133 replies to this topic

[pacificquay]

Baffled by the references to ignore lists and the like. 
 

It would improve the forum if the ignore function was removed.

[cbo]

Baffled by the references to ignore lists and the like.

It would improve the forum if the ignore function was removed.

There has to be a way to limit the amount of idiocy you have to wade through when reading or the forum will drown in drivel.

Or moderation will have to much more brutal.

[DCapps]

With Witless (sorry, Twitter) and other such "social" media available it is interesting that the "forum" continues to be an avenue that apparently a fair number still use to "express" themselves.

 

An inherent issue with a discussion forum is the problem of the I Really, Really Need To Say Something syndrome along with the Hawkeye Pearce syndrome.

 

Not to mention Extraneous And Often Irrelevant Comment and True Believer syndromes, former a subset of the IRRNTSS syndrome noted above, and the latter a variation of the Flames Are Better Than Rationality syndrome.

 

I first encountered the forerunner of this forum close to what is now nearly a quarter century ago and little if anything has change during that time, the many moderators facing the same problems and issues year after year after year after year after year after year after year after year after year...

 

I have long thought this forum had overstayed both its welcome and even its purpose. Harsh, perhaps, but the purpose of this forum (something that has long been an item of some question it seems) has long been lost in the shuffle of the years.

 

There seems to be very little of consequence ever posted here that even warrants the archiving of the discussions, given that they are, I assume, still being purged every so often.

 

In truth, would the folks supposedly owning this forum, Autosport, even notice if it were shut down?  Would they even care? Do they even know that it exists for that matter? 

 

All this said, there does seem to be a real role for a means for the discussion of the current racing scene, but that is, well, a bit less tempestuous and l a lot less of a bare-knuckle brawling venue.

[Henri Greuter]

Baffled by the references to ignore lists and the like. 
 

It would improve the forum if the ignore function was removed.

 

 

I disagree with that.

 

I have put a few people on my list and found that very helpful in order to be not confronted with utter nonsense I made de errors with to react on too often in the past and annoyed me over time.

 

In fact, I know an improvement for the forum in that field.

Allow moderators to be ignored as well but give then a certain power that in case they reply and/or post within their function as moderators the ignore function on the post is raised and visible after all.

[PayasYouRace]

At the end of the day, this forum is a place for like-minded individuals to discuss motor racing in all its forms. If the forum ever had a higher intellectual purpose, it might have evolved from that. But I’m not convinced it was ever anything more than a place to chat about cars being driven round in circles.

The ignore function is there for your private benefit. We ask that you don’t reveal details of who you’re ignoring. Moderators’ status will not change on that front. We work hard behind the scenes to moderate each other and that’s why the mod team consists of fans of various drivers and teams.

[jcbc3]

I disagree with that.

 

I have put a few people on my list and found that very helpful in order to be not confronted with utter nonsense I made de errors with to react on too often in the past and annoyed me over time.

 

In fact, I know an improvement for the forum in that field.

Allow moderators to be ignored as well but give then a certain power that in case they reply and/or post within their function as moderators the ignore function on the post is raised and visible after all.

 

 

We have names and avatars so you can just scroll past posts that challenge your world view. Even before I became moderator, I didn't use the ignore function because as my wize father once told me: Even crazy people are right sometimes.

[cbo]

We have names and avatars so you can just scroll past posts that challenge your world view. Even before I became moderator, I didn't use the ignore function because as my wize father once told me: Even crazy people are right sometimes.

Sure...

But spending you own time by sitting in the asylum listening to the inmates in the hope of a golden nugget of F1 insight once in a while is not my favorite pastime.

Applying the ignore filter considerably reduces the signal-to-noise ratio and makes the board a much more agreeable place.

[PayasYouRace]

Sure...

But spending you own time by sitting in the asylum listening to the inmates in the hope of a golden nugget of F1 insight once in a while is not my favorite pastime.

Applying the ignore filter considerably reduces the signal-to-noise ratio and makes the board a much more agreeable place.

The problem is when the inmates use the ignore feature to silence all but the other inmates who agree with them, because they’re so sensitive to opposing views they can’t even stand to be exposed to them.

Fortunately such delicate flowers tend to be more trouble than they’re worth and are easily weeded out.

[Risil]

Maintaining an ignore list is fine.

 

It would be cool if the board software allowed mods to override the ignore list only for official communications, when you're speaking ex cathedra as it were, but it doesn't. If wishes were horses etc.

[Risil]

An inherent issue with a discussion forum is the problem of the I Really, Really Need To Say Something syndrome along with the Hawkeye Pearce syndrome.

