Off-topic moderation

Roon Community Site
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@Carl

Can’t threads ever develop organically? Imagine having a chat with a buddy that started out talking about the latest developments in say AI and then branched out elsewhere. Surely, you’d not say to your buddy - hey mate, stay on topic?

Harmless chat within a thread that develops and is still active surely doesn’t take away from the content. People are capable of reading &/or skimming over the information they don’t deem important.

However, a friendly warning as per above, is way more preferable than arbitrary deletions for no apparent reason to the readers/posters.

Cheers.

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There are social type threads where a number of different unrelated discussions might be carried on, but generally moderators do try to keep a thread about a particular topic to that topic and hive off separate discussions that might develop into their own threads.

There are a couple of reasons why this is preferred to a more laissez faire approach. It keeps the thread comprehensible and it enables people to more easily search for posts on that topic.

To extend your metaphor, it’s like a group having a discussion and then breaking into smaller sub-groups to have different consequential discussions.

Just having a chat is absolutely a valid thread topic. Anyone can start up a thread in Uncategorised for that purpose. I’ve seen forums where a weekly general discussion thread has been very popular. Give it a shot if you are interested (Nostro’s Water Cooler ?) and we Mods will promise to restrain our tidying up instincts. :innocent:

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Thanks Andy for taking the time to respond in detail. I do certainly understand the need for moderation; some of the time at the very least.

And please do not get me wrong…I certainly do understand the role of a moderator is typically thankless and can be arduous. So your work is definitely appreciated.

I suspect I’m no different from most others & often can’t understand why moderation has occurred and in other instances, it has not. Notwithstanding, the forum is large(ish), has a number of moderators who each act differently, but with the well being of the forum in mind.

Just for the record…it’s a gorgeous Winter’s afternoon up here (mid 20’sC/80’sF) and I’m off to play tennis, as I do every weekend (Sat/Sun).

Enjoy the rest of your afternoon.

Cheers. :tennis: :tennis: :tennis:

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I thought you were in Melbourne ? In Richmond it’s a pretty grey wintery afternoon.

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@Nostro,

My appologies for tardy responce (movie watching & timezones), I trust the explaination from @andybob explained our stance on this.

A small amount of orgainic movment is fine, one or two off-topic comments are noted but typicaly no action is take, however, when it looks like it going to run and run we need to step in…

  1. Give a frendly hint to stay on topic
  2. Move the posts to their own topic
  3. Flag the posts (for consideration)

There are pros and cons to all these (including inaction) but unfortuntly there has to be a modicum of structure to the fourm, hence the moderator intervertion from time to time.

Enjoy the rest of your day / weekend.
Regards,
Carl

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I am from Melbourne - my folks etc there. Moved up North on the teaching gig. I’m down in Melbourne roughly 3 times a year. I would have gone this break, but for obvious reasons it’s not the time.

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All good Carl…I haven’t seen any vitriolic comments from users & I think generally this forum is conducted in good spirits.

No doubt people can get passionate about their pride and joy, although that is typically harmless. I think where people mostly get unstuck is what I call ‘lost in the translation’. That is something that was written was incorrectly interpreted or what was written was done so in an unclear manner; it made sense to the writer, but perhaps not so to all readers.

In that latter situation, it happened to me just within the last week or so. Consequently, I responded in an assertive manner expressing my displeasure. Both posts were moderated. No bad language etc was used, notwithstanding there was a clear necessity to have those posts gone!

I can happily report, that as adults, I received a pm with the author rephrasing what was intended & indeed that made complete sense and the sentiments were greatly appreciated. Naturally, we each understood there was totally no ill-will; to the contrary what was meant to be written in good faith and to assist was not written clearly and was misunderstood.

Suffice to say the pm rectified all of this and everything is now well understood and happiness reigns supreme!

Keep up the good work,

Warm regards back at you!

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I had a very wise boss (a senior VP of Chemistry) for several years mid-career. I asked him why person “A” got the peach of a promotion over person “B”, who was arguably better technically. His answer:

“When you put “A” and “B” into rooms of people and ask them to work out a difficult decision, everyone in "A"s group comes out feeling great, and everyone in "B"s group comes out upset. The decisions are not different in a meaningful way. “A” makes the organization stronger, “B” makes it weaker. “B” doesn’t have a future here, “A” does.”

In this forum, things often go sideways because of how a point is made, apparently attempting to arouse anger to draw attention to the point being made. While the post draws attention, people are needlessly pissed off and end up disregarding the message as a result.
You can choose to make a point that draws people to the idea, or you can do it in a way that draws wrath. I actually think its a learned behavior that some have a hard time avoiding.

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Sometimes that’s the reason for moderation but one or two that the OP is referring to contained some mild meandering and jokes; not flames.

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Hi Scott,

I hear your analogy and don’t disagree. In fact, I fully understand what you are saying.

In this particular example, I can tell you that there were a myriad of posts (off topic) relating to remote controls. I would at a guess suggest about 20. (Please mods don’t go and split up the thread now). However, in my belief, they all added something to the discussion despite not being directly on topic. The topic itself was well received with many users adding their thoughts.

