Official complaint letter regarding the irrational actions done by the Sound Science moderator on Head-Fi.org
I sent the following complaint letter to the Head-Fi.org (via "contact us"). Hopefully, it could reach their management team there.
I am not sure if they care to reply.
The intention for this Open Complaint Letter is to make the general public to be aware of the fact that the information or "knowledge" they obtained from these so-called Audio Science or Sound Science forums are indeed questionable.
The general public should leverage their own critical thinking to filter what's correct and what's not instead of blindly accepting the information or "knowledge" as a fact. Here is an example.
Most of these questionable claims would be classified as Pseudo Science based on the following definition on Wikipedia
It is because these claims are incompatible with the scientific method (i.e. the claims are not 100% correct). These claims are not the same as Junk Science; these claims are considered as "CORRECT but not absolutely" in the mind of many Audio / Sound Science forum members.
It is related to the previous blog and my recent discussion experience in the "Sound Science" Forum on Head-Fi.org
=== Official Complaint Letter ===
I am writing to lodge a complaint / express my concern about the experience I had in the "Sound Science" forum on Head-Fi.org
It was downright ridiculous.
The visit this time exposed the deep issue in the Sound Science forum.
What happened?
When I joined the discussion about a week or two ago, I thought we were discussing the facts supporting "Hi-Res is useless" vs the facts supporting "Hi-Res is not useless". After a few rounds of discussions, I noticed that I was discussing with a bunch of users who believe in "Hi Res is useless" in a religious way, i.e. they just truely believe what they believe even objective evidences indicate their beliefs are questionable.
I attempted to show them more supporting facts that indicate their belief is questionable. Given the facts I brought to them is incompatible with their belief. I got more and more personal attacks.
In this situation, I would expect a neutral moderator would stop the personal attacks done by other members to me.
I am not very surprised to notice that the moderator is also hardcore believer on their side. What really surprised me is that he joined the discussion and started the bullying and personal attack on me. Is it something a neutral moderator should do?
Given my experience and background, I was able to handle the endless bullying and personal attacks done by them (the moderator included). I decided to continue to focus on discussing the facts.
The discussion on the thread were interesting, we discovered a lot of different facts that support different sides of the argument. To me, I learn more why other members believe in "Hi-Res is useless", meanwhile, I also show more facts to support "Hi-Res is not useless".
During our discussion (that last around two weeks), more and more objective facts are indicating that their hardcore beliefs are indeed very questionable. More and more hardcore believers joined the discussion and attempted to bully me with personal attacks in order to stop me from bringing them more incompatible facts to them as these facts really made them feel unease.
Why deleted the thread and remove all the old postings on the thread?
After about 2 weeks, I believe that the moderator has reached his threshold in handling incompatible facts (as I keep on giving them new facts to support the other side of their firm beliefs), he decided to delete the thread completely.
I think if my actions of bringing in incompatible facts to the thread caused him feel unease, he could just simply ask me to stop replying for the thread.
Why he has a pressing need to delete the thread and all the discussions there? What's in the thread is causing him unease? Why he is so afriad of someone else seeing the thread? Looks to me there is only one answer. I bet you know it too by now.
Could you imagine my exasperation and bewilderment? Many members were discussing the topic actively and bring thier supporting facts to support their viewpoint. I did learn a lot during the discussion process. I believe that other users share the same view too.
I believe other members and even guests who didn't actively join the discussion are learning a lot from the facts we preseneted in the thread no matter they argee "Hi-Res is useless" or not.
Something wrong in the Sound Science Forum?
With my background, I know what's Science and its limitations. I believe that a forum focusing on "Sound Science" is a platform for users to learn, share, exchange knowledge and limitations in Sound Science so that all the users can benefits from it.
However, with the current culture in the Sound Science forum (foster by its moderator), it is a place to distribute the beliefs of a bunch of hard core believers. Anyone who bring in incompatible facts to question their hard core beliefs would be considered as someones who are irrational, ignorant, or trouble makers.
In a nutshell, this experience was atrocious and disappointing. Had it not been for my good experience with other forums in Head-Fi, I would have not visited the "Sound Science" forum
Demand the resurrection of the deleted thread
Is the thread really that irritating to the Moderator (due to his own personal reasons) to a point that he has to delete it completely so that no other people can see it? What he wants to hide from it?
Did he do something wrong with the thread so that he wants to get rid of the evidences in the thread so that he would look good?
A lot of forum members did spend a lot of time and effort to contribute actively in order to share knowledge in Sound Science related to the topic of the thread.
It would be pretty bad the thread is completely removed just because the Moderator feel unease with the deleted thread for whatever personal reasons he has.
I hope you can review the deleted thread and see if you can bring the thread back to live so that all the people can learn from it.
Demand the review of the "Sound Science" Forum
I am not sure about your view about the position of "Sound Science" forum in Head-Fi.
If you truely believe that the mission of the "Sound Science" forum is for users to learn, share, and exchange CORRECT and ACCURATE knowledge (not the so-called "correct but not absolute" knowledge that is so popular in the existing "Sound Science" forum), I would suggest you to review the current setup of the "Sound Science" and the qualification of exisitng moderator of the "Sound Science".
If the "Sound Science" forum is setup for other purpose (e.g. to brainwash people into believeing whatever the Moderator believe), then I would suggest it should be renamed to something like "Snake Oil Forum" so people would not be mis-led into believeing they are indeed talking about real Sound Science.
I urge your web site management to review the situation. I hope a prompt action should be taken to rectify the situation.
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