Not to mention Extraneous And Often Irrelevant Comment and True Believer syndromes, former a subset of the IRRNTSS syndrome noted above, and the latter a variation of the Flames Are Better Than Rationality syndrome.

I first encountered the forerunner of this forum close to what is now nearly a quarter century ago and little if anything has change during that time, the many moderators facing the same problems and issues year after year after year after year after year after year after year after year after year...

You are always our harshest critic! But as Thackeray probably would've said (more eloquently and stylishly than me), you can't change Vanity Fair and you certainly can't bend it towards a higher or lasting purpose. You just have to be in the mood to enjoy it, or not.

Anyway I think I probably ran through that whole list of symptoms in about 45 minutes in the Abu Dhabi thread last year.

What's Hawkeye Pearce syndrome?

[cbo]

The problem is when the inmates use the ignore feature to silence all but the other inmates who agree with them, because they’re so sensitive to opposing views they can’t even stand to be exposed to them.

Fortunately such delicate flowers tend to be more trouble than they’re worth and are easily weeded out.

I fail to see the problem? Such individuals can just live in their bubble, enjoying life, unless they cannot behave themselves and Moderator will nuke them out of existence.

I may have 5-10 people on my ignore list here, which is not excessive, but still more than I normally have. Other forums that I look at, do not have fans, supporters, worshippers or groups of such individuals. So while there is disagreement and heated debates, it rarely descends into the idiocy normally associated with politics and religion. The ignore function allows me to keep my reading interesting and pleasurable, while maintaining blood pressure at nominal - for the most 😄

PS: Three people on my ignore list now belongs to the group "Banned users". So I was just a tad ahead of Moderator...😁

Edited by cbo, 21 November 2022 - 13:15.

[Rumblestrip]

The problem is when the inmates use the ignore feature to silence all but the other inmates who agree with them, because they’re so sensitive to opposing views they can’t even stand to be exposed to them.

Fortunately such delicate flowers tend to be more trouble than they’re worth and are easily weeded out.

 

As a 'delicate flower' who maintains a small (but valuable) ignore list I honestly don't have the time nor inclination to wade through threads composed almost entirely of polarised views. (How many minds were changed in the RB Cost Cap or AD21 threads again?) I'm here by choice to discuss F1 events with other people who may or may not share my views. But we're now at the point where, despite the best efforts of the mods, a significant number of threads somehow descend into a Hamilton vs Verstappen s**t show. Criticism of either of them, no matter how slight, is jumped on by a small but vocal fanbase, and frankly this is not my life...
 

Edited by Rumblestrip, 21 November 2022 - 19:50.

[mclarensmps]

Baffled by the references to ignore lists and the like. 
 

It would improve the forum if the ignore function was removed.

ABSOLUTELY NOT... I have a healthy ignore list, generously filled by the "one liner insult" squad, and I'm as thick skinned as it gets when it comes to getting insults. 

[DCapps]

You are always our harshest critic! But as Thackeray probably would've said (more eloquently and stylishly than me), you can't change Vanity Fair and you certainly can't bend it towards a higher or lasting purpose. You just have to be in the mood to enjoy it, or not.

Anyway I think I probably ran through that whole list of symptoms in about 45 minutes in the Abu Dhabi thread last year.

What's Hawkeye Pearce syndrome?

 

The Hawkeye Pearce (from the character in M*A*S*H...) is the need to get in the last word in a discussion or conversation.

 

As someone once pointed out, The Unexamined Forum Is Not Worth The Electrons That Died To Make It Happen. 

 

Bira Goren, the Force Behind All of This, used to foam at the mouth, have steam coming out of her ears, begin breathing fire, and then call me up and literally scream and yell at me at the top of voice whenever I made in public what could be construed as a criticism of TNF or AtlasF1 in general. There is a reason that I stepped down as the originator/moderator of TNF after only about five years. In the nearly 25 years since I first encountered The RC, pretty much not a damn thing has really changed: Same old stuff, year after year.

 

So yeah, one of the problem of being a critic is that one must be critical, which is rarely perceived well by those on the receiving end...

[PayasYouRace]

Criticism can be received well if it’s constructive. Otherwise, cheers dits.

[DCapps]

Criticism can be received well if it’s constructive. Otherwise, cheers dits.

 

The issue, of course, is how "constructive" is interpreted... 

[PayasYouRace]

The issue, of course, is how "constructive" is interpreted... 

 

Let’s start with suggestions of how improvements can be made, rather than just telling everyone how bad everything is and wishing it’s still 1999.

[DCapps]

Let’s start with suggestions of how improvements can be made, rather than just telling everyone how bad everything is and wishing it’s still 1999.

