95 replies to this topic

[PayasYouRace]

This is a request to all Racing Comments members to have a say in how F1 team related discussion is carried out. Our aim on the moderation team is to ensure the best environment for discussion of F1. That includes members being able to locate and contribute to topics that are relevant to your interests. We know that part of that is being able to talk about your favourite drivers, teams and their cars.

 

The current system is one we adopted a few years ago. Technical discussion of the particular car in a dedicated thread, and a catch all thread for the non-technical side, which includes the drivers. Previously we had teammate "vs" threads and catch all team threads. The vs threads were too much trouble and the technical stuff often got lost in other arguments, hence why we moved away from that.

 

So please reply to this thread with your ideas or your preferences. Maybe you think a single topic would be best? Maybe you'd like the topics broken up more? Should we consider a more flexible approach? Some teams generate more traffic that others. A team like McLaren or Red Bull generates a lot more chat than, say, Alfa Romeo or Haas.

 

Please note the following:

• We will not allow single driver or driver vs driver threads. We've tried that. It doesn't work.
• Team threads are not clubhouses. They will not be for discussing on track events, anywhere from testing to racing. All are welcome in any discussion, be it to praise or criticise.
• Your feedback will be read but no promises will be made as to our implementation.
• The House Rules may be subject to change. We will alert you of any changes but it is your responsibility to read them.
• Don't worry about the 2022 threads that have already been started. We're willing to put the work in to split and merge threads as necessary.
• There won't be a poll, so stop asking. We want your thoughts and ideas.

So let us know what you'd like to see. If you're comfortable doing so, please indicate which team or driver you are mainly interested in, or none at all.

 

This thread will remain open until 23:59 GMT, Saturday 22nd January 2022.

[jonpollak]

Valiant of you to offer this up to the denizens of Autosport forums.
If you get a cohesive course of action agreed upon I’ll be extremely impressed.

Best of luck.
Jp

[Ali_G]

Status quo is fine.

[tourister46a]

A single thread for each team.

e.g. 2022 Red Bull Racing Discussion

All technical, car related, team related and team personnel related discussion goes into such a thread. Discussion specific to a single driver and teammate battle stuff also belongs here. Will devolve into a clubhouse for fans but negative criticism is also allowed.

 

A single thread for discussing the performance of all 2022 drivers. It could be called the 2022 Driver Discussion. If anyone wants to compare the performance of drivers across teams in the context of the 2022 season, this is the place.

 

A single thread for the constructors championship. 2022 Constructors Championship thread. For discussing the WCC championship and comparing team performance.

 

Thats it.

[milestone 11]

Safe space where the constant arguments can be avoided.

[Tenmantaylor]

I used to love the team mate season comparison threads.

Jenson vs Jacques at BAR was a good one IIRC.

Can't see an issue with a thread per season tracking the in team driver rivalry as a season progresses.

[SenorSjon]

Combine the technical and team threads. Most of the team threads are beehives, but the technical threads sometimes sunk a few pages and are about 10-15% in size. It often mirrors the team discussion or a team thing is posted which was actually was more technical and vv. Usually someone picks the higher placed thread which is more easily found. Perhaps only split the topics where Lewis resides.

[SenorSjon]

I used to love the team mate season comparison threads.

Jenson vs Jacques at BAR was a good one IIRC.

Can't see an issue with a thread per season tracking the in team driver rivalry as a season progresses.

 

Max vs Sainz and Max vs Daniel were pure toxic.

[SparkPlug86]

x1 Team Thread

x1 Technical Thread

 

The End. 

[Anja]

It's never going to be perfect but in my opinion a single thread for a team would be best. The two threads often overlap and in case of smaller teams there's not enough interest to keep both active so usually just one keeps going anyway. Sure it's hard to keep them from becoming clubhouses but the more notable stories tend to get their own threads where you'll find more open discussion. 

[milestone 11]

x1 Team Thread
x1 Technical Thread
 
The End. 

Nuff said like?

[ANF]

I don't follow any of these threads on a regular basis, but from what I've seen the current system is fine.

[SparkPlug86]

It's never going to be perfect but in my opinion a single thread for a team would be best. The two threads often overlap and in case of smaller teams there's not enough interest to keep both active so usually just one keeps going anyway. Sure it's hard to keep them from becoming clubhouses but the more notable stories tend to get their own threads where you'll find more open discussion. 

 

Perhaps the 'baby' teams with less fans should have a single thread then?

 

The big boys like McLaren, Ferrari, Red Bull and Mercedes... 2 threads?

[milestone 11]

It's far from fine ANF. In the 14 years that I've been here, there was never the constant unpleasantness which is now witnessed here daily.

[Secretariat]

I would say/add that there should be a dedicated annual thread to regulations: what they are, updates to the changes, application of said regulations can be discussed on a race by race basis there. So, maybe in other words. A FIA "team" thread (call it whatever). I think this will be helpful for when race threads tangent towards a regulations or application of the regulations issue.

