ex-webby

Beef

I used to very much enjoy our conversations and you being more involved. I am sorry you feel it is not for you anymore but..

Do you really think that posting what you originally did on this thread was the way to make things better, or do you think that posts like yours can actually cause some of the bad feeling you have?

If you don't like the way scoobynet is, you don't have to be here. If you feel that you must come on here to insult it, do you really think that is any different to the kind of "trolling" you are complaining about?

I don't want to get in to a big debate about this, as it is not what the thread is about, but you could actually try to help matters rather than just throwing stones.

Regards

Simon

Phil Harrison

I, too, have read all the posts on this thread and the main one. My 'Scoobynet award' for the best post of the year would undoubtedly go to Mike Rainbird (page 2), and I suggest that people read it again.

I don't think JP has banned Imprezas. In banning the club, he addresses the club Members'...go and play with your Imprezas elsewhere...' doubtless based on the premise that SIDC Members WILL be overwhelmingly Impreza owners, unlike SN. I should be very surprised if I would be turned away if I were to present myself with my STi (within Noise tolerance, of course) for an event other than an SIDC one, even if I were to admit to being an SIDC Member.

Doubtless there's one or more SN Members who know JP well enough to make some recovery for us all, once the shot and shell has died away.

I've every sympathy with Lee and Lisa and I, for one, thank them for the work they've done and the brickbats they've put up with. I can understand them wanting to vent their frustration publicly - which of us doesn't at some stage in life?

Webby: I, for one, am continuing to await your conclusions of your recent "what have we come to?" thread. My disenchantment with both threads, and SN's developing culture, isn't in respect of controversial views, but in respect of the name calling and all all that flows from it. Moderation of it would not represent censorship of peoples' views IMHO.

[/solemn mode]

Phil

ian_sadler

Having been to a few, non Subaru exclusive, Jap car meets this year. And having spoken to a number of people who belong to other car related internet sites I have never had the impression that they regard Scoobynet with anything other than respect (except for one unfortunate misunderstanding with the Ford BBS which Simon corrected as soon as he could).

A lot of members of other car BBS's are members of Scoobynet and use it as a huge database of excelent technical knowledge and meet info.

There will always be a bit of cross make banter but all boards get that.

Due to the huge number of members on this BBS issues can tend to be blown out of proportion but as a resource I find it invaluable.

So to summarise: Beef I think you is wrong

Ian

ian_sadler

p.s. Just to be clear I was at Bedford so I'm not just talking out of my hat.

ex-webby

Well said chaps.

I would respectfully ask Mr Palmer to contact me offline (or publicly if he would prefer) to discuss this.

I think he and his team run a superb facility, and whether subaru drivers, or SIDC (whichever he means) are allowed to return there is a seperate matter to the most important one in my mind. Which is to ensure that he harbours no ill feeling towards the ScoobyNet community and can see that minority outbursts are not representative of the majority here.

It would be easy for people to look at Lee's outburst and assume that this was the view of the SIDC. Most of us would assume this is not the case.

It would be easy for us to look at Mr Palmers statement and think that this was his normal reaction to complaints. Most of us would assume this is not the case.

It would be easy to look at the minority posting insulting comments about Bedford Autodrome and assume they speak for the community. Most of use would (i also hope) assume this is not the case.

Mr Palmer. Please contact me on simon@scoobynet.co.uk to discuss. I would be deeply grateful for your time and energy to continue a frustrating and difficult discussion.

All the best

Simon

Beef

Fair comments. But when I said that I was referring more to a post asking for information eg 'Who knows about Supra's?' or 'Where can I sell my 200SX?'. As for my original post, yes, I probably am doing the very thing I object to, but it's very frustrating to come back to somewhere that has such good memories and find it's been overrun by such malice. My original post was a reflection of the annoyance and I felt, and it's removal would probably be for the best.

