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I was sort of afraid to start posting here because sometimes people sound mean.
I thought you guys would make fun of me for liking the sound of small grands and square pianos...Trolls are those things that live in gardens and wear pointy red hats or lurk under bridges searching for goats...right?

Rick,

I've told you what I thought of your moderator skills some time ago, and little has changed in my thinking. After rereading that particular thread, I still feel “sandbagged” is appropriate. Whether you were pouring the sand or holding the sock is irrelevant. And it generally takes two healthy egos to get things steamed up around here.

In that particular thread you were good enough to meet me halfway, “Talking about them or psychoanalyzing them after the fact is tacky, I’ll agree with you there.” And I guess I couldn’t figure why you couldn’t extend another poster the same courtesy.

So what if the guy said he didn’t want you teaching him to play the piano? Come on. You’re better than that. I still think you are at least.

Mike


Dara,

Only four guys squawking today? (five if you count Sparky) I must be slipping.

Mike

Mike is the occasional lighting rod around here. Many other posters have a similar track record, and yet are healthy additions to the conversation. stores is often rather rough, yet he contributes a lot to the conversation at the Corner. There, I gave a name!

BTW, nice post, Dara. The thread isn't about MC. It's about terminaldegree explaining the need for a hiatus.

+1

What you see as biting humor others see as extreme negativity and nastiness.

I don't think any degree of knowledge/expertise(sometimes way overrated by others IMO) can be used to justify the extreme nastiness and arrogance often shown by posters like Mike, Turandot, or stores. Nor can it be used to justify endless self promotion.

Threads often change topics...sometimes to completely different things. Here any change in topic was relevant and natural.

Perhaps. And to you that is a convincing argument. Other observers, ones who might be more disinterested, may view the switch as a descent into personal venom and a chance "to set the record straight." For some people, record straightening and getting the last word seem to be the most important virtues of conversation. [And if this winds up being the last post, I will be guilty of "last wording." ]

Look, I'm usually a great advocate for pleasant respectful discussion around here. But at some point, continual carping about every use of sarcasm becomes a club used to beat people who disagree. An enforced pleasantness can degenerate into sterile dialogue among the enforcers .... sort of like what this thread is becoming.

I'll save you from the last word, P*D , to agree with you! Mike adds an astringent and to me at least, enjoyable degree of iconoclastic humor to the place. Kind of a palate cleanser .....

Sophia

Why don't we just let terminaldegree go in peace? Perhaps he'll come back one day.

I’ve been trying to stay out of this discussion as much as possible; in fact, I’m learning that participating in a thread that may eventually need moderating is not a good idea, for various reasons. I’m thinking that is why Ken Knapp doesn’t post as much here anymore. And, it is a shame that he deprives himself of that privilege for various reasons; maybe I need to follow his example.

My comments here started out as a response to terminaldegree’s stated annoyances, frustrations and irritations as to why he was leaving PW for a hiatus of undisclosed longevity (which I hope is not long). Some of his annoyances seem to infer that the moderating here was insufficient in some ways, in his opinion; hence, my reasons for posting at all.

Since then, some have decided to join in and state some of their annoyances and frustrations as well… some similar to terninaldegree’s annoyances and some different. I see that as a good thing… get it out in the open and off your chest.

With that said, and, based on some of the discussions thus far… I think some members here, and some that have posted in this thread already, enjoy the contentious, hurtful, nasty, hateful, insulting, disrespectful and bullying exchanges that occur here on occasion. It is entertainment to you… like watching a pit-bull dog fight or a cock fight. You want to see hurt feelings and you want to see someone beaten down into the dirt, figuratively if not literally. You like that sort of thing. It gets your adrenalin pumping and gives you a certain high, a thrill, if you will. Do you think this is an exaggeration? I don’t.

As long as I’m a moderator here, I’ll do what I can to prevent this kind of thing from happening. If you want to leave Piano World because it is not bloody enough for you, go ahead. Get outa' here. We don’t need or want you here… regardless of how knowledgeable you may be. There are others here more knowledgeable than you and no where near as mean and nasty.

