I don’t mean this to apply to moderating to keep topics organized or to enforce rules against personal flame wars. I’ll bet this will fire some people up:
It bothers me when Roon management reorganizes or closes threads in some circumstances. Sure, some threads go off the rails into random discussions, and maybe it is fine to close threads once they become dumping grounds for comments about nothing in particular (even then, there seems to be little harm in leaving them open).
What I am specifically referring to are the closing or reorganizing of threads that are in any way critical of Roon. I cannot speak for others (but I suspect some will agree), but I have posted a fair amount of both useful feedback for Roon’s product development and also many helpful pointers, workarounds, and other assistance to Roon users. I have posted plenty of positive comments about Roon. I expect that we also be allowed to post negative commentary - otherwise our positive commentary remains, our negative commentary gets closed out, and we look like shills.
What set me off today was Danny’s closing of the thread relating to folder access. I don’t really even care about whether Roon has folder access - my ability to use that type of feature to Tag my collection so that Roon’s interface actually better accesses it according to its own display methods is a horse that left the barn for me years ago…I couldn’t even use it anymore. However, closing out that thread is a means to silence people who would like to express a desire or need for that feature or otherwise discuss Roon’s decision. I’m sure someone will say “but there was just nothing more to say” but I deeply don’t agree with that, and in reality, we will never really know, because the thread is closed.
I have noticed this happen a number of times on the forum. It seems mostly Danny does this - he got into a spat with another user about a year ago and I think realized it didn’t make Roon look good, deleted (or moved, I have no idea) a bunch of the content in that thread, and then closed it. Any new reader would have no idea what was really said or meant in real-time.
I’m sure Danny is a great guy and brilliant technically. But this manipulation of the forum that affects the balance of commentary is to me a substantial frustration. As above, at least to me, the ability to post comments of any sort (as long as within the rules) is part of the necessary balance of the forum and the truthful presentation of users’ actual experiences with the product. I don’t expect to be turned into a shill by being prevented from posting on a given topic or having threads manipulated so that their apparent meaning is shifted.
You might say that Roon hosts and pays for the forum and it’s their right to have it read as they would like. Fine, but they do not pay users to post here, and a manipulated forum, not matter how subtly or gently done, does not present the Truth or the Whole Story. Moderate for clarity. Moderate to prevent personal flaming. Please do not manipulate or foreclose balanced or negative commentary so that we’re all just participating in some Roon informercial.