I think SN *can* regain its lost sparkle, but it would require a draconian moderation policy for at least a couple of weeks - the *instant* removal of all 'XXX vs XXX' posts, the self-perpetuating 'Why is SN so bad' posts, *not* leaving post redirects when a thread is moved (makes the pages look cluttered, and frankly, if someone has to search to find the place where they *should* have posted it makes them more likely to post in the right place in the future), posts in threads which are little more than an AOL-esque 'me too', posts that are mere bandwagon-jumping, etc etc. Basically, cut out the dross.

As an example, on the general page right now I would remove:

This thread (or at least lock it).
The RS focus thread - drop it into other marques
Britains most hates - non scoob for that
Phone logo - drop into computer related or non-scoob
Basic stereo - ICE for that
Traffic police - non scoob (possibly rename 'non scoob' to 'chat and non scoob'?)
Side skirts - styling
Lock the John Palmer thread
video download - non scoob (or entire removal if the vid is gruesome)
Modifications - into chat
Boof kerpow thread - create a roadkills section, make it accessible to members only, and move all non-member roadkill posts into that. If someone wants to post RK's, they have to pay up, simple.
The MarkO on top form thread - just delete, at least move to chat.

This is the sort of thing the multitude of moderators SN has should be doing, and would immediately result in a marked improvement of the thread quality of the front page of general - the page which most visitors go to first, and the page from which first impressions of the site are garnered.

If this sort of weeding was kept up for a month or so, the trolls and timewasters would soon get fed up with having their posts constantly deleted, get bored, go elsewhere, and SN would benefit.

CraigH

Simon,

May be worth giving Bedford a call - JP may have no intention of reading Scoobynet again.

Just a thought.

Merc_Cosworth

Can I weigh in with my tuppence worth?

I neither own an Impreza, nor intend to (flame me now!!) - I'm here for the petrolhead element basically - so I'm impartial.

This reminds me of a similar event on another BBS I was involved in.

A particular tuner had made some rather exaggerated statements about a particular engine conversion. The tuner had/has a reputation for being a right rip-off merchant and I posted on this board stating that his claims were exaggerated and to avoid them. The tuner tried muscling in with 'libellous' claims, and the whole forum bowled into a slanging match. Eventually the long and the short was the following, and I think this applies here:

1) The commercial company (in this case JP & Bedford)offers a service to the public. To apparently ban an entire owners club purely on the basis of critical comments made by INDIVIDUALS (the board is not held responsible right?) seems unduly harsh and quite frankly stinks of 'If you don't like it then you can **** off' which is not really a way to run any business.

- But, conversely, JP owns the place, and has a right to do what he likes. If he feels Impreza's and their owners are more trouble than they're worth - and to be honest reading all the rubbish associated with this then I wouldn't blame him - then he is perfectly entitled to tell you all where to go.

2) If three cars got banned - why is the whole community up in arms about it? Hands up who has been to a trackday and NOT seen someone fail the noise regs? If JP changed the noise regs, then it is only right you were all given fair warning and this is unfair

- Conversely. Anyone here really aware of how loud you lot are? Flat Fours are very noisy - let alone a whole gang of you with open pipes. I live near Goodwood, and come across this whole problem everytime I go their. JPs licence is in the hands of the council, who probably don't give a toss either way. It only takes one interfering do-gooder to whinge enough to get it all shut down and ruin the fun for absolutely everybody.

3) Has anyone suggested apologising to JP and Co? Its apparent that he recieved quite a drubbing here - kiss and make up. You never know, he might let you all back in.

4) Why are you fighting each other? Anyone remember Monty Pythons Life Of Brian? Its like the Popular Peoples Front of Judea here, with the SIDC the Peoples Popular Front - SPLITTERS!!!

- and from the outside it seems just as ridiculous and pointless.

As I said, my tuppence worth.

Redkop

Beef, I presume you have never been a Moderator on a busy BB. I imagine SN Mods, like RSOC ones are unpaid. Do you realise just how time consuming it is to read every single thread to see if it is the right forum? Moving threads isn't a press of a key, I was a Mod on RSOC for 10 months and found it taking up too much of my time, so I resigned.

krankyd

I saw this thread in scooby net dissing someone and causing a ruckus and I thought to myself


whatever.

troll is troll.
1)It is either tolerated, under the guise that it will turn out into a proper debated discussion as should happens here (!)
2)or it is axed.

