Geoffrey Riggs wrote:
La Donna Mobile wrote:
www.Handelmania.com wrote:
You can name all the
people you want.......This place is KNOWN for flaming..and it is
destined to fail because of it..CH
Because Usenet's like that. Because most internet users haven't the
foggiest how to Google?
You know, there are forums on the internet that have nothing to do with
opera, where people also flame and fall out, and most people who
inhabit any sort of newsgroup or forum or bulletin board or whatever,
work out whether there is sufficient useful stuff to make it worthwhile
ignoring, wading through or responding to the rubbish. Heck, there are
even minor flamewars on our bulletin board at work, where the Editor
always has the final say, mindful that it isn't a public free-for-all
but part of the corporate identity.
I think the problem that a few of us, like myself, with long-time
experience on r.m.o. have is that, way back, we simply did not know just
how lucky we were to have found a place that was as generous and
convivial as this place was in the mid-'90s. We were spoiled, and so
what's overtaken this place since has been a nasty shock for those of us
without the additional Usenet experience that would have prepared us for
what has happened here. This place was truly a haven at one time.
Speaking for myself, I found this place ca. '97 or so to be occasionally
scrappy, yes, occasionally bull-headed, yes, but ultimately, there was
more curiosity at that time in finding out what made opposing viewpoints
tick than in putting each other down. We were even interested in each
others' experiences and eager to learn more. It wasn't Paradise.
Nothing is Paradise. But it was usually inviting and welcoming.
Those who might look askance at this assessment today as essentially
"rose-colored" are (frankly) ignorant of the plethora of truly
high-powered expertise -- critics, directors, performers -- who once
wrote in here day in, day out. It really was a readership with many who
were avid for discovery, above all, and with many others eager to share
it, even if one was a big wheel -- and I'm including nationally
recognized critics, Quiz panelists, etc.
Now, Donna Mobile is right when she says that flamewars, etc., of the
intensity we see here today are generally encountered everywhere and
thus r.m.o. today is no exception. The thing is -- and a day or so
spent in Google's user-unfriendly archives can confirm this -- r.m.o. in
the '90s _was_ once an exception. If an Emma Albani or whoever did act
up, that was the exception around here, and we coped with it, by and
large. Today, though, the Albanis versus the Kens are much more evenly
balanced, unfortunately, and oldtimers like myself are still in recovery
from the shock of that, to put it bluntly. What we have here today is
the norm mostly everywhere else on the Net as well, yes. What we had
here in the '90s, though, wasn't -- but little did those naive posters
like myself know it.
It's all very well for newcomers who know no other r.m.o. to say "Get
over it" or "Get a life". And clearly, the old adage that "childhood
must end" could be used tellingly in a way. But for those who were here
from the beginning, it seems to us instead as if it's childhood that
we've gone back to here!
Those who are relative newcomers, like Donna Mobile, might ponder this:
Imagine that there is some ongoing coffee klatch(sp.?) that you have
returned to for many, many years, and that you have formed many
attachments there and that you have always looked forward to seeing the
gang regularly and hearing what this one or that one has to say on each
other's adventures since the last get-together. And then imagine that
the klatch has been infiltrated by just a few, and then by a few more,
members of some street gang like the Bloods, or whoever. At first, when
it was just a matter of one or two, you might have figured they might be
there because they knew someone who had been with your Klatch for a long
time. They're there out of friendship with one individual, in other
words, and so they'll eventually settle in, no problem.
But when more of them arrive and start acting up, then some of your
oldest friends, many of whom you've formed very close attachments with,
start disappearing, either out of terror, bewilderment or disgust, and
you have no way of continuing the conversations with them that you used
to have. (They may even have disappeared.) Eventually, there are no
friends left at all.
Actually, quite a few of the so-called old-timers here started young,
and (almost) the only opera friends they had at the time, since they
were still making their way in life, were right here on this board.
Really! Then they'd meet in person at an opera, perhaps. And so it
"go'd". That's the kind of nurturing place this board once was. Today,
one could apply a whole lot of adjectives to this forum, but "nurturing"
would _not_ be one of them.
Yes, one can repeat as often as one likes "That's life. We just move
on." But when that attitude that either implicitly or explicitly gives
off that message is also coupled with a pig-headed ignorance that tries
to assert that r.m.o. could never possibly be anything different -- when
it emphatically _was_ once -- and that those who assert otherwise are
merely deluded and stooooooooopid, that's when a lot of us feel like
banging our heads against the wall, frankly. We. Know. Otherwise. But
only the very rare visit to Google by some enterprising newcomer not
choking on his own arrogance will ever really validate that. The other
thing that amazes us is the thoughtlessness with which some newcomers
deliberately scoff at the feelings of those who honestly feel that a
part of their own lives has indeed been ripped from them by the change
overtaking r.m.o.
