When Newbies need advice

[allenhopkins]

So, this thread is not about good advice for a newbie, but it's about some percieved injustice in the way free advice is given?...I just can't read yet again about the tuna v. ham sandwich example. It became some quip and now it shows up all the time to the point that I just will not even suggest my opinions regarding oval hole, f- or a-body mandolins...I'm just not willing to take cheap shots from the peanut gallery of other experts. Disagree all you want, but leave my lunch out of it. It's like if a newbie says they know what they want, we are to treat that as an expert and informed opinion and NEVER consider opening a new perspective...Sorry, life's too short...

So I guess responding directly to someone's question, when We Experts know what that person should be asking/doing, is knuckling under to a bunch of "cheap shots?"

Sorry, but if a "newbie" (or anyone else), asks a question, such as "what do you think of this brand/model of mandolin," seems to me the most helpful thing is to at least start off saying what we think of it -- before we tell him/her that he/she really should be looking at this other mandolin, which in Our Opinion is so much more suitable.

No reason not to add something along the lines of, "now that I've told you what I think of the mandolin you mention, have you considered this other mandolin?" But at least the initial question has been addressed.

That's not "justice" or "injustice" (which is a pretty odd term to use); it's just courtesy and responsiveness.

[rico mando]

<inflammatory language removed by Moderator> ! will you guys stop I am trying to diet !

[OtterJ]

Breathy and Busty is doin' just fine. Now where did I put my inhaler....

[mandolirius]

Here's another thing I've noticed about newbie threads and this site. It's getting swamped. Must be a critical mass type of thing but over the past year or two, newbies have been coming out of the woodwork. More mandolins being bought and more of those people finding this site is the cause, I'm guessing.

I don't think it would have as big an effect if there were some kind of basic newbie page that they could link to from the home page but I believe the powers-that-be are against that. The other thing is the search function. Since you have to basically be a computer nerd to search this site effectively, newbies post the same threads over and over.

The result has been fewer and fewer conversations among long time players, pros or semi-pros or, sorry, people that have something interesting to say, not just more of the same old questions (and answers). The forum part of this site will, over time, give way to the commercial side. These days I rarely see a lot of people that used to post regularly. I know this won't be a popular opinion and will annoy some. Not my intent but it is my take.

[vetus scotia]

Here's another thing I've noticed about newbie threads and this site. It's getting swamped.[...] The result has been fewer and fewer conversations among long time players, pros or semi-pros or, sorry, people that have something interesting to say, not just more of the same old questions (and answers).

I do not see how this follows. There are 6 general topics with a total of 20 subtopics, each of those containing hundreds, sometimes thousands, of threads. Are the newbie threads, which generally appear in 'General Mandolin Discussions' or 'Looking for Information about mandolins', actually clogging up the tubes of the internets? Isn't the point of this thread the fact that some newbie posts garner almost no attention from long-time members?

[mandolirius]

I do not see how this follows. There are 6 general topics with a total of 20 subtopics, each of those containing hundreds, sometimes thousands, of threads. Are the newbie threads, which generally appear in 'General Mandolin Discussions' or 'Looking for Information about mandolins', actually clogging up the tubes of the internets? Isn't the point of this thread the fact that some newbie posts garner almost no attention from long-time members?

My view is that terminology is important here. I don't equate "swamped" with "clogging up". There's no clogging up. There's plenty of room for as many threads as people want to start. But I see newbie threads coming up more and more frequently. Like in waves, which is maybe why I was thinking "swamped". Also, many of the subtopics get very little traffic. "General Mandolin Discussions" is the main category for discussion on this site. "Looking For Info..." may be number two.

I'm not sure if ignoring newbie threads is common. I suspect not and this one was an anomaly. But I do see that, with certain reliable exceptions, older members are leaving the answering of newbie threads to others who are perhaps less weary of entertaining the same old questions.

[allenhopkins]

...older members are leaving the answering of newbie threads to others who are perhaps less weary of entertaining the same old questions.

Which, I guess, is as it should be. I look forward to posts from Tom (f5loar), Jim Garber, Mike Edgerton, Jamie Stanek, fatt-dad (yes, you too), and others too numerous to mention, which give me a chance to access their specialized knowledge. If one doesn't want to get involved answering "newbie" questions, there's no obligation to do so. As stated earlier in the thread, I can often skim over the posts, only posting myself if I think either the initial question, or one of the response posts, so warrants.

