[natebrews]

I fully agree with this sentiment.  This is the reason why I have largely stopped being involved on the AHA forum.  That,  mixed with a bit of people being contrary just to be contrary, really pushed me away from it.  I want the technical discussion, I want the hard process and the extra effort that gets me slightly better results.  It does seem that when things go into the non 'low hanging fruit' territory it gets poo-poo'ed pretty hard.

[Village Taphouse]

I do agree that when people are challenged to defend what they've been doing for years, things can get testy.  Some of the low-O2 people have been great to deal with... they simply describe their methods and say that they have noticed better beer.  Others have been more aggressive and unpolished.  But the aggressive, rough-around-the-edges behavior has been around online since way before any low-O2 conversations so it's not really surprising.  My take on homebrewing forums has always been that the people you communicate with are mostly very nice, very helpful and just generally good to deal with.  That has been my experience for many years.  So when someone does not conduct themselves in that way, you do notice it.  But I'm not surprised by it. 

[denny]

I have written this before, and it has been denied before, but I'll repeat: this was not simply a problem of behavior. It's my opinion that the lodo stuff was an attack on the prevailing RDWHAHB paradigm, which makes sense for an organisation like the AHA that wants to do good to as many homebrewers as possible, but does not satisfy people that want to brew the best possible beer with the most advanced scientifically backed techniques available to and/or adapted for homebrewers.  A couple of years ago I came here because it was the place where the then most advanced homebrewing techniques were discussed. This is no longer the case.

Frank with all due respect, no way.

[techbrau]

I have written this before, and it has been denied before, but I'll repeat: this was not simply a problem of behavior. It's my opinion that the lodo stuff was an attack on the prevailing RDWHAHB paradigm, which makes sense for an organisation like the AHA that wants to do good to as many homebrewers as possible, but does not satisfy people that want to brew the best possible beer with the most advanced scientifically backed techniques available to and/or adapted for homebrewers.  A couple of years ago I came here because it was the place where the then most advanced homebrewing techniques were discussed. This is no longer the case.

Frank with all due respect, no way.

Actually, homoeccentricus hit the nail on the head as far as how we (the people who developed LODO) felt, and what our intention was in writing the original GBF helles paper.

LODO isn’t responsible for the community fracturing, because it only brought to light issues that were already lurking beneath the surface. As of 2014-2015, the conversation within the homebrewing community at large had grown complacent, repetitive, and stale.

Almost 100% of the focus has been on figuring out how to cut more corners and shave time off the brew day. I’m all for that - but the other side of the coin is that people had largely given up on talking about how to make better beer. That’s a problem because deep down a lot of us know that the majority of homebrew is at best mediocre - and that includes a lot of BJCP award winning beers. I think that most people don’t like to admit that. Some of us want to do what we can to change that - but there has been a lot of open hostility to the mere suggestion that we can do better.

I’ll let sleeping dogs lie with respect to the LODO arguments. Here is my positive suggestion for moving forward:

If the AHA wants to grow and develop the homebrew community, it needs to serve the needs of both beginner and advanced homebrewers. It’s been doing a great job at outreach and education for new brewers. But beginners don’t stay beginners forever, and there’s room for improvement when it comes to serving the advanced portion of the community.

Two concrete suggestions I have are:

1) Provide (or at least subsidize) access to professional/academic brewing literature for AHA members.

2) Find a way to facilitate “advanced”/R&D oriented discussion for those interested in it. This could be as simple as a creating an “advanced” subforum on the AHA forum. I don’t mean a LODO subforum - I mean a discussion space where the next LODO could be postulated and developed. The problem right now is that any advanced discussion isn’t flagged as such, and so either 1) newbies stumble into the conversation and either become confused or derail it or 2) novel/crazy/challenging ideas get shot down by the groupthink before they ever have a chance to develop into something more. Every new invention in history began life as an outlandish, crazy sounding idea. A designated “R&D” discussion space would allow novel ideas to be tossed around and refined without interference to/from the mainstream discussion channels.

