Hi, I know what you mean! I also found this place after trying my luck unsuccessfully at a few other forums. This board is a LOT more friendly and easygoing!
I have never joined Steve Hoffman, but only ever lurked over there. I am on this other site for drummers that I will leave nameless just to prevent any cross-site drama from happening.
Anyway, I made the cardinal mistake of just casually asking them for opinions about this new brand of sticks I want to try out. These sticks are special ones geared toward hard rock drummers who hit very hard and prefer a powerful style of playing. They are weighted and longer than normal ones.
The replies consisted of a bunch of complete strangers lecturing me that if I couldn't get enough power out of size 5 jazz sticks, I must have bad technique, blah blah, fill in a few paragraphs worth of condescending rants about how silly and dumb was my way of doing things, and top it off with an actual meme of a guy holding fake sticks the size of baseball bats and pulling a crazy face.
So I jokingly called the little jazz sticks they recommended "a pair of cigarettes" and it was like I'd tried to kick a den of live snakes...got told off about the history of stick types, got all this unsolicited advice for beginner students (which I'm not, but they never even bothered to ask first)...and the whole time I was just trying to lighten the mood with a one-line wisecrack.
Their moderation actually *forbids* the use of smileys or emojis, if that tells you anything right there. Forbids it because it supposedly degrades the intellectual level of discussion
Suffice it to say I think you & I will have a far easier time of it over here!
