Post Removed/Censored?

[grilla]

Cheers TOMB'ers!

Last night I was reading a post in the people skills forum talking about last-minute cancellations. The thread devolved into several posts about "that's why I don't do hip-hop" that included statements like "gun toting, crack dealing" and lots of generalizations about the genre.

I was somewhat offended and posted a passionate response. And while I may have been a tad profane (the occasional f-word) I did not insult or threaten anyone directly.

I am just curious as to why this whole topic is now GONE completely?

Thanks!

[chris harris]

I had already posted a passionate response, with my own fair share of profanity. Two moderators agreed with my post and asked politely that we move on and get the subject back on topic. I appreciate that the topic moved you to respond passionately. But, the point is, by that point, the moderators had acknowledged the ridiculousness of the offending posts and asked us nicely to move on. I didn't see your post, but it seems like you probably ignored their request to move on and get the post back on topic.

I don't blame them for deleting a thread with more off topic posts than on topic posts.

I also don't blame you for bringing up the topic in a post of your own.

Maybe a post discussing racism and bigotry in the audio industry would be a bit more appropriate than a "why did you delete a thread" post?

[grilla]

I was just curious because I had never had a post deleted before - no big whoop. It was actually your post that moved me to chime in, combined with Joel's Talib comments.

You're right - I didn't take their posts as "asking us politely to move on" and felt moved to respond to the thread - it seemed pretty fresh (on the first page of the forum.) But couldn't they just "lock" or close a thread and still leave it visible?

It's not really any big deal to me - just didn't seem like my original post was too offensive to anyone or radical or anything like that.

A thread on bigotry in the industry would be cool but I wonder how long it would last?

Cheers!

[cgarges]

I had already posted a passionate response, with my own fair share of profanity. Two moderators agreed with my post and asked politely that we move on and get the subject back on topic. I appreciate that the topic moved you to respond passionately. But, the point is, by that point, the moderators had acknowledged the ridiculousness of the offending posts and asked us nicely to move on. I didn't see your post, but it seems like you probably ignored their request to move on and get the post back on topic.

That's pretty much it. I asked more than once and people decided to continue their rants, so I deleted the topic.

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

[Electricide]

Isn't it possible to just delete offending posts instead of an entire thread? It seems unfair to delete a whole topic of good or thoughtful responses because a few people went overboard talking about hip hop.

[cgarges]

It is, but honestly, the thread was de-railing quickly and sometimes, it's just a million times easier to get rid of it all. There was very little on-topic content in that thread and rather than respond to a bunch of individual posts about why I deleted so-an-so's comments, I just thought it easier to delete all of it. I don't so it that often and when I do, it's pretty much always after there's been some kind of warning. I did give said warnings (twice) and there were people who were offended by some of the comments, so I deemed it worthy of deletion. In most cases, I'd much rather simply lock a thread, but certain situations warrant getting rid of it entirely.

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

[cgarges]

It's also interesting to me that the poll at the top of this topic has nothing to do with the content of the original post. Has anyone actually responded to the poll? There certainly hasn't been any discussion about it, but then again, there aren't categories for metal, shiny-shirt rock, American Idol wanna-be pop, middle aged Americana, contemporary Christian, or modern gospel.

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

[Mradyfist]

You're right, there are a lot of categories being left out. However, the point is still valid: it seems fairly common to me that many engineers have issues with rappers and hip hop culture in general. Usually the term ends up being a derogatory one in discussions relating to bad clients. To be honest, Tapeop is actually better about this than some other places; I was going through a " stupidest things you have ever heard during a session" topic at gearslutz and was surprised at how often people would start out with " So these RAPPERS walked into my studio..."

I don't think a topic about censoring posts is really the best way to discuss this, but it seems like deleting an entire topic because of off-topic posts is a little extreme. I, for one, would be interested in seeing how things went down, regardless of whether or not it was relevant to the original post. I realize that people were getting offended by comments in the thread, but if it were locked, there would be a better chance of it splitting off into discussions that were properly organized. And I think that some of these topics are pretty interesting; like it or not, there's a lot of hip hop and rap being made in studios. Let's discuss how this gets treated by the engineers who are predominantly focused on other genres.

Plus, another advantage of locking over deleting is that it makes it clear what type of behavior is inappropriate. Other readers can clearly see how the topic was declining and unfocusing (which it was, from what I remember) and will avoid that in the future, hopefully.

[RefD]

wtf is "shiny-shirt rock"?

[Electro-Voice 664]

TapeOp?s free magazines and forum are only so good because of the people behind them. Let?s just remember that Chris is volunteering his time and his discretion is part of the deal

[mjau]

wtf is "shiny-shirt rock"?

I'm not sure, but I know it when I see it. Great term that will now permanently be a part of my lexicon.

[JohnDavisNYC]

i try not to associate myself with music that glorifies greed and violence, regardless of genre.

john

[cgarges]

i try not to associate myself with music that glorifies greed and violence, regardless of genre.

At the risk of de-railing this thread (and I welcome Hillary to delete my post if she deems it necessary), there is plenty of country music and rock music that glorifies greed and violence, just like there is plenty of hip hop music that glorifies God. Would you take a session where it was required that you record a version of "The Rite Of Spring?" You know, people set fire to the theatre at the premier of that piece.

I've had WAY more issues with sessions I've done for people in the contemporary Christian world than I have with hip hop artists, percentage-wise. In fact, some of my favorite sessions have been with hip hop artists. And I don't do THAT MUCH hip hop.

My point is that unless you've heard the artist, you can't tell before a session what the content of the session is going to be, so refusing to do hip hop session based on the above statement is a prejudice of the entire genre. In my opinion, it's a sort of ignorant one. If you don't record hip hop because you've had bad experiences with hip hop folks and not with ANYONE else, that's fine, but don't say that you won't record it because the entire genre glorifies greed and violence. Do you really screen all your clients' content before agreeing to work with them?

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

[cgarges]

By the way, John, it just occurred to me that you said you tried not to associate yourself with that sort of thing, so my apologies for implying that it's an absolute concept. Still, I think it warrants discussion because a lot of people use that as an excuse to turn away certain work. It's one thing if you don't get the calls or don't feel comfortable with knowing enough about the genre or whatever to take the work, but it's something else if you just blindly turn away people based on stereotypes.

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

[chris harris]

the point is that generalizations and stereotypes are incredibly lame.