Any Problems

[Wilko220]

Posting here because I can't post in the thread concerned!

 

Can I make the suggestion that this is either an unmoderated forum or it isn't. We have always been promised that it would remain unmoderated and not turn into a beige retrorides, yet we now have threads being locked.

 

If "the management" has settled on a change of policy then fair enough - I don't make the rules. But if not, then can we maintain some consistency and allow the forum members to regulate themselves please? Autoshite has worked perfectly well for many years without active mods so why change that now?

[Cavcraft]

There's no 'management change of plan' which is obvious if you read what I said.

I'll unlock it and let the arguing continue...

[Spiny Norman]

Can I make the suggestion that this is either an unmoderated forum or it isn't. We have always been promised that it would remain unmoderated and not turn into a beige retrorides, yet we now have threads being locked.

 

.... Autoshite has worked perfectly well for many years without active mods so why change that now?

THIS x100.

 

Before this 'new improved' forum got off the ground I distinctly remember the sentiment being aired that whoever became mods/admin were going to sort new member applications AND NOTHING ELSE.

 

What happened?

 

Beaten to the draw....

 

It's pretty obvious that this individual (probably one of us, does checking the IP addresses show anything familiar?) has joined purely to make a point/continue an argument under a different name.

If any management action is to be taken, surely suspending what is obviously a trolling account would be better?

[daveb47]

Well i am no  longer a mod,cant be arsed any more.

Am still running server etc but not staff any more.

[Cavcraft]

Nice one moaners, top work

[trigger]

Brilliant.

[Wilko220]

It's a shame. But you might recall that the forum did survive before.

[trigger]

Wilko, your one of the reasons he's quit and with comments like that it's no wonder.

[Wilko220]

I'm genuinely sorry about that. But if he can't take someone disagreeing with him then it was never going to work in the long term, was it?

[Cavcraft]

Yeah, it's entirely understandable. I mean it's not like he's spent hour upon hour making this new forum, swatting off spammers and scammers, enabling software to deter spammers joining up, overseeing new members joining and spending loads of time on here trying to get things right

 

No fucking wonder he jibbed it if that's your attitude.

[Wilko220]

Everybody has been very complimentary about the work Dave has done to improve the forum - me included. Feel free to look through my old posts for examples.

 

I'm afraid, though, that these achievements do not make him God and do not mean that no-one should be allowed to disagree with him.

[Spiny Norman]

It seems NONE of the mods can take a bit of constructive criticism today.

FFS guys I know it's a hot sticky day but can we stop acting like a bunch of prima donnas and get things back to how they used to be on here?

 

Dave, you have done a bloody amazing job getting the forum running again and it cheers me no end that you'll stay on and look after the tech side of things and hopefully continue to be a contributor on here, but do you (& the other mods) not understand that ALL that was wanted was the forum fixing and then pretty much left alone to do what it does best, IE talk a load of pointless shit about old cars?

 

The only thing that bothers me (& others it seems) is the fact that the promise that was made when the forum was being revamped, IE that the new mods would sort out spam. new members etc BUT NOTHING ELSE, has been so short lived.

This forum has survived for years with little or no moderation, now we get a couple of instances of new mods flexing their muscle and all this shit kicks off and you act surprised when people are querying it?
And that's all it is, no-one's arguing, no-one's called anyone an arse that I'm aware of, it's just a discussion. It's unfortunate if that discussion doesn't meet the approval of the moderation team but it's happening nonetheless.

 

We need to be clear about what everyone wants from this forum or it'll disappear up its own arse within 6 months, and then all Dave's sterling work WILL have been for nowt.

 

[Wilko220]

Couldn't have put it better

[mouseflakes]

Not a problem, but I couldn't think of anywhere else to put this.

 

I love the fact that Pogweasel is still in the top five posters of all time.

 

Makes me laugh every time I see that.

 

That is all.

[AXrescuer]

It's a shame. But you might recall that the forum did survive before.

