Official Luthiers Forum!

This could be seen as unappreciative for my time here, so I've decided to
delete it.     James Orr39078.9725462963

Like Ron, I was also happy to be part of this forum. For my own sake, I
need to participate where I won't feel the need to reduce myself as a
person in order to participate. I believe the people here are very good
people.    

Here's a example of why we should be happy with what we've built here. I was on MIMF last night following a thread on tap tuning. One of the members asked if there were sources where one could learn about tapping and what it means. I posted what I thought was an informative suggestion that helped me...it was a suggestion to watch the John Mayes' DVD's on "Voicing". Literally, within minutes my post was deleted!

It was replaced by the following..."I have deleted the previous message as that vendor is banned here for spamming the MIMForum." This is a sad and sorry way to promote the free exchange of ideas. I guess that's why I choose to spend most of my time here.

_________________
JJ
Napa, CA
http://www.DonohueGuitars.com

[QUOTE=JJ Donohue] Here's a example of why we should be happy with what we've built here. I was on MIMF last night following a thread on tap tuning. One of the members asked if there were sources where one could learn about tapping and what it means. I posted what I thought was an informative suggestion that helped me...it was a suggestion to watch the John Mayes' DVD's on "Voicing". Literally, within minutes my post was deleted!

It was replaced by the following..."I have deleted the previous message as that vendor is banned here for spamming the MIMForum." This is a sad and sorry way to promote the free exchange of ideas. I guess that's why I choose to spend most of my time here.

[/QUOTE]

Yup, there seems to be only two forums, this one and the one with no "s" where you can say pretty much what you want and nobody will mess with it.

At least I think you can do that here

Grant

I understand the need for both encouragement and criticism as it is needed in every aspect of life. Online forums can help to provide both for people who do not have a way to reach out to other knowledgeable people with more experience.

The delicate balancing act for any type of forum is to make sure that the critique does not spin out of control and turn into hurt feelings. Lance and Brock have done a masterful job of creating this environment that is both commercial and non-commercial, encouraging and critical, as well as an overall minimal rules of conduct. That is part of what makes OLF unique among forums.

Small features such as the ability to post private messages to each other are a two edged sword...I know that Lance and Brock had to decide whether to implement it, knowing that it has the potential for misuse or misunderstanding.

Even here where we are all basically friendly there have been people who have gotten their feelings hurt and have chose to leave but because of how these things have been handled it has not caused a degradation of all of the things that we like about OLF.

One of the things that I like about OLF is that people can that are just getting started building can get valuable advise and encouragement. More experienced builders such as Frank Ford, Alan Carruth, Rick Turner and others that know far more than most of us will ever know about building offer their advise even though they have no need to post questions.

I like the fact that no matter where you are at in your maturity as a builder that there is someone that can offer help. Over the time that OLF has been up and running I have seen a number of people who first lurked while thinking about building, then register so they could ask the questions they needed to get started and literally over a period of weeks and months have blossomed into guitar builders.

As far as critique is concerned, one way to get more feedback that is critical instead of just encouraging is to ask for it in any post in which you are looking for peoples criticla opinions and not just a "looks great" comment (which we all like hearing anyway). Part of asking for a critical view of an instrument has to be the willingness to accept feedback in the spirit it was intended regardless of whether the feedback was positive or negative about the instrument in question.

If you look over past topics you will see that there have been a number of incidents where the feedback has offered solid critiques of designs of rosettes, inlays, jigs and other things...it is just that we as a community have tended to be more about comraderie than criticism.