[Topsu]

One thread per team, be it team talk or technical talk. Technical discussion never stays in the technical thread, and vice versa for the team thread. It's also different for each team it seems. Ferrari fans seem to mostly use the technical thread with the team thread getting far fewer posts. For others, both threads are a similar mess. Just put it all in a single thread.

[milestone 11]

Yeah, lets just have one big thread like a chat room. You'll be able to keep abreast of all the unpleasantness there.

[Topsu]

An idea: rivalry threads

 

As any rivalries develop during the season, I think a lot of the heated discussion could be steered into a rivalry thread. Maybe they would be best labeled per team, i.e. "Red Bull vs. Mercedes", and not "Verstappen vs. Hamilton". These threads would contain most of the back and forth arguing that doesn't fit in a team thread. They could be opened as needed, for all sorts of rivalries between teams, be it "McLaren vs. Ferrari" or "Williams vs. Haas". Maybe these threads would also get rid of the need for a toxic thread for every controversial incident, like Silverstone or Monza? Just keep it all in one place. One issue is, that the ever important polls for topical issues would be harder to implement. Maybe use something like strawpoll.com and update any new polls into the opening post?

[SparkPlug86]

Yeah, lets just have one big thread like a chat room. You'll be able to keep abreast of all the unpleasantness there.

 

Merge all the threads and we'll just chat 

[SparkPlug86]

Equally... maybe the technical threads for each team should go here: forums.autosport.com/forum/8-the-technical-forum/

 

And the teams one's stay in the main racing comments one?

[w1Y]

I like having team and car threads but strict rules ok not having it be about race performances vs other drivers etc. We have race threads for that.

I'm torn between how it works now or having the car thread and team thread combined.

I go to the team threads to find out about car devopments and team news and maybe a quick note about the weekend as a whole. They go downhill when they become debates that run multiple pages about a particular thing that happened In a race etc.

I don't think rivalry threads are a good idea. There is enough of that in race threads.

I do think team threads should be a safe place for fans of the team. We can bitch in the threads made about a particular incident

Edited by w1Y, 13 January 2022 - 23:17.

[Fastcake]

I've found the two team threads hard to follow, and the teams with smaller followings do seem to disappear quite easily. I think there has been a fair amount of honest mix-up between the two, users here perhaps losing track of which thread they are in, and discussions in any case can blur between car and drivers very quickly.

 

On another point, as someone who's main interest in the team threads has been the McLaren one, much of last year was in fact dedicated to tedious discussions over Ricciardo's form. Or lack thereof, and whose problem that may have been. I feel it's impossible to totally remove that without going back to driver threads, the existence of which I do not miss, but a stronger boundary between what counts as team discussion and what is driver vs driver could help. It certainly lowered my interest to read the same discussion that wasn't even necessarily about McLaren. I'm not sure the intention of either team thread was to be a substitute driver thread after all.

[Wolbo]

Strongly prefer a combined technical and team thread e.g. Red Bull Racing 2022. I understand the thinking behind a separate team and technical thread but in my opinion this distinction is flawed and has never really worked well. There is simply too much overlap which often leads to posts about the team or technical aspect ending up in the wrong thread or the technical thread just being discarded in favor of the team thread. When discussing the result or performance at a certain race you can often not separate these aspects and trying to do so makes it contrived and illogical.

[HeadFirst]

Valiant of you to offer this up to the denizens of Autosport forums.
If you get a cohesive course of action agreed upon I’ll be extremely impressed.

Best of luck.
Jp

 

And surprised.

[Winterapfel]

Keep the technical thread separated from the team discussion please! Technical is so much more interesting and would get lost when combining..

[HP]

I don't follow any of these threads on a regular basis, but from what I've seen the current system is fine.

+1

[HP]

I would say/add that there should be a dedicated annual thread to regulations: what they are, updates to the changes, application of said regulations can be discussed on a race by race basis there. So, maybe in other words. A FIA "team" thread (call it whatever). I think this will be helpful for when race threads tangent towards a regulations or application of the regulations issue.

I like that, but then isn't that FIA's job to explain regulations and regulation changes .. so that we can hold them accountable.

[ARTGP]

It's fine the way it is imo.  The fact that people post team talk in the technical thread and vice versa is not a flaw of our thread design, it's a flaw of the posters  .  It's a big ask, but mods could just delete the post that are clearly in the wrong place as they see fit.  Our members will kick and scream at first for the "lost essays"  , but over time they'll start to understand where their post belong. It's called pavlovian classical conditioning  .  Even I abuse this, because no one deletes my post. Call it a bad habit. 

Edited by ARTGP, 14 January 2022 - 03:12.

