Bad Tempered Clavier
Silver Member
About a year ago I was looking to get rid of an old Pearl Export and I trawled the internet looking for advice on how much it might be worth. Pearl USA has a support forum so I joined up in order to find what I needed. I've dipped in and out of it ever since and though I never used drum forums much before I picked up a few good tips and found that some of the people who frequent the site are very knowledgeable about drums.
Unfortunately one recent stumbling block for me has been the behaviour of one their moderators. If you've ever been there you'll know the one I mean: he's been there seemingly since the beginning of time and is very proud of the fact that he's notched up something like 25,000 posts. Despite the fact he clearly knows a great deal about drums he tends to use this as well as his belief that he is an expert on pretty much everything else as an excuse to rampage around the threads barking belligerently at anyone who disagrees with him and even goading them to contradict him. Of course, all of the walks of life that he has excelled in are the rough-and-tumble macho pursuits that real men engage in - i.e. the military, firearms, hunting, firefighting, train-driving: engaging in discourse with him is like talking to a cross between GI Joe and Glenn Beck.
I have no problem with this person having his say on whatever the topic of the day is but what I find distasteful is the fact that he accepts no responsibility for his position as moderator or even acknowledges that such a position is any different to any regular user. He often says things like "I tell it like it is", which to me sounds like shorthand for "I am a complete sociopath" and the other day slapped down another forum member who accused him of poor moderation by saying that he as a moderator was as subject to the rules of the forum as anyone else and as his posts are never censored or deleted he therefore could not be justly accused of stepping outside of those rules. All of this ignores the fact that the job of deciding what does and does not constitute an infraction of said rules relies solely on the interpretation of those rules by - guess who - the moderators: and there isn't a chance that any of the other moderators are going to shut this guy up as he's practically part of the furniture. This was in a non-drum thread that, given the subject concerned armed robbery, inevitably had a lot of political content (something which is supposed to be against their rules) yet he felt free to spew his political views all over the place without any regard for the brazen hypocrisy he displayed by threatening to ban other members for posting political content.
Obviously, it would be no loss to ignore the parts of the forum which don't deal with drums, but because he sticks his nose into almost every other part that is about drums as well he is all over the site like a rash. As I said, I never used forums much before last year and I have come here to find a bit of peace and so far have found people to be a lot more courteous; is this guy typical of internet forums? Am I being naive to expect better from those who have been put in charge of what others can and cannot say?
Unfortunately one recent stumbling block for me has been the behaviour of one their moderators. If you've ever been there you'll know the one I mean: he's been there seemingly since the beginning of time and is very proud of the fact that he's notched up something like 25,000 posts. Despite the fact he clearly knows a great deal about drums he tends to use this as well as his belief that he is an expert on pretty much everything else as an excuse to rampage around the threads barking belligerently at anyone who disagrees with him and even goading them to contradict him. Of course, all of the walks of life that he has excelled in are the rough-and-tumble macho pursuits that real men engage in - i.e. the military, firearms, hunting, firefighting, train-driving: engaging in discourse with him is like talking to a cross between GI Joe and Glenn Beck.
I have no problem with this person having his say on whatever the topic of the day is but what I find distasteful is the fact that he accepts no responsibility for his position as moderator or even acknowledges that such a position is any different to any regular user. He often says things like "I tell it like it is", which to me sounds like shorthand for "I am a complete sociopath" and the other day slapped down another forum member who accused him of poor moderation by saying that he as a moderator was as subject to the rules of the forum as anyone else and as his posts are never censored or deleted he therefore could not be justly accused of stepping outside of those rules. All of this ignores the fact that the job of deciding what does and does not constitute an infraction of said rules relies solely on the interpretation of those rules by - guess who - the moderators: and there isn't a chance that any of the other moderators are going to shut this guy up as he's practically part of the furniture. This was in a non-drum thread that, given the subject concerned armed robbery, inevitably had a lot of political content (something which is supposed to be against their rules) yet he felt free to spew his political views all over the place without any regard for the brazen hypocrisy he displayed by threatening to ban other members for posting political content.
Obviously, it would be no loss to ignore the parts of the forum which don't deal with drums, but because he sticks his nose into almost every other part that is about drums as well he is all over the site like a rash. As I said, I never used forums much before last year and I have come here to find a bit of peace and so far have found people to be a lot more courteous; is this guy typical of internet forums? Am I being naive to expect better from those who have been put in charge of what others can and cannot say?