It is a Good Thing, IMHO, if someone pitches in and responds to the zillionth iteration of "What's a good beginner mandolin for under $300?" Doesn't have to be the same person/people every time. And a "welcome to the Cafe" is always, well, welcome. Probably two-thirds of the "newbies" are never heard from again, and we wonder if they stuck with mandolin, lost interest, or spent so much time practicing and becoming the Next Big Mandolin Superstar, that they had no time to peck at their computer keyboards.

We try to be helpful, welcoming, tolerant and supportive. Succeed most of the time. My only (minor) obsession, is that it's nice to directly respond to a question, before informing the questioner that he/she is asking the wrong question, barking up the wrong tree, and considering the wrong mandolin. But I'm sure I've been guilty of that more times than I care to admit...

[vetus scotia]

I don't equate "swamped" with "clogging up".

Fair enough. I was just trying to get from 'swamped' to 'fewer and fewer conversations among long time players, pros or semi-pros or, sorry, people that have something interesting to say'. When you say 'the result' your terminology is suggesting a causal connection. Some version of your observation turns up a lot these days on the Cafe. I wonder how much the Cafe membership has increased in the last, say, two years? It does seem like the 'demographics' of the site are changing (I am a new member, but I read a lot of older threads), and with them the emphases on different topics. If there are many more newbie threads than there once were because mandolin is more popular now than it has been for a while, I can hardly feel sorry for the older Cafe members who resent this. I never feel sorry for victims of their own success. Unless the growth in interest in the mandolin is not a good thing, in which case the internets are not a good place to keep the secret of mandolining to yourself.

[Steve Williams]

Allen, I've read your posts for a number of years, and have always respected the way that you try to answer questions without falling into the: "you really should get an XYZ brand mandolin", or: "you really should have an A/F/twin point/flat top/bowlback mandolin to play (insert style) music".

There are some folks who post for advice when all that they really want is purchase validation...always have been, always will be. But when someone posts with legitimate questions about a specific mandolin, I have always felt that they deserved to be provided with answers, and not automatically be given either a "stamp of approval", or (more often the case) be advised to look at, consider, or buy a different instrument.

Same with price points...if a poster says that they have $500.00 max to spend, I personally feel that replies should be geared to that amount. None of this "well...for just $250.00 more you could get a..." They clearly said how much that they had to spend, and I would hope to think that no one would get the mistaken idea that they could never get started on the mandolin because they were bombarded with suggestions that it would take more than they could afford to buy a "good" mandolin.

[vetus scotia]

The original post in this thread was specifically inspired by two recent newbie threads. One of those generated pages of replies, the other only a few replies in total. There was another rather extensive thread around the same time, now locked down, having to do with rusted strings. As far as I can tell, a common feature of the two long threads was the tendency for posters to comment on the comments of others, which is obviously fair game. But specifically, many posters were making determinations and posting judgments about how well others had answered the original post. My question is, why? Why not let the original poster sort through the myriad opinions, rather than sorting through the posts for them? Why intervene in order to tell the OP why someone else did not actually answer their question. It was their question, right? I take it that this is the sort of thing fatt-dad was referring to in his post above. And I take it that this is the sort of thing that is going to happen again and again in other threads (in fact the newbie 'which pick' question has just started again, and will no doubt involve some interventions of this type). But I suppose this is just my opinion about the opinions about other opinions, and someone else will add his or her opinion of my opinion of the opinion of other opinions.

[fatt-dad]

The original post in this thread was specifically inspired by two recent newbie threads. One of those generated pages of replies, the other only a few replies in total. There was another rather extensive thread around the same time, now locked down, having to do with rusted strings. As far as I can tell, a common feature of the two long threads was the tendency for posters to comment on the comments of others, which is obviously fair game. But specifically, many posters were making determinations and posting judgments about how well others had answered the original post. My question is, why? Why not let the original poster sort through the myriad opinions, rather than sorting through the posts for them? Why intervene in order to tell the OP why someone else did not actually answer their question. It was their question, right? I take it that this is the sort of thing fatt-dad was referring to in his post above. And I take it that this is the sort of thing that is going to happen again and again in other threads (in fact the newbie 'which pick' question has just started again, and will no doubt involve some interventions of this type). But I suppose this is just my opinion about the opinions about other opinions, and someone else will add his or her opinion of my opinion of the opinion of other opinions.

