This is a Civilized Place for Public Discussion

Please treat this discussion forum with the same respect you would a public park. We, too, are a shared community resource — a place to share skills, knowledge, and interests through ongoing conversation.

These are not hard and fast rules, merely aids to the human judgment of our community. Use these guidelines to keep this a clean, well-lit place for civilized public discourse.

Improve the Discussion

Help us make this a great place for discussion by always working to improve the discussion in some way, however small. If you are not sure your post adds to the conversation, think over what you want to say and try again later.

The topics discussed here matter to us, and we want you to act as if they matter to you, too. Be respectful of the topics and the people discussing them, even if you disagree with some of what is being said.

One way to improve the discussion is by discovering ones that are already happening. Please spend some time browsing the topics here before replying or starting your own, and you’ll have a better chance of meeting others who share your interests.

Be Agreeable, Even When You Disagree

You may wish to respond to something by disagreeing with it. That’s fine. But, remember to criticize ideas, not people. Please avoid:

• Name-calling.
• Ad hominem attacks.
• Responding to a post’s tone instead of its actual content.
• Knee-jerk contradiction.

Instead, provide reasoned counter-arguments that improve the conversation.

Avoid Behaviors That Breed Incivility

We expect everyone to act like a group of friends who respect each other, no matter what their differences are. Below, we’ve listed some behaviors that friend groups wouldn’t tolerate, and aren’t tolerated here either.

Endless Contrarianism

It’s ok to disagree with others, but if you find yourself engaged with the same battles over and over again, it’s time to move on. If you are developing a reputation around an issue or position, then you’re not building constructive discussion. Move on.

Axe-grinding

If you keep gravitating back to a specific topic, theme, or complaint, it’s best you let it go or find somewhere else to grind your axe. Axe-grinding derails otherwise civil topics and is tiresome to others. Axe-grinding isn’t about what you post or whether it’s accurate, but about how often you bring up the topic. Axe-grinding is toxic behavior, and you don’t need to repeatedly restate your position, no matter how valid your issue / concern / point is.

Griefing / Trolling

Griefing is a softer version of trolling, where one baits another community member into getting the discussion heated. Additionally, following users from topic to topic just to harass them, is not allowed. As always, stay on topic, and keep the discussion to the topic, not its participants.

Persistent Negativity

If your negative contributions outweigh your positive contributions, it’s a good signal that you might need to take a break. Criticism is welcome, but it should also be constructive, and it shouldn’t be the sum-total of everything you contribute.

Ranting

Much like axe-grinding, ranting often derails otherwise civil topics and is tiresome to other participants. If you can’t make your point without inflammatory language, ad hominem attacks, or excessive posting, please rethink your approach.

Grudges

Don’t carry ill-will from previous discussions into new discussions. Holding grudges erodes the community and is often the precursor to some of the behavior patterns detailed here.

Megaphoning / Clickbait

Topic titles should describe the content of the topic and/or solicit discussion. They shouldn’t be used as a megaphone to provoke others or loudly make your point. If a topic title contains inflammatory language or is misleading about the actual content of the thread (clickbait) it will be edited by staff or removed altogether.

Our 4-Step Approach To Keeping it Civil

When guidelines are breached, or staff observes behavior that breeds incivility, we will follow this 4-step approach.

1. Make no assumptions. First, we try to avoid assuming that the offending member has a negative intent. They may simply be ignorant of the rules or have another reason for the way they act.

2. A nudge in the right direction. Moderators will reach out to the community member to nudge them back on track by reminding them of the community guidelines.

3. Issue an official warning. If the behavior continues after initial contact, an official warning will be issued.

4. Permanent suspension. After a nudge from staff and an official warning, further infractions will result in a permanent suspension. Members who get to this step have shown that they have no interest in changing their behavior, and aren’t capable of keeping it civil.

Note: The four-step approach isn’t guaranteed if inappropriate conduct warrants a stronger response.

Hateful, obscene, or cruel content

Hateful, obscene, or cruel content is simply not allowed and will result in an immediate permanent suspension.

A note on our moderators and staff

Our support staff are paid employees, and this is their job. This is how they feed their families. Harassing them or making their lives stressful is not acceptable. This behavior will result in a ban. Make sure you talk respectfully to them, no matter how wronged you feel or angry you are.

