Improving communication

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Improving communication

2003-02-01 20:16:37

IMO it's a pitty seeing things like this happen here again and again. There has to be a better way ...

I know that rule #8 says unproven claims can lead to harsh responses, but seriously: What are harsh responses good for? I know someone could answer: "You say this was harsh? It wasn't. This (...) IS harsh ... In XY forum it's much worse ... you're new here - mind your own business ... blah".

IMO it's like this: 80% of real life communication is on a non-verbal level. This is cut off here - emoticons don't help much. It's LOSSY (wma 32kbit/s)! AND most people don't know each other and/or have different cultural background. Another point is that most people handle criticism this way: Self esteem = me knowing more/being better/whatever than others -> Criticism = danger for Self esteem -> Reaction: feeling offended and becoming offensive.

This all leads to what was called "newbie-unfriendlyness" or "harshness" in other posts IIRC.

So if you had a bad day and are in danger of flaming a noob when seeing "I've found the ultra-transparent commandline" why not just do something else? Go and brush your teeth and come back later. Here are so many people who know what they are talking about, and some of them will be calm and patient - why not trust them and give them the chance to handle it and save another soul from LaTEsT 4Lph4 --alt preset standard -m s -resample 48 -lowpass 44 -whatever roXX0rZ hell?

Amen - enuff said for now - Your thoughts to this are welcome

Improving communication

Reply #1 – 2003-02-01 20:51:39

Will someone please think of the newbies??? Think of the newbies!

Improving communication

Reply #2 – 2003-02-01 21:20:40

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80% of real life communication is on a non-verbal level

It actually can be over 90% if communication is nonverbal in face-to-face interactions. With computer mediated communication (CMC) the dynamics radically change with this medium, and therefore it is considered a lean medium of communication (whereas face-to-face would be considered a rich medium). Nonverbals are not entirely absent in CMC; emoticons, abbreviations, and type manipulation cues serve as the nonverbal channel in CMC, but the effectiveness of these pale in comparison to face-to-face interactions. Misunderstandings are an unfortunate reality. Forums are asynchronous, and therefore can be even more problematic than "chats". Complicating the matter are personality characteristics such as ego involvement, argumentativeness, tolerance for arguments, and consistency. Lucky you guys [tic], you have a full fledged communication nerd among you whose research area was CMC

Of my observations, problems on forums are most often related to ego-involvement, the need for consistency, and maturity. A post on a forum is a public statement. Nobody wants to be a victim of his/her own ignorance (i.e. post erroneous information or invalid statements). Unfortunately very few people, juvenile and very young adults in particular, are capable of realizing his/her mistake, much less acknowledging it.

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Will someone please think of the newbies??? Think of the newbies!

Helen Lovejoy has entered the building!

Improving communication

Reply #3 – 2003-02-01 21:36:37

maybe there should be a clear and easy newbie faq. i can understand that it annoys some people here when it is asked 10 times a day why -ms is worse to the standard js mode. but i remember that i asked that question 1 year ago also. and i still havn't forget what it is like to be newbie in audio encoding. i was a bloody xing user and today i can't even spell that word x-i-n-g anymore *g*

i suggest making a newbie faq (not a guide) and if again a question appears that is explained in the faq just post the link and close the thread.

that's more polite, easier and better for the newbies

Improving communication

Reply #4 – 2003-02-01 21:44:26

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i suggest making a newbie faq (not a guide) and if again a question appears that is explained in the faq just post the link and close the thread.

That makes a whole lot of sense. But coming up with a comprehensive faq won't be easy.

Improving communication

Reply #5 – 2003-02-01 22:07:59

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80% of real life communication is on a non-verbal level

It actually can be over 90% if communication is nonverbal in face-to-face interactions.

Thanks - I trust you know what you're talking about ... Anyway it's hard to tell exact figures (total brain "bitrate" vs. "bitrate" used for communication vs. "verbal bitrate" ).

And thanks for sharing (a bit of) your knowledge about CMC. I read once "The only way to change is changing the understanding."

@Xenion:

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i can understand that it annoys some people here when it is asked for 10 times every day ...

You can? I'm interested in your (and everyone's) opinion why it is like this. U know - It's not a service hotline where you have to answer every call and explain some DAUs the same over and over again.
If I get annoyed by newbie questions I think its on the one hand because some experienced knowledgable people here gave answers before that could be interpreted as "annoyed" - and being annoyed gives me the illusion to belong to this "inner circle". On the other hand it's just showing superiority and feeling superior.