This is/was my point. At this site, there are no FAQs to guide those new to the site or new to the mandolin. As such, topics hit the screen over and over again. To those that are always reading the fora we see the same ol' same ol' over and over again. The extent to which we get frustrated is ours, nobody elses and it can show up in the replies.

If I were playing my mandolin and somebody came up to me in real life and asked about my A5 or pancake and why it looks so different from the mandolin that Monroe played, I'd come up with MY answer, which may be different from somebody else's. If somebody asked me in real life what's the best f-model mandolin to buy, I'd let them know I'm not the best answer, 'cause I don't spend my money on items that don't affect the sound. Often folks don't know that. I'm keenly aware that if I do that on a similar newbie thread the subject matter will go to the nature of my reply, being off topic. Well it sort of is off topic, but it may also be relavent.

Regarding Allen's quote of my original post - I wasn't directing anything at Allen personally and I may have been in a grumpy mood. Sorry if I got testy. . .

f-d

[mandolirius]

Fair enough. I was just trying to get from 'swamped' to 'fewer and fewer conversations among long time players, pros or semi-pros or, sorry, people that have something interesting to say'. When you say 'the result' your terminology is suggesting a causal connection. Some version of your observation turns up a lot these days on the Cafe. I wonder how much the Cafe membership has increased in the last, say, two years? It does seem like the 'demographics' of the site are changing (I am a new member, but I read a lot of older threads), and with them the emphases on different topics. If there are many more newbie threads than there once were because mandolin is more popular now than it has been for a while, I can hardly feel sorry for the older Cafe members who resent this. I never feel sorry for victims of their own success. Unless the growth in interest in the mandolin is not a good thing, in which case the internets are not a good place to keep the secret of mandolining to yourself.

I think the connection is that the amount of newbie posts that really ask the same few questions again and again have contributed to a kind of "dumbing down" on the forum. There just aren't as many interesting topics or as many interesting posters as there once was. The site continues to improve in many ways, but the forum has been in decline for a while, imho. And sure, it could be chalked up to me just being disgruntled. If you don't happen to agree with my assessment, I'm sure that's the way it looks.

The mandolin does seem to be growing in popularity these days. There are decent, inexpensive instruments readily available (which hasn't always been the case) and the instrument probably has more visibility than ever. So the wave of newbies landing on this site, by far the no. 1 mandolin-related destination on the internet, is no surprise. That will be good for the site as a whole, the exception being the quality of discussion on the forum. That, again imho, will continue to decline. We can already see spinoff groups forming on Facebook and other sites to provide a place for people who want more in-depth, informed conversations than they are finding on the Café forum. This is probably a natural evolution for an internet site. Anyway, I'm not complaining, just making an observation.

[vetus scotia]

mandolirius, I think I see your point, if not the concrete, cause effect relation between the increase newbie posts (and thus the "dumbing down" of the site's forum taken as a whole) and the longstanding conversations between established and learned members drying up. The percentage of the site dedicated to arcana will no doubt decrease, but that just makes the arcana more, well, arcane.

[mandolirius]

Yeah, I basically agree. I can't imagine what proof one could offer that would constitute a "concrete, cause effect relation". As I've hopefully indicated in previous posts, it's an impression I've formed, nothing more.

[JEStanek]

I think what you're seeing may be an effect of the mandolin's rise in popularity. Meaning if more people get interested they will flood all the message boards for mandolins looking for advice. This site is the most hit place to go. So we get lots of repeat questions. Noone is under any obligation, of course, to answer a new member question, or even read thier threads.

We should possibly be angry at Thile and the Lumineers? Nah... at least I'm not.

Jamie

[rico mando]

"Mandolin Cafe for Dummies" ?

[mandolirius]

<content removed>

Think it's time you moved on from this discussion and possibly from this forum. If you don't like it here you're welcome to move on. We will not stand by and have you take moderators to task.

[yankees1]

There is an old saying, " Anyone who asks for your opinion is actually looking for an accomplice ".

[rico mando]

<content removed. violates forum posting guidelines>

He probably has you on his ignore list and did not see what you wrote . I can certainly see why some one would do that

[Scott Tichenor]

Nothing to discuss further. I'd suggest for at least one or two of you might be best for you and the membership at large to simply log off and move on to something else on the web if this forum bothers you. No one is holding you here and we're not going to continue to tolerate unacceptable comments that violate forum guidelines.