[YamahaV10]

I don't think there is any way around nor is it a bad thing that team threads become clubhouses.

 

The Mercedes fans are going to spend more time in the Mercedes thread than anyone else. And its the same for Red Bull. It works this way on other sports forums too. There's no way around it.

[HP]

What I'd like to see is probably not easy to do as it needs software extensions. I'd like to be able to build my own reputation base, not just on ignoring/favouring users, but also ignoring/favouring topics. Further more being able to build my own dictionary, that warns me on the overview page if certain phrases, words are used extensively in a thread. And the ability to sort the front page according to my settings. So the more pleasant threads and those that I am interested in (according to my preferences) stay on top.

 

I see that also as a big help to the moderators and admins, as they can develop their own criteria, to see quicker when their involvement is required.

 

Oh, and a big thank you to all moderators and admins for all their work and being interested to improve this place.

[loki]

When one asks a question they should be sure they are ready for an answer…

 

Pretty counter productive when you say “what do you want to do” then list a bunch of things you won’t do.

 

It shouldn’t be up to you guys to decide what we talk about as long as it relates to racing.  It’s your gig to police how we talk about.  Your job should be to keep the peace and not to decide what is or isn’t important to others.  You guys have done a great job keeping the place civil but often times you (collective you) suck the fun out of it.  Instead of dealing with specific people and transgressions many times a thread will just close because a mod thought it had gone long enough.  What about the people that contributed?  On many occasions you guys have been too uptight on somethings and not consistent in others.  Though you’re doing a better job than the FIA…

 

Let it grow organically.  As long as people are civil it’s not a big deal.  You guys are overthinking this.  Much of this is looking for a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist. 

Edited by loki, 14 January 2022 - 04:39.

[Beri]

Just a single thread per team. Any technical or driver discussion will be easy to follow in one thread during the season, as usually they tend to die down a bit and posts are not that regular anymore. So why have two threads whilst you can follow one easily?

[Disgrace]

• The House Rules may be subject to change. We will alert you of any changes but it is your responsibility to read them.

 

This would be good. As someone who helped to write them, they really ought to be made more concise and therefore readable.

[pacificquay]

I don’t like generic catch-all threads.

 

The title of a thread should be a specific point of discussion.

 

Maybe they could be labelled by team if necessary eg

 

McLAREN: Special livery for Monaco

 

or 

 

WILLIAMS: 2022 car launch

 

 

This would keep the forum looking fresher and ensure it’s easy to find a point of discussion rather than trawling through mega-threads.

I strongly propose this solution to the house, even if it goes against the mantra of many where starting a new thread is seen as a cardinal sin.

 

For what it’s worth I’d like to see it more widely where generic threads are currently used.

 

eg

 

INDYCAR Season countdown

 

For the daily pictorial countdown warrants a thread rather than simply being buried in a mega thread.

[dannyricsshoe]

It would be nice to discuss all things Ricciardo without being attacked constantly but seeing that's already happened in the technical thread I don't think anything will change.

I'd say let there be a technical thread if someone wants to make one but most of the time they are so inactive they're eh unnecessary complication.

[Ali623]

x1 Team Thread

x1 Technical Thread

 

The End. 

 

Second this

[absinthedude]

I think the current preferred method of each team having a thread devoted to technical discussion and another "general" team thread should work.

 

The real problem in RC is the hugely partisan nature of many posters, who then fabricate or cherry pick in order to "prove" a point. But that is the nature of the Autosport RC forum, and I appreciate extremely difficult to police. 

[cbo]

Make a different split:

Team thread for discussing things technical and team organisation, economy, ownership, performance etc.

Team driver and staff thread to discuss the teams drivers and staff.

Reasoning is that discussion on drivers and team personel seems to generated the most drivel and bollocks.

[Rinehart]

Thanks for asking the question PAYR, impressive customer relationship management!!! 

 

My preference would absolutely definitely be for 1 thread per team (if we can't have teammate threads). 

 

I see this forum as a virtual pub where a load of friends are sat around a table chatting about motorsport, topical news and Flavio's thongs. In the real world, when several people are engaged in a conversation they will naturally drift between parallel and connected topics and examples, for context and depth, its loose and it flows. I just find when we have "team thread" and "technical thread" its becomes so unnatural and clunky. Most of the time I don't know which thread I should be posing in as so many subjects transcend BOTH the team and the technical anyway. And 8 times out of 10 I find bits of the same subject in both. And of course there is always the option to start a specific thread such as "RBR rumoured to be buying Honda engine programme"- which obviously clearly transcends both the technical and team threads anyway. 

 

I think 1 big thread per team would be best. I think possibly the best thread on this forum at the moment is the Indycar thread because everything about it is discussed in one place. Its jovial and moves quickly from subject to subject and I think part of the reason why there is next to no needle in that thread is because the conversation keeps moving on. If someone starts a wind up, the conversations has quickly moved on before it catches fire. 

