I didn't log on today til pretty late, and I missed the whole blow up. I can tell you flat out that unlike AH, AC isn't sponsored by anybody. We take no ads and have no banners or pop ups. Once a year (or as needed) we "pass the hat" to help JohnR (the site 'owner') pay for servers & bandwidth. No one makes any money or has any agenda. All of us Facilitators & Admin there do it just for fun. For the record, I'm a Mod with Admin powers at Audiocircle.
Audiocircle is accessible to the public, but really it was a "lifeboat" created to preserve our community from Harmonic Discord- that site still exists, but basically never gets maintained at all. Dan & Discord pretty much abandoned it. So AC is our private little hangout, and we don't really care if it "grows" or not- we don't chase people away, but we aren't recruiting, either. It's almost an online family, albeit a sometimes dysfunctional one.
The mood and tone over there is very different than here. I'm one of the few relatively objectivist guys over there, and the vast majority of them are believers in things like tweaks & cables. Generally any opinion is welcomed so long as it's presented respectfully. But it's not a site of engineers, and most guys there take it as an artical of faith that cables, amps, stands, gear racks, etc etc all have a unique sound. That's just the culture of the site. It's not necessary to agree to post there; there are a few members (including Moderators) very vocal in their disagreement. We just try to keep it civil.
I really doubt guys like Mtrycrafts & WmAX would find AC to their liking (although they're certainly welcome if they like). DBT is not scorned by any means, but it's not held up as the ultimate answer like it usually is here. Again, I'm in the minority, being pretty much in the objectivist camp, but normally there's very little conflict. That said, most guys there do believe in a lot of things that are considered here to be snake oil.
As for the moderation policy at AC: Aside from posts on politics & religion, it's almost unheard of for us to delete a post or ban a member, and we're normally pretty hands-off. Marbles (the Mod/Admin who deleted the post) has some history with Dan and you sort of got in the middle of it. You rubbed him the wrong way in great part by making your very first post a negative one; that's not the way to endear yourself to a close knit group. By your own words, your first post was "slamming some guy." What would you think if a brand new member here used his first post to slam someone? I happen to know you a little, Mudcat, or at least as much as you can on a forum. But since Marbles doesn't, I can definately see how your comment was taken as trolling.
I like both sites a lot, and each has a core of guys that's kind of like a family. But I'll admit AC is more fun to me, in great part because (lately) every discussion at AH seems to erupt into full fledge flame wars. Every thread seems to draw a line in the sand and dare people to cross it.
I'm sorry you had problems over there. Feel free to contact me if you if you want to.
