Dear Venkat,
overall i have always seen you as a fair, gentle soul. But at times i have had experiences where it seems you take biased action.
Think of it from mine and anm's shoes. . .
You never edited anyone's else's post before mine, nor did you issue any communique to the forum about not quoting with the pictures intact. If you were me, how would you feel?
Second, in anm's case, why is his thread the only non-hifi related thread to be closed? What about the ridiculous mousetrap thread? Or sunglasses, or whatnot?
My grouse with you is that you do not realise how demotivating these kinds of actions are. It makes many people recede into the background. In fact, I am speaking out because I KNOW that some people have receded into the background. For a long while I did too.
If you notice, I am just not as active as I used to be.
Brother, i'd assume that as a moderatior you'd use the power to facilitate more interation and not lock people's self expression down.
If you were to close all non-hifi threads, you'll send out the right message. But if you pick on only one neither are you sending out ANY message at all, nor are you motivating participation. YOU SIMPLY singling out people and killing their enthusiasm.
I assume you are a matured man. And take what I have to say in the right spirit.
Music is like religion, left to experience to the self and not a collective communal affair. They all border on three attributes - faith, madness and fury. When you practice religion in real faith, you tend to enjoy it, contribute socially and find peace. The moment the thin line bordering madness is crossed, you start believing blindly, no rationality or logic, reasons are shoved back to the back of your mind. Remember people getting killed in stampedes in temples? You step further, cross the border to fury, that is where fundmentalism starts. Now you believe you know everything, you are the ultimate, the rest are all idiots, and you start diverting your energy to make others obey you, ultimately leading to violence.
Unfortunately, we guys well known for sycophancy tend to lead things in the wrong way. A knowledgeable and reasonable person becomes a moderator, then starts crossing the above lines trespassing into dangerous areas and the net result is what we read here. Let us not forget that every individual in this hobby has his or her experiences and findings but should not cloud others' judgments. I think madbullram is still keeping the role of a moderator as how it should be, if not always, most of the time.
Sometimes imaginations stretch too far like a thread I read where some speaker has been glorified just because AR Rehman recommends it!!! I believe AR Rehman is a good musician and composer but unless proven, it is difficult to accept his credentials as a good judge of music reproduction systems.
So, give everyone a chance to express opinions and learn for this forum to thrive. Othewise, as several have mentioned, some may get frustrated and back out.
Last, let none of us pretend that we know everything. The truth is we know very little.
Just my 2 cents, and bye.
murali
