A Barking Dog

“The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother’s keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon you.”

As a condition of my parole, I’m required to watch Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs at least once a month each. Usually more. I’m an over achiever on this one. For those that have lives and aren’t up on this bit of old pop culture, it’s what hitman Jules Winfield, aka “Pitt” says to his victims prior to killing them. Like Jules, I too experienced a “moment of clarity” the last time I heard him give the now cliched speech. It got me thinking about how I moderated the LAB and participated in the community. Let’s forget for a second that the quote is really Tarantino speak, a combination of biblical passages with a health dose of artistic license. I’m VERY agnostic, perhaps even bordering on being a pagan. I’m certain I’m a hedonist. I’ve never read the Bible much, even growning up and being raised by a very religious grandmother early in life. I prefer to get my stories of sex, violence and vengence from the Internet, movies or music.

The quote from the script reminded me of how I have dealt with, or not dealt with my moderation of the LAB and the other LABsters over the years. In the early days of moderation, I was the tyranny of evil men. Or at least thought myself to be. In reality, I was simply rude and immature about some of the ways I forced my vision on the masses. As I did it more and mellowed, I changed my approach and stopped participating pretty much in all audio related threads, only checking in to clean up a fight or lay down the law. There were plenty of others and a strong, respected moderator and it wasn’t required that I participate on a daily basis.

When it became apparent that I wouldn’t have a seat at the table with the new owners of the site, I started to think about things. I was just picking up a career that had been on hiatus for a few years. I thought I could still contribute to the community, regardless of my affiliation or feelings toward the revamped operation. I really missed and enjoyed to “company” of the Old Skool LABsters and sharing information and ideas with them. I was glad to be back in the biz and in the company of many that I’ve come to know from years on the LAB. Over the years some may have considered me opinionated and arrogant, perhaps conceited, but I felt I still had a great deal to offer the community and enjoy sharing company and knowledge with my peers in the community. That got me to thinkin’…

Instead of participating in the community as a tyrannt, it would be more constructive if I were the shepherd. I had a great deal I could share, and others knew specific subjects much better than I and with any luck they would share that knowledge and experience with me. That’s what I think this kind of community should be. Over the last couple of weeks in response to some posts that were off the scale of being galactically stupid, one little voice in my head kept saying “be the shepherd, be the shepherd”. Another voice begged me to flame the poster so hard it would know them off the Internet, or at least make them stop posting on the forum. When someone serves up a softball like some of these posts it’s difficult not to take a swing and knock them out of the park. Some of these folks are begging for it. Discreation is the better part of valor, or so I’ve been told and I’m trying real hard not to nuke them all the way back to the AOL chat room from which they came. That is not to disparage AOL chat rooms, I’ve met plenty of interesting folks in them. Many of them though, have a difficult time with the rough and tumble of the wide open Internet. Particularly in places like the LAB where they are a fish out of water and never bother to read the rules or follow them. I suppose many feel it easier to ask for forgiveness, instead of permission.

As part of this “moment of clarity”, I also put up a trial balloon in the form of a forum with all these features people have been saying they want for a pro audio community. As stated numerous times before, it’s about people, not software but this software is chock full of features, powerful and easy to use and administer. You can see for yourself at http://www.roaddog.com/forum/ .

That’s not to say I’m getting back into the forum biz. If the situation presents itself where sound reinforcement professionals feel they need a different avenue to address their needs, I’m willing to step up to the plate. all fo the resources are in place and ready for deployment. I don’t want it to be about me only and would want and need the support of others, making it a true community project. As part of this, we would need broadbase support from working professionals in the biz. I’m not interested in hosting a general audio forum, but a rather narrow professional community, allowing those new to audio or that don’t do audio full time to particpate, though within limits. It wouldn’t be a large community, only a several thousand. Any larger than that and the number of participants exceed the number of those in the segement of the biz the community is targeting. We are talking quality, not quantity.

I’ve gotten a ton of email since I returned to touring and posting at the LAB. Most of it very positive and supportive. Some if it not, but that’s OK too. A couple of folks have suggested that I’m merely a disgruntled former employee, with an axe to grind wanting to take down the LAB and PSW in general. I started the LAB with a vision and I don’t think that it currently is operating at those standards or within the scope of what I intended. I think many of the things PSW is doing now with respect to content and business development are things that we never matched. They are better at selling ads, they are better at creating feature content. I don’t think they understand what being a community means or the specific issues of this particular community.

I liken the situation to raising a child. You bring them up, do your best and love them like nothing else. When it comes time for them to leave the nest, you still can’t help loving them and wanting to help, but as young adults they may not want your help. They may do things you don’t like, but you still love them and want to help them. They may date or even marry people you don’t care for, but you still love them even though you think they are making mistakes.

The last thing I want to do is segment the community by putting up another community as some show of penis factor. I’m not in the forum building business for the money anymore. I’m in the mixing audio live business for the money. Community building for me know is a social endevor and a way for me to give back to the community. If I need to answer the call, it’s not a problem.

‘Til next time…

Dave

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 19th, 2003 at 12:18 pm and is filed under Barking Dog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.