The HEADPHONE Community has been in Beta for a week now and it already looks like this is going to be a great journey together. (Can you believe it’s only been a week?)
MY THOUGHTS ON THE FIRST WEEK
So far, I’m impressed with the quality of discussion. We have an incredible group who are generously sharing their experience and we’ve seen a great mix of experts and beginners.
A positive sign is that newcomers are comfortable asking questions, and the questions are being met with thoughtful replies.
Something I’ve noticed in other communities is genuine questions being answered with “use the search function.” Or “it’s a 2-minute google search.” That’s not the best introduction to our passion or our community. It can also be hard for newcomers to find relevant information in a forum-type community where so much content is created. (We’re thinking a lot about curation and ways to make the most useful information more accessible).
@jaethan Is our first moderator and has been doing a great job helping everyone get comfortable in our new home.
INVITES
The community is still invite-only until June 1st, but we’re so happy with this founding group that we’re opening invitations to current members.
If you’d like to invite someone, please email me (andrew@headphones.com) with the email addresses of the people you would like to invite. … Yes, we’ll have a much better way to invite friends in the future
BETA FEEDBACK
If you have a chance, we’d love your thoughts on the following so we can keep getting better:
Can you enable Sub-topics? I think that there are multiple threads within any large topic, and a way to follow those would be very useful. See flowchart below:
Personally, I’m amazed at the quantity and quality of the posts we’ve seen in the first week. There are some great people here, and I’m looking forward to watching this community grow. Thanks, brothers Lissimore!
I find much to like, little to dislike here. Audio as a hobby is a subjective endeavor, keeping things civil is not easy. That said, I’ve seen opinions stated and replies made respectfully.
I will remain if Headroom can keep that environment. If not, I’ll just do the occasional research visit like I do with most other audio forums. I just cannot stand with those who get snarky with others because the snark-master feels they have a superior background or opinion. Civility and patience are rare in audio forums.
What hasn’t worked for me was starting/requesting an ‘official’ equipment thread. I swung at the piñata twice but it didn’t take. In retrospect, I’m glad it didn’t.
Also, some topics get derailed (tracks to test headphones has turned into ‘my favorite tracks’) and the beloved leaders have not moved the non-responsive posts to a subthread; and that’s okay because it always a mess when those moves start happening.
What I’d love to see as a solution to topics going wild v. heavy-handed topic policing is a super-moderated topic started when digression happens. Yes, I understand it is too labor intensive. In these pinned super-moderated topics, the moderator (only) copies and cross posts replies directly responsive to the original topic subject (from topics that have gone rogue) in the new ‘official’ thread. In the case of ‘test tracks,’ Headroom could keep an ‘official’ pinned topic of easily used references while still leaving the original jungle of “I really like…” posts intact.
The site is great. Lively discussions and lots of great knowledge. Problem is that there is already a great site doing the same thing with lots and lots of contributors. My fear is that the discussions over there are better because of the incredible wealth of knowledge because of the large user base. Time will tell but I am here and plan to stay and contribute in both places.
There is certainly ‘pro and con’ for moderating and I enjoy unmoderated communities also. I hope you don’t mind my hijacking your reply to distill my point.
I did not mean to advocate for a forum of heavily moderated topics as much as greatly moderated pinned topics. Just to keep the ‘pin’ on topic. The wild topic would still exists in all of its glory but a new ‘pinned’ topic is created from only those posts that are directly responsive to the original post.
It is, well, a reverse of what I find elsewhere. I usually find the digression is move; instead, I propose to copy, filter ‘on topic’ replies to a non-volatile pinned topic and leave the organic thread alone.
I will admit to a facet of my personality that benefits from noise control, however. There is a lightly moderated (unnamed) forum I visit where I can find a wide range of contributions already. I can search in that forum for what I need, though I find it very unpleasant to browse topics: impatient folk asking for help or offering, others defending v. discussing, disrespect of other opinions, and digressions going far off topic make following a stream a rocky ride… for me.
It is refreshing this forum currently allows me to follow the stream of discussion without egos getting into testosterone charged rants. It is nice to find a forum that still offers a civil ‘back and forth’ … such at this.
