Vance Wood at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > Trouble is-----a lot of them drop out or go underground because the group > that should be supporting them and encouraging them is by far and away as > friendly as a pack of junk yard dogs. As a whole I have never been exposed > to a group, boasting interest passionately in a particular endeavor, that is > more driven by ego, pride, condescension, duplicity and judgementalism. > Before you get mad at me read through the posts that have flooded email > servers world wide over the last week or so and ask yourself: If you were > new to the Lute would you feel safe and confident in posting a question to > this bunch of brigands?
I'm not mad at you, but I'm not impressed by your generalized characterizations. I've never heard of anyone quitting the lute because of a flame war on the lute net, and I'm sure the number of persons who have done so is insignificant: a few hundred thousand at most. I'm sure I could think of a few who've quit the lute net in disgust--usually disgust with the same person's posts on the same subject-- but on the whole, the tone around here is remarkably civilized, helpful and informative, compared to a lot of cyberspace. Read the posts in rec.music.classical for today, 12/6/03, and you'll get a feel for what the cyber-slums are like: personal invective, gratuitous anti-Semitism and homophobia, and dozens of posts simply tallying other posts posted by "antagonists." You learn to be selective in a neighborhood like that or you drown in the sewage. On the lute net, even a newbie can figure out that flame wars typically involve a few posters, and you can sidestep it if you want to. It doesn't take long to figure out who baits whom, who has a deep-seated need to always get the last word, and who substitutes personal attacks for substance. And the community is a bit more supporting than it appears. Some of us make it a point to privately reassure a newbie who runs into an attack dog early on that it's not something to take personally.
