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Fan Forums - Friends Or Foe?
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I have spent some quite considerable time recently exploring and participating in, first hand, the phenomenon that is internet fan forums. These are something I have not had an awful lot of time to participate in over the years but I was curious to partake in a few all the same should the opportunity (spare time) ever arose in order to see if I could contact like minded people to myself.
For many years I have assumed these places were set up as a haven for fans to share a comradary that stems from the love of certain things... bands, music, sports, cars etc etc.
However, much to my surprise and enlightenment I have found that such places are all too often merely sounding boards for the arrogant, ignorant and just plain rude people who inhabit the cyberworld regularly. Ironically, quite often the forums are fragmented and tribal in nature. Populated by people who somehow end up divided in opinion and often excessively negative over what is meant to be a positive element of their lives.
One such forum I have been involved with contains a stronghold of members who by and large actively demote rather than promote the very thing the forum exsists for.
This is quite a shock for someone like myself who as a musician expends a lot of time and energy celebrating the music and integrity of 3 people who have given me great listening pleasure over the years... I do of course mean the greatest band in the world... RUSH!
In a period of only twelve weeks or so I have found myself bruised and battered, figuritively speaking and quite in the minority when speaking out in a positive way about the forums' very subject of focus.
Insults are flung (and of course countered) in trench warfare fashion that at times leave the reader/poster in a state of sheer bewilderment. I have found it quite amazing how many people are incapable of accepting a counter arguement without resorting to attempts to discredit the oppositions' integrity as a last ditch resort in trying to win over a point view or quite simply in the end just become abusive and insultory.
This is quite common on forums in general to a certain extent I have found... but in most cases it ends up being a fairly balanced affair... or more often the positive opinions outweigh the the negative ones... trollish posts I believe the term is.
It is quite a bizarre experience to go onto a fan forum only to find that the majority of posters do not particularly like the subject in question.
I even found my comments removed by the moderator when I expressed an opinion that this particular site was not fulfilling its supposed role as a proclaimed 'fan' site with the following comment added... 'We will also no longer tolerate posts that flame or otherwise bad mouth (said site) as a place to visit'.
Astonishing. Talk about dictatorial style sensorship of free speach and arrogance of unlimited proportion. You can bad mouth the subject of the forum but not the forum itself. These people need to get real.
Needless to say this site is populated by only a handful of people as most fans avoid it quite actively.
The reason for this trip into Forum-ville is that I am keen to promote any site that I feel worthy of peoples' attention via providing a link from this website and have been looking to see which was the one most worthy of being brought to the attention of RUSH fans who visit here.
The one site I can strongly recommend to any discerning and ardent RUSH fan is (click the following link)...
This site offers a balanced set of opinions on all things RUSH and whilst not all who post there are positive, any negative posts are by and large from a small faction of the site and on the whole most posts are well reasoned and well delivered.
Please visit The Rush Forum and join in the celebration of 3 of the worlds finest musicians ever.
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