Newbie faq (and guides) would be great (including emmett's transcoding song of course ). Well the existing faq is very informative right now, but not that easy to handle for noobs and not complete. I think Doom9 is a good example. Maybe some changes in the structure of the website would be helpful too, like redirecting guests (and users that joined a short time ago) to the faq/guides page...

[span style='font-size:7pt;line-height:100%'] [Edit] DAU is a German abbreviation: dümmster anzunehmender User = most stupid immaginable user [/Edit][/span]

Improving communication

Reply #6 – 2003-02-01 22:22:36

Pio has been trying to string together a variety of pertinent threads covering many FAQ.

Rule 8 must seem pretty harsh to a newbie seeking a simple answer, but it does help with the credibility and quality of information on this sight overall.

The truth is, trolls abound. It was a problem at R3mix, and as this forum widens, its getting to be a problem here.

The abx programmes are pretty straightforward. If you post results and a sample, I think the more experienced listeners are pretty good about checking it out.

Improving communication

Reply #7 – 2003-02-01 22:34:18

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I'm interested in your (and everyone's) opinion why it is like this.

of course but in some topics your personal opinion is not important. sometimes just the pure facts are important and can maybe be better explained in a faq, because many people worked on it and/or checked it.

if you still have a question then you are welcome to ask here.

as long as there is no faq of course it's not fair to answer newbie questions in a offensive way. well it's never fair but sometimes you can understand it :-)

Improving communication

Reply #8 – 2003-02-01 22:54:58

I'm writing a development of rule 8, tryin to explain why we require ABX and samples. It could be the first step of a new FAQ.
Guruboolez, if you're reading this, maybe you could explain what format is better for which usage, like in hardware.fr, it would be step 2.
I don't remember anything in here stating that MPC is superior to MP3 outside a 450450-posts-thread of 45 pages of arguing.

About the incompleteness of the current FAQ, as I said in the second post of the FAQ, any moderator/admin is welcome to take part in it, and any member to suggest new FAQs. I'm a stranger to MPC, AAC, and OGG, so I won't add any link myself about these subjects.

Improving communication

Reply #9 – 2003-02-01 23:01:45

@Pio2001
What do you think of design changes as mentioned above (redirecting guests/new users or disclaimer or popup FAQ including rule#8)?
If the n00b doesn't go to the FAQ, the FAQ have to come to the n00b

Improving communication

Reply #10 – 2003-02-01 23:13:38

I am new here at hydrogen audio, but I have been a long standing member of many other communities. For whatever it's worth my insights are as follows (despite my newbie status). Please forgive me if I am imposing.

I agree that it can be tiresome when the same questions are posted repeatedly and when I begin to type a paragraph or two of a reply, I suddenly realize that I am writing nearly verbatium what I had written countless times before. It is frustrating that newbies neglect to use the search function. Most newbies are fully aware that the search function exists, but rather than sift through search results, it is easier for them to start a thread and receive a tailored response. It's inconsiderate but it no doubt is a reality. Although, in all fairness, some newbies wouldn't know what to look for in the search results. A FAQ can be extremely helpful, but it more often will be used be non-newbies than newbies (for the same reason why newbies don't use the search). On other communities, a FAQ has not noticiably curtailed newbie déjà vu threads.

It's understandable why experts get frustrated with the endless stream of repeating newbie threads, but please realize that it is the responsibility of the expert to maintain the quality of the forum. There is a cyclical interaction in communities between neophytes and experts. If a community only consists of experts' discussions, many will lose interest quickly. On the other hand, if the community is inundated with reoccuring threads of the same topic, the result can be the same.

IMHO, the best thing to do is tolerate it and use your time wisely in which threads you choose to participate. Another strategy that works for some people (although never for me) is to save your responses in a document locally, so you can just copy and paste replies to generic threads--sadly, the newbie may never notice the difference (even if s/he actually sticks around). As for trolls, we all know we need to ignore them (even though sometimes the temptation to reply overcomes the best of us). At any rate, my suggest (from personal experience) is to not let it get to you--otherwise you will begin to lose interest in a hobby that we all enjoy.

Hydrogen Audio is fortunate because it is better moderated than other communities I have visited. At any rate, just my two cents (in US$ since the dollar is below the euro ) as a member here with only a dozen or so posts.

