I can't warm up to other forums... I lightly participate on TalkBass and TDPRI, but there are so many users on TalkBass, it's like trying to drink from a fire hose. Whenever somebody posts a thread, it's up to 10 pages in like 3 minutes, and it seems like not a single one of them actually
reads the thread (or the opening post, for that matter), before rushing to vomit their opinion on the page. It's not a conversation... Nor is it an environment that's conducive to developing a rapport, or a relationship with other users. I just feel like I'm in a seething ocean of anonymous strangers, who are all screaming for attention. I only go there occasionally to check the classifieds if I'm looking for something, or to see what's new in the bass world, and I
rarely post... Why should I? Ninety-seven people have already said what I was going to say... The only time I post there is if I catch a thread when it's relatively new, and I can answer the question, or provide some info that nobody else has yet. Otherwise, I just lurk.
TDPRI is a little slower paced and easier to tolerate, and it's not as cork-sniffy as say, the Gear Page, but I have a real hard time dealing with all the resident know-it-alls who think their opinions are
facts, and will openly berate you if they disagree with yours, or if you get something wrong. A couple of weeks ago, in a thread discussing nitrocellulose lacquer and finishes in general, I made the heinous mistake of mentioning that the automotive industry switched from nitro to poly because of yellowing, and nitro's self-destructive nature, forgetting that the industry first switched to acrylic in between.
Well this one guy came at me like I was the dumbest thing on two legs, accusing me of spreading disinformation, and blah, blah, blah... My point was that nitro is an unstable finishing product that the automotive industry abandoned. Whether they went with acrylic or poly directly after that is irrelevant... But somebody had to get their big-boy pants on to condescendingly show the world what they know... I told him that a simple, friendly correction would have sufficed, and that the snark was entirely unnecessary... I haven't been back since. I've gotten replies to that post, but frankly, I don't even want to look at them.
I would love to participate in a community of other bassists, or people who love Teles as much as I do, and I'd get a lot more attention for my build and project threads on those forums, but it just doesn't seem worth it to put up with all the assholes and narcissists. Or to post on a forum where you know nobody is going to actually
read what you're writing, because everyone is in too much of a hurry to get their two cents in.
We don't seem to have those problems around here.
