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saudiplayer
Oud Admirer
Posts: 5
Registered: 9-24-2008
Member Is Offline
Mood: No Mood
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thanksssss
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Greg
Administrator
Posts: 928
Registered: 7-22-2004
Location: Brisbane, Australia
Member Is Offline
Mood: Serene
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This is an interesting thread. I, like many members of these forums, get tired of the one-shot-wonders who appear on the scene and, in their very
first post, try to flog one or a number of their "products."
But, dear friends, that is the price we are sometimes forced to pay, when we participate in a public forum.
Mike's forums are hugely successful for a number of reasons. One of the most important, in my view, is that it is easy to join and participate,
without an excessive amount of regulation and bureaucratic intervention.
I have joined other forums, where one needed to apply and be admitted by the administrator. Ones that required a set number of logins over a set
period of time, before the new member could post. Ones that would not allow the member to edit her/his own posts. ...... and so on.
In my opinion, the administrators of those types of forums have no conception of the self-regulatory nature of quality open community debate. In many
such forums, it is obvious that the administrators seem to enjoy the power trip of playing policeman, rather than carefully moderating their forums to
provide for maximum community input, whilst ensuring participants maintain civility towards eachother and other outside entities.
When it comes to community forums, give me an Alvin Tofflerish adhocracy over bureaucracy any time.
Sure, there will be times when stuff happens that we are not happy about. But successful online community forums need moderators and administrators
who value the freedoms of others enough to avoid applying excessive control that stifles a wide range of opinions and participant types.
If we are to maintain the co-operative flow of ideas that have made these forums so popular and enjoyable, we must tread lightly and we must be
prepared to accept the limitations of some members and the excesses of others.
We were all new to these forums once and we have all posted stuff that later made us cringe. Some of us who have gone on to become respected and
regular contributors, may have also used the forums to sell less-than-first-rate ouds, at one time or another. It's an imperfect world. By adding too
many layers of control to these forums we will "thow the baby out with the bathwater."
Specifically on the subject of suspect sellers - Yes, it annoys me when anyone tries to pass off a fake or inferior instrument as something that it is
not. But hey, what kind of fool would try to do that on a forum loaded with experts? The kind of fool who will be exposed immediately and will
disappear from the forums within a very short space of time.
What about the folks who buy an instrument without doing their due diligence and then join the forums only in order to blackmail the seller into a
refund. We have seen a lot of that over the years. Many of those same folks disapear from the forums the moment they get what they came for. And in
some of those cases, the alleged "fraudulent" dealer is not at fault and has been criminally defamed.
To sum up my excessively long post (sorry), I would suggest that there will always be folks joining these forums for less than pure reasons. We have
to accept that is the way of the world and be thankfull that the great majority of forum members join for the right reasons and help make the forums a
great place to visit.
Sincerely,
Greg
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Mike
Super Administrator
Posts: 1568
Registered: 12-3-2002
Location: California, USA
Member Is Offline
Mood: Happy
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Yep Yep to that Gregorio. Exactly what you said buddy.
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SamirCanada
Moderator
Posts: 3405
Registered: 6-4-2004
Member Is Offline
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Ah yes Greg,
The voice of reason.
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ALAMI
Oud Junkie
Posts: 645
Registered: 12-14-2006
Location: Beirut
Member Is Offline
Mood: No Mood
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I agree with Greg's approach to the problem.
The forum's stats read: 1'500 members ! This will inevitably attract all kind of sellers ( a lot..lately): good and bad makers as well as good and bad
resellers. And if one day 150'000 members is reached we'll have Yamaha ouds and Yamaha fake ouds made in China. Call it: Globalisation, evil free
market or whatever you want..it's a fact.
A forum is by definition a public place with a social mission, I don't think we want to be overprotective to the point of making this place a ghetto
or a hermetic society.
The community can be a positive pressure group and it happened and helped on many occasions.
Seeing a good oud is always a pleasure but also seeing poorly made or fake ouds on the forums is in a way educational, it is how many of us (if not
most) learned how to make the difference, what to look at and how to make an opinion.
I personally don't mind those people to continue posting here but with some "anti-spam" rules, like having any commercial posting restricted to the
buy-sell area with the sanction of being deleted if posted elsewhere or "jumping" into threads to place an ad. We just witnessed an overdose of sugar
in the forum's veins (sugar in Arabic being sukkar) 13 ads and still counting..... We had the "Klang" now we have the "Blitzkrieg".
May be each reseller can have a single and unique thread where he can add his new products on top of the old ones. It is better for them, they can be
found in an easier way. I think we have tens of threads with the subject "Turkish oud", who would be able to find this particular oud he liked 3
months ago ?
Just my 2 Liras (0,15 c)
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Greg
Administrator
Posts: 928
Registered: 7-22-2004
Location: Brisbane, Australia
Member Is Offline
Mood: Serene
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Thanks Mike, Samir and Alami.
There are limits to my warm fuzziness though. And I reckon "Mahmoud Sukkar" passed them a long time ago.
Mike, if you decided to delete him and all his posts, I would agree wholeheartedly with your actions 
Regards,
Greg
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nadir
Oud Junkie
Posts: 329
Registered: 12-29-2003
Location: USA
Member Is Offline
Mood: No Mood
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Me too! 
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Mike
Super Administrator
Posts: 1568
Registered: 12-3-2002
Location: California, USA
Member Is Offline
Mood: Happy
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| Quote: | Originally posted by Greg
Mike, if you decided to delete him and all his posts, I would agree wholeheartedly with your actions |
So let it be written...so let it be done! 
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Mike
Super Administrator
Posts: 1568
Registered: 12-3-2002
Location: California, USA
Member Is Offline
Mood: Happy
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I think we've about exhausted this thread, and I have decided to close it. Thanks to everybody for their concern and care for each other. Let's all be
smart consumers in the future.
Here's to free speech everywhere! BTW...this round is on Samir! Cheers everybody. 
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