This forum is not World Championship Wrestling or Boxing… It is not kick-fighting or any other contact sport where somebody walks away bloody and hurting, if they can walk away at all. It is a family oriented forum specifically dedicated to the discussion of pianos, and hopefully, the promotion of music and the arts in general and pianos in particular.

Of course, you all know that already, right? I think some members here need to be reminded of that fact.

Oh yea, one more thing… I will recuse myself from moderating in this particular thread… if it needs moderating, Ken, Greg or Frank will need to step in.

Okay, I’ve had my say… you can agree with it, disagree with it, like it or not like it or whatever you choose to do.

Rick

PD,


I would agree. I don't think I'm one of the people Terminaldegree had his sights on. Ironically enough, I do think several of the people he'd had enough of showed up on this thread in all their, er, glory. So, if he hadn't had enough of them earlier, he's certainly got his fill of them now.

Mike

Hey Mike,

I really wasn't sandbagged. Ken Knapp put me on ice for two weeks. I checked in with him during my holiday just to make sure he didn't consider me some sort of hateful bully. The first thing I wrote to him was that I had no wish to dispute his decision. I know his job is to look out for the best interests of the piano forum, and that the piano forum is a business entity which feeds on membership growth, not on my participation. I knew what I was doing. I knew the likely consequences of what I was doing. Ken has always had my respect even when I don't agree with him. No problem whatsoever with being put on ice.

When my holiday was over, I had no great urge to participate. I came on about a week later and noted that the emphasis on political correctness had already caused me to post less, and that in the future I would post still less.

In the new kinder gentler piano forum where all opinions are equally wonderful, I sometimes feel like a pin that crashed a party of overinflated helium-filled balloons. Not much fun in that. As Ori would tell you, I don't like chocolate and I don't like vanilla, but I do love pistachio.

Basically it all goes back to whatever Gracie had in mind when she ended White Rabbit with what the Dormouse never said" "Feed your head". Back in the day I assumed she just meant to get stoned. But over the decades of acquired social propriety, I've wondered if she might have meant feed your intellect, feed your vanity, or maybe feed your ego. The first works for me. The other two don't, so it just wasn't working out for me here. I do much better with musicians than with pianophiles anyway.

Terminator,

E n j o y the hiatus. I can't recommend more practice because I hate practice. I've been taking in the mandatory recitals of piano performance majors at Thornton. Good stuff and good stuff to eat at the receptions that follow.I heard a shockingly good rendition of Liszt's Ballade #2 just the other night.

On second thought, maybe you should practice. What I'm noticing is that all of the young whippersnappers today, female and male, have killer techniques. It's not like golf or tennis where you can say that's in all in the equipment. The only equipment they have is their hands and their coordination,but my goodness....what hands and what coordination. It's humbling.... at least until you get to the buffet at the reception and the stomach pushes the intellect off the front burner.

For anyone who cares, Turandot is approaching ten years old and in fine form and good health. She appreciates that she doesn't have to wait around for her walk on the bridle trail while I finish some bullying post that will be nasty and sarcastic because I personally hate the person who prompted it.

And here's the thing, Terminator. Part of what is described here as the 'privilege' of posting on 'the greatest piano forum in the world' is that with that privilege comes zero responsibility to correct facts in error or contradict outright misinformation. As long as you're amiable and always up for another soft-serve vanilla swirl, you're OK. It took me a day or two to realize it's no problem to just let it all go by, but now I can. So if you're not enjoying it, stay away, and if you feel like you can enjoy coming back, then come back. Don't be committed either way.

Inherent in this forum (piano forum) in relation to other forums here on PW is a constant dialogue (call and response) between consumers and industry... whether they be salespeople, dealers, representatives, technicians, manufacturers, other consumers....

