Please welcome our new moderators

[LKB]

To the outgoing mods, thanks for keeping the ship in trim. 

For the new mods, l hope for a calm sea and a prosperous voyage. ( I'll try to not rock the boat... )

[brewski]

@ritter
Do we have to brace ourselves for a compulsory Boulez hour EVERY day for EVERY one...   



All the best to all four of you guys and thank you 

(Only on the off days, when there is no compulsory Xenakis hour.      )

Seriously, welcome @ritter, who adds much to a really good team.

-Bruce

[Papy Oli]

Xenakis hour.     

ok, I'll take Boulez...   

[brewski]

ok, I'll take Boulez...   

 

-Bruce

[Brahmsian]

ok, I'll take Boulez...   

Varèse? 

[Madiel]

To the outgoing mods, thanks for keeping the ship in trim. 

For the new mods, l hope for a calm sea and a prosperous voyage. ( I'll try to not rock the boat... )

A calm sea was considered a very, very bad thing.

[Brian]

(Only on the off days, when there is no compulsory Xenakis hour.      )

The good news is, everyone gets a free Cristobal Halffter album. Check your mailboxes next week!

[brewski]

The good news is, everyone gets a free Cristobal Halffter album. Check your mailboxes next week!

(Tapping fingers impatiently. )

-Bruce

[Spotted Horses]

So our brief period of U.S. moderator hegemony is over?

[Karl Henning]

ok, I'll take Boulez...   

(* chortle *)

[Brian]

Hi folks, two quick updates from the new mod group.

1. Adult Content
There has recently been a kerfuffle over the GMG Forum Guidelines. Since 2007 (or earlier), we have had the following rule:

"Adult Content: GMG caters to all cultures and age groups. If your post is not family-friendly or not work-safe, then it is not acceptable for posting on the forum."

This rule has never changed. It is very loosely enforced (for example, we do not censor adult language even though it is listed). However, it remains a rule.

There is some question of where the line is drawn, since different cultures have different mores and standards. To us, the line is a common-sense one based on the concept of "work-safe" (would you get in trouble if your boss saw it?) or "family-safe" (would you get in trouble for showing it to a child?). Perhaps because of questions of where the line is drawn, there have been mysteriously many, many, many more examples in the last 2 days than in the preceding 16 years, when the same rule was in effect.

While fine art is obviously OK and pornography is obviously not, this does include gray areas and judgment calls, including whose workplace or family "counts." But not that many judgment calls. Realistically our community does not include members from certain extreme autocracies that limit any such speech; but equally realistically our community includes teachers, students, and people whose mores differ from our own. 99% of the time common sense is sufficient.

We remind members that this is a forum centered around the discussion of classical music, in its many aspects, and that prolonged off-topic discussions concerning issues not related to music (and outside the Diner) can detract from, rather than add to, the forum's value and effectiveness. This is particularly the case when such discussions become reiterative/repetitive in areas that some members can perceive as sensitive. Again, we appeal to the common sense of all.

2. Moderators Editing Posts
We have seen some comments from people who think their posts were edited without any moderator taking credit/blame. In the new GMG forum software, the "Last edited" and "Reason for editing" fields moved from the bottom of a post to the top. So if your post is edited, look up, not down. This also makes it easier to PM the person responsible if you object.

[Florestan]

would you get in trouble if your boss saw it?

It all depends on the boss, really. 

would you get in trouble for showing it to a child?

As a recent incident in Florida testifies, you can get in trouble for showing Michelangelo's David to a child. 

fine art is obviously OK and pornography is obviously not

As far as I recall, since 2007 when I joined there has never been any pornography posted on GMG, in any of the threads.
 

there have been mysteriously many, many, many more examples in the last 2 days than in the preceding 16 years

This is an exaggeration. In the last 2 days there has been the grand total of 2 (two) controversial pictures, one of which was actually a Warner Classics cover art so technically speaking there has been only 1 (one) such picture.