Improving communication

Reply #11 – 2003-02-02 02:25:37

about that lame-command-line post, the fact remains, there was no harsh response imho, it was basicaly a harsh post (some1 just took some silly-lame line out of the sky with no apparent reason, ok, maybe the reason was that he/she read the lame manual?), so the reply was on the same level imho. (imho without a response like that you would see mucho-mucho more posts like that - very long&dumb lame lines seems very popular)

Improving communication

Reply #12 – 2003-02-02 12:09:30

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about that lame-command-line post, the fact remains, there was no harsh response imho, ...

Agreed - to me the harshness level seemed quite low, too. Refering to what groovz said about CMC it just could be a good idea to add a "safety margin" of non-harshness, because you don't know the person you are talking to and what he/she perceives as harsh or not harsh.

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... it was basicaly a harsh post (some1 just took some silly-lame line out of the sky with no apparent reason, ok, maybe the reason was that he/she read the lame manual?), ...

That's not the way I would define "harsh". I'd rather say the post shows lack of knowledge, maybe lack of motivation/patience to search and read a lot before posting - on the other hand as you assumed: "maybe ... he/she read the lame manual". OK - I admit - you could consider it somehow unthankful and therefore harsh to come here and post without respecting the rules and expect people to spent time on answering.

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... so the reply was on the same level imho.

I can agree with that too. Furthermore rule#8 says that replys like this, as well as harsh replys are tolerated.

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(imho without a response like that you would see mucho-mucho more posts like that - very long&dumb lame lines seems very popular)

That's true for sure. I just ask myself (and anyone) if it's the only and best way to prevent posts like that.
Another point: I assume most people here want high quality lossy compression to be spread widely and get formats like mpc or ogg well known and accepted by more people, e.g. in order to get hardware support. For this reason it desirable to improve "newbee handling" here.
Don't get me wrong. I'm aware that the way it is now has many advantages. One important point that makes this place valuable IMO is that you can find so many knowledgeable people, e.g. developers here, willing to share their knowledge. The rules and the way they're handled are like a dike saving this value from being washed away by the tsunami of newbee ignorance (boredom).
Anyway, I hope there'll be found a way to improve "newbee handling" without sacrificing anything else.

Improving communication

Reply #13 – 2003-02-02 13:45:22

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about that lame-command-line post, the fact remains, there was no harsh response imho, it was basicaly a harsh post (some1 just took some silly-lame line out of the sky with no apparent reason, ok, maybe the reason was that he/she read the lame manual?), so the reply was on the same level imho. (imho without a response like that you would see mucho-mucho more posts like that - very long&dumb lame lines seems very popular)

About communication....

The nice thing i've seen is my post hasn't been read at all.

80% of the people responded looked only at the command line switch and started BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH that switch BLAH BLAH BLAH.

I wasn't asking about my command line switch [1], i was asking if LAME IS BETTER THAN AAC OR NOT.
This is the point that annoys me.
I didn't ask NOTHING ABOUT MY command line.

Perhaps you should take more care READING ALL the post before answering, instaed of just SEE ONLY WHAT YOU WANT TO SEE.

Thanks

Improving communication

Reply #14 – 2003-02-02 13:53:25

indeed you didn't aks for comments about it, but when you do such criminal thing be aware of comments!

Improving communication

Reply #15 – 2003-02-02 14:04:48

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indeed you didn't aks for comments about it, but when you do such criminal thing be aware of comments!

Next time i will just ask:

"Is it better A or B?"

Unfortunanely, posting this way leads to hundreds of posts asking "for what purposes?", "which bitrates?", and so on.

Or, alternatively, it can lead to total oblivion.

Bye

Improving communication

Reply #16 – 2003-02-02 14:17:52

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indeed you didn't aks for comments about it, but when you do such criminal thing be aware of comments!

<joke>rotfl, ok, part2 - lame vs aac... uhmm, what is there to say in the 1st place? (use mpc )
p.s. that reminds me, there was even a bigger sin in that post about 'mpc being unstable'.</joke>

Improving communication

Reply #17 – 2003-02-02 14:35:16

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p.s. that reminds me, there was even a bigger sin in that post about 'mpc being unstable'.</joke>

Wrong quote again.

Improving communication

Reply #18 – 2003-02-02 14:42:14

Atlantis, there is no answer to the question "is Lame better than AAC", it all depends on the quality settings you choose. You said you would choose for Lame a command line that no one here knows the quality, so no one was capable of answering. Answering "Lame and AAC have both their flaws" could have been misleading, because Lame might have been worse than AAC altogether with the command line you gave.