 

What sort of "improvements"for The RC  have not been considered, imagined, made, reconsidered, thought of, rethought, and so forth and so on since it started all those many years ago? 

 

That list is list is quite a lengthy one and, yet, here we are in 2020 back to where things were in 1999 or 1998 or whenever. 

 

Please, people far smarter and far more involved in this endeavor have spent more than a bit of time and effort over what is now decades trying to provide realistic and practical solutions to the issues now being posed in this thread.

 

It is Obvious to even to The Untrained Eye that this entire years of effort has been akin to a self-licking ice cream cone.

 

The RC is what The RC is.

 

End. Of. Discussion. 

 

This group of mods  for The RC is no different than the only legion of mods that preceded it; yet, here you are dealing with the same old issues.

 

Should The RC disappear today, so what? So what if you wiped the slate clean and started it over tomorrow? By the end of a few months, The RC would still be The RC and little would actually have changed.

 

Indeed, starting from scratch each New Year's Day and swiping the place clean on each New Year's Eve would probably ease some of the the angst of the Mods; or, at least delay it...

 

Or, they would simply go elsewhere and create the same level of chaos and mayhem.

 

I seriously doubt that Autosport or whoever actually owns the forum would miss it very much, after all, are any of you paid to do this?

 

I didn't think so...

 

 

 

The ONLY thing of any actual value on the Autosport.Forums happens to be the literally decades of serious research on motor sport history, much of truly scholarly, found on The Nostalgia Forum (TNF).

 

The RC? Meh.

 

 

Basically, if the many, many mods before you haven't solved this problem, despite yers upon years of effort, simply accept reality, stop bitching, close this thread, and move on.

[PayasYouRace]

There’s more to motorsport fandom than serious historical research. Some of us like to have fun talking about it. But if you’ve got no constructive feedback and only want to offer insults and contempt, then perhaps you should stop wasting your time in our feedback thread.

 

I doubt Autosport would miss TNF if it disappeared either, if we’re being honest about these things. If RC goes away, so does the rest. Perhaps we can begin by respecting the membership of the entire forum? That might start to have a positive effect around here.

[Risil]

You raise good questions Don. Would I miss TNF? Yes -- it's an extraordinary community that aids and improves research into motor racing history.

Would I miss Racing Comments? Perhaps I should rephrase the question: I would miss the contributions and company of a few dozen posters here that I'd have had no other way of getting to know.

[DavidAntW]

You raise good questions Don. Would I miss TNF? Yes -- it's an extraordinary community that aids and improves research into motor racing history.

Would I miss Racing Comments? Perhaps I should rephrase the question: I would miss the contributions and company of a few dozen posters here that I'd have had no other way of getting to know.

If we didn’t have RC I’d be gutted. I spent the last two years as a full time carer for a dying relative with Alzheimer’s and seeing some of the informed, entertaining and often witty takes on this forum has kept me sane.

Being following since 2003 and would like to share the view that I’m grateful for the moderators hard work but in reality if we members discussed issues in good faith and could agree to disagree or simply stopped baiting “the other side” as anyone with a GCSE in English lit can work out who supports whom and why certain comments are offered purely to cause bad feeling (Some proper baiting going on in the Merc thread these past few days).

So basically the onus is on us to be grown up and treat one another accordingly. Thanks David

[Risil]

Thanks for sharing that David. That's such a tough experience and I'm so glad you found that the community here gave some relief.

[DavidAntW]

Thanks for sharing that David. That's such a tough experience and I'm so glad you found that the community here gave some relief.

You’re welcome and thank you! Final thoughts are that we’ve lost some great contributors over the years. Goldencolt WWF gif anyone?

[Risil]

I miss Goldencolt too.

[Sterzo]

This may or may not be a useful area to consider, as a possible means to damp down the exitable nature of some threads:

 

1. Back when internet forums first appeared, the owners worried about being sued if posters made derogatory comments about real people. This was usually reflected in the rules. Today, the maelstrom of social media means nobody has a hope of pursuing action anyway - peeing in the wind comes to mind. This has spilled over into forums. I believe I have read, in recent Racing Comments, defamatory comments about the honesty or integrity of Christian Horner, Oscar Piastri, and Toto Wolff (amongst others). I do not believe those comments would be permitted in (say) Autosport's correspondence column. Perhaps a tweak to the rules, or a tighter interpretation of the existing ones, would help.

 

2. At a step below that, sneeringly dismissive comments about real people (several of whom have friends or associates on the forum) lower the tone. Much harder to address than the first point, because it involves drawing a line between criticism and abuse, which isn't easy. But perhaps the odd post cautioning against it (when appropriate) might help.

