Observations and questions about fanboyism/hate patterns in this and other foums

[kenobi77]

After spending time on forums in the last couple of years I find that they are mostly a method for people to maintain and express an enthusiasm for music creation and plugins (and have a bit of banter in the process), as well as to get objective problems answered.

For example I had an issue with routing midi in Ableton and it was answered in about 5 mins of posting. That's a great example of the benefit of a forum. On a more subjective level I asked a question about headphones, and as well as feedback on the headphones I also was made aware of a couple of speaker simulation plugins and the subpac bass "thingy". In this case I got more than I expected. It generally got me thinking more deeply on the subject of headphone and monitor listening.

I've been a member of puremix in the past, the tutorial subscription site, which has it's members only forum. You'd think this forum would be red hot, considering it has a very targeted and committed (they had to pay) audience. But it's surprisingly barren, despite the mods (including the main guys who teach the videos) best attempts at participating in threads as well as starting topics. Most of the topics are technical related, I'm trying to patch such and such through ..etc.. or which compressor for, not much different then goes on here, just minus the aggressive posts. Having said that they are probably the people who are trying the most to achieve the ideals that you are also looking for.

[werp]

It is a signal to noise ratio problem.

[valerian_777]

1. The fanboys who love a product or manufacturer because it is free or
priced low and perhaps cannot afford a professional grade tool. That prompts them to declare the product also better in quality than every other
offering in the market. Major perpetrator
popping up in every single thread mentioning the word "reverb"
are the fanboys of a certain range of reverbs that
sell for 50 bucks which makes them the object of never ending praise
regradles of quality, merits of alternatives, intended uses, documented problems and so on.

I stopped reading after the first point because 50 bucks reverb (valhalla) is the best.. --sorry to disturb your sight on this things.

PS. Fyi I can afford very pricier plugins and i did and will do again if they worth it.

[whyterabbyt]

The 'observations and questions' would be more compelling if the OP's own prejudices etc didnt appear to inform the specific instances he uses as examples.

[el-bo (formerly ebow)]

I find the community at KVR to be constructive, helpful, engaging, humorous, competitive, gloriously irrational, and above all entertaining. I don't see the need to change anything.

[trimph1]

I don't see the need to change anything.

No progress was ever made on that premise unfortunately.

Into a bit of ye olde behavior modification are we?

[fluffy_little_something]

If you dislike fanboys, just say so, why waste at least half an hour of your life on such a post?
Sorry, xmas and winter always make me think of death, even more so as I get older, so I often wonder about an efficient use of remaining life time

[sin night]

I really can't stand when there's a total lack of perspective and sort of a call for omologation... there's nothing to learn from those "discussions" (can they be considered a discussions? to me, it seems more like giving a speach). Fact is that these kind of "discussions" are likely to turn away people who would have a constructive approach, so there's more and more rooms just for the extremists, for people who always talk and never listen.

By the way, it's a trend I see almost everywhere, not just on internet forums, which is quite allarming in my opinion.

[Numanoid]

If find that in using the term fanboy in the thread title, the OP already have strong feelings about the issue, as fanboy is a derogative term.

What do you think is most preferable:

-to have opinions and favorites and thus be a fanboy.

or

-to be complete unopionated and have no clue, and couldn't careless either this or that

[woggle]

nup

[bmanic]

Warning: this may be misunderstood as an "equal offender" thread starter
but the intent is to only improve the quality of information exchange
in this and similar forums. The language i use is in the tradition of comedic satire. No intend to offend or hurt anyone's feelings.

Here we go:

I have ben reading kvr, and similar forums for years and started posting
only recently in part due to increased frustration with rampant
fanboyism and its polar opposite, hate posting.

This is becoming an obstacle to both the informativeness
and civility of discussion, making exchange of reliable information
increasingly difficult.

There are distinct patterns and known dominant perpetrators/
repeat offenders. For example,

1. The fanboys who love a product or manufacturer because it is free or
priced low and perhaps cannot afford a professional grade tool. That prompts them to declare the product also better in quality than every other
offering in the market. Major perpetrator
popping up in every single thread mentioning the word "reverb"
are the fanboys of a certain range of reverbs that
sell for 50 bucks which makes them the object of never ending praise
regradles of quality, merits of alternatives, intended uses, documented problems and so on.

2. The reverse category of haters of higher priced products. Major perpetrator in the soft synth world are the haters of a specific industry standard synthesizer because it has the audacity to be priced at $500. The attacks are remarkably consistent in claiming that said product is
"not a real synth, just a rompler" Meanwhile every profesional studio is using it
to create unque sounds that have appeared in countless song and film productions and every major and minor industry award committee has given it top technical awards.

