Bit of a shame

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I was out of the loop on this. I could very well get banned from this forum at some point for being insistent about things that I know and that I know I've got much more experience with than the person I'm talking to. It's a risk. Could I be called a troll? I guess. David Charlesworth said something along the lines to me about being the most arrogant person he's come across because I was insistent I knew more about plane design and use than he does.

I will help people with something that I know well. I will ask for advice from people who know more about a topic than I do. Is it trolling? No. Will I agree with someone so that we can be buddies and dilute information? No. Will I be insistent on something I only kind of know? No, i'm likely not to comment on it at all unless it looks like someone is being misled.

All summed, i learned to ignore jacob when i wasn't looking for his opinion. I didn't mind him, but this forum is owned by someone and it's their rules. I've left other forums in the past when they were clearly ad focused and abused master makers who didn't want to concede that a brand new beginner had an opinion that was equal weight with theirs. Why didn't they? Because it's not true. Why did the forums insist beginners feel that way? Because the advertisers are interested in the beginner, and not in a guy who can literally make an autolathe that spits out ebony tuning pegs while they make an instrument entirely by hand.

If jacob couldn't adhere to the rules, then the owners get to decide. If I don't like the the owners' principles (which isn't the case here), then there are other places to go.
 
I reckon the problem with him was that while he was knowledgeable about the craft, he was totally unskilled at explaining to other people why he profoundly disagreed with them on some matters or he simply enjoyed being provocative to the point of rudeness.

If the former is the case, it was probable that he had a very low threshold for things which led him to abandon civility. If the latter, then it is difficult to see what a forum can do other than ban him. I think that for some folk, he became so annoying that his presence automatically triggered a lowering of their politeness thresholds.

So the bottom line is how you rate his benefit : detriment ratio in terms of the forum. I found it easy not to be wound up by him but many didn't. And I'm afraid that the evaluation of his banning probably lies in the fact that people are now saying that some topics can be discussed in a pleasant manner, something which his participation clearly tended to prevent.
 
All aside, I really do hope the old curmudgeon is safe and well during all this
 
D_W":3jqnspvv said:
.......... Could I be called a troll? I guess. David Charlesworth said something along the lines to me about being the most arrogant person he's come across because I was insistent I knew more about plane design and use than he does..........

There's two ways of discussing/ arguing: you can stick to the facts, or you can get personal. As soon as you start talking about the other person, and about your superior abilities/ knowledge/ whatever compared to that person, then you've lost the argument, and you are susceptible to the accusation that you are trolling. To tell anyone that you know more than they do about a subject you have to actually know how much they know. The way you approach these discussions, though, isn't in the spirit of finding out what the other person knows, and so you are logically unable to sustain any sort of claim of superior knowledge/ skill/ experience. You don't do discussion so much as lecture, and you pay no attention to the level of expertise in your audience (you've just admitted as much with Charlesworth, for instance). And yet you're the first to call people trolls. Anyone who questions you is a troll. You've said pretty much that in one of your videos. It's a very strange approach to the idea of a discussion forum.
 
The real problem with Jacob was the gang of people who tripped over themselves to attack him.
Whatever you may think, I was not not a fan, he had/has his faults, but some forum members were, in my opinion, childishly antagonistic.
One of the mods once linked to a thread wherein Jacob had given advice about shaping spindle moulder cutters, and was attacked by another forum member in a way that was totally unwarranted. I have followed this forum for several years, and contributed almost nothing, as I'm sure some people will be quick to point out, but I unfortunately have an overdeveloped sense of fair play, and I found (and continue to find, even though he doesn't post anymore) the treatment of Jacob by some of you to be no more than petty schoolyard bullying, and I really think it's pathetic and shameful.
If that means I can expect less in the way of helpful advice in the future, then so be it.
 
John Brown":1w6mpxg9 said:
The real problem with Jacob was the gang of people who tripped over themselves to attack him.
Whatever you may think, I was not not a fan, he had/has his faults, but some forum members were, in my opinion, childishly antagonistic.
One of the mods once linked to a thread wherein Jacob had given advice about shaping spindle moulder cutters, and was attacked by another forum member in a way that was totally unwarranted. I have followed this forum for several years, and contributed almost nothing, as I'm sure some people will be quick to point out, but I unfortunately have an overdeveloped sense of fair play, and I found (and continue to find, even though he doesn't post anymore) the treatment of Jacob by some of you to be no more than petty schoolyard bullying, and I really think it's pathetic and shameful.
If that means I can expect less in the way of helpful advice in the future, then so be it.

I think that's probably fair comment. If you add to the mix that he was also given to provoking for the sake of provoking and he was determined to never learn from fair criticism, you've probably got the whole thing summed up.
 
D_W":16nu1x8j said:
I was out of the loop on this. I could very well get banned from this forum at some point for being insistent about things that I know and that I know I've got much more experience with than the person I'm talking to. It's a risk. Could I be called a troll? I guess. David Charlesworth said something along the lines to me about being the most arrogant person he's come across because I was insistent I knew more about plane design and use than he does.

I will help people with something that I know well. I will ask for advice from people who know more about a topic than I do. Is it trolling? No. Will I agree with someone so that we can be buddies and dilute information? No. Will I be insistent on something I only kind of know? No, i'm likely not to comment on it at all unless it looks like someone is being misled.

