So I'm a cyclist; I live without a car and get around on this (http://www.unc.edu/~cupery/pics/2005/10-commute_bike/) machine, and also have a pretty nice road bike (http://www.unc.edu/~cupery/pics/2005/red_bike/IMG_0124--bike_low_handlebars.jpg) as well, for non-utility riding. In the past few weeks I've been posting a fair bit on some of the major cycling forums, and it's really made me appreciate the people and the quality of discussion at HA. In short, the discussions at HA are largely informative, well-argued, and for the most part cordial. At bikeforums.net, there are lots of people who know what they're talking about, and some who don't, but the difference in quality of discussion is striking. People are much more likely to frame, much more likely to ignore well-structured logic, much more likely to post random opinions that are meaningless and go nowhere. Some of this is due to the Terms of Service here at HA, but I suspect some of it is due to the quality of the members as well.
Anyway, thanks to all here who deserve it. And be thankful this online community is as coherent as it is
I too, appreciate the great quality of discussions on HA.
Besides the TOS, I think this is largely caused by the great moderation that HydrogenAudio undergoes.
I am a moderator at one of Denmark's top-three (by member count and size) communities. We have 20-30 moderators to moderate a total of over 250.000 members, with up to 1000 online at peak hours. The difference between our political sub-forum and our pop-music sub-forum (Pun not intended) is striking, both in age average, and how serious the members are in their discussion style, so I know a bit about what a good mod team can do for a forum.
Cheers to HA moderators!
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The moderators here do a great job. They are fairly strict with moderation, filter out the crap and don't abuse their power. Thanks guys.