Thoughts about these forums

I would like to make a few comments. I have been away from Audiogon for quite a while now and thank all of you who have so warmly welcomed me back.
My absence has been two fold. First my health has made it difficult to be involved on a daily basis. Secondly and far more importantly is a philosophical view of how we use this site.
Over the years a number of us “older” members have had the opportunity to share, grow and learn as audiophiles, as people who enjoy music, as people who share a passion for a hobby and in our communication abilities. I applaud all of us for how far we have come over these past six years, and the incredible knowledge base shared here at the best audio web site on the planet. I also must thank Arnie (founder of A’gon) for his passion and concern for making this work. We once had to shut this site down as the threads lost their direction and purpose, but Arnie stood up and asked twelve members to help rebuild this site with a stronger wiser vision. Many hours have been spent by a large number of people trying to make this the great site it is.
So… so my point. Please let us try to remember what we (some of us) are trying to achieve here at Audiogon. What is the purpose of these threads? For me it’s education and sharing of a passion with other audio people. For me personally I enjoy sharing the experiments in tweaking, this is what I have become known best for. My purpose is education and sharing of experience. I love having constructive conversations with knowledgeable informed and educated people who can push my thinking forward and expand my knowledge through other people’s experiences. I enjoy people who put the effort into learning, pushing the norm to a new level, always trying to improve on the systems and musical qualities our systems present. Constructive discussions with people who have credible experiences are great.
What I dislike about this forum and have always struggled with is the comments made flippantly by people who have no known foundation from which they speak. These people as not educating, they are not growing and they are not enjoyable. They simply live here, under rocks waiting for the opportunity to make comments detrimental to the discussion going on, or they are unhappy people who wish to drag down our enjoyment. Many of these trolls left when the site was shut down and the forums required monitoring, but it is not possible to eliminate them completely, nor would it make an interesting site without all views.
I guess what I’m asking is that those who have nothing constructive to offer, to please leave your keyboards alone. There are plenty of threads available where people are simply chatting and not actually intending to learn. But if there are threads that are exploring ideas with knowledgeable and educated experienced people, leave it alone. We do not need your flippant off color remarks. I hope those of us who want to share and learn can have the respect to be allowed that right. The other option, which I have resorted to is private emails. These are great, but input is limited and thus my opportunity to learn is limited, as is yours.
Do you understand? Please allow truly constructive threads to be just that, Constructive. I am back to try one more time to share my ideas and knowledge and to gleam more wisdom from so many old friends, I just thought I’d ask for the respect we deserve and ask the trolls to leave the educational; threads alone. There are so few truly constructive threads at any one time; we can not afford to lose the momentum of the truly good discussions. There are tons of threads where trolls and the ill informed can do there work.
Just my thoughts as I return to Audiogon, and begin to see the old behavior creep into the couple of places I’m talking right now.

Thanks for your respect
J.D.