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Closed thread
- Thread starter Bart
- Start Date
Bart
Well-Known Member
tat2Ralfy said:
No, it's Bruno, Supermoderator/Administrator of StraightRazorPlace, and a countryman of mine.
Knowing him a little bit, I suspect he would have nothing but wise words to add to the thread. If they are of reconciling nature, I'll ask him to post them anyway.
Welkom Bruno!
Bart.
Hello Bart,
Thanks for the welcome. I have indeed not come to make a fuss. There is too much fuss already. Personally it never ceases to amaze me that so much strife can come from an activity that 99% of the population would find boring.
I intended indeed to put a bit of context with the discussion regarding SRP and the coticule controversy. I have absolutely no stake in that discussion. I have a couple of stones, and I keep using them because they work. Since I only hone my own razors and the ones I restore, they'll outlast me by many years.
First of all, I apologize for making this my first appearance here. But this is where I can actually say something useful, whereas I have no advice to give for honing razors with a coticule. I do use them though, 1 for my kitchen knives (a blue-yellow combination stone) and one for my axe (a cell phone sized bout). And my kitchen knives are so sharp that just yesterday I was slicing vegetables, and the very tip of my thumb skin fell off before I felt what my eyes were telling me.
:
Anyway, there are a couple of things that I wanted to clarify. The first is that 'SRP' as an entity does not have an opinion. We don't have a formal system to decide what is true or not. We have no gospel. In the end, the persons in charge of SRP are Dave Wessel and I, and neither of us makes any claim to hold the truth.
What we do have is people. Lots of them. And people have opinions. And if you get a lot of people together, you get groups of people who think the same and other who think different. Usually grouped by the opinion they hold. Even SRP staff who participate in discussions do not represent SRP in their opinion about hones and other technical things.
Just because a majority of people hold opinions that run counter to what a minority thinks does not mean that they are backed by SRP, or that we are working against that minority. Our members and staff are all free to hold their own opinion. If you’ve been around SRP a couple of years, you’ll have noticed that the majority opinion changes over time. There used to be a time when Norton was king. Then it became Coticules all the way, then Shaptons, then the 8K DMT (though that never really took off) and now the Naniwas.
From that point of view, the existence of coticule.be is a good thing for people who like them, because they have lost the majority interest of most of the SRP membership. Just like the others before them and the others after them. I’m sure that Naniwa will fall out of favor eventually and it’ll be something else. Just because a honing method falls out of favor does not mean that ‘we’ are against the people who still use them.
As a result of changing majorty preferences, people can get the impression that they are being mobbed (which is in fact what happens) but there is no organized structure orchestrating that debate. This is emergent human behavior. Coticule.be has the advantage of being both very focused, and fairly small. If you get a community the size of SRP, you get many changing opinions and groupthink which will evolve over time. And every time there is a paradigm shift, there will be debate.
To sum all of this up in 1 paragraph, I think I can say that while I acknowledge the impact of the honing / hones controverse, it is important to realize that it is neither malicious, nor orchestrated. I regret every incident that is born out of such conroverse, yet I cannot prevent it from happening again and again, every time a new paradigm comes along and proponents of one get into an argument with proponents of the other.
I hope that makes sense.
I really did not come here to cause more fuss than there already is. My hope was to be able to explain that controverse such as happened with coticules is caused by humans being human, rather than a by an ulterior motive. If I was at any point unclear or ambiguous, I'll gladly clarify. That will have to be tomorrow though, as it is nearing midnight here, and I would like to get some sleep before the alarm clock wakes me at 06:21 again.
Thanks for the welcome. I have indeed not come to make a fuss. There is too much fuss already. Personally it never ceases to amaze me that so much strife can come from an activity that 99% of the population would find boring.
I intended indeed to put a bit of context with the discussion regarding SRP and the coticule controversy. I have absolutely no stake in that discussion. I have a couple of stones, and I keep using them because they work. Since I only hone my own razors and the ones I restore, they'll outlast me by many years.
First of all, I apologize for making this my first appearance here. But this is where I can actually say something useful, whereas I have no advice to give for honing razors with a coticule. I do use them though, 1 for my kitchen knives (a blue-yellow combination stone) and one for my axe (a cell phone sized bout). And my kitchen knives are so sharp that just yesterday I was slicing vegetables, and the very tip of my thumb skin fell off before I felt what my eyes were telling me.
:Anyway, there are a couple of things that I wanted to clarify. The first is that 'SRP' as an entity does not have an opinion. We don't have a formal system to decide what is true or not. We have no gospel. In the end, the persons in charge of SRP are Dave Wessel and I, and neither of us makes any claim to hold the truth.
What we do have is people. Lots of them. And people have opinions. And if you get a lot of people together, you get groups of people who think the same and other who think different. Usually grouped by the opinion they hold. Even SRP staff who participate in discussions do not represent SRP in their opinion about hones and other technical things.
Just because a majority of people hold opinions that run counter to what a minority thinks does not mean that they are backed by SRP, or that we are working against that minority. Our members and staff are all free to hold their own opinion. If you’ve been around SRP a couple of years, you’ll have noticed that the majority opinion changes over time. There used to be a time when Norton was king. Then it became Coticules all the way, then Shaptons, then the 8K DMT (though that never really took off) and now the Naniwas.
From that point of view, the existence of coticule.be is a good thing for people who like them, because they have lost the majority interest of most of the SRP membership. Just like the others before them and the others after them. I’m sure that Naniwa will fall out of favor eventually and it’ll be something else. Just because a honing method falls out of favor does not mean that ‘we’ are against the people who still use them.