You also stated that you had two requirements : VBR, and maximum audio quality. Many people answered about MPC, because it is the best way to acheive your two requirements. They gave you good advices in order to help you acheive your goal, because, as your question suggested, we believed that you were not aware about MPC, or
Recommended Lame settings. We are here to explain, discuss, and help, though we are not paid for, and only do it because we like it.

Now, you've made perfectly clear that you're not interested in MPC, and since your thread (for the time being) is going in the right direction, we won't discuss the previous answers anymore, neither here, nor in the YAAQ : lame or AACenc 2.15 ? thread.

Here, let's focus on a newbie FAQ. I know it won't prevent newbies from asking FAQs, but I think it would be useful all the same, because we could link it instead of giving more or less incomplete answers, or just be harsh when we're tired.

Improving communication

Reply #19 – 2003-02-02 15:13:39

@Atlantis: you missed the <joke> quotes, anyway it wasnt my intention to bash anyone and personaly i really dont have any problems with your posts, i was trying to point out that the thread mentioned wasnt a 'newbie like' question at all but something completely different.

@pio2001: newbie solutions, faq and other contents:
i do think that sticky threads like implemented in mp3/mpc/ect forums are not bad at all, since they can be easily edited by all the mods/admins (kinda wiki style), only there should be more of them and some answers to the more basic questions as well + all the faq type threads (like: should i use c2 with eac or not?) and all those should be linked from the portal page. (that would also help with the date of release simply becouse there is no need that such contents is 'ideal' at the time when it is published)

Improving communication

Reply #20 – 2003-02-02 15:27:18

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@Atlantis: you missed the <joke> quotes, anyway it wasnt my intention to bash anyone and personaly i really dont have any problems with your posts, i was trying to point out that the thread mentioned wasnt a 'newbie like' question at all but something completely different.

Understood, i'm sorry

Improving communication

Reply #21 – 2003-02-02 15:39:58

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You said you would choose for Lame a command line that no one here knows the quality, so no one was capable of answering.

Well it seemed that many people were capable of answering with bad comments...
Anyway i don't care, discussion is over.

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Here, let's focus on a newbie FAQ. I know it won't prevent newbies from asking FAQs, but I think it would be useful all the same, because we could link it instead of giving more or less incomplete answers, or just be harsh when we're tired.

Sure a faq will be useful.
If i can help in any way, i'm here.

Improving communication

Reply #22 – 2003-02-02 15:47:46

You can encode some songs and some critical samples, ABX them and choose which codec is better for you. Also you have to think if you want compatibility, less processing power, tagging and smaller file size.

Edit: filesize -> smaller file size

Improving communication

Reply #23 – 2003-02-02 18:30:10

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A FAQ can be extremely helpful, but it more often will be used be non-newbies than newbies (for the same reason why newbies don't use the search). On other communities, a FAQ has not noticiably curtailed newbie déjà vu threads.

Yes, I suppose having a FAQ won't decrease the number of "newbie"-threads, but I think that the amount of discussion going on in those threads could be reduced. If you can link to the FAQ, the time/amount of posts it takes for a "newbie" to recieve an answer will be shorter/smaller so the forum isn't cluttered as much, and the overall frustration level would go down. If the FAQ doesn't provide an exhaustive answer then the discussion doesn't have to start at the basics but can quickly lead to further knowledge which in turn could be incorporated into the FAQ.

Imho a public WIKI (or registered users of this board only?) would be the ideal solution for a FAQ. There are many knowledgable and dedicated people here who could fill out the blanks in such a FAQ. WIKIs avoid the need to sift through many threads to find the answer to your question and if maintained by a knowledgeable crowd, like we have here, are very low on misinformation.

Improving communication

Reply #24 – 2003-02-04 15:05:46

I'm not 100% sure about what a WIKI is

... but from what you've explained, it looks like a very good idea !

I'm thinking about LAME right now. A FAQ could state, at the beginning: "The days of command-line tweaking are, like alchemy, mostly a thing of the past. Nowadays, there are Presets which are confirmed, again and again, to give the best bang for a given average bitrate".

There are some answers which can get a short, easy, objective answer... For example, there is no point to choose a good preset, then to force full stereo. But, for most of these attractive catches, for people to be convinced, one should indeed link to the relevant discussions, or better - to the ABX results of say, APS -ms vs APS.

I'd be glad to help for that FAQ.
Cheers

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