High jacking threads..etiquette

[richard]

Hi

 

Am I unusual in thinking that people should think twice about adding gratuitous and off topic commentary to certain types of conversations here. I am referring to a for sale announcement that I currently have here on C.net that has inspired people to contribute to the "conversation" with various notions about pricing for concertinas and whether to buy new or not new instruments etc. I think if people want to contribute their spontaneous insights and ruminations concerning the topic of buying/selling in general it should be in a new thread. 

 

Richard

 

Edited May 26, 2019 by richard

[Daniel Hersh]

I agree.

 

9 minutes ago, richard said:

Hi

 

Am I unusual in thinking that people should think twice about adding gratuitous and off topic commentary to certain types of conversations here. I am referring to a for sale announcement that I currently have here on C.net that has inspired people to contribute to the "conversation" with various notions about pricing for concertinas and whether to buy new or not new instruments etc. I think if people want to contribute their spontaneous insights ruminations concerning the topic of buying/selling in general it should be in a new thread. 

 

Richard

 

 

[Devils' Dream]

Depends.  

Cnet has an awful lot of "for sale" postings with no price, pictures, etc. They are not really for sale posts.  Go ahead and comment away.

OTOH, when one is posting a true "for sale" with the usual price, pictures, condition, etc. etc. then, hey, stick to the subject and leave it clean.

IMO.

[mike_s]

Hi Richard,

 

I agree that your for sale ad has sort of become a used vs new price debate.  Definitely detracting from the matter at hand.  It would have been more courteous to start a new thread for said debate.  OTOH,  hijacking a “normal” thread and veering off on a tangent may be OK if the hi jacker admits their wrong doing and all.   Just my $.02.

[Bill N]

I'll begin by saying that I find the members of this forum to be remarkably civil and well intentioned when that is certainly not the social media norm.  However I did think that the kibitzing that happened on your posting was inconsiderate, and might give a prospective buyer second thoughts.  I don't think your asking price or the logic behind it were unreasonable, and in any case the market will decide.  I would have been annoyed if it was my posting.

 

[Peter Laban]

Concertina.net is indeed one of the more civilised forums.

 

As a general rule though I think on forums like this once you post a topic, it's out of your hands and it may, or may not, go anywhere or nowhere. Often you find your topic going  to quite unpredictable and unexpected  places. It can be infuriating but best to not let it get to you. It 's something that happens. And once posted, your relinquish control of the topic.  Meta discussions giving out about it don't generally help to improve the situation.

 

That said, some musical instrument forums I frequent have a clear stated policy against 'price policing' , which is a good thing that could have avoided what happened here.

 

an example, form the chiffandfipple forums : http://forums.chiffandfipple.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=84192#p1038851

 

Quote

Price policing

We don't allow public criticism of C&F members for the prices they set when selling an item.

If a member wants to offer to sell a slightly used Generation D for $100, and somebody wants to buy it, that's the business of the seller and the unfortunate buyer (indeed, the internet now allows a motivated person to easily do research to determine that a price is out of bounds). If someone wants to part with a high-end whistle at a price that is higher than the price of a new one, while we would certainly appreciate any irritation on the part of the maker, we don't think that that is any basis to protest here.

So, we'll be stepping in to moderate posts in which someone is objecting or implying something shady in a FS post. If you suspect something downright crooked is going on, PM a Moderator.

Discussion of nonmember pricing on other sites such as eBay is allowed.

 

Edited May 27, 2019 by Peter Laban

[Devils' Dream]

Agreement here.  Melnet is similar.  Leave  price opinions elsewhere.  

Here on cnet I have found that the moderators do a pretty good job tho of stepping in if it gets too crazy or off track or circular...

But you DO NOT want to have cnet become too ebay/etsy like where someone can show up and post a "Vintage Hohner D-40 Concertina" for US$2500 with no one making comment 

[Wolf Molkentin]

15 minutes ago, Devils' Dream said:

But you DO NOT want to have cnet become too ebay/etsy like where someone can show up and post a "Vintage Hohner D-40 Concertina" for US$2500 with no one making comment 

 

I second that - we might have to question an advert in at the extreme.

 

And in the present "case" (which of course was not such a one), I plead guilty to inefficiently having attempted to restrain the emerging discussion. Always better to restrain oneself instead, if in doubt... ?

[wunks]

However, a general discussion about pricing as is happening here is allowed right?

[Mikefule]

On the whole, once a thread has been started, some deviation or tangental discussion is just the way that conversation flows.  Generally, it is a Good Thing unless there is a tendency for all threads to end up circling on the same subjects.

 

In the specific case of a bona fide established C-net user advertising an item for sale, I'd consider it poor form to criticise the vendor's price, either directly ("That's way too much!") or indirectly ("I've seen a better one at half the price here: [link]") or, worse, "I can under cut that price with mine: [details]."