Notwithstanding as per Ged’s comments below

The off comment ‘flags’ referred to specifically here were a mere line or two, all in good spirits and really didn’t detract from the thread.

I had replied something to the effect that I was a tennis coach for many years and am missing staying up late watching close matches at Wimbledon to all hours of the morning.

On topic? No Harmless? Yes

And my thought relating to the ‘humanity’ of the forum still stand. Would I make a special thread/announcement: Hey guys, I was a tennis coach for many years? Of course not. However, as a tennis pun was mentioned I took the opportunity to reply, which in turn let people know more about me. I’m not just a faceless individual and Roon user.

Over and above all of that, I still get it was off topic & moderators have to make a call what to edit, delete, move and so on. As per my comments in this area, I’m hardly upset or angry or even anything untoward. Far from it…I get it. :smile:

As for me personally, I don’t think you’ll ever find me flaming, using bad language etc. That’s not who I am here, or in the outside world.

Where I did see the need for moderation, as per my first reply above, was quickly moderated & the OP rectified the situation via PM. Sure, I could have simply ignored the post, however directed at me, I felt the need to reply in an assertive (not rude) manner. I’m sure that will be a one off situation (or outlier) in so far as I’m concerned.

Just to reiterate…of course, the forum needs moderation!
Of course, I understand it’s a thankless and awkward task!

And I respect the fact they are doing their best to have this Roon forum the best it can possibly be.

What I will say is that people do write in different styles. We aren’t all from English speaking countries, so often mods really have to read between the lines to make a call. Over and above that, even when people are from English speaking countries they do not necessarily write clearly or try to be humorous which is totally lost in written form and so on…It’s difficult.

Have fun all & just enjoy the music. :kissing_heart:

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This can be frustrating to users…seeing moderators engage in completely off topic conversation.

andybob Andrew Cox Moderator & KB Editor

23m

It sounds odd to hold out the lifetime licence for USD $700 as an alternative to the annual subscription of USD $120, but anyone who thinks they are likely to use Roon for 6 years or more really should consider it. Roon have already increased the lifetime fee without notice and have made it clear that the lifetime option may be removed without notice at any time.

The thread title:
Roon UI is not good enough

5hrs ago:

I get sporadic Tidal and Qobuz stutters in Melbourne on a 50Mbps NBN plan. They usually occur around 5pm (which makes me suspect congestion on the local NBN, I’m in a big apartment building). I also use HQPlayer so would need to compare with the Roon Ready app to rule out buffering in HQPlayer.
One thing I have noticed is that running a broadband speed test seems to cure the problem. I’m not sure whether this is because the ISP ups it’s game when it detects such a test, or whether a simple pause in audio playback assists. At the moment I am more suspicious of the ISP (Exetel) than Roon or HQPlayer and thinking seriously about reverting to iiNet.
The broadband test usually reports over 40Mbps and 7ms latency, which should be enough to avoid stutters.
As for the UI, I also think the Radio tiles are too big and don’t look good in Dark Mode.

Only 1 line here on topic (highlighted in bold)

So of those two responses above and 20 odd lines, only 1 of them is anything to do with the topic.

Please try to remain consistent.

Thank you.

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Oh and I should add…as per above - I’m not angry, annoyed etc etc…However, I do think the above highlights why some do get angry, annoyed etc etc as it appears to demonstrate there are different rules for different people.

Cheers!!!

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The OP raised the points about stuttering in Australia with Tidal, and the cost of the subscriptions, so I personally think it was quite within topic.

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Hey Geoff,

Aside from abusing all and sundry in his original post…I don’t see that. He has meandered all over the shop and accordingly so has the thread. I suspect he may be drunk, although at the hour his first post arrived, I’d not like to think so (early morning).

The thread was meant to be about Roon UI - not Tidal.

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You don’t have to persuade anyone of anything. If you think a discussion has branched to the point where it would be better split off, just flag it Off-Topic and Mods will split it off if they agree.

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Hi Andy,

Thanks for the heads up, I had no idea there was that opportunity to flag a topic. :sunglasses:

As for me, I’ll likely not go down that path, I don’t feel it’s my ‘right’ to call a thread ‘off-topic’ when it’s well engaged.

I was merely bringing it to your attention that threads venture far and wide without moderation, yet a mere few lines (literally) get flagged where they had little to zero impact on the overall flow of the thread.

However, the current thread in question has been borderline (language, personal attacks etc) not in the spirit of the forum, created by a non-user & its scope has clearly diverged from the topic of UI.

Yet, there has been no moderation, other than some language which seems to have been removed.

It just seems odd. :thinking:

Anyway, I’m not trying to ‘kick’ anybody in the back…I just wanted to highlight some idiosyncrasies of the forum that do irk some. Even though I’m talking about it, in fact, I’m not one who it irks.

I think I’ve just had too much time on my hands the past 48hrs. :sweat_smile:

Cheers mate.

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They say you learn something every day, so here’s mine for the day.

You can “Reply as Linked Topic” to a post by clicking the timestamp (top right) and selecting + New Topic.

This is a really convenient way to branch off a discussion and I’ll be using it myself and pointing it out to others in future.

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Thanks Andy - an interesting concept. :sunglasses: