I’ve come up with a tentative set of “stuff I want to do” for 2019 — not calling it “New Year resolutions” because those tend to get left behind. In fact it’s really more “ongoing things I just happened to contemplate before 2019 starts.”
One of them is a bit complicated though: do not engage in unhealthy online interactions. “Unhealthy” is a wide term, but mostly I mean unnecessarily upsetting or contentious, or the sort of habit I used to have where it was uncomfortable not to check Facebook several times per day.
There are some places I frequent online which can get unpleasant and I want to change my relationship to them.
KvR Audio: a website about music production on a computer, most specifically about VST plugins and the sequencing software that hosts them. It was a valued resource for several years and still serves some purpose, but I use software synths a lot less now, am pretty well set for software effects, am happy with the host I’m using (Maschine), have my production techniques and sound design down, etc.
Moderation on the forum is mostly hands-off. There are a few members who continuously snipe at each other and regularly turn threads into pointless bickering between themselves. There are others with strong opinions and perhaps little imagination, and no qualms about calling everyone else idiots. After 17 years or so of discussing things there are a lot of very tired topics of discussion and memes that are just not funny anymore which still pop up regularly. It can be a little bit of a boy’s club though it’s much less so than it once was.
Mostly it’s not too bad; I just need to not get drawn in to arguments about what kinds of things are “useful”, valid, “best”, what music and art are, that sort of thing. There is nothing to gain in defending my opinions or preferred instrument makers, nor in trying to pry the blinders off people who should be much more imaginative and open-minded, and there are certain people I should never read or reply to at all. If I keep that in mind, all is well.
MetaFilter: a sort of community link blog that shares interesting stories from around the internet, and covers a lot about politics and criticism of media coverage (from a generally left perspective). The community has turned generally more socialist-friendly in recent years, which is great. But it still has a particular hate-on for Bernie Sanders and for the Green Party.
They’re willing to blame literally everyone for the mess we’re in now: obviously the Republicans and the media and Russia and a broken system, but also white women in general, progressives, Baby Boomers, Millenials, and your pets. In fact, they seem to believe that everyone is to blame for the defeat of Hillary Clinton except for Hillary Clinton, her supporters, and the Democratic Party.
For the most part there’s a ban on “relitigating the 2016 primary.” But in practice, moderators often allow people to make snide comments about it and then crack down on progressives’ response to it. I called them on it once and now apparently at least one moderator has it in for me. In the past couple of months I’ve had so many posts deleted with no explanation or notice — regardless of the actual content — that I’ve given up posting and logged out of my account. I lurk but I’m a little bitter about it and might see if I can get my news fix elsewhere.
MuffWiggler: yes, embarrassingly enough, it’s actually called that. You might never guess it’s the biggest forum on the internet for modular synthesis. There is a ton of information and discussion about equipment and DIY, direct from the designers and engineers and experienced users. There’s a very large market in used gear and occasional prototypes. There’s a lot of advice for beginners and occasional discussion of advanced techniques.
The name is a sort of “locker room talk” passed off as “just a joke, you should relax” while being inherently and intentionally exclusionary. A lot of people dislike it, and the environment it comes from and fosters, and would like it changed — or just stay away entirely. Most of the prominent musicians in the modular synth, ambient and techno communities do avoid it and can be found on other forums instead.
The one guy running the site, his moderator crew, some alt-right types and “PC culture has gone too far” types, don’t see a problem — and are likely to delete your complaints as being “politics,” which is off-limits.
After some consideration, prompted by a recent call for extra donations to cover a rather larger shortfall on what’s purported to be suspiciously high hosting costs, and questions about transparency and community representation, I’ve stopped my $3/month Patreon support and am backing off in my participation a bit. I think it wouldn’t be a bad thing if the site went down and got archived somewhere and replaced by something a bit less toxic.
As with KvR, I feel that I’ve passed my peak “need” for the site’s resources anyway. I know what I’m doing in modular, and when I have questions, there are other places to ask them. (I give a lot more advice than I ask for, though there’s certainly a factor of learning through teaching.) My setup is relatively complete and I’m not doing as much research into what’s out there and how to work with it. There are other places for news and announcements, and other places to trade gear. But it’s still useful, more so than KvR, so I’m not completely getting out.