[SophieB]

I suppose this as good as any post to say something I’ve been thinking about re the reasonable limits of what moderation can achieve. I suppose we *could* extend the rules to the extent that it became against the rules to be derogatory about drivers and team principals. I certainly agree that it can all lower the tone a bit at times but  what would that really be like to post in the forum with all that in place? Seems to me it might feel pretty oppressive.

 

Ultimately, if people are feeling emotional, frustrated and annoyed about stuff happening, I think there has to be some way of expressing those feelings. Personally I would prefer it if people said reasonably what they felt and other people challenged that thinking. 

[PayasYouRace]

And of course, we already remove defamatory comments.

[cbo]

Ultimately, if people are feeling emotional, frustrated and annoyed about stuff happening, I think there has to be some way of expressing those feelings.

Why? In real life, acting like an angry chimpanzee in public is not acceptable. Why should it be so here? People need to learn to stuff their "feelings" and act like adult human beings. Or suffer the consequences.

Personally I would prefer it if people said reasonably what they felt and other people challenged that thinking.

That would be lovely, but will only happen by heavy patrolling by moderators and a solid whack on head when forum members inner chimp takes over.

I've seen forums like this come and go since Usenet and the early days of WWW and those that have surived the longest have had moderation that would make Stalin clap his fat little hands in praise.

To quote Gene Spafford (via Wikipedia article on Usenet):

"Usenet is like a herd of performing elephants with diarrhea. Massive, difficult to redirect, awe-inspiring, entertaining, and a source of mind-boggling amounts of excrement when you least expect it."

"Please" and napkin is not going to cut it.

[Sterzo]

I suppose this as good as any post to say something I’ve been thinking about re the reasonable limits of what moderation can achieve. I suppose we *could* extend the rules to the extent that it became against the rules to be derogatory about drivers and team principals. I certainly agree that it can all lower the tone a bit at times but  what would that really be like to post in the forum with all that in place? Seems to me it might feel pretty oppressive.

 

Ultimately, if people are feeling emotional, frustrated and annoyed about stuff happening, I think there has to be some way of expressing those feelings. Personally I would prefer it if people said reasonably what they felt and other people challenged that thinking. 

It ain't easy, and one risk with any change would be making the moderator role unattractive or untenable. (Even given the huge salary). And, as PayasYouRace indicates, the mods already deal with a lot we don't see.

 

However, there's derogatory and there's defamatory. If I say, for example, Toto Hornotto is a useless team principal and shouldn't have a job in racing, that's derogatory, but debatable. On the other hand, if I say he is a cheating crook or a liar or has no integrity, that crosses a clear line traditionally enforced by printed publications.

 

 

[PayasYouRace]

I think it’ll be worth us mods having a private discussion of the line between defamation and playground level insults, so we can get a good balance where we go forward.

[Nemo1965]

I think it’ll be worth us mods having a private discussion of the line between defamation and playground level insults, so we can get a good balance where we go forward.

I want to add: some posters were mad at me because I called a driver ‘not that smart’. That is, imho, neither a defamation or a playground insult. I think Leclerc, for example, is smarter, more intelligent than most other F1-drivers. Nobody would mind me saying that… should the opposite not be part of a discours? Fair question, not rhetorical meant.

[cbo]

I want to add: some posters were mad at me because I called a driver ‘not that smart’. That is, imho, neither a defamation or a playground insult. I think Leclerc, for example, is smarter, more intelligent than most other F1-drivers. Nobody would mind me saying that… should the opposite not be part of a discours? Fair question, not rhetorical meant.

Generally, comments on people's intelligence should be avoided. Rather focus on how the apparent lack or profusion of intelligence presents itself. Poor/great racecraft, poor/great strategy, poor/great situational awareness etc.

That can be debated using examples, which is more meaningfully than just saying that a driver is dumb.

[PayasYouRace]

Yeah I don't see how calling someone "not that smart" isn't a playgound insult. That's primary school level of insults. I'm with cbo on this. Talk about the stupid actions a driver has made. But calling someone a bit thick isn't really going to foster good discussion, especially with said driver's fanbase. Just look at the level of vitriol that lead to with Hamilton vs. Button/Rosberg.

[Burtros]

Yeah I don't see how calling someone "not that smart" isn't a playgound insult. That's primary school level of insults. I'm with cbo on this. Talk about the stupid actions a driver has made. But calling someone a bit thick isn't really going to foster good discussion, especially with said driver's fanbase. Just look at the level of vitriol that lead to with Hamilton vs. Button/Rosberg.

Red Bull are just todays Button/Rosberg.