um.
ok.
* in relation to TOMB, and us being a supposed cult of amateurs, or the internet in general, in that feeling but not in those words, etc *
ok, so, the question/comment seems to be more toward the idea of crowd knowledge.
i feel it's urgent to say that this MUST be divided into two different statements:
1) that the answer can be found in a large crowd, and/or
2) that the answer is usually the most common one from the crowd
I wholehardedly know that #1 is accurate - since it's simply like having a bigger pool of people to find your answer in. if you've only got 10 random engineers/producers/music-people, it's less likely to find that micing technique used for Led Zeppelin II than on a forum with 1000 people of the same kind. just a bigger sampling pool.
however, while for some cases one can always rely on #2, it's a horrible rule of thumb to go about life in, much less acquiring information. believing in the answer from a mass crowd is agreeing to what everyone else thinks (in a way). it can always be CONSIDERED, as I take all of the information on the internet and TOMB to possibly be wrong or true - depending on who it's coming from.
the above statement is why I can't say I like Harmony Central at all. It's a mass indicator from faceless people about musical goods. It's great for things like:
quality consistency
average price paid
common quirks
and other things that are directly sample size related.
however -
(first, a preface - I know that music and art is completely subjective - with this aside - )
I've learned the hard way many times buying an album or a piece of gear because *everyone else uses it*, or that it was recommended to me by every front. anyone remember Napoleon Dynamite?
further illustrating - art and music completely aside -
this is why I've learned that there's limitations to public knowledge. there's definitely limitations to what one can learn here on TOMB - I think we've all hit that at least once - and we have to turn to a professional/teacher/past generation/specialist to fully understand.
with that said -
the only things hindering the growth of knowledge here on TOMB are
population
and specialists.
they each hold their merits - but, in the end, there are just a small handful of posters here that are the reason for me not being an amateur anymore. they're like 'mini-internships'.
i'll end here. i could easily keep typing and disambiguate the term 'knowledge' into 'working knowledge', such as mic placements, the People Skills forum and what works where and 'factual knowledge' that has a hard set answer, such as equipment repair, bit rates, electrical engineering and other set notions of how to get things done. in that case, the idea of specialists breaks down, and everything gets re-defined...
but that would involve everyone coming over to my house and getting REALLY stoned while listening to All Things Must Pass or Mingus.
which doesn't seem like such a bad idea....
love, me.