Well said again Markie et al...and I'll say it again: restricting reviews to one per title (even if literate and longer than one line), can only ever be, when the facts are put aside, that one person's opinion/experience of the music under review. Even in some of the classical threads, there's disagreement over which performance is better with some saying the performance was too fast and others saying the music was to performed to the max! Facts aside, all that remains is opinion, preferences and experience and one person's can never be representative of everyone's opinion, preferences and experience.
And I'll say it again, The Sequel: As a community there's a place for everyone. Segregation isn't good for fostering a welcoming spirit where people feel welcome and encouraged to contribute their words and pennies. A person's literacy has no bearing on that person's intrinsic worth, economic value, possibly, but everyone has value and as Peter Singer (Australian philosopher) might say, although we're all different (abilities, size, strength, intelligence etc) egalitarianism begins with recognising our equality of interests for each of us has an intrinsic interest in staying alive, breathing, eating, sleeping, being free from harm, being part of a community and, wait for it...being included.
If HRA wants to become a reference library where talking is prohibited, then so be it, but it'll be a dull and lifeless place bereft of dynamic exchange and spontaneous spending (as we often do when Ralph recommends) and that's not the sort of place I'd like to frequent any longer than necessary. In contrast, when I visit the current site, I gather reference material as it's available, spend accordingly and because I have a good time in the forum, feel like coming back for more.
The kind of library I'd like HRA to become is one where all the relevant info is available, perhaps a level for classical another Jazz and another still for pop/rock, but also has a cool basement café where patrons can talk about classical, jazz, pop/rock and more besides. It's not to late to turn the ship around Stephen, the iceberg is not yet upon us.
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