We've tried no.1, how about no.2 ??

johnfelstead

I am a little surprised by this post Lee. The only person who has blamed the SIDC for the problems on the day is Jonathan Palmer. Reading through the threads I don’t see anyone critical of the SIDC, you seem to want to not see that.

Dave, that was not his only option. The reason the session was stopped was because some cars were tripping the 87.5db (A) limit on the drive by microphones, this is right isn’t it! What he could have done, in a worst case scenario is do an individual drive by test and asked those cars that then tripped the meter at that limit to either quieten the cars, or leave. I don’t think anyone; even the people asked to leave could feel aggrieved by that, as they agreed to do the trackday according to the published rules.

What he chose to do instead, was do an individual drive by test, at a lower limit than was contractually agreed, this caused people who had legitimate vehicles to go home. That was bad enough. What happened next is he came on this BBS and decided to chastise people, saying they were cheating his systems and then refused to accept that his decision caused legitimate people problems. An example is his discussion on how an XTR2 can be made to meet his noise limits if you use some ingenuity. What he failed to accept, is that the car did actually meet all his published noise limits. Why he cannot understand this, or refused to accept this is beyond me, I though he was an intelligent man.

Some people seem to have forgotten that the participants on the day did everything they could to accommodate Bedford Autodrome. When we were told on arrival, we wouldn’t be driving the whole GT track, as advertised and paid for, due to construction work, no one moaned, we just got on with it. When Bedford decided to close off a large chunk of the track, to keep us away from the village, we all accepted that. When they decided to do an individual drive by test, with the owners of the cars giving those cars over to Bedford staff to drive, we accepted that (and I personally thought that was outrageous).

Blaming the SIDC for the reaction he received after his decision and subsequent postings on this BBS is absurd in the extreme. You should not be slagging off this BBS and its members, you should be recognizing that people do not blame the SIDC, or you and Lisa personally for this mess, quite the opposite, most people appreciate the time and effort you both put into the club.

Jonathan Palmer should be intelligent enough to be able to distinguish between genuine aggrieved clients, and the odd windup merchant and be open to legitimate criticism. If it were my business, I would be analyzing what went wrong and making sure systems were in place to stop this kind of ill feeling ever happening again.

Beef

I'm an admin/mod on the 200SX BB, which has about 1700 members and gets plenty of traffic (not as much as SN or the RSOC, but hardly a minor amount). It takes no more than a minute tops to skim, assess and move a thread, and usually a lot less.

CraigH

Beef,

No offence but if it takes no more than a minute and sometimes less to sort a thread in its rightful place, then you're not comparing like with like.

If you were to get the same amount of threads as Scoobynet then it would take a huge amount longer - it takes well over a minute to even flick through 1 forum, let alone sort them.

1700 members is similar to Cupranet? - good as it is, the site is positively dead, traffic wise to scoobynet.

Markus

Beef, interesting comments about cleaning things up. BUT, one important thing, this WOULD (well in my eyes) require a LOT of moderator time, and I'm not sure all the mods have enough time to do it. No, I'm not saying the mods are lazy, but being a mod is a thankless task. Hell, I'd love to see your idea's put into action, and well, I' would not mind being a mod to do it (hint hint! ) but, whether I have the time to or not, that's the question. It's a great idea, but needs ruthless execution, and all I'm saying is that I don't know if the mods have the time to do it.

Oh and I'm not slaggin off the mods, I'm not that silly

Beef

I didn't mean a minute to do the whole lot, I meant a minute *per* thread. I know we're not as large as SN - something like 10% from info Simon has given before. But then again, SN has a far larger number of mods...

ex-webby

Beef

I think we're past the anger and frustration stage now, so this is all to be read in a calm and "discussing" voice.

