Lately I find myself entering the RC forum, taking a quick look at thread titles and "reading" the forum by selecting the thread title option from the drop-down list in the upper right corner.
Are there others who use this method of reading?

Strange.

The dullness and presence of numerous (I dare say 'stupid') threads with little or no value, but which are tolerated, have nothing to do with "Website Feedback".

It is not the site's or site owners' fault that the quality of the forum degrades and sensible discussion is overwhelmed by childish quarrels, meaningless polls and so on. Often more than one on given "subject". That people with obviously multiple accounts (but with the same style of writing) are flooding it as they like.
It is us, the users, who shape the quality of the forum. And I wanted to provoke a discussion and see what others, both new and old users, think about this.

Well, I know, I may be wrong. But I have the same right to express my opinion. Because when I joined, the RC forum was a place for education to me, a place with a lot of insight, a place to learn good manners and to enrich my knowledge of English.

?
What do you mean? and why is this topic in RC?

Well, what I mean is that there a no interesting threads (with some exceptions, of course).
There are verbal fights between fanboys, almost identical threads which differ only by whom the author is fan of, polls which lead to no sensible conclusions.
In a word - the RC forum is sliding away from the core - motor sport.
---------------
Is Button's likely Championship tainted?
Kimi not as dumb as you think
Poll: Brawn or Schumacher
Was Lewis Hamilton sabotaged in 2007?
Vettel and Hamilton are both still too error prone

these are from page 1 only

I know where you are coming from on this.

I'm not sure I understand the technical aspect of what you are saying though - when I go to each forum, instead of opening threads with what may be interesting titles I simply hover my mouse over the title and you get to read a preview of the content without wasting time opening it. Is this what you are referring to?

As regards the quality of the RC forum, I couldn't agree with you more. I was a big user of the f1racing.net forum many moons ago, until the quality of that degraded to such an extent that I came over to Atlas instead. The quality of this forum has however gone really far down the hill and although I do still lurk I barely post, because most of the time frankly what is the point? The level of intellectual debate is very low so you spend time constructing a good solid post and you're either ignored because people aren't smart enough to address your points intellectually, or they just call you an arsehole!

It seems to be unique to the RC forum though, which I find very strange. I use other forums (including on this BB) on other subjects and there's no name calling, no stupid low-level responses, no obvious mutiple-account users backing themselves up. Perhaps most motorsport fans are just idiots or something?

I still eagerly await the day Autosport takes full control of this BB, makes it for paying magazine and/or website subscribers and use it's own staff as moderators, and that will get rid of all of the wastes of space.

http://forums.autosport.com/index.php?act=...mp;f=2&id=5

Recruiting new mods (again?) is one thing but sadly I don't see how that contributes towards many members of the RC forum becoming any more intelligent and/or blessed with a few manners.

Seriously you guys should consider opening a new forum, perhaps an intellectuals-only RC forum. You have to beg for entrance into the Paddock Club forum, yet the whole reason people come here (RC) is open to all and full of buffoons. There must be some simple test you could apply, whether it be a test or based on how long you've been a member. While I understand people can't help if they only joined last week it could also be taken into consideration that some of us have been around a long time, and it's not because we are constant trouble makers is it? I may be reading between the lines here, but it's not that long (IIRC) since the last new set of mods were announced. I assume either you need many more or they don't want to do it anymore. Either way, I think I can make a fair assumption that the forum must be a troublesome place to moderate given how often mods seem to be recruited.

I might sound like I'm harping on here (and I didn't even start this thread!) but I'd love to pop my laptop on for 30 mins each evening and get stuck into some good debates re motorsport, but I don't bother, for the reasons mentioned in my post above. Really, why should I be switching my laptop off feeling offended at some of the crap people write on here and much of it personal if they simply don't agree with you? It's not like this on the Nostalgia Forum, there's got to be some way you guys can take control and sort out RC once and for all. Seriously, would you not consider giving thought to a seperate forum on here solely for magazine and/or website subscribers? If we have to register using our subscriber numbers(cross-referenced by inputting our address maybe) then there would no messing around at all. You guys do your job (which I do thank you for, honestly) as normal and if anyone steps out of line they get suspended then banned from the forum. With having to use your subscriber number/address there'd be absolutely no way at all that you could have multiple accounts at once, or register again under another name.

Please...consider it?

EDIT: Typos.

I am afraid I've been too unclear with my topic title. English is not my primary language, so I certainly have failed to express the subtle nuances.
In no way I wanted to leave the impression that I am pointing at mods and admins. You guys do what you can, you cannot be 24 hours non-stop here and even if you do, it won't help much. I've done and I am doing enough moderator work, so I know what it is. But I will not dare apply for a moderator here. Don't feel fit for the job.

With this thread I just wanted to share my observations. And to see what others think or do they notice the same things.
Everything is changing, the World is changing, so does the forum audience. Generations grow up and invade the web. New people bring their culture, their perceptions and values. The question is "Is it better or worse".
At the same time Formula 1 is giving less and less of what conquered me some 20 years ago. We have instead politics, off-track result fixing, courts, verdicts, gossip. Real racing and competition is gone. W have all in all 3 hours of action and it is mostly processions, ending with a ceremony as if trophies are given postmortem.
So it is no wonder that new generations of fans, who's grown up in front of the PCs, in a virtual reality, adopt different values. I'd say distorted values for the sport.
The level of intolerance rises up, petty quarrels take tens of pages of repeating quotes and replies and if someone has said something different and valuable, it is hard to notice in the flood.

