There are posts in at least two threads this weekend that I’m sure have lost customers for Roon.
Carl had already recommended ending one of these conversations a week ago as not going anywhere useful yet people continued piling on in an aggressive and unhelpful manner.
Potential customers are asking reasonable questions if you don’t a have a positive/helpful answer why not leave it instead of arguing. You can also express a different opinion in a much more helpful way and less personal way.
I’m unaware of the posts you’re referring to but can imagine what happened.
It’s a difficult one however if someone comes on here saying Roon is horrific, it’s easy to see how Roon "supporters " get aggravated.
To their credit the Roon guys leave the forum quite unmoderated, we’re able to say almost anything including “Roon is shit” more or less.
It’s a difficult one, but I feel it’s a risk worth taking by leaving the forum relatively unmoderated, as I’d imagine the amount of helpful posts quite outnumber the negative type you are referring to.
SJB
These were not really posts defending Roon they were more about people advancing their own pet views and preferences. (One string was in fact in response to a feature request.) If I had read them in more real time I might have flagged them but was obviously too late by the time I had chance to do anything and whilst having the effect I mention they perhaps did not overstep the forum guidelines. Hence my post here.
I’m afraid sometimes the “customers” lose themselves as well.
One of the threads I suspect you’re talking about is the SACD ISO thread. Roon have taken what I think is a clear and pragmatic approach regarding metadata and ISOs (it can’t be denied that DSF is a better medium for accurate identification and tagging), yet a small number of people take a very dogmatic approach regarding these files. Trying to explain this to people who seemingly don’t want to hear made this thread what it was. The entirely reasonable questions you mention were, I agree, entirely reasonable but they had been asked before and answered. The thread could have been locked but I can’t blame the mods for not doing so. Over-modding is a dangerous thing.
When people start talking about “deal breakers” I do worry slightly. Roon have always (in my view) under-promised and over-delivered, which is how it should be. They’ve also been clear in their approach to a lot of issues. This is entirely their prerogative. Equally “customers” have the right to choose what system to use. However to metaphorically storm out the room seems, well, a little over melodramatic perhaps? I wonder how many customers were lost who hadn’t already decided to leave?
Personally I had invested a very serious amount of time in my Sooloos tagging, however I was prepared to walk away from this as I recognised that Roon was able to get me further towards where I wanted to get to than staying with Sooloos. Sure it’s cost me more but I’m prepared to accept lost time and compromise if that’s what I need to do to go forward. There is no perfect system but for me and a lot of others Roon does seem to take us further. If I have to split my ISOs so be it. I keep the originals for when multichannel comes though and if ISO playback does come it’s very simple to tag and delete the split DSF files.
In my software career, I’ve been on the receiving end of many, many, many posts along the lines of “every other modern app does this, what’s wrong with you?” or “I will use delete your app unless you do Y”. My response is generally “good luck!”. Roon needs to stick to their guns.
That said, I’m here because of the forums and support I get from the developers (and the lack thereof for A+). If this was a hostile community, I’d bolt and never come back. We all need to be really careful and not drive other potential customers away.
I was monitoring the ISO thread and while I didn’t see a breach of forum guidelines requiring moderation, there were robust posts that employed more rhetorical flourishes than I would use.
I think it comes down to arguing with the ideas, not the poster. There are no Internet Debating Points being awarded here. It’s hopefully more of a conversation than an adversarial exercise.
I’m loathe to step in where there isn’t a clear breach of the rules, but I agree that sometimes a diplomatic remark from a mod is preferrable to a new poster feeling roughly handled. I’ll try to make people feel welcome however controversial or wrongheaded other members find their opinions.
I think that a diplomatic post somehow explaining how to differentiate a regular user from a Roon Forum mod or a Roon official would be appropriate in certain cases.
In the instance cited above, a simple post directing the newcomer to the Features Request might have alerted them that they weren’t having a dialog with a Roon rep. (Andy, maybe you did that, I cant remember. I just kind of cringed because it looked like it was going downhill.)
No question that Roon can’t please everyone but I think it is still Roon’s perogative to be the only one to commmunicate that. The empire is still built one subscriber at a time.