Mod inaction and the future

[caiusbeerquitius]

Here is a text by a British guy writing about Germans.

14. SAY WHAT YOU MEAN

English is not about what you say, but how you say it. German is both, but more the former. Since what Germans say tends to be direct and prepared with minimal ambiguity. Ruthlessly efficient, if you will. In English, for example, if you want something to do something for you, you do not merely go up to that person and ask them to do something for you. Oh no. That would be a large faux pas of the social variety. Instead you must first enquire about their health, their families health, their children’s health, the weather, the activities of the previous weekend, the plans of the upcoming weekend, the joy or ecstasy related to the outcome of the most recent televised football match, then, finally, you can say "by the way", after which you begin the actual point of the conversation, before reinforcing that you feel guilty for having to ask, and only if it's no trouble, but would they be so kind as to possibly do this little thing for you. You will be eternally grateful.

Germans do not dance around the point in such elaborate, transparent displays of faux-friendship, they just say "I need this, do it, by this date. Alles klar”? Then walk off. Once you've practiced regularly getting to the point, you may find the way to be short but very enjoyable.
As for saying what you mean, Germans have rightly realised that sugar coating is best reserved for cakes. If I'm having one of my momentary delusions of grandeur I know I can rely on my German girlfriend to bring me swiftly back down to reality by saying something like "get over yourself, we're all born naked and shit in the toilet".

It is from here, in case you want to read the whole thing:
http://venturevillage.eu/how-to-be-german-part-1
(For Robert, as from my prey-Bavarian (Beute-Bayer) point of view he as a D(e)utchman is of course more "German" than I am... :evil: :woot: )

This is within Europe. I think in regard of all this the last sentence of rule #1 is the most important for all users. For many it is completely unclear, as it probably was here for Robert, that he might come over as unfriendly or so.

On the other hand: I think the old marketplace was structured so that a negative product review in a vendors section was basically a no-go, (apparently not for deepeeka, though, but they only post about / for their products and nothing else anyway) since you wrote in "someones" section, and naturally would behave differently, i.e. nicer. Also, I think everybody kept to this. I was glad to see the old marketplace go, though. But a solution where vendors are the ones to need to "invite" critique might not be ideal, I think. Then I´d rather favor NO advertising on the board and see a discussion about any item allowed. I could still find shops and retailers via google. The flow of information for all is the sense of this forum, as far as I thought. I don´t think RAT was meant to be a place where commercial interests of vendors are more important than the discourse about the Roman Army and its material culture. One also could simply allow only "authentic" producers in the style of the EXARC site to advertise, and keep the retailers out. Mostly retail-business does not further the discussion, rather simply "sucks" information from it. The current situation with Rusty and Robert seems to have been discussion vs. business. I think, i.e. my opinion is, RAT should value the discussion more.

In case someone wonders about me posting in the dioskouri helmet thread recently: I wrote in advance to moderators, that this thread actually should be in marketplace (at least as to the forum rules). Moderators said (after a while): "No, it´s OK as it is." As anyone can see in the thread, before I started my critique I also asked there "Shouldn´t this be in marketplace?" Since it stayed, I assumed critique and discussion would be appropriate. Had it been moved, I hadn´t posted what I did. And I think it was absolutely right to post what I posted where I posted it.

Maybe it would make sense to think about how important this advertising in the marketplace actually is. A product development section: sure. A review section sure. But in comparison to these two, how important is the advertising section? Isn´t the benefit from discussion more important for this forum? I think a " signature banner only" policy for advertising could be enough, if at all.

As you can see I am also involved with a retailing business. But I judge the discussion factor / knowledge factor to be of more importance, personally. But then, I don´t have to live of selling the stuff.