[prémont]

Perhaps because of questions of where the line is drawn, there have been mysteriously many, many, many more examples in the last 2 days than in the preceding 16 years, when the same rule was in effect.

I have only seen two rather harmless pictures. But maybe there have been more which were deleted before I saw them?

What we have had during the last days is a relatively sober and controlled discussion of this topic. I suppose this is allowed within Rob's rules. Compare eg. the hostile discussions in the "Europe on war" thread, which were tolerated for a very long time.

[Harry]

I have only seen two rather harmless pictures. But maybe there have been more which were deleted before I saw them?

What we have had during the last days is a relatively sober and controlled discussion of this topic. I suppose this is allowed within Rob's rules. Compare eg. the hostile discussions in the "Europe on war" thread, which were tolerated for a very long time.

I totally agree with this.

[Florestan]

This is a classical music forum and that's all it should be discussed here

I have two comments on this.

1. As far as discussing classical music is concerned, you still have a long way to go, given that 99% of your posts consist of pictures only.

2. Literature, fine arts, philosophy and science are not classical music. Should they too be excluded from GMG?

[Brian]

As a recent incident in Florida testifies, you can get in trouble for showing Michelangelo's David to a child. 

Thankfully, none of us is a representative of the Florida government. 

As far as I recall, since 2007 when I joined there has never been any pornography posted on GMG, in any of the threads.

That was just giving an example. (Also, we have deleted some spam bots that posted graphic photos.)

I have only seen two rather harmless pictures. But maybe there have been more which were deleted before I saw them?

What we have had during the last days is a relatively sober and controlled discussion of this topic. I suppose this is allowed within Rob's rules. Compare eg. the hostile discussions in the "Europe on war" thread, which were tolerated for a very long time.

I think some were deleted that even I did not see. (I was busy at work.) Yes, the discussion has been mature, smart, and mostly tolerant of others' perspectives.

1. As far as discussing classical music is concerned, you still have a long way to go, given that 99% of your posts consist of pictures only.

2. Literature, fine arts, philosophy and science are not classical music. Should they too be excluded from GMG?

The Diner is not going anywhere. But also, there is no need to get personal or rude, please. 

[Karl Henning]

I have two comments on this.

1. As far as discussing classical music is concerned, you still have a long way to go, given that 99% of your posts consist of pictures only.

Ad hominem

2. Literature, fine arts, philosophy and science are not classical music. Should they too be excluded from GMG?

Irrelevant.

As with the post by @absolutelybaching you are so concentrated on retorts, that you are missing (or deliberately evading) the res.

[Papy Oli]

I remember that, on one of the past occurrence of such steamy postings not so many years back, Rob / @Dungeon Master had mentioned that such risqué postings (at best) could potentially mean a downgrade or even withdrawal of his AMZ links if they then deemed that GMG was not a "clean" enough website, hence putting at risk one the funding sources of this site.

Surely that's incentive enough for us all, is it not?

It is not a case of "all naughty covers nowadays anyway", "what about that other incendiary thread" or "it's ok, we are all adults here anyway" or "we all know what bodies look like, what's the issue..." or "my country is more liberal than yours", yadda yadda.

It is just that it is simply in everyone's interest into GMG not to do so, here.

here.

(that's without even going into the welcome-ability of the forum for new members!!)

That's not damn complicated, is it ?

There are tons of other places available if you feel so inclined to indulge in such discussions and attractions.  Do it there.

If you can't pack it in and keep it clean here, i.e. actually behaving like the adults we all supposedly are, for the sake of this forum, don't come here crying if/when the existence of this forum gets affected as a consequence.

Jesus wept.

/Rant over

[prémont]

I remember that, on one of the past occurrence of such steamy postings not so many years back, Rob / @Dungeon Master had mentioned that such risqué postings (at best) could potentially mean a downgrade or even withdrawal of his AMZ links if they then deemed that GMG was not a "clean" enough website, hence putting at risk one the funding sources of this site.

