"it is difficult to write a precise verbal description of something which is essentially visual."

For a long time, I though that was the problem. And perhaps it is for the general audience.

Unfortunately, one of the things the past few months have shown is that even looking at the same picture, one with no costumes or even partner to get in the way, is not enough to establish agreement over what simple physical facts (regardless if they good habits or bad) are actually present in the picture.

"It's fairly safe to say that once the postings get about 30 or so, the thread has lost its usefulness. So we can either stick with it or restart the topic, depending on whether we're looking for entertainment or dancing information"

Unfortunately true. While there are disagreements over basic reality, conversations are going to expand a lot. And unfortunately some aspects of the forum layout, like the indenting, make it hard to view a thread more than one post at a time.

In terms of dancing information, unfortunately there really are very few sources in this world where you can find the straight dope unencombered by distractions, mistakes, or - in this case - arguments. You can certainly go somewhere and pay for answers, but that's no guarantee of their quality. You have to either pick a teacher to trust, or learn to follow the arguments to the point where you can figure out which answers are plausible and which aren't.

What bothers me is when they take a thread that may be valueable to quite a few of us and turn it into a debate on extremely intricate aspects of dancing. Because of all their posts, I don't find the more basic posts that would help me or I could possibly contribute to.

That would require mandatory registration if it were to be at all effective. And that's something I won't do. Mandatory registration is a good way to filter out a large percentage of trash, but you also lose a lot of good content in the process. Many of the best questions are asked by curious passers-by, who would not otherwise ask if they had been required to register, first.

From a technical standpoint, it's nearly impossible to write a script that would allow you to filter a specific non-registered guest. The two identifying factors -- guest name and IP address -- are both extremely unreliable. A guest can choose whichever name he likes, and change it each and every time he posts a message. Two or more guests can post a message under the same name, and I can think of no better example of this than the name "Anonymous". IP addresses can be easily masked, and are often rotated periodically by ISP's. So the only way to make an effective blocking tool is by requiring all participants to assume an identity through user registration. And as I said, that's not an option I'm willing to use.

Besides, it looks like the current problem with Don & Anonymous was stamped out almost entirely in one swoop. This is the only live thread remaining that has the same annoying qualities. So once Anonymous gets his last word in, insetad of answering, just let it go. And with any luck, this will all go away.

Regards,
Jonathan

Thank you Jonathan for your care and your efforts to provide us with all the useful information about dancing.

In fact we are all annoyed of anonymous and don, just because they turn every discussion into a war of nonsense! really! i don't ignore that they have the knowledge, but it's too much and they shall understand that we visit this website to learn new things and to talk with people that share the same passion, but these to persons made us hate dancing because they turn it into something so very complicated!
Simply when i'm seeing a topic started by don or anonymous i don't read it!

Thank you again Jonathan! and congratulations on the learning center's great work!

Regards to all of you, and keep on dancing!

Awww Latindiva.. Don't ignore Don's or anonymous's topics. Sometimes i join in with some invaluable insights, and you'd miss them!!

Oh Phil i know how valubale your opinion is, and i always read what you write! because you always say it directly and simlpy!!

I'm just bumping this thread up to the top again!

I agree that the site being dominated by two people--whatever their interests or topics--is unfortunate. I mostly skip the technical threads for that reason.

The thing that bothers me the most is when some beginning dancer comes on to ask a perfectly straightforward question about a step, timing, etc. and gets bombarded with minute details that, even if correct, wouldn't be relevant to the original poster's training for years to come. That alone makes me skeptical about anything those two posters say, as they clearly don't have any idea of how adjust their information to their audience, a requirement of any good teacher.

"The thing that bothers me the most is when some beginning dancer comes on to ask a perfectly straightforward question about a step, timing, etc. and gets bombarded with minute details that, even if correct, wouldn't be relevant to the original poster's training for years to come. That alone makes me skeptical about anything those two posters say, as they clearly don't have any idea of how adjust their information to their audience, a requirement of any good teacher."

Once someone unwisedly injects erroneous information into a response, it needs to be corrected.

BTW, most of the recent "debate" threads have been started by parties to the debate, not by innocent newbies with intersting questions that get bown out of proportion.

That's why I don't even both reading most threads with technical titles.