this morning/late last night. I made one post in the original thread, bringing concern to bear. The post this morning was about the loaner program more broadly and your involvement in it, as well as addressing my ban, which I stand by was an overt abuse of power as I had done no wrong.

    I don't care what you think I did, I only care what I actually did, and the facts are clear.

    I have no problem with us disagreeing, or with you needing to clarify what you originally said. my issue is with how this was handled by you, the bans and poor ranty behavior.



    how ever what is much less clear now, is what actually started this. I called deleting the original posts shameful in my new thread this morning to which you replied.

    I never said you deleted it, I said it was deleted, which it was. The entire original thread was deleted, removing all of the context for this entire fiasco. ChaCha admitted to doing so here.


    I am not entirely sure why you have imagine these boogyman, but they aren't real.

    I think you need a break from this website to cool off. All of my posts on this matter have been well spoken and calm, which cannot be said of your caps infested rants about imagined slights.
     
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  12. Lyander

    Lyander Official SBAF Equitable Empathizer

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    Maybe taking a few voluntary days away from discussing this and then coming back to it with a more level head, if it's even worth re-visiting at all, would do wonders for everyone's mood.

    There was a hazily-worded post that raised EXTREMELY valid and respectable concerns, but those same concerns turned out to have been unwarranted. Now it's all just more misunderstandings and raised heckles about the cascaded responses to the initial miscommunication. This is going to go on indefinitely and spoil future interactions at this rate, at least until some decide on a more drastic breaking of bonds over something eminently silly.
     
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    Last edited: Aug 26, 2022
  13. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    It's fine as it or was. Just a few tweaks.
    • Less stuff: we just aren't equipped for it (no time to write stuff) or don't care (since most of us are well into the hobby).
    • More time: extend to 10 business days
     
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  14. Erroneous

    Erroneous Friend

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    Extending to 10 business days will be especially good with the DACs that need time to warm up, but overall awesome for everything because other than initial impressions, these things take time to reveal themselves. Great idea.
     
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  15. ChaChaRealSmooth

    ChaChaRealSmooth SBAF's Mr. Bean

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    My rationale for deleting is that I no longer endorsed nor condoned the idea of having "gatekeeper reviewers" given the replies in the thread and wanted to make that as clear as possible. I'm not saying it was the right thing to do retrospectively, but thank you so much for calling me a shameful person without even reaching out to me like I invited anyone to do at the bottom in the post you referenced/linked (btw, not a single person has PM'd me nor have I had a call with anyone). FYI, that thread has been brought back and locked (and no, we're still not giving the idea the light of day).

    Frankly, this whole topic needs to be put behind us. I'm completely burnt out on it and there's nothing more that needs to be said.
     
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  16. Kernel Kurtz

    Kernel Kurtz Friend

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    I've been reading these threads and all the related drama. I have some thoughts on this, but I'm not completely comfortable wading in which is unfortunate because this is/was one of the few places on the net where you could be brutally honest (within some limits).

    But f**k it I am going to anyway, so my $0.02; I don't think anyone is trying to ban bad reviews, and a site like this would have no value and would fade away into the noise soon enough if they did. What we are talking about is editorial decisions, and that decision is (pragmatically IMHO) to be respectful of vendors who donate gear irrespective of what the community actually thinks of it. The problem here seems to be (or hopefully past tense had been) wanting reviewers to take on a editorial role and I don't think that will work, it is an intrinsic conflict. Editors speak for SBAF. Reviewers only speak for themselves. I'm not aware of any successful website where it is different, and I doubt this will be the first.

    Hope we get past all this though, cause I kind of like this place. Ima go listen to some tunes now.
     
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    Last edited: Aug 26, 2022
  17. wormcycle

    wormcycle Friend

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    This is less and less about the loaner program. For me what @crenca and @purr1n said pretty much resolves the issues on this topic. And I agree it is a pretty delicate balancing line.
    But the trend is just disturbing:
    After three months ban because some activist mode did not like my post about ...Ukraine, I take one look SBAF, it was in June I guess, and what do I see? In the latest posts there is a thread where people are banned, most likely by the same activist mod, because they expressed the wrong opinions about Jordan Peterson. My first thought: SBAF went nuts, why discuss politics on the audio forum in the first place? And get to the same shit again and again?
    So I paused for two months, obviously reading RD reviews and some other threads about audio with great pleasure. Then I come to login first time in five months and what I see?
    Full bunch of people who contributed significantly to this forum banned. What the f**k is going on?
    If you do want to have some topics closed just close them? What's a point of banning people for somethin that is not disruptive to the forum just because some mods do not like it?
     
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    Last edited: Aug 26, 2022
  18. rhythmdevils

    rhythmdevils MOT: rhythmdevils audio

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    Yes, I’m sure both @SoupRKnowva and @brencho are both completely calm writing these posts.

    I don’t yell, in real life, or on the internet. Ever. I used all caps because I thought it might get you and others to read the words this time. But evidently not.

    I’m totally worn out and cannot keep responding to attacks and misinformation and division.

    If Marv wants to give you all a go free card then I guess that’s how it will be. Sew your division and hatred and spread your conspiracy theories about the staff and the loaner program and SBAF in general. Play the victim card. Disrespect the staff. Dislike this post.

    I give up. I bow down to your great internet forum win.

    Look at the thread I started and look at what a few of you have turned it into. I feel very let down and ashamed of this forum.

    That’s all I’m going to say and I fully expect you all to have tons of grievances and more conspiracy theories and stories of woe and maltreatment and wrongdoing. Carry on.

    I will now turn my attention to my real life work of advocacy, my artwork, my headphone projects, and music.

    Whitney
     
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  19. brencho

    brencho Friend

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    I’m perfectly calm dude…
     
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  20. mitochondrium

    mitochondrium Friend

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    My 2 pennies:

    You could call this a clusterfuck and as with most clusterfucks there is no black and white. Pointing fingers (even rightfully so) will get us nowhere. My take on this is, the reason why emotions ran so high for all people involved regardless of where they stand now or stood two days ago and whether they where right or wrong, is that people are passionate about this place, because it is special and that for sure is a good thing.
     
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