[denny]

The separate area for "advanced" topics has been discussed and nobody could figure out why it would make any difference.  You can discuss topics as advanced as you like on any section of the forum.  A separate section would not prevent people who questioned with them from commenting.  If someone can show us differently, then we can reconsider it.

[techbrau]

The separate area for "advanced" topics has been discussed and nobody could figure out why it would make any difference.  You can discuss topics as advanced as you like on any section of the forum.  A separate section would not prevent people who questioned with them from commenting.  If someone can show us differently, then we can reconsider it.

Denny, can you please reread this section of my post above:

The problem right now is that any advanced discussion isn’t flagged as such, and so either 1) newbies stumble into the conversation and either become confused or derail it or 2) novel/crazy/challenging ideas get shot down by the groupthink before they ever have a chance to develop into something more. Every new invention in history began life as an outlandish, crazy sounding idea. A designated “R&D” discussion space would allow novel ideas to be tossed around and refined without interference to/from the mainstream discussion channels.

And then provide evidence that the problems 1) and 2) don't exist, or a good argument for why a separate forum would do nothing to alleviate them? Especially when the nature of the subforum could be made explicit, enforcable ground rules (for example: warning to newbies: these are experimental ideas not to be taken as gospel or good advice; warning to other folks: don't come here looking for arguments or to dismiss new ideas)

 I concede that it may not fix the problems 100%, but it may fix them 90%. The nonexistence of a perfect solution isn't a good reason to refrain from implementing a good solution.

Also, what do you think about my idea re: subsidized access to e.g. JASBC, Brauwelt, etc. for paying members?

[tommymorris]

What’s wrong with this forum is people constantly talk about what’s wrong with this forum (or what’s right about this forum). Both are boring. I come here to talk about brewing beer (and maybe barbecue

[denny]

The separate area for "advanced" topics has been discussed and nobody could figure out why it would make any difference.  You can discuss topics as advanced as you like on any section of the forum.  A separate section would not prevent people who questioned with them from commenting.  If someone can show us differently, then we can reconsider it.

Denny, can you please reread this section of my post above:

The problem right now is that any advanced discussion isn’t flagged as such, and so either 1) newbies stumble into the conversation and either become confused or derail it or 2) novel/crazy/challenging ideas get shot down by the groupthink before they ever have a chance to develop into something more. Every new invention in history began life as an outlandish, crazy sounding idea. A designated “R&D” discussion space would allow novel ideas to be tossed around and refined without interference to/from the mainstream discussion channels.

And then provide evidence that the problems 1) and 2) don't exist, or a good argument for why a separate forum would do nothing to alleviate them? Especially when the nature of the subforum could be made explicit, enforcable ground rules (for example: warning to newbies: these are experimental ideas not to be taken as gospel or good advice; warning to other folks: don't come here looking for arguments or to dismiss new ideas)

 I concede that it may not fix the problems 100%, but it may fix them 90%. The nonexistence of a perfect solution isn't a good reason to refrain from implementing a good solution.

Also, what do you think about my idea re: subsidized access to e.g. JASBC, Brauwelt, etc. for paying members?

As to 1), I have no input.  It's up to the AHA to decide whether it's a member benefit.  I believe it's already been considered, but I really have no say in it.

As to 2), I can't see that it would be any different than what we do now.  People can make up their minds what they want to read or not read, comment on or not comment on. 

Believe me, I understand the frustration of trying to introduce new ideas. I spent years trying to convince people that batch sparging was a valid technique.  Eventually people either decided to try it or not and made up their minds if it worked for them or not.  But trying to get across that it worked for me was a real struggle.  The low oxygen brewing techniques were a similar revolutionary idea, so I understand the uphill battle to persuade people of the validity.  But walling off new info simply doesn't seem like the best way to do that.

[jeffy]

I would have been more interested at first in reading about the lodo technique if the original posts had been less cryptic and more explanatory.  There was an attitude in those first posts that was just arrogant.  I hate arrogance, but I like learning.