Our moderators are a group of unpaid volunteers. They do this out of their love for the community and the product, and they truly enjoy helping others. Treating them with anything short of respect will get you banned.

Remember, never once has a warning or nudge been reversed. Defend your behavior by changing how you act in the future, and not by fighting with the moderators and staff.

If You See a Problem, Flag It

Moderators have special authority; they are responsible for this forum. But so are you. With your help, moderators can be community facilitators, not just janitors or police.

When you see bad behavior, don’t reply. It encourages the bad behavior by acknowledging it, consumes your energy, and wastes everyone’s time. Just flag it. If enough flags accrue, action will be taken, either automatically or by moderator intervention.

Flagging should not be used to cloak bad behaviour. Griefing/trolling another member with excessive flags or responding to moderation by inappropriately flagging others are examples of bad behaviour that won’t be tolerated.

In order to maintain our community, moderators reserve the right to remove any content and any user account for any reason at any time. Any forum member who reposts content that was previously flagged and removed is subject to immediate suspension.

Posts by new Community members may require approval for a brief period. The moderators and site operators take no responsibility for any content posted by the community.

Keep It Tidy

Make the effort to put things in the right place, so that we can spend more time discussing and less cleaning up. So:

• Don’t start a topic in the wrong category.

• Don’t cross-post the same thing in multiple topics.

• Don’t post no-content replies.

• Don’t divert a topic by changing it midstream.

• Don’t sign your posts — every post has your profile information attached to it.

• Don’t create multiple profiles. Each user may have only one Community profile. It must utilize the same login information as your Roon account.

• Don’t post about moderation in the subject thread. If you have questions about moderation, start a new thread in the Roon Community Site category.

Rather than posting “+1” or “Agreed”, use the Like button. Rather than taking an existing topic in a radically different direction, use Reply as a Linked Topic.

Be Transparent

We love to hear from others in the audio industry, whether we’re already collaborating with you or may do so in the future!

That said, if you’re going to be advocating on behalf of your company or organization in any way, please be transparent about your affiliation, and edit your profile to include:

• Your name
• The name of your company or organization, added to the Title field
• The URL of your company or organization’s website, when appropriate

Post Only Your Own Stuff

You may not post anything digital that belongs to someone else without permission. You may not post descriptions of, links to, or methods for stealing someone’s intellectual property (software, video, audio, images), or for breaking any other law.

Generative AI

Remember, this is a space for sharing your ideas. We allow tools and apps to assist with translation, punctuation, improving clarity and sentence structure, etc., but long-form AI-generated content is discouraged. Community is for meeting and forming friendships with other people, not large language models.

Your Participation Counts

The conversations we have here set the tone for everyone. Help us influence the future of this community by choosing to engage in discussions that make this forum an interesting place to be — and avoiding those that do not.

Discourse provides tools that enable the community to collectively identify the best (and worst) contributions: favorites, bookmarks, likes, flags, replies, edits, and so forth. Use these tools to improve your own experience, and everyone else’s, too.

Let’s try to leave our park better than we found it.

Powered by Trust

This site is operated by your friendly Roon staff and volunteer moderators, along with you, the community.

As you participate in the community, you’ll earn extra privileges at each level of Discourse’s built-in user trust system. For example, you may notice that some Trust Level 3 members help keep things tidy by re-categorizing misplaced topics, and in rare cases, editing a topic title for clarity.

That said, it’s important to keep in mind that it’s a system built on trust, after all. If you reach Trust Level 3 and can edit topic titles, we ask that you follow two simple guidelines:

• A good edit expresses the purpose of the post in terms that inform others and facilitate searches.
• Re-categorizing misplaced topics is really helpful, but you should rarely make edits to topic titles. It’s important to let others express themselves in their own words.

If we find a Trust Level 3+ member misusing their privileges, we’ll issue a warning on the first misuse, a one-month trust level demotion on the second misuse, and a permanent demotion on the third misuse.

If you have any further questions about how things work here, open a new topic in the meta category and let’s discuss! If there’s a critical or urgent issue that can’t be handled by a meta topic or flag, contact us via the staff page.

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Terms of Service

Yes, legalese is boring, but we must protect ourselves – and by extension, you and your data – against unfriendly folks. We have a Terms of Service describing your (and our) behavior and rights related to content, privacy, and laws. To use this service, you must agree to abide by our TOS.