 

However, we all know that there are many scammers out there using "borrowed" photos and making false advertisements.  In such cases, a regular C-net user may be directly qualified to intervene ("Hey, that's my concertina and it isn't for sale!") otherwise, rather than risk making a false accusation in good faith, it may be better to raise their concerns privately with the moderators.

 

I think this forum tends to regulate itself pretty well most of the time.  I go in another — non music — forum where the moderators have to police inappropriate posts so often that there is a sticky "gibbet" thread where details are posted of members who have been barred or suspended for breaching the rules.  We neither want no need that sort of thing here.

[Alan Day]

It was pointed out to me that this is a discussion forum and in a discussion such as this contributors read the last message posted,very few start at the very beginning of the messages. It took 24 hours for someone to change the direction of my original posting  It has to be accepted .The best thing is to start again and ask the original question.

[RAc]

I couldn't find out which software was used to implement the forum, but some suites allow individual threads to be configured such that the thread opener becomes the thread owner. Meaning that the individual who posted the question in the first place has the option to remove or edit subsequent responses in the same thread.

 

While this is certainly not desireable in all threads, I believe that a buy and sell subforum would be a poster case for such a functionality. Thus, if Ken or Paul might check whether the forum software in use supports such a feature, why not use it for the B&S sub forum?

 

And yes, it is impolite and disrespectful to take any thread astray. However, I plead guilty for having done that in the past; sometimes because the original topic had already been taken way off, sometimes because everything had already been written that was of any use so the space was practically free - and (hopefully only) a very few times out of inconsideration for which I feel bad and the need to apologize.

 

Edit: A side benefit of this strategy (if realizable) might be that the person wishing to sell or buy has the Option to completly remove the thread once the Transaction is completed or the sale has been cancelled.

Edited May 28, 2019 by RAc

[mdarnton]

One forum that I participate in has completely banned comments on for sale threads, saying that all relevant discussion should move to private communication. This was because some commenters find it irresistible to gratuitously trash the goods, the price, the legitimacy of the offer. . . anything they can, really.

 

Having seen one of my favorite forums ruined by people who just need to hear themselves talk, I'd like to see all posts stay on track, but I don't think the internet is headed in that direction. Fortunately, this forum doesn't have much of that. On that forum, which has ignore controls that leave the fact that there's been a post made still visible, I can watch threads devolve into long series of ignored posts by the usual perps making off-color references, etc. In such a case, active administration could go a long way to clean up the mess, and I participate in other forums where this is the case.

Edited May 28, 2019 by mdarnton

[Ken_Coles]

19 hours ago, Mikefule said:

I think this forum tends to regulate itself pretty well most of the time.  I go in another — non music — forum where the moderators have to police inappropriate posts so often that there is a sticky "gibbet" thread where details are posted of members who have been barred or suspended for breaching the rules.  We neither want no need that sort of thing here.

 

Took the words out of my mouth.

 

The software here doesn't allow restricting comments in a single thread to the OP. We can leave a thread open, close it to all activity, or have moderators and admins, who have much wider power than editing their own post. As noted above, Paul and I prefer not to play the schoolmarm, hovering ready to edit at any moment, though we do intervene at times. I'm lucky if my life lets me check every thread on here once a day, and things go their own way much faster than that. And no matter what level of intervention we choose, someone is not happy with it and thinks it could be better. I guess that's life in the big open public marketplace of ideas. Back to your concertinas (or dreams of concertinas).

 

Ken

[JimLucas]

I believe this is, in a sense, two issues:  1. Interfering with a thread which has a specific purpose.  2. General topic drift.

 

1. I believe the Buy and Sell forum has two well-defined but distinct purposes.  a) The first is the actual sale and purchase of individual items.  b) The second is discussion of more general issues relating to sale and purchase, e.g., general pricing, protected species, international shipping, insurance, etc.

 

a) Any post in an actual buy-sell thread which is not specifically about the listed item(s) is functionally no different from spam.  Instead, it can and should be given its own Topic, though still in the Buy-Sell forum, if it has buy-sell relevance.

 

b) This includes, of course, the Topics/threads which would be created by following my advice regarding 1.a).

 

Even here, if a comment is a significant digression from the initial/main topic of a thread, it should really be given its own Topic, with its own "title".  Otherwise, someone searching for information on a particular subject may fail to find it in their search, so the the person who posted it will fail in their purpose.

 

If the person who originates a divergent Topic feels that it's important to link it to the original thread from which it diverges, then they should do just that.  I.e., they should post a link in the original thread pointing to the new Topic and explaining the intended relevance.  I have actually done this myself in more than one instance.

 

2. My advice here is the same as for 1.b).  No need to repeat myself.