All summed, i learned to ignore jacob when i wasn't looking for his opinion. I didn't mind him, but this forum is owned by someone and it's their rules. I've left other forums in the past when they were clearly ad focused and abused master makers who didn't want to concede that a brand new beginner had an opinion that was equal weight with theirs. Why didn't they? Because it's not true. Why did the forums insist beginners feel that way? Because the advertisers are interested in the beginner, and not in a guy who can literally make an autolathe that spits out ebony tuning pegs while they make an instrument entirely by hand.

If jacob couldn't adhere to the rules, then the owners get to decide. If I don't like the the owners' principles (which isn't the case here), then there are other places to go.
What you perhaps don't see is the extent to which come across as gruff. It's possible to say things very directly without (most) people getting upset. Having seen some of your videos, I think I "get" you but you need to understand that with the written word we have to take more care with phrasing.
 
I wasn't sure whether to comment on this or not as I don't know any of you or this Jacob of whom you speak. But from my outside perspective this person has some people that like him and some that don't and can't ignore him.

If he broke the rules, then absolutely there should be some action around that and it should scale, otherwise we have chaos.

IF however we fall into the chasm that society is currently in of "we don't like your opinion so you will be deplatformed", we might as well give up now and enjoy the echo chamber of only listening to people who agree with you.
 
craigsalisbury":2yvwbvcv said:
.........IF however we fall into the chasm that society is currently in of "we don't like your opinion so you will be deplatformed"..........

That very much was NOT the situation with Jacob. A lot of people respected his knowledge and experience in production hand tool woodworking and bench joinery, and yet couldn't stand the way he behaved here, and towards them as individuals. I have dived in on Jacob's side in the past, but certainly ended up in the category who wanted his woodworking wisdom but couldn't stand the behaviour. I guess it's 6 or 9 months since he went on my ignore list as a result. The issue was never his opinions, but the way he expressed those, and the goading and false accusations that came along all too often.
 
MikeG.":2vvnt1v7 said:
craigsalisbury":2vvnt1v7 said:
.........IF however we fall into the chasm that society is currently in of "we don't like your opinion so you will be deplatformed"..........

That very much was NOT the situation with Jacob. A lot of people respected his knowledge and experience in production hand tool woodworking and bench joinery, and yet couldn't stand the way he behaved here, and towards them as individuals. I have dived in on Jacob's side in the past, but certainly ended up in the category who wanted his woodworking wisdom but couldn't stand the behaviour. I guess it's 6 or 9 months since he went on my ignore list as a result. The issue was never his opinions, but the way he expressed those, and the goading and false accusations that came along all too often.

Fair enough, as I said, I was sure whether to comment or not. It just seems 4 pages of comments seems like unresolved issues lol
 
Doug B":2m2u8f8j said:
Droogs":2m2u8f8j said:
All aside, I really do hope the old curmudgeon is safe and well during all this

He is thanks & taking the advice for folks in their 70’s
What - he's taking advice from Boris? #-o :lol:
On a serious note though good to hear, I wouldn't wish ill of the old bu**er while confessing I have at times in the past. :oops:

If Jacob had kept his politics well distanced from various threads he would have been just about ok even the sharpening arguments were just about tolerable and as said several times the forum is a much more civilised place now where when things have got a little heated there have been apologies made and no intervention from the mods, when was the last time posts were deleted?
 
Lons":1gcq1feb said:
........What - he's taking advice from Boris? #-o :lol: ......

Just for the benefit of those newly arrived from Mars, Boris isn't giving advice, he is giving instructions.

Oooops, semantic-hole.......That's not aimed at you, Lons. I'm not suggesting you are newly arrived from Mars. I'm just ...........never mind................stop digging Mike.... :)
 
John Brown":hq98jqs1 said:
One of the mods once linked to a thread wherein Jacob had given advice about shaping spindle moulder cutters, and was attacked by another forum member in a way that was totally unwarranted.

Ah yes, that thread. To be fair to Roger, I think he (And several other members) had a couple of serious spats with Jacob in the days prior so that's why tensions were a bit high I think.

It wasn't so bad when Jacob got things right, it was when he got things absolutely dangerously wrong and wouldn't back down from his statements.

Here's a similar thread I came across on another forum once which gave me a chuckle, some of the things Jacob came up with were down-right lethal if put to actual use such as using smooth knives in a serrated block under an incorrect assumption it will hold better than a smooth jawed block. And then there's just putting out false statements like "you all seem to have missed that it is an early version of a limited block, but shown without the limiters." why comment on something you have no clue about what you're looking at? I haven't been at this lark particularly long comparatively but even I know that's a Diangle block for two separate cutting angles.

I sometimes wonder how a man with supposedly 30+ years of experience could be oh so wrong so often, loose weights on top a board on a surface planer? I mean... Come on...
 
John Brown":1jumkbul said:
The real problem with Jacob was the gang of people who tripped over themselves to attack him.
Whatever you may think, I was not not a fan, he had/has his faults, but some forum members were, in my opinion, childishly antagonistic..

& still do John even though or perhaps because he can no longer answer back.
 
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