I am completely addicted to HA.org. Maybe because this is the first forum I have participated, but already the addiction has reached Counter-Strike proportions (and I almost flunked first year university over that game). What can I do to cut back? Anyone have any ideas?

Join HA Anonymous aka HAA

You could always go the blind-and-deaf route

Stop trying to read ALL posts.
Think that in many other forums, right now, there are anyway many interesting topics that you are not reading, because you don't know those forums exist. Therefore it's not necessary to read everything that might be interesting, just for fear of missing something.
Also, try to read less often. It's less time consuming to read twice as much posts one day out of two than everyday. And this way you're less inclined to read everything, and also, other people have already answered questions that you were going to answer, saving you some more time.

Thanks for the suggestions Pio! I'll try to keep those in mind.

@music_man_mpc: I'm right there with you, brother! In the course of work and leisure time, I'm on my PC about 10-12 hours per day, and about 6 hours per day on the weekends. And almost all the time I'm on it, I'm also logged into HA. Just sitting at the portal usually. Hitting F5 every few minutes, waiting for a new post or a new reply to bump an old post. I'm actually doing other things at the same time. For example, right now I'm extracting/wavegaining/encoding, as a matter of fact.

No matter how active or inactive this place is, I'm drawn to no other forum as much as this one. You say this is the first forum you've ever been member of. Well, I've been on a few, and there are plenty of STFU forums out there (that's what I call the forums where flame wars are allowed, condoned, and occasionally even encouraged). There is more respect between members here at HA than anywhere else I've been on the net.


As for me, I agree it makes sense to spread out the time you have across multiple sources of info. As for me, I'll occasionally surf over to PhatNoise forums, and Quintessential Player forums, and Winamp forums, and OggHelp, and Roadfly, and a few others (and my Doom9.org five-day countdown just started). But to be honest, HA is the place I always come back to and spend the most time. Out of all my online "forum time", I spend at least 90% of it here, and spread out the other 10% (or less) across all other forums where I'm a member.

The information is more accurate here, flame wars are absolutely not allowed, HA has a very high SNR, members respect each other here like on no other forum I've been on, and even though I'm still a newbie I quickly felt accepted here (perhaps because I've made a concerted effort not to make the most common newbie mistakes like spreading bad/unconfirmed info or acting like a know-it-all).

The bottom line is...
HA sets a standard that is difficult for any other forum to live up to.

Now, I'm going to go ahead and hit Add Reply because I might be missing something on the Active Posts board...


Edit: Fixing typos...

@ScorLibran: I suspect one of the reasons you gained such acceptance is that you are - and strive to be, from the tone of your posts - a well-read, literate individual; you are both coherent and polite... and most importantly, willing to admit that you don't know everything and are willing to learn.

@music_man_mpc: I suspect that we share something in common... an "addictive personality." That is, when we acquire an interest, no matter how large or small, it becomes a consuming passion that must be filled to satiety. And given the other possibilities out there, my wife is only too happy to indulge such addictions as Hydrogen Audio (the one place on the internet which draws me like no other), music (in general, although she doesn't appreciate about 90% of my selections), books (I have filled every bookshelf we own to overflowing, and am still acquiring hardbacks at a rate of roughly 2-4 linear footage per week; floor space is now at a premium in our house) and Old Time Radio shows (which, thankfully, she enjoys as much as I do!).

There's probably a twelve-step program which could deal with all of this, but it undoubtedly involves selling most of my possessions, renouncing electricity, and moving someplace where my only sentient companion would be a goat.

- M.

I agree with you entirely. I just recently became a member of the winamp forums so I could bug them about MPC support. And I noticed something interesting: Their forums suck. There is never anything worth reading there, other than the "What are your favs in X type of music" threads which I find a little more interesting there then here.

Oh well... you can count me in too.
Winamp forums (except non-existant Peter's Hell , especially General Discussion and Bitchlist) compared to this are childish.

BTW, I've seen user called Wish around here lately...
I guess it's same Wish as the one at Winamp forums?

Praise goes to Dibrom for this fine forum and well-crafted rules.

Well dammit. I do know evertythingh. specshully when eye'm drinng dis muc ber.












J/K I can speel bedder den dat wen I droonk.

MachineHead posts' and the crickets start chirping....

*sigh* Is there no humor left amongst 20 somethings? I noticed I was much more serious then, too. Of course, that was nearly two decades ago...

Maybe something has changed.

Everbodee no's wen yu drnk murkin ber dat yu git won eye-Q poynt pur ownce. Wit doysch ber yu git too eye-Q poynts pur ownce.

A'll alwaeez bee un ijiot cuz eye dunt drnk nuttin.