If you are here, you likely already know how things should work, if not, then let’s set down a few things to follow

1. Don’t be a dick: pretty simple

2. Treat everyone equally and with respect: again self explanatory

3. Keep an open mind: can really help you out here (and everywhere else in audio & life)

4. Think for yourself: give your own impressions and takes on things (and not push someone else’s), justify your thoughts with your own experience. Nothing wrong with sharing others experiences if you find them insightful/helpful/informative, but don’t use others experiences to act as your own (if that makes sense)

5. Keep BS at a minimum: we don’t want to hear about something that supposedly “destroys” everything else entirely and how everything else is terrible, we don’t need pointless arguments that lead to nowhere except conflict, we don’t need any drama from other communities, we don’t need people who exist only to promote garbage, we don’t need people who are incredibly close minded who only exist to tell others they are wrong, you get the idea. Learn to agree to disagree, keep S/N high (for discussion, not always electronics lol), and keep things enjoyable for both yourself and others. If you are going to screw around, keep things fun at least lol

6. And other things that I can’t think of at the moment. You’ll figure it out soon enough. Just enjoy your time here and make sure you let others enjoy their time here as well

Things that will easily get you banned:

• Being a general dick, audio is supposed to be enjoyable, don’t purposely try to remove that enjoyment from someone else
• Any attempt at exploiting the site or the site’s users
• Constantly disrupting discussions and/or starting pointless arguments (especially if they aren’t relevant to the topic), and creating lots of spam/clutter
• Causing any problems in Buy/Sell (scamming, arguments in threads, abusing threads/tags)
• Leaking private information to other people/platforms
• Shameless self promotion/Advertising
• Unsolicited mass PM’s
• Posting any illegal content

But those are rough guidelines, any of the mods can ban anyone for any reason at will. But we’d prefer if we didn’t have to do that. Just be reasonable, more enjoyment for you and others, less work for us. Win win.

I think a post from a member here (@Zaphain) sums things up quite well:

“This forum was created by a majority of people spending $$$$ on audio, so initial threads are about comparisons/products that are up there in price. However, it isn’t the intention that this forum will be high end only, instead, the aspiration is to gather a diverse, pleasant, and open minded group of individuals who will make this place the best forum for all kinds of audio discussions. Quite possibly the only types of people who wouldn’t get invited here would be people that are religiously objectivistic about audio to the point where they are meanspirited and pushy about what others should buy, dishonest influencers/marketers, or people who just act like an asshole in their interactions with others”

Below are the stock template rules if someone has to spell it out for you

This is a Civilized Place for Public Discussion

Please treat this discussion forum with the same respect you would a public park. We, too, are a shared community resource — a place to share skills, knowledge and interests through ongoing conversation.

These are not hard and fast rules. They are guidelines to aid the human judgment of our community and keep this a kind, friendly place for civilized public discourse.

Improve the Discussion

Help us make this a great place for discussion by always adding something positive to the discussion, however small. If you are not sure your post adds to the conversation, think over what you want to say and try again later.

One way to improve the discussion is by discovering ones that are already happening. Spend time browsing the topics here before replying or starting your own, and you’ll have a better chance of meeting others who share your interests.

The topics discussed here matter to us, and we want you to act as if they matter to you, too. Be respectful of the topics and the people discussing them, even if you disagree with some of what is being said.

Be Agreeable, Even When You Disagree

You may wish to respond by disagreeing. That’s fine. But remember to criticize ideas, not people. Please avoid:

• Name-calling
• Ad hominem attacks
• Responding to a post’s tone instead of its actual content
• Knee-jerk contradiction

Instead, provide thoughtful insights that improve the conversation.

Your Participation Counts

The conversations we have here set the tone for every new arrival. Help us influence the future of this community by choosing to engage in discussions that make this forum an interesting place to be — and avoiding those that do not.

Discourse provides tools that enable the community to collectively identify the best (and worst) contributions: bookmarks, likes, flags, replies, edits, watching, muting and so forth. Use these tools to improve your own experience, and everyone else’s, too.

Let’s leave our community better than we found it.

If You See a Problem, Flag It

Moderators have special authority; they are responsible for this forum. But so are you. With your help, moderators can be community facilitators, not just janitors or police.

When you see bad behavior, don’t reply. Replying encourages bad behavior by acknowledging it, consumes your energy, and wastes everyone’s time. Just flag it. If enough flags accrue, action will be taken, either automatically or by moderator intervention.

In order to maintain our community, moderators reserve the right to remove any content and any user account for any reason at any time. Moderators do not preview new posts; the moderators and site operators take no responsibility for any content posted by the community.

Always Be Civil

Nothing sabotages a healthy conversation like rudeness:

• Be civil. Don’t post anything that a reasonable person would consider offensive, abusive, or hate speech.
• Keep it clean. Don’t post anything obscene or sexually explicit.
• Respect each other. Don’t harass or grief anyone, impersonate people, or expose their private information.
• Respect our forum. Don’t post spam or otherwise vandalize the forum.

These are not concrete terms with precise definitions — avoid even the appearance of any of these things. If you’re unsure, ask yourself how you would feel if your post was featured on the front page of a major news site.

This is a public forum, and search engines index these discussions. Keep the language, links, and images safe for family and friends.

Keep It Tidy

Make the effort to put things in the right place, so that we can spend more time discussing and less cleaning up. So:

• Don’t start a topic in the wrong category; please read the category definitions.
• Don’t cross-post the same thing in multiple topics.
• Don’t post no-content replies.
• Don’t divert a topic by changing it midstream.
• Don’t sign your posts — every post has your profile information attached to it.

Rather than posting “+1” or “Agreed”, use the Like button. Rather than taking an existing topic in a radically different direction, use Reply as a Linked Topic.

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This site is operated by your friendly local staff and you, the community. If you have any further questions about how things should work here, open a new topic in the site feedback category and let’s discuss! If there’s a critical or urgent issue that can’t be handled by a meta topic or flag, contact us via the staff page.

Terms of Service

Yes, legalese is boring, but we must protect ourselves – and by extension, you and your data – against unfriendly folks. We have a Terms of Service describing your (and our) behavior and rights related to content, privacy, and laws. To use this service, you must agree to abide by our TOS.