3. The haters of dongles and other strong anti piracy protection
schemes. Regardless of the topic of discussion, exciting characteristics
of product discussed etc, they will pop in to announce that "dongle, no buy", "dongle, no demo" etc. This category is almost exclusively dominated by the anti-ilok crowd with challenge-response being a distant second.

4. The fanboys of a certain european dynamic convolution based product
that can do eq, compression, console emulation etc. This one has many of
the characteristics of a cult. It revolves around the figure of the leader who not only does all the r&d and coding himself but is present on every discussion board 24/7 globally, to debate and enlighten the crowds and give promises about what the future versions of the product will do. The faithful share the cosmic beliefs that algorithmic plugins cannot match the sonic nirvana of convolution. That generally unmeasurable entities that do not exist in audio engineering training books and courses, such as "3D sound", "hearing the phase", "sound that is alive" etc are defining and irrefutable advantages. They believe that a competing company figurehead (and his fanboys) are the anti-Christ and highjack his threads with vigor. They buy everything produced by the leader, in pre sale and without demos, at a rate of one new product/month. Meanwhile the products are shockingly hard to authorize and configure, have interface problems,require an average computer to run a couple of iinstances, have no presets, violate intellectual property of others on a massive scale and are offered based on a pricing doctrine that should make any free market economist tear their degree and eat the pieces raw and unseasoned.

5. The anti Waves crowd. This is mostly a group of historians that
will grab the opportunity to hijack every single thread discussing
a waves product, or a waves like product, or a product competing to a waves product, or a product that has a 6 degree separation with waves, about the real and imagined marketing trangressions of Waves, 3, 5, or 10 years ago.
The much smaller (but dynamic and highy promising) non historian contigent of this Waves hater category mostly specializes on real time installation problems live reporting. That is for every mispelled directory name, installer hickup that lasted more than 20 cpu cycles, os version mismatch, and other normal tech support query, they will compelled to start a thread announcing the end of the world as we know it due to Waves's malevolance or ineptitude while offering a near real time update status of their installation or running issues.

6. And of course the grand-daddy of all, the pc vs mac debaters. The beauty
of this is twofold. On one hand it applies to every discussion. On the other hand the ecosystem has a double whammy engine of simultanous
love and hate. Love macs/hate pcs or hate macs/love pcs? Maybe both (the sophisticates), or none (the enlightened). There is room for all in this self contained but expanding universe of wasted time. So that nobody gets bored, knockoffs involving linux or tablets were quickly formed and carry the flag to the future.

There are more but I will stop here. Serious questions for all:

What can be done to avoid the perils of hate posting or fanboyism?
Is is it somehow just hamless entertainment?
How can we exchange subjective opinion about personal tastes
without ending up sound llike fanatics?
How can we offer honest criticism without be categorized as haters?
How can we praise our beloved tools even with great enthusiasm, without degenerating to a taliban mentality of intolerance to other viewpoints?


========
Dislosures
1. I do not have financial interests in any of the discussed products, their competitors, or the music technology industry broadly.
2. I own and use products in both sides of the fence in every category discussed above.

There's one more category you forgot:

Category X) The guys/girls that simply lack the experience and thus knowledge of anything that has to do with subtlety or detail. Traits of these people are usually that they follow religiously "industry names and experts" and can't make up their own mind at all. It's what some would call sheep. They also commonly mistake people as haters or fanboys simply because they lack the experience of understanding the discussion that is going on. They also can not hear the details and differences that are being discussed because they have no reference point of their own (again, lack of experience). They only have the word of their chosen expert to rely on and because these industry giants are usually paid to promote certain things, they are falsely lead into believing everybody who doesn't acknowledge these industry standard tools must be haters (or fanboys of the competing product).

[RunBeerRun]

It doesn't matter, if you want info on software, it'll still be there in those threads. No one said you have to marry everyone.

[Robmobius]

Sure, fanboys (and their individuals facets) are everywhere. Take everything you read on a forum with a grain of salt...

[Numanoid]

Warning: this may be misunderstood as an "equal offender" thread starter
but the intent is to only improve the quality of information exchange
in this and similar forums. The language i use is in the tradition of comedic satire. No intend to offend or hurt anyone's feelings.

Here we go:

I have ben reading kvr, and similar forums for years and started posting
only recently in part due to increased frustration with rampant
fanboyism and its polar opposite, hate posting.

This is becoming an obstacle to both the informativeness
and civility of discussion, making exchange of reliable information
increasingly difficult.

There are distinct patterns and known dominant perpetrators/
repeat offenders. For example,

1. The fanboys who love a product or manufacturer because it is free or
priced low and perhaps cannot afford a professional grade tool. That prompts them to declare the product also better in quality than every other
offering in the market. Major perpetrator
popping up in every single thread mentioning the word "reverb"
are the fanboys of a certain range of reverbs that
sell for 50 bucks which makes them the object of never ending praise
regradles of quality, merits of alternatives, intended uses, documented problems and so on.