It’s been very refreshing to see the general tone of engagement being positive and accepting of differences of opinion. How much that changes as the user base grows remains to be seen, and that’s always a challenge when humans are involved. Hopefully the initial group continues to conduct itself in the manner it has so far and the influx of new users takes that as an example, rather than turning it into the sort of noise/echo chambers that a lot of other sites have devolved into.
A common problem, on all forums, and especially those which are gear-centric, is that people will make authoritative/definitive/absolute statements that are either factually incorrect, are really opinion rather than “fact” or that encompass a scope that goes well beyond the posters actual experience. Those sorts of post and especially repeat posters tend to garner a fair amount of ire and that’s where things tend to get tense. So it is nice to see that in the few cases where such posts have been made here, so far, that a gentle nudge with the correct information has helped keep the discussion accurate, on track and civil.
Moderation is tricky … and time consuming. I don’t envy anyone that job. In general less-is-more has worked for me on other sites, with a focus on dealing with genuinely problematic posts (against TOS, harassment, inappropriate behavior, mass-posting/doubling down on factually incorrect information) and obvious trolls. Judicious and thoughtful use of post flagging by those in this initial group will help a lot there I expect.
Very encouraged so far … and looking forward to seeing how things develop.
Thanks to Andrew and Taron for their time, effort and openness on making this resource available!
I find that I have been given incredible feedback and information as a relative noob to Headphoning. I have not seen one troll nor has anyone said an unkind thing (regarding a members opinion). I am grateful that this group understands subjectivity and that each person has different tastes. Thanks for being awesome and thanks @andrew for creating this.
I hope this initial group is able to exert the norms we are developing on the influx of new users post June 1. I do want a good mix of beginners and experts, as well as a range of opinions, but beyond that I want to keep the bar of quality and tone in discussions high. This will take a lot of effort, but it will be a lot easier if the community refuses to accept entropy.
I agree that it’s important for those who care about this community to be comfortable flagging posts. That can really help moderation, particularly as post volume increases.
I’m also with you on declarative statements that are factually incorrect. So far this has been handled well. It will be harder for the community to self-police as it grows. It might require more active moderation in the future.
Well, maybe it’s how I’m using the system and there is already a better way, but the only way I can see to post in an established topic is to REPLY. Reply either to the top post, or to a subsequent one, but it is REPLY.
What if you want to say something new in the same topic? Like HiFi man. I started off with something about the HE-560. What if someone wants to talk about a different model? It should still be in HiFi Man area.
Or drink and music pairings - maybe someone wants to do snack food and music. That’s a new “subtopic” I would think. How can this be done in the area without doing a reply?
I’m not sure I’m explaining this well, but I cut my teeth on FoRuM and COSY systems. And usenet…
The tutorial and advanced tutorial are elusive. If it’s interacting with @discobot it doesn’t understand my (plausibly denied) sense of humor and it got confused. I don’t think @discobot wants to pick up where I left off…
Something about flagging when the flag disappeared, and maybe I should not have checked that I wanted to talk to the user.
I recall moderating early conversation systems where you could give the chat command to your own username. It would reply asking “Are you sure you want to talk to yourself?” if you answered yes, you would be in chat with yourself. Some of the best conversations I ever had.
Got it. I definitely agree. For now you are able to create your own topics and they would sit in whatever high-level category you want to start it in (for example general headphone discussion).
For the “music and snack pairings” example you provided, you can start a music and snack pairings topic in the “all things music” category.
We’ll need more categories and sub catagories as the discussions grow, but while we’re small I think it’s better to have less categories. A category structure is hard to change once it’s set up, and it can get complicated quickly.
So far, I’ve really enjoyed my time on this forum. I’m usually a forever-lurker, but I feel comfortable chatting and asking questions on here–and it definitely looks like it’s trending in that direction for a lot of people.
Thanks, @Jaethan, for taking on the responsibility of moderating this place. That’s tough shit. Much appreciated!
There are so many folks here who are so resourceful and approachable, and I hope that this camaraderie continues today and beyond. Thanks @Andrew and @TaronLissimore for bringing us all together!
I too am typically a forum lurker, but the positive vibe I feel here puts me at ease allowing me to be a more active member of the community. It’s a great feeling.
I really like the user experience at this site - it makes navigating my topics of interest a breeze. The search function has come in handy and is dead simple to use as well.
Since becoming a member here, I honestly have not visited any other headphone/audio community forum sites.
