My $0.02 is that I really hate to see this wonderful group splintered.
This is a huge disappointment to me too. I wish the idea had been
floated to the group for comment before creation of the new group became
a fait accompli under the direction of our moderator. Such a discussion
might have yielded a different approach.
A hypothetical scenario for the new group: Somebody posts a beautiful
pristine recording. Somebody else is curious about the gear they used to
get the recording. Dare they ask the question? How much detail can they
ask for? Can the respondent elaborate on his/her choices of gear in that
particular situation? Will comparisons be appropriate? If the recording
is really nice should it be cross posted to the old group or are those
folks just out of luck. If the gear question is interesting, should it
be just left to die in the new group or shared?
I am sure all of this will work itself out but . . . .
Jim Lee
--
Jim Lee - Bamboo Turtle Studio
http://www.bambooturtle.com
Home of the Rock Nest Monster
http://www.bambooturtle.us/Rock_Nest_Monster.html
Greg Simmons wrote:
> My intention is not to offend or ridicule, although the following
> might be interpreted that way...
>
> A) I find it highly disappointing to see information that ought to be
> pooled together as a huge and wonderful resource being split into
> two, purely because some subscribers can't filter it. I get it in
> digest form (as some others do) and find it very easy to scroll or
> otherwise navigate through. There's a list of topics at the top, and
> clicking on any one of those will automatically scroll down to that
> message in the digest. If I want to reply to a message, I simply
> click on the message's title and it takes me to Yahoo Groups. And at
> the end of each message is a 'return to top' line to get me back to
> the contents list at the top. This is far preferable to me than
> receiving invidual messages, many of which I'm not interested in *at
> this point in time* (perhaps later though), and/or logging into Yahoo
> Groups to monitor things - both of which require way too much
> clickety click and navigating around.
>
> I also use Gmail, which has Google's excellent searching
> capabilities, so I have no need to archive or otherwise organise the
> digests at all - they're all stored in my InBox on Gmail's servers
> (of which I'm currently using 3513MB (51%) of my ever-growing 6770MB
> storage capacity). If I want to find a message about recording birds
> on the Tibetan plateau, I simply put in the keywords and tell it to
> search my InBox. Up they come, one after another, in a single list. I
> can't imagine anything easier than digest form messages received in
> Gmail, and I can get that information from any computer on-line,
> anywhere in the world.
>
> B) It's a pity that those who have complained about excessive gear
> talk are motivated enough to complain about it, but not motivated
> enough to redress the situation in a pro-active manner. Rather than
> sitting waiting for someone to ask how to record the unicorn, a
> recognised expert in unicorn recording (c'mon, you know who you are!)
> who felt there was too excessive gear talk could've done a great
> service by initiating a thread titled "How I record unicorns" -
> focusing on their fieldcraft, what worked and what didn't, and
> providing mp3 excerpts of their successes and failures.
>
> Any list ultimately reflects the interests of its subscribers, and it
> is up to the subscribers to steer it where they want by asking
> questions and/or initiating topics to volunteer information. The
> excessive gear talk 'problem' we have here is due to a lot of
> questions being asked about equipment, but not much initiating of
> topics about fieldcraft.
>
> C) Some figures mentioned here lately suggest that there are nearly
> 1500 subscribers to the list, and, to quote: "We have had over 80 new
> subscribers to the new group and 9/10's of them added that it was
> good to get away from excessive gear talk!"
>
> Firstly, 9/10 of "over 80 new subscribers" is somewhere over 72
> people, out of almost 1500 subscribers. That represents about 5% or
> so of the total people here. A significant majority? For about the
> same effort required to sign up to the new group, they could've got
> filters happening, or chosen to get the list sent in digest form, or
> asked someone else to show them how to do it. Instead, we now have
> two groups with the aim of isolating fieldcraft from gear talk, when
> the two ultimately go hand in hand because you can't have one without
> the other.
>
> Secondly, surely the new group is way too young to be making such
> statements about how good it is to get away from excessive gear talk.
> I'll wager that many conversations about fieldcraft will ultimately
> lead to someone asking "wow, what a great recording, what microphone
> (s) did you use and why?", or "wow, that recording is so quiet, what
> preamps did you use and why?" - both of which always lead to
> discussions of technology. What happens then? Does someone break in
> mid-thread and say, "Oi, blasphemers, that's not allowed here, take
> it to the old list"? In 12 months time are we going to see a new
> message saying that the old and new lists are being merged together
> because they're both populated by the same people discussing the same
> things, and some people are finding it hard to keep track of
> conversations that started on the new list but had to move to the old
> list due to excessive gear talk (or vice versa).
>
> D)Technology has changed, recording gear is becoming more affordable
> and amazingly portable, and we have a greater global appreciation of
> the natural environment. As a result of these factors, there are more
> and more people wanting to make nature recordings. Surely this is a
> good thing. Unlike a decade ago, where there wasn't as much
> affordable portable technology to choose from, there is now a
> bewildering range of products. People want to make the right choices
> before they spend their money. Many of them are driven by passion,
> but don't have a technical background so they come here asking for
> help. Discussions of fieldcraft are absolutely fantastic and
> priceless, but without recording equipment they are meaningless -
> there's no point knowing where to put the microphone if you don't
> have one! So it is only natural for people to ask about the gear they
> need (tech talk), before they start discussing how to use it
> (fieldcraft). One leads to another, and it begins with having the
> right gear. As many of the newcomers take advice from here and buy
> their own gear and start making recordings, they'll start asking
> about fieldcraft... And then where do they go?
>
> Apologies in advance if I've put any noses out of joint. I'll be
> joining up to the new group anyway, because I don't want to miss a
> single thing here. Also, with Gmail and digest messages, it will
> probably make no difference except double the amount of incoming
> messages.
>
> Bother...
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> "While a picture is worth a thousand words, a
> sound is worth a thousand pictures." R. Murray Schafer via Bernie Krause
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
--
Jim Lee - Bamboo Turtle Studio
http://www.bambooturtle.com
Home of the Rock Nest Monster
http://www.bambooturtle.us/Rock_Nest_Monster.html
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