[BrewBama]

+1. The community fractured not because of the LODO process but because of the way the Brewers who use it presented their opinions.  If the information could have been presented in a less forceful manner it may have been received in a more positive way. The LODO marketing pitch was its downfall IMHO. The comments that people can only settle for mediocrity without the process doesn't help.  I am sure CAMRA disagrees. There's an air of superiority that doesn't sit well IMHO.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[techbrau]

Believe me, I understand the frustration of trying to introduce new ideas. I spent years trying to convince people that batch sparging was a valid technique.  Eventually people either decided to try it or not and made up their minds if it worked for them or not.  But trying to get across that it worked for me was a real struggle.  The low oxygen brewing techniques were a similar revolutionary idea, so I understand the uphill battle to persuade people of the validity.  But walling off new info simply doesn't seem like the best way to do that.

Believe me, I understand the frustration of trying to introduce new ideas. I spent years trying to convince people that batch sparging was a valid technique.  Eventually people either decided to try it or not and made up their minds if it worked for them or not.  But trying to get across that it worked for me was a real struggle.  The low oxygen brewing techniques were a similar revolutionary idea, so I understand the uphill battle to persuade people of the validity.  But walling off new info simply doesn't seem like the best way to do that.

We're not quite talking on the same wavelength here, so I’ll try to address that. I'm not suggesting walling off new info. What I'm suggesting is an incubator for new ideas to get developed.

The basic steps of the scientific method are:

1) Observation/Question
2) Hypothesis
3) Experimentation
4) Conclusion

The difference between your batch sparging vs. the German lager "it" flavor discussions that eventually grew into LoDO is that in your case, you already had a technique/idea that was fully fleshed out, and you were at the point where you could proselytize it. In other words, you were already at step 4). On the other hand, LoDO started out as some people saying, “Hey, I think that some commercial German lagers have this unique flavor to them. Am I crazy, or does anybody else notice the same thing?” The “it” discussions were still at step 1).

The problem was that in the general discussion forum, the ideas were never able to progress past step 1) because the threads would get swamped by people who disagreed with or felt threatened by the observation/question, and wanted to just outright kill the discussion. That forced the people who wanted to investigate “it” further to retreat away from the forum completely and self-organize/communicate in private. We were eventually able to develop the idea of “it” into an underlying theory and the LODO process, but only because our private collaboration insulated us from incessant argument.

I guess my question to you would be: how do you suggest that ideas at stage 1) or 2) be discussed or developed without a dedicated R&D subforum? Because it is obvious that the current system has a tendency to nip those kinds of ideas in the bud.

[denny]

When you say "people who disagreed with or felt threatened by the observation/question, and wanted to just outright kill the discussion" I feel like you have misunderstood what those people were getting at and their motivations.  I know that certainly doesn't describe my attitude.

[techbrau]

Maybe, but it's kind of irrelevant. Even if that's the case it doesn't change the fact that the conversations had a tendency to degenerate into tens-of-pages worth of trivial argument that prevented any meaningful progress from ever happening.

I'm trying to point out that the AHA forum in its current state is not conducive to the development of new ideas (this is distinct from the introduction of new ideas, like batch sparging or SNS starters). I'm pointing out specific reasons why I think that's the case, and offering a solution that I think would at least somewhat address them. There could be better ideas than a separate advanced forum, but you did ask in this thread for how these observations could be turned into something positive so I'm trying to do just that.

Maybe it's a forum culture problem, and people feel the need to always insert their two cents into every topic. The German lager "it" discussions would have maybe had the chance to progress further if all the people who swamped the thread claiming that "it" doesn't exist, or that they don't like helles, or whatever would have just refrained from posting.

[denny]

And I appreciate your effort to have a productive discussion.  I can't think of any discussion on any forum, though, that doesn't wander.

[techbrau]

We can resign ourselves to that, and keep things the way they are. But that just means that whatever the "next LODO" (or "next batch sparge" or "next SNS starter", etc....) is will probably have to be developed in private by people who don't want to deal with the issues I raised with this (and other) forum(s).