Trying to shush some things up , wanting everyone to just get along, happy smiley feelings, oh how lovely you (or your piano) are....
Simply by the nature of this forum being information seeking in a somewhat (to put it mildly) secretive industry.... it aint gonna happen. If it does somehow, coercion or otherwise, it leads to a dead forum.

I think some of the great features over the years of the Piano Forum on PW, is the nature of questioning, research, information sharing, controversy, dialogue , and often that translates into helpful, insightful purchasing skills , observation, knowledge, experimentation, openness... along with the seemingly obligatory game playing, deception, distortion of facts... inherent in a dialogue between and behind various disguises.

Civility is a continuum, not a black or white issue. There is a huge distance between what you describe in the first paragraph and some of the super nasty, mean spirited, and arrogant posts a few members regularly make.

hey turandot, first of all, perhaps because of your logic and vocabulary, you are one of my favorite posters. i bet you would have loved the old coffee room.. Poof it was gone.. (the funniest think Frank EVER did). I laughed and cried for about an hour, the center of my internet universe actually gone.. just gone..

political corectness is not all that important to me.. I try to set a good example by being civil. not that anyone pays attention and i suppose I am one of the fluffy, not much to say, useless posters. I'd much rather read about pianos than moderation and peoples' dissatisfaction or defense of it. Moderating pianos is pretty interesting to me tho. Perhaps we could have a separate forum where posters could discuss their dissatisfaction with moderators.... maybe call it the complaint (waaa waaa waaa) forum. the hardest thing about moderating is absorbing the hate from the posters one moderates.

It's very easy to skim and skip these threads but it would be easier if they were all in one place. Imagine reading on a public forum, why a person does not like you as a moderator.. that's just pretty lolife. It would be easier to 'view' those posts objectively if they were pooled in the sewer they belong in.

You keep harping on the nastiness emanating from a set of vituperative, blowhard jackasses. Why don't you just issue PL's ban list and be done with it.

I think you should quote the beginning of the sentence also.

You keep on harping on my harping. It doesn't take much sleuthing to know who would be on my ban list.

You don't mind posters who make continually nasty posts?

edit:
I have never seen a super nasty, mean spirited, and arrogant post on this forum. Well, maybe I made one once to poor Steve Cohen. You'd have to live a very sheltered Internet life to think that goes on here.

Hardly. You get your point across with few words (a talent I don't have) and you're a sympathetic critic of pianos. I'm sure you like some better than others, but your opinions show a recognition that manufacturers are doing a pretty good job these days. This is an opinion I share.

I didn't come on this thread to battle for the soul of PW. I wanted to correct any impression that I was some sort of victim and also to advise Terminator that if it's not fun, it's not worth the bother. There's not all that much in common between his list of annoyances and my discomfort with active participation at this time, but there is enough common ground that I can relate to his feelings.

About this whole business of 'hateful', I don't hate anyone. It's preposterous to assume that if you disagree vigorously with someone or offer a correction, you 'hate' the person behind the post. IMO those who feel 'hated' are only here to feed their vanity or a malnourished ego, not their intellect. I've been corrected myself a couple of times over the years here. What's the big deal? It's fact over fact or opinion on opinion. It's nothing more than that. If one is never corrected it's hard to learn much.

I was chatting with my son and one of his chums a few days ago. They are both in intercollegiate track and field at the same university. My son's buddy had been criticized by an assistant coach for his long-jumping technique. His comment on that: "coach is a hater anyway."

I know that a reference to 'haters' has become standard fare in professional athletes' dealings with the media, but I was shocked to hear it from a university freshman. I suppose that with the inevitable trickle-down, it will soon be kindergartners referring to their teacher as a hater if she corrects their pencil grip.

I don't know where it's all going, but I appreciate your post. By your standards of brevity it was a major opus . I'm going to bow out now because I'm not attracted to threads that become vehicles for moral outrage, and it's no exaggeration to say that I am finding a comfort zone in reading and participating less here.

You be good to yourself and toss off any feelings of fluffiness.