Why discussions generate into personal affronts...


Hello to all... I am a new-be in comparison to those who have thousands of inputs into forums/discussions.

I find it disappointing that in reading inputs, I have to waste time in members sniping at each other. Half the time it simply is a difference in opinion that breaks down into nasty idiocy,  and half the time I need some type of reference to past verbal battles fought about in other topics/forums. 

WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO IMHO? Many times spewing personal dogma against each other just confuses simple people like me who are just looking for guidance - not miracles. We all view another's opinion with reservation - nobody's got a doctorate on audiophile experience; if I was to listen to and obey the professionals, I would never had experimented with 12g solid core copper, vinyl-jacketed wire, twisted and used bare wire no connectors -WHICH I AM VERY HAPPY WITH ...

SO: SOMEBODY fill me in why knowledgeable people generate into nastiness in discussions...
insearchofprat
Pop quiz,

Q  What do they call the popsicle man in Arizona?
A  The Good Yuma man. 

I agree with the OP, that rudeness is a problem. I have been on Audiogon for over 20 years and personally, I don't feel it is getting worse.  This site is by no means the worst, some UK forums are positively incendiary and we are supposed to be exemplars of good manners.

 I think if you offer your opinions as opinions, not facts everyone should agree with, then you rarely get sniped at. I can only remember one instance, where I suggested I wasn't a Magico speaker fan, after several long auditions at shows. The gist of the response was that I had no right to offer an opinion unless I'd had a long audition in the home, which is plain stupid.

 So if you offer an opinion, expressed as an opinion, you don't abuse other users and stick to the thread, not hijack it, I don't think you should have or deserve, abuse.


 Anyway, who gives a c--- what ill mannered people think about you, life's too short to give a dam

It's the nature of subjective disagreements. They are by nature different and inaccurate because humans are different and inaccurate - and passionate about subjective beliefs that are important to them. The solution is to discover objective answers. There's no ownership of objective data. It just is what it is. It narrows the disagreements to methods of determining objectivity. However, there are not always ways to find objective answers because one of the variables in the subject is humans. That's why the stock market can never be conquered. You have to look for probabilities instead. But where the human is scattered all throughout the stock market, making it impossible to have great predictability, in audio the human is only at the beginning and end of the chain. All other components in between can be measured objectively. And since one beginning source can be used for comparison, the probability of what a human will hear can be predicted with much greater probability. As has been done at Harman.

So generally, the more subjective the forum, the more "human" it is.
One of the funniest happened on "Soundstage" 22 years ago. It was between Myles Astor and another insider.

It got to the point where Myles said:

"I can bench 400 lbs,......!"
To this day, I regret not printing the discussion.