It is only right I should become more detached from HA, a conflict of views is the reason.

@Dibrom


You see, I wouldn't, and perhaps you wouldn't recommend the same brand of car for eveyone on the planet, as it would clearly not meet everyones individual needs, I seem to be alone (or on the wrong side of the fence) in thinking the same about audio related stuff. Any one player (including my own), or any one CD Ripper clearly does not suit everyone (ironic as I am currently working with HAs choice...). It would be good to find a place where such alternatives can be rationally discussed, without resorting to snide name calling - like the whole thing is a huge power stuggle for peoples minds and hearts - when everyone is controlled welcome to 1984.

I hope atleast one person found my input here to be of any use, and not as slated on another thread to be one big advert for dbpoweramp (I am nowhere near as shallow as portrayed, what am I doing right now and for the last week - working with Andre to implement AccurateRip into EAC - no db-any-thing - just hoping to see a benefit for the community). I know I have learnt things over the years and to HA I owe a thank you, to Dibrom, for running HA.

Too bad this conflict started from an "innocent player comparison thread" by WinAmp forum moderator and #nullsoft regular.

Frankly, too bad that it's so easy to cause distortion here, and too bad some fell for it. But I guess I'm partly to blame as well. I should have locked that thread instantly, because there was only one way for it to go, and it really wasn't unclear to me, but now it's too late.

Looks like I need to make a clarification here.

You singled out a comment that I made, but without the context of the rest of my post, it does not hold the same meaning as I originally intended.

Hydrogenaudio is a debate community. I founded upon these principles, and have tried to foster these principles throughout its growth. What this means is that when people make a claim to something (or present an idea, software, etc), it does not stand on its own. It stands upon the strength of the arguments made in its support and in its merit and relevance towards addressing certain issues.

In other words, not all ideas are created equal. Not all people need to be given the same "rights" or attention in what they say simply because they do say it. Maybe in some other communities, this is how it works, but in Hydrogenaudio (as well as academia, and the scientific and the philosophical community), simply because someone chances to say something does not guarantee that people acknowledge their claims as having some worth.

This, I think, is the fundamental problem here, and this also relates to my original statement. In the context of "best of breed", what I mean is ideas, software, etc., that have been through this processed and have held up. They are "good" or "better" for a specific and non-arbitrary reason. I also expect reasonable participants in this community to acknowledge these points. I do not expect them to necessarily agree with them, but if they choose not to, they better have a good reason.

Arbitrary "opinion" does not rule here, and if you have been under this impression, then you have been mistaken.

Given your example of cars, in line with what I have been saying it would hold that there are prevailing arguments for why one would be better than the other (or more correlated, more developed towards, etc... if you choose to use some other type of language) for given purposes. If someone is to advance an opposing point of view, then they need to address these points. If they have different needs which preclude the use of the "prevailing argument", then they need to make that clear from the start -- not ask a question and then reject certain answers simply "because they don't like them." That's not how this community works, and I hope that it never degenerates to that point.

So to address your mistaken conception:

Of course HA does not believe that there is only "one" approach to a specific top level categorial case. However, given the specific premises, there are better conclusions than others. These conclusions are not derived from arbitrary opinion either, and this community expects (or at least I do) that people recognize that and argue and debate accordingly.

There is no free lunch around here, and everyone is not "right" in their own opinions -- opinions can be wrong and ill-founded. If you can't handle this, but would rather choose to misconstrue the situation as being something it is not, and the admins as being some sort of tyrants, theres not much I can do beyond pointing out the truth of the matter. If you decide that you'd rather not participate under these mistaken directives, then it's regretable, but ultimately it'll be your loss.

I'm sad to see a 'farewell' forcibly entered and raped in public.

Ironic as well, it really wouldn't matter if Justin himself came and said he was thinking of switching and what is out there, the question stands.



Excellent ideals, I agree 100%, I ask you to visit that thread that started this - you will see scant examples of that - and that is the kind of board that HA is right now, only the moderators can steer it.

And you would believe this without hesitation? Well, certainly seems so..

Thanks Mac. I knew I could count on a typical comment like this from you.

Just go ahead and ignore everything that has been said and paint as the bad guys. I guess it's easier to pull the martyr routine then it is to come up with a well reasoned response, eh?

It never ceases to amaze me that no matter how fairly we try to be the community, how much we do without getting much back and return, that some people think they have the right to come and shit on the administration here and criticize the way that things are run without providing any possibility for improvement, and then on top of that to do so in a manner which does not even promote useful discussion.

Instead what we get are people like this adding comments here which instantly cause people to sympathize for their cause without actually stopping to critically think about what is actually being said and what is actually the case.

So anyway, I'm sad too... sad that the manner of discussion and general quality of HA is continually degraded by people with your approach to the matter.

Ah well..

excelent explanation.

The thread was found closed (by spoon I assume) and was then opened up by 'you' (admins) to stick an oar in. I just find that a tad disrespectful. I read your closing post on 'Childish Behaviour' and your post here was a 500+ reiteration which I skipped over. Sorry if I missed something..

Once again you are making wrong assumptions (I seem to remember this happening multiple times when you decided to "protest").

Spoon does not have the right to close threads, and the thread was actually closed by JohnV until we had time to examine the situation more thoroughly.

Say what you will, I like HA. Probably more than is healthy for me. But here's a link to a favorite online comic of mine. It had a semi-relevant page a couple weeks ago: http://www.somethingpositive.net/sp10092003.html

I don't think that HA has descended in quality at all. I consider this to be a nice quasi-scientific board which has done a wonderful job of shutting down idiots (not clueless n00bs) who start shit for fun and who make unjustifiable claims that can't be validated.

/Sorry, I had to comment on this, even if I really don't have a point.

Ok, here is my oar:

Lighten up Francis


P.S. /me gives the moderators a hearty Thank You for their hard work here.

Bah! MOTAR promotes the hell out of your music converter. It's ease of use and flexibility outweighs all the high end technical bickering here. Tech TV featured both of our web pages (and probably this messageboard) on their "Screen Savers" show notes last week or so.

Your player would probably be pretty cool but it's got some quirky behavior that makes it kinda annoying for anyone who doesn't have time to figure what it's doing. When you start clicking on menus to explore the capabilities they close on you before you figured out what you clicked wrong. The playlist capabilties aren't an intuitive process to learn either.

Foobar is probably great also, but MOTAR is sticking with Winamp 2 as a player because it has so many plugins already written. You are correct about people liking different flavors, but if you get used to one piece of software, it becomes an uphill battle persuading the masses to convert. If you were to simplify/change some of the ways your player responds to menu clicks, MOTAR would be using it.

MOTAR the imperious

@Mti:

Your post is completely off-topic and does not belong in this thread at all. Please do not continue this line of discussion.

I'm tempted to just close this thread now, because it seems somewhat inevitable that people will not bother to read the appropriate posts and respond in a manner relevant to the actual issues being discussed (it's already happened a few times)...

If I see the thread continuing to move in this manner, or if I see people adding more useless posts or trollish posts (speaking to anyone in general) here, it will be closed immediately.

Fuck you. Your head is going to get cold if you keep it out of your ass too long.

MOTAR the imperious

Above left as an example what we don't want to see here.

Thread closed.