If r.m.o. was just another newsgroup, then so what? But if r.m.o. has
once served as one's virtual introduction to the opera community (and in
many cases, ten years ago, it did), then it becomes something entirely
different. I'd ask the newcomers: Please recall who it may have been
who first introduced _you_ to opera, and then imagine that all those
experiences and people who first introduced you to this magic art form
would be summarily ripped from your side forever and replaced by the
kinds of usual dissers seen elsewhere on Usenet instead. How would you
feel if those very dissers were to tell you, "oh, your old friends never
existed, you don't know what you're talking about, we're real life, get
over it"? (Heck, get over opera, practically..........)
Sure, there were r.m.o. feuds in the '90s (Jordan vs. Kessler, for
instance). But they didn't metasticize into the kind of all-out gang
warfare involving literally every poster and every thread. There were
always many other discussions going on at the same time involving any
number of performances, broadcasts, composers, singers, productions,
etc., with new posters (we got new ones practically every week)
continually interacting with the "regulars". All this kept most posters
too occupied and too content to be willingly distracted by a single
poster or even two who might rub them the wrong way. If there's
anything healthy at all in the suggestion "Just move on", "get over it",
etc., it could very well have applied more to the more typical r.m.o.
poster of the '90s who was too busy talking avidly and happily about
things operatic to allow more than a moment's thought on someone who
might be annoying.
Sincerely,
Geoffrey
I've taken my time to reply to this because I see no benefit in
replying in haste.
I understand perfectly where Geoff is coming from and suspect that were
I in his position of having got involved in rmo in 1997, I might well
feel the same way.
But it isn't 1997 now, and the internet has changed beyond recognition.
I bought my first PC in Jan 1998; I bought one last month which cost a
quarter of the price in cash terms. Anecdotally, many people seem to
have got their first PCs about the same time, and I read somewhere that
1998-2000 saw an exponential growth in the number of internet users
both at home and via the workplace.
I sympathise with the desire for wanting to things to be how they were
back in the Golden Age. I can be guilty of that in many contexts. But
the simple fact is that things have changed. I'm not familiar with the
phrase 'coffee klatch' but can get the meaning from the context
provided by Geoff and am certainly familiar with the concept. However,
I would argue that the 'personal internet' is less like that and more
like a pub or gym where people may go regularly and thus find
themselves on nodding or warmer terms with people who are random
strangers. Some may become friends, but the friendship arises from the
habituation of the pub or gym,rather than through pre-existing
connections.
Analogies over with, I am not especially bothered about who is friendly
with whom or enemies with who else. If I could be bothered to draw a
diagram, I would probably find that there are people I dislike who are
very close to people I like, and I think it's best not to go there.
But I do reserve the right to comment today upon postings that are made
today. I try and avoid commenting too much on what people do off the
newsgroup if such a comment would cause negativity (if I have failed, I
will admit this as a failure). But I do comment upon things that people
say on the newsgroup. From my point of view, my involvement in this
latest spat started with an outrage that someone (Charlie) said 'who
gives a *** what key it is in'. I have no especial talents at music,
and my formal training, such as it is, was of a very basic level. But I
really strongly believe that on a music newsgroup it is perfectly
legitimate to care about the basic building blocks of music. It may
well be that there are people here, posters or lurkers, who know less
about the basic rubric than even I do, but they have the good sense not
to flaunt their ignorance as something to be proud of.
My comment, along with those in a similar vein was met with a rejoinder
"i hope they all
sterile..i would hate to see them bringing kids into the word". This
has absolutely no connection whatsoever with a discussion on music,
performance, keys, composers or singers,and, in my view, is so grossly
offensive that it beggars belief. Someone may argue that the wise
cause of action would be to ignore it, pretend it was never written,
but why on earth should one feel forced to ignore a comment which is
breathtaking in its sheer personal nastiness?
In the course of free debate it is inevitable that derogatory comments
will be said, and sometimes people will be insulted by comments that
were never meant as an insult. When somebody says "Your opinion sucks"
or "your judgement is flawed" or "your singer's rubbish" we can
reasonably take these as opinions and, generally, not personal attacks,
even though they may cause a bit of hurt or resentment at the time, but
when a discussion can be reduced to a phrase which has so much
potential to be so extremely hurtful, to be then lectured about how
nice things were in 1997 comes over as just a little bit patronising in
2006.
--
http://www.madmusingsof.me.uk/weblog/
http://www.geraldine-curtis.me.uk/photoblog/
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