The problem is that the knock on effects of moving / deleting threads including the following discussions, the backlash of the odd person realising that there is nothing more funny that posting as many times as possible to teach the gits ,who deleted my thread without even an explanation, a lesson, etc, etc. If scoobynet is 10 times as busy, it isn't just 10 times the work to do the same... it's exponentially more.

In short. I know it seems obvious that it should be done a certain way, but there really is a lot more to it than that. There are lots of things I can pick up on from your post explaining how you think it should be done, but it would be great if you would just take it as read, that it really isn't that simple.

Things do need to be done however and I promise I will spend now until xmas planning and thinking about it along with the moderators and shaun.

All the best

simon

Beef

All the best - bring back the SN we used to know.

BoxerFlat4

I'd be more than happy to contribute my time as a moderator - I spend an obscene amount of time on SN/internet, permanent connection etc etc. I probably log onto ScobyNet every 20 minutes or so.

Just trying to contribute back to ScoobyNet, as someone whose used it for nearly 2 years now I agree it ain't what it once was, but I'm happy to try and put it back the way it was!

BoxerFlat4

dingy - Could you explain how comments like the above help correct the situation ?

"If your not part of the solution, your part of the problem"....

ex-webby

dingy

Could you edit that please.

MarkO

Simon,

Can I just take issue with one thing you've said (in your initial response to Lee), please?

Erm, this, I'm afraid, is absolute cobblers. Do you remember the 'flashing letters' thread, in which I was unceremoniously dumped off the BBS for having a little fun and asking a few telling questions about your claims of how much work was involved in running this BBS? If you'd care to read the content in that thread, you'll find numerous posts from yourself bemoaning how much of your money, effort and time Scoobynet requires. So can we have a little less of the pious hypocrisy please?

It strikes me that if you want to resolve all of the issues on SN, a good way would be to recruit a few more moderators (god knows there are enough volunteers), sack some of the existing ones, and ditch the Muppets forum altogether?

Shaun

Guys and girls!!!!

KEEP this content ON TOPIC, else I will MODERATE and close the thread!!!

Regards,
Shaun.

BoxerFlat4

Just close it Shaun - I can't see any helpful suggestions being made, and given the tone that the initial post was made in, probably should've been locked long ago.

IMHO, of course. Come on guys, chill out a little !

dingy

PMSL @ shaun.........cheers for deleting it

SIDC - Still laughing

MarkO

What, you mean on the original topic of Lee's post? The one where he slagged off Scoobynet?

davyboy

Shaun,

You do appear to come across in an agressive manner on occasions, maybe this is your 'style' but I for one find it very tiresome.

I might add thay I think it hinders more than helps SN.

Dave.

ex-webby

Mark

Firstly. I think you apologised for your that thread and the things you said and did in it. I think I know you well enough to know it wasn't an empty apology. Either way.

I don't remember calling everyone idiots? And I certainly don't remember having a go at the community for what you did.

THIS is what I meant by the quote you took from my post.

Hope this is now clear.

On the "do it this way and the world will be saved" ideas you put forward. As I said before, it's not that simple. But please don't start a huge debate on why it IS that simple.

If you really do want to discuss it, and won't resort to just insulting me, I would be happy to discuss it in another thread. Just send me a link.

All the best

Simon

CraigH

Davy

I think I missed the aggression in Shauns post?

Think it was a fair point personally.

MarkO

Okay, point taken. I just thought it came across as a bit pious, that's all. I don't think Lee was looking for a medal for his 'work done for the Impreza cause' - just a bit of vented frustration at the Bedford debacle. The resulting comments about their positions and reasons for resigning were in response to questions asked, not off-the-cuff.
I know it's not that simple. But it'd be a damned good start - and I don't think there's anyone who would argue against it.
Naah. It's already been done to death without any conclusion (or action, I hasten to add). And I personally think that SN is beyond help now anyway. It's really just a question of how many times problems such as Bedford/JP raise their head before somebody sues you and or you decide it's time to shut it down or radically restructure it.

It's a shame, but there you go.

davyboy

Maybe our right, I dunno, it wasn't just that post, anyway I can't be assed any more.