I know I am getting older and this all may be just old man's scepticism. That's why I wanted to provoke a discussion and see what others see and how they asses things.

P.S. I started the thread in RC because it is related mainly to that subforum.

I agree completely with that, so I also hope my posts don't read like I'm saying the mods are akin to the devil.



I won't guess at the reasons why there are so many ignorant (both to the sport and to other humans) and offensive people registered on RC, but while I probably can't go so far as to see it is a 'fact' I will say it is easily noticeable. It looks like we are a small army within this thread unfortunately, but if more of the more-worthwhile people from RC read this thread I'm sure there would be a loud cry asking for change.



Don't question yourself and consider that you are in the wrong, because it's not you or me, it's the forum. Put it this way, we aren't asking for the right to be offensive to other forum users, we are asking for the right to participate in a forum where you are going to receive only smart well-considered responses to posts, even if it is someone disagreeing with you. I have suggested possible solutions above, of course they may not be technically practical but it would be nice to see one of them happen. You know what, I'd even put up a few £££ to access a quality forum, if £££ is what it would take to keep fools away. My language may be a little provocative, but I feel that RC really is populated by many fools. Ultimately it has to be in Autosport's interests to arrest the development of RC into the laughing stock of autosport.com (which to Nostalgia Forum members it is) because at the end of the day if people are driven away from the website then revenues will go down.

I don't think I fit in the "more-worthwhile" category, but I originally signed on to this forum at the beginning of the year expecting to find a place where motorsports are discussed in a civilised and considerate way. It soon became obvious that it wasn't actually the case, since the forum was overflowing with various "characters", if one can call them like that. I found myself having second thoughts before posting quite a lot of the time, because even if I expressed my opinion in a civilised way, anything which was spelled out in that manner would simply be ignored. "Not feeding the trolls" is something I saw being applied the hard way on another forum where I contribute regularly.

And reading the RC forum has also been one of the reasons why I have given up supporting anyone in F1. I don't want to be associated with hordes of insulting fanboys.

There is a noticeable decline in the quality of posting in RC. I think anyone who has been here for for long can sense it (I'm aware that I have a fairly recent join date; I was a member before, but drifted away and forgot my old username/password combo.).

In regards to what's been said, I'll address the age question first. I don't think that's the true problem. I've posted at sites with varying age ranges and that wasn't the primary determining factor of forum etiquette. There's a slight difference in writing style, tastes and, often, politics, by age but overall, when folks have a shared interest, it can be hard to tell the kids from the seniors, or the girls from the boys, for that matter. Usually, it's the personalities of the 'dominant members', those people forum surf rather than sleep, or contribute to every last thread, all acting like it's a post tally competition, that set the tone. If there are members with extreme views or strong personalities, they attract followers and haters too, and these little gangs can also direct a forum (see the various closed Indycar threads for a great example of this).

The above is sort of an internet version of evolution; the people who visit the most, say the most and do it with style are going to be the 'survivors'. If others are put off by what develops, then there's even less diversity of opinion and one or two posting styles take over. It's a natural progression of forum life, and the main reason so many old forums split off into breakaway versions. This is where I want to mention the call for "subscriber only" forums; I loath exclusive boards and avoid them. I'll never beg for a place in PC – I don't go anywhere online I have to ask permission to join, thanks. Besides, I don't think Autosport subscribers have some magic quality that makes their posting more intelligent; some of the most irritating members might very well have a subscription, you know.

Now I have my own contribution and it is moderation related. There's something I've noticed; people who are obviously only on the boards to spur fighting are expected to be tolerated. You know the types of posters I mean; the ones who are fixated on one topic or one big issue (everything [driver x] does is evil/godlike or [team x] is going to fail because they are evil/British/Italian/American or look at my spiffy conspiracy theory). They aren't here to discuss motor sports, they come to flog their one special dead horse into the ground over and over and over. The stated policy seems to be ignore them, but they have cohorts, and by being allowed to start threads after thread, they can stay alive by having a good time with their like-minded pals and getting the occasional nibble from the fed-up members they're trying to bait. Too much of this, and you get a forum where members react like the OP, looking at the thread titles with dismay and feeling like rational discussion is being pushed off the board by pointless, hate threads and fanboy polls. I hate to say it, since I'm a fan of internet equality, but this might be a situation where a two week waiting period is needed before a new member can start threads. Most folks with an Issue can't sit and wait that long. This doesn't seem to be a forum where self policing by the members (or, to be blunt, fighting back to preserve the set atmosphere) is smiled upon, and with good reason, as that sort of thing can get ugly and is best left to independent internet sites, not one's affiliated with a proper business. Hence, in this particular case, I'm good with the waiting period idea. RC is going through spurts where it's flooded with nonsense threads; not ones that are worth merging into others, just junk.