2. The reverse category of haters of higher priced products. Major perpetrator in the soft synth world are the haters of a specific industry standard synthesizer because it has the audacity to be priced at $500. The attacks are remarkably consistent in claiming that said product is
"not a real synth, just a rompler" Meanwhile every profesional studio is using it
to create unque sounds that have appeared in countless song and film productions and every major and minor industry award committee has given it top technical awards.

3. The haters of dongles and other strong anti piracy protection
schemes. Regardless of the topic of discussion, exciting characteristics
of product discussed etc, they will pop in to announce that "dongle, no buy", "dongle, no demo" etc. This category is almost exclusively dominated by the anti-ilok crowd with challenge-response being a distant second.

4. The fanboys of a certain european dynamic convolution based product
that can do eq, compression, console emulation etc. This one has many of
the characteristics of a cult. It revolves around the figure of the leader who not only does all the r&d and coding himself but is present on every discussion board 24/7 globally, to debate and enlighten the crowds and give promises about what the future versions of the product will do. The faithful share the cosmic beliefs that algorithmic plugins cannot match the sonic nirvana of convolution. That generally unmeasurable entities that do not exist in audio engineering training books and courses, such as "3D sound", "hearing the phase", "sound that is alive" etc are defining and irrefutable advantages. They believe that a competing company figurehead (and his fanboys) are the anti-Christ and highjack his threads with vigor. They buy everything produced by the leader, in pre sale and without demos, at a rate of one new product/month. Meanwhile the products are shockingly hard to authorize and configure, have interface problems,require an average computer to run a couple of iinstances, have no presets, violate intellectual property of others on a massive scale and are offered based on a pricing doctrine that should make any free market economist tear their degree and eat the pieces raw and unseasoned.

5. The anti Waves crowd. This is mostly a group of historians that
will grab the opportunity to hijack every single thread discussing
a waves product, or a waves like product, or a product competing to a waves product, or a product that has a 6 degree separation with waves, about the real and imagined marketing trangressions of Waves, 3, 5, or 10 years ago.
The much smaller (but dynamic and highy promising) non historian contigent of this Waves hater category mostly specializes on real time installation problems live reporting. That is for every mispelled directory name, installer hickup that lasted more than 20 cpu cycles, os version mismatch, and other normal tech support query, they will compelled to start a thread announcing the end of the world as we know it due to Waves's malevolance or ineptitude while offering a near real time update status of their installation or running issues.

6. And of course the grand-daddy of all, the pc vs mac debaters. The beauty
of this is twofold. On one hand it applies to every discussion. On the other hand the ecosystem has a double whammy engine of simultanous
love and hate. Love macs/hate pcs or hate macs/love pcs? Maybe both (the sophisticates), or none (the enlightened). There is room for all in this self contained but expanding universe of wasted time. So that nobody gets bored, knockoffs involving linux or tablets were quickly formed and carry the flag to the future.

There are more but I will stop here. Serious questions for all:

What can be done to avoid the perils of hate posting or fanboyism?
Is is it somehow just hamless entertainment?
How can we exchange subjective opinion about personal tastes
without ending up sound llike fanatics?
How can we offer honest criticism without be categorized as haters?
How can we praise our beloved tools even with great enthusiasm, without degenerating to a taliban mentality of intolerance to other viewpoints?


========
Dislosures
1. I do not have financial interests in any of the discussed products, their competitors, or the music technology industry broadly.
2. I own and use products in both sides of the fence in every category discussed above.

There's one more category you forgot:

Category X) The guys/girls that simply lack the experience and thus knowledge of anything that has to do with subtlety or detail. Traits of these people are usually that they follow religiously "industry names and experts" and can't make up their own mind at all. It's what some would call sheep. They also commonly mistake people as haters or fanboys simply because they lack the experience of understanding the discussion that is going on. They also can not hear the details and differences that are being discussed because they have no reference point of their own (again, lack of experience). They only have the word of their chosen expert to rely on and because these industry giants are usually paid to promote certain things, they are falsely lead into believing everybody who doesn't acknowledge these industry standard tools must be haters (or fanboys of the competing product).

OK

[bmanic]

I think I may have been too clever.. some may miss my point hehe (tried to be meta.. or whatever the kids call it nowadays).

In short: We all create a lot of illusions of who is a fanboy and who is a hater. One man's "fanboy" is anotherman's hater and yet another persons "man, this guy knows his stuff!" and yet another persons "man this guy doesn't know what he is talking about!".

Was just trying to stir up the pot a bit and point out that it's not as clear cut, not as white and black. The world isn't divided into fanboys and haters.