Surely that's incentive enough for us all, is it not?

Good information and conclusion.

[Madiel]

1. Adult Content
There has recently been a kerfuffle over the GMG Forum Guidelines. Since 2007 (or earlier), we have had the following rule:

"Adult Content: GMG caters to all cultures and age groups. If your post is not family-friendly or not work-safe, then it is not acceptable for posting on the forum."

This rule has never changed. It is very loosely enforced (for example, we do not censor adult language even though it is listed). However, it remains a rule.

There is some question of where the line is drawn, since different cultures have different mores and standards. To us, the line is a common-sense one based on the concept of "work-safe" (would you get in trouble if your boss saw it?) or "family-safe" (would you get in trouble for showing it to a child?). Perhaps because of questions of where the line is drawn, there have been mysteriously many, many, many more examples in the last 2 days than in the preceding 16 years, when the same rule was in effect.

While fine art is obviously OK and pornography is obviously not, this does include gray areas and judgment calls, including whose workplace or family "counts." But not that many judgment calls. Realistically our community does not include members from certain extreme autocracies that limit any such speech; but equally realistically our community includes teachers, students, and people whose mores differ from our own. 99% of the time common sense is sufficient.

We remind members that this is a forum centered around the discussion of classical music, in its many aspects, and that prolonged off-topic discussions concerning issues not related to music (and outside the Diner) can detract from, rather than add to, the forum's value and effectiveness. This is particularly the case when such discussions become reiterative/repetitive in areas that some members can perceive as sensitive. Again, we appeal to the common sense of all.

While I can support you on the principles of this, I remain of the view that in the implementation of this there was at least one significant blunder [I can't really speak about another deletion of something I never saw]. Deletion of a classical album cover (IIRC it was a Lorin Maazel album**) from a mainstream label while declaring the album cover is NSFW throws into question the very ability to discuss classical music that is supposedly the thing we should be focusing on.

In saying that I fully recognise that the action was prompted in large part by the way the cover was being talked about - a poster practically begged a moderator to look at the image in a heightened state of anxiety. But as I've said several times now, that doesn't mean the cover is the problem. The tone of conversation is the problem. The same as the tone of conversation has been the problem every time the cover of a classical album with a woman on it has become the subject of an extended back and forth about the woman.

In which case the solution is to tell the relevant posters to knock it off. Not to hide the fact that a classical music label (often a very large one) released an album with an image on it. Moderators can certainly police the tone of conversation here, but when it looks like an attempt to police the behaviour of Warner or Decca or Deutsche Grammophon, that really is not a good look.

And it seems to me that we've now lost at least one member over it, and I don't think that's because of the blunder, it's because there's really been no sign at all of acknowledging that it was or even might have been a blunder. The other member who threatened to leave over the kind of banter that was going on has explicitly stated that it wasn't the image that was the problem, it was the banter, essentially making the same point that I'm making... and still what we're being left with reads like a defence of the deletion of the image.

I similarly got no acknowledgement that something I said recently was not interpreted in the way that I intended and that there had been an overreaction to it. Sure, the posting restriction I was briefly placed under was withdrawn, but did anyone say "whoops"? No. I don't expect perfection from anybody in judgment calls, but acknowledging the lack of perfection would go a heck of a long way towards members not feeling like there is a change of policy happening at the moment.

**EDIT: In the course of trying to verify this through discogs I instead found a different album, with a painting of a woman whose clothing is not complete. The album would have been released around 1970. It is not the one that was deleted on the forum. It is arguably both more stylised than the cover that was deleted and also has more actual exposure of flesh. I'm not going to specify it because whether people think it's "family friendly" or "work safe" isn't the point. The point is that it's the cover of a classical album, publicly released, and that the very idea that it could be a problem to post it here in a discussion about classical listening or about the particular composer or about the performers or the genre is a real concern. So long as the discussion is actually about those things.