As a result of changing majorty preferences, people can get the impression that they are being mobbed (which is in fact what happens) but there is no organized structure orchestrating that debate. This is emergent human behavior. Coticule.be has the advantage of being both very focused, and fairly small. If you get a community the size of SRP, you get many changing opinions and groupthink which will evolve over time. And every time there is a paradigm shift, there will be debate.
To sum all of this up in 1 paragraph, I think I can say that while I acknowledge the impact of the honing / hones controverse, it is important to realize that it is neither malicious, nor orchestrated. I regret every incident that is born out of such conroverse, yet I cannot prevent it from happening again and again, every time a new paradigm comes along and proponents of one get into an argument with proponents of the other.
I hope that makes sense.
I really did not come here to cause more fuss than there already is. My hope was to be able to explain that controverse such as happened with coticules is caused by humans being human, rather than a by an ulterior motive. If I was at any point unclear or ambiguous, I'll gladly clarify. That will have to be tomorrow though, as it is nearing midnight here, and I would like to get some sleep before the alarm clock wakes me at 06:21 again.
deighaingeal
Well-Known Member
Thank you very much, Bruno. That post was thoughtful and well worded.
Bart
Well-Known Member
My pleasure, Bruno.Bruno said:
I agree, yet I don't think the fuzz is caused by the activity, but by failing human interaction, and by a difference of motives.Bruno said:
Ouch. :scared: I wish you swift healing.Bruno said:just yesterday I was slicing vegetables, and the very tip of my thumb skin fell off before I felt what my eyes were telling me.
I'm afraid that's a bit too easy, Bruno. If you and David were really in charge, I don't think I would be banned at SRP.Bruno said:
But let's not go into that discussion. It's primordially a too easy statement, because we're talking about moderated forums. And we see certain moderators using their position to gain an advantage in personal discussions.
Let's take the thread that I believe stirred the most commotion. It is very clear that Sham's agenda to start that thread was inspired by his ongoing wish to discredit everything that connects to Coticule.be. Actually, I should say, everything that connects to me. I've been avoiding to make that observation in public, because I don't want to come across as taking his assaults too personal. But the fact that this guy has a personal problem can't be denied for the sake of analyzing the current uproar. I've been basically stalked by him for 2 years now.
In this particular case, he starting threads, on all forums, except this one (though he has a membership), "how to properly use Coticules". A rather suggestive, and slightly derogatory title. (Note that the word "properly" was recently removed from the thread title at SRP, but we still have B&B to look atthe original.)
The contents of the first post reveals the true intent further. On SRP we soon see how one of the senior moderators sides with Sham and even goes as far to pull a power trick to silence opposition. "Unfortunately Sham, you are dealing with several people in this thread that their only intention is to sidetrack your thread,, They have no intention of trying what you are saying... And as a Senior Moderator of SRP, consider yourselves warned...".
But enough of that thread. Everyone can read.
During recent times, we've seen both this moderator and Lynn Abrams, the owner of SRP, chime in time and time again, in most threads were the work Coticule is mentioned, both on SRP and other forums, more or less to keep the following record straight:
1. "Coticules are not as consistent" (= not reliable)
2. "Coticules are hyped" (= overrated)
3. "Coticules are not easy to learn for beginners" (= come to papa first to buy something else)
4. "Coticules wear prematurely when you use slurry" (=they are not allowed for other work than finishing)
5. "Razors wear prematurely when honed on a COticule" (the latest one)
In threads that were started as a question about Coticules We see a pattern of the conversation being turned sour, people who were trying to answer the question talked down to, and once the thread is deranged, they flood the thread with a myriad talk about other sharpening stones.
Have you seen the same stalling tactics used in forum conversations about other hones?.
So, it this problem related to SRP as a community? No, I think not. The problem is one of a few people who think they own this particular community, while in fact they just own an URL and a server. In my opinion, they (ab)use this community to run a very private agenda, largely based on commercial interests, but also on their inability to deal with dissident voices.
This whole fuzz is not a matter of intolerance between user groups. It is the doing of a few individuals of whom I am one. We have a conflict of interest. My interest is to build a community of gentlemen who like to celebrate their little hobby. In spite of all the whispering by Lynn and Glen, I have zero financial aspirations with running this website or anything that even remotely connects to straight razors.
In that respect, the differences will remain, and the conflict won't be solved. But it doesn't serve the community, and I hope it can be silenced. It is not because I find Glen Mercurio unfit for a moderator's chair, that I don't recognize his skill and expertise in razor refurnishing and sharpening. And on equal accounts, I have great respect for Lynn Abram's achievements and merits.
Nonetheless, blaming the current situation on the Coticule.be members inability to accept that not everyone equally loves Coticules, is an unfair assessment of what has caused this turmoil. We did not just mistakingly "got the impression of being mobbed". Instead we were knowingly agitated by a few individuals that wanted to teach us a lesson.
Bruno said:
I know that you mean well, Bruno. If it wasn't for you and many other good guys, I wouldn't miss SRP for one second. I didn't spent 2 years posting daily on that forum, trying to help out where I could, if I didn't like the people on it. I fully acknowledge that you have no ulterior motive.
But let's agree that some of those that operate SRP have different motives than those that operate Coticule.be. Let's even assume that, in spite of my analysis above, none of both parties fully comprehends the other"s motives, and leave it at that.
Kind regards,
Bart.