 

Also for most of the teams this 1-thread solution would be better, as there just wasn't enough conversation in the separate threads for teams like Williams and Alpine. 

 

No brainer if you ask me. With the caveat that teammate threads should be allowed and posters should face a pit lane penalty or a race ban if they break the rules. I think you mods were too lenient before on the blatant rudeness and trolling, whilst punishing people for having a controversial but politely put opinion. I remember being given a warning for saying that Perez would be sacked by McLaren - and it turned out I was right!! So I definitely don't think controversial opinions are the problem, only rudely put ones. Though I think the "let them race" (argue) bar should be set fairly high! 

 

Cheers.

[FirstnameLastname]

Nuts that it even needs discussed. Rules for the sake of rules?

Just tell us what you want us to do 🥴

Why don’t the mods just start the threads that they want started and then let us reply in them?

[Sterzo]

I think the current preferred method of each team having a thread devoted to technical discussion and another "general" team thread should work.

I agree with this. Even better would be a thread about technical and team, but a separate discussion of drivers. In either case, ideally the concept should be moderated ruthlessly, to avoid the current problem of "driver squabbling" blighting both threads.

 

On a general point, I'd prefer a return to the old philosophy in which internet forums feared libel actions. The internet has evolved and we know no-one's going to bother suing a mouth-foamer, Nevertheless, I'd like to see personal abuse removed. We wouldn't allow it if aimed at fellow posters, yet permit it when aimed at real, live people in the public sphere.

 

However, my proposals would demand more from the mods, who may be understandably reluctant to take it on without doubling their salaries.

Edited by Sterzo, 14 January 2022 - 11:33.

[SophieB]

Nuts that it even needs discussed. Rules for the sake of rules?

Just tell us what you want us to do

Why don’t the mods just start the threads that they want started and then let us reply in them?

Because it’s about trying to strike the balance where you have as few rules as feasible so as not to be too constricting but also a structure that encourages open and genuine discussion that can be heard and maintained in a way the bulk of users are happy with. The moderators have authority, albeit very limited authority in that we are volunteers doing this in our own time* but it’s not our board, everyone has a stake in it.  Maybe it will turn out that everyone wants contradictory things but we’re taking the soundings.

 

 

*I think of us as the janitors.

[Requiem84]

My preference: 1 thread per team to discuss everything related to the team (so, the drivers, the team itself and the car). 

 

Much easier to find back things that way and ensure that I don't miss anything interesting. 

[Izzyeviel]

can't the team threads have their own section instead of spamming the main forum?

[noikeee]

Good move to open up and involve people in the discussion.
 

It's never going to be perfect but in my opinion a single thread for a team would be best. The two threads often overlap and in case of smaller teams there's not enough interest to keep both active so usually just one keeps going anyway. Sure it's hard to keep them from becoming clubhouses but the more notable stories tend to get their own threads where you'll find more open discussion.

I think I would prefer this model over what we have. 1 thread per team, not 2. It would however piss off the technical-minded people, who want to talk about bargeboards and it gets drown out in a sea of "Lewis lost to Button and Nico and he messed up the last sector today this means he's mentally weak and rubbish and a bad person".

The counter-argument is they don't get to talk about bargeboards in the current technical threads as it is anyway, because they get constantly hijacked by bullshit anyway, and there's often just the same discussion going on in both threads.

I also vote for opening up as many threads on specific events as possible. Threads aren't expensive, I don't think Autosport pay more per thread. But we kinda already have this, people are encouraged to open up threads, it's just that the bullshit gets more restrained to these behemoths that are the team threads.

Edited by noikeee, 14 January 2022 - 11:41.

[Clatter]

Max vs Sainz and Max vs Daniel were pure toxic.

 

Worse than Lando v Daniel?

[noikeee]

Also, the other major benefit on only having 1 thread per team instead of team thread/technical thread, is we'd only have 10 bullshit unreadable threads clogging up the forum instead of 20.

[jjcale]

I dont have strong feelings about the topic ... but I think there should be more input from ordinary members here on how the Forum is run .... so thank you for doing this - and please do more of this. 

[IrvTheSwerve]

I don't particularly engage much with team threads but I do dip into them now and again - personally I'd rather 1 thread for everything... e.g. 'McLaren Team Thread 2022'....and in there would be anything technical, managerial, performance related...Norris Vs Ricciardo discussion...it's tidier for the forum in my opinion.

[noikeee]

Brainstorming here, I just had another idea: what about one single technical thread for all the teams? "Formula 1 Technical Thread / Development Race 2022"

Would be particularly useful in the first few weeks of the season / pre-season. People spend loads of time comparing car designs anyway. And the bargeboard/sidepod obsessives would find a home here, largely shielded from driver v driver nonsense. Without the club house effect, even.