LessLoss DFPC Signature

Drubin wrote:

LessLoss has a history of "paying" for good reviews

Untrue.

This same question has already been addressed on April 27th, 2008 right here on the Audiogon forums.

You see, paying for good reviews would be a backward business policy. Sooner or later the practice would be found out, debunked, and this would result in a detrimental blow to the initiator's sleazy plans. He would be building a fragile house out of cards instead of a solid one built out of bricks.

So, when wind like yours blows, I feel protected due to the practice of encouraging the freedom to share honest impressions but never motivating the content thereof, except through the sole means of the work which has gone into the product.

What, then, is a comment, if it is not based on the freedom of the author? A worthless bunch of pixels, wasting everyone's time.

Sincerely,
Louis Motek

I would like to delve a little bit deeper into this problem here. In fact, I believe that all forums which are created in order to hide the identity of the contributor are prone to fail. It is not good to make-believe that the world desires a masquerade at all times. That is why features such as "My System" are excellent. However, I still feel it would be very nice to demand all participants to show their faces in the form of a little picture of themselves. It would cut down very much on the "filler" and keep people a little bit more honest. Why? Because you are there if your face is there.

You know that strange feeling you get when you shake somebody's hand for the first time and they never look you in the eye. You might be forgiving at first but you know you noticed it and initial feelings are important.

Why, for example, a user name? Why not our name? What have we to hide behind user names? I never understood that. And then people wonder about the Signal/Noise ratios on all the forums. I had a cigar with Arnie once and we got to talking about Audiogon. Turns out they censor about 80% of everything that is uploaded here, to keep it a tidy and cultural place. But it would seem to me that some of that work could be avoided by keeping the people who don't want to show their names and/or faces on the screen away.

Just a thought.
Louis Motek

Louis, whereas I'm sympathetic to what you are saying, you must also consider that serious mischief has been perpetrated with other people's names and photographs that were published on the internet. Unscrupulous individuals joyriding on other people's identities on a worldwide scale is something I like to avoid being a victim of. We're not talking about the community of Audiogoners but preying eyes that watch every forum on the web for reasons we don't really want to kow. Does that sound exaggerated? (Sorry, I know I'm wandering off the original topic.)
Karel

Karelfd,

Your thought sounds like it is bending towards a conspiracy theory to me. I don't know exactly what you are alluding to.

When one posts on a world-wide forum, one is first and foremost placing content into the mind of anyone who bothers to read it. Otherwise one uses one's own private diary.

True, it has been known throughout the ages that many a writer has used pseudonyms to avoid witch-hunters and the like, as there have been very strong feelings attached to the power and control of the printed word in the past. But in today's world of ubiquitous YouTube clips and self-published blogs, what could be better than a community of real people without the masks?

If by "preying eyes that watch every forum on the web for reasons we don't really want to know" you mean Big Brother, then I think it is indeed exaggerated and out of proportion.

Here in Lithuania I even know people who avoid certain topics by phone (such as even only tax avoidance -- not evasion, mind you) because they are afraid that the phones might be tapped. But really it is ludicrous. Everyone in any business knows that you only have to pay the taxes that you have to pay -- not the ones you can legally avoid. There was even a famous Supreme Court ruling in the USA which stated this explicitly in the verdict (sorry, I don't remember the exact name of the case or judge).

And so when we write on forums, do we imagine that we are more free to write honestly when our names and faces are unexposed? I think rather that we are more inclined to write things we would normally be embarrassed to say in person. And that is the pity I here address, for, to me, it seems, it has led to a steady but sure degradation of the quality of content of the communication.

An analogy is that there used to be duals in battle. Now there is remote controlled weaponry.

There used to be an expressed gentleman's behavior towards women when the man would open the heavy door and let the woman pass first. Now we have automated revolving doors or infrared sensors and sliding automated mechanisms.

We have a handy "delete" key on our keyboards. We don't need to plan the sentences and flow of thought as well.

It seems that at every step we make an obvious advance in pragmatic accomplishment but at the same time risk losing an even more subtle underlying value in the process. And because it is always more subtle, it gets thrown away with the bath water, without too much notice.

Louis Motek

Sorry Louis, that is not what I was alluding to. I am not referring to the contents we write ourselves and whether we want to hide those from "The Authorities" or "Agencies" or whether we think we can be offensive and disrespectful when using a moniker.

I am talking about unauthorized use and abuse of names and faces by third parties. I have seen my own system published and discussed on a Greek website, obviously taken without permission from Audiogon. What could have been easier than to contact me through the mail-link on the 'Gon and ask me? The person choose not to do that. I know that is an (almost) ridiculously harmless example, but that is were it starts. I have seen another US based 'Goner's system published by a dealer in the Netherlands who advertised a show he was organizing with the speakers on that picture. I contacted the owner of the system, he wasn't aware of it, had never been asked. I mean, some people take contents, any contents, from the internet and use them (fake their own identity, publish under other real names, order goods in other names meant not to be paid, manipulate photographs and play dire pranks with them, build entire data-bases to be sold for marketing or other purposes, etc.), not always as harmless as my examples. But enough of that, I repeat I understand your thinking and am sympathetic to it. Yet, my photograph for one thing will not be on the internet, period.