Yeah it was great with all the spam and can't be arsed attitude wasn't it!

 

I've logged in here for the first time in ages and for a moment thought I'd mistakenly accessed a primary school intranet.

Trig's right, the place has gone to hell in a handcart.

 

Back to lurking I think, better for the blood pressure.

[Luxobarges_Are_Us]

I agree with studebaker. There is no need at all for the mods to perceive any criticism as something like a personal attack- if anything, mods are new to moderating and there's bound to be a bit of a debate around where the lines are drawn. It would be much worse if people didn't say anything and started talking in pairs behind others' backs or, worse still, leaving the forum altogether. I think we're more than capable of chilling out and just  having a good chat about it. Even if we disagree on certain points, at least we'll understand where each other's coming from.

 

I of course fully subscribe to the ethos of no/very little moderation, so I disagree with Cavette's decision to lock the thread. On the other hand, I think that he did the right thing in the circumstances (receiving a mountain of reports and not being totally sure about how to handle the issue). Some of the responsibility also belongs to the people who had made the reports in the first place, because they put mods into pressure!

[Cavcraft]

It seems NONE of the mods can take a bit of constructive criticism today.

FFS guys I know it's a hot sticky day but can we stop acting like a bunch of prima donnas and get things back to how they used to be on here?

 

Dave, you have done a bloody amazing job getting the forum running again and it cheers me no end that you'll stay on and look after the tech side of things and hopefully continue to be a contributor on here, but do you (& the other mods) not understand that ALL that was wanted was the forum fixing and then pretty much left alone to do what it does best, IE talk a load of pointless shit about old cars?

 

The only thing that bothers me (& others it seems) is the fact that the promise that was made when the forum was being revamped, IE that the new mods would sort out spam. new members etc BUT NOTHING ELSE, has been so short lived.

This forum has survived for years with little or no moderation, now we get a couple of instances of new mods flexing their muscle and all this shit kicks off and you act surprised when people are querying it?

And that's all it is, no-one's arguing, no-one's called anyone an arse that I'm aware of, it's just a discussion. It's unfortunate if that discussion doesn't meet the approval of the moderation team but it's happening nonetheless.

 

We need to be clear about what everyone wants from this forum or it'll disappear up its own arse within 6 months, and then all Dave's sterling work WILL have been for nowt.

 

And I think you're still missing the point about 1) others complaining about threads and some users and 2) the fact it seems it 's ok for people to want that new user on the banger thread banned, or his post never having been approved in the first place. 

If you can hand-on-heart look through the first page of AS right now and tell me it's improved then you're a better person than I am, because from where I'm sitting it sure as fuck hasn't. If no-one is arguing then why did we get complaints about the banger thread and have you read the one about Americans?

 

I'm sorry some of what's been said hasn't met your approval either, but it's happened nonetheless. As I keep saying you can't please all the people all of the time, and I honestly do take in what you said about a 'no moderation' promise, can't argue about that being said but I will argue that there's some right rubbish being posted on here at the moment which is just inflammatory.

What doesn't help is when trolls and leeches, like Wilko, who just wants a free ride so he can sit on the computer all day and jump down someone's throat, start making silly comments. His breath taking arrogance and toy throwing isn't helping anybody at the moment. You can call it criticism, I call it feet stamping as he's not getting his way.

You did say we should only moderate spam and new members, but who's to say a new member is or isn't a fool? Have a read of a lot of the posts on here today and you tell me hand truthfully if you'd think any of them would be acceptable if the person was a new member, and include some of my rants in that by the way.

 

We won't ever be clear about what everyone wants as not everyone wants the same things, I'm sorry but just because you, Wilco and Luxo agree (and doubtless others) doesn't mean everyone wants the same. Another tired old line (and sorry to repeat this) is to look how many people have jumped ship in the past because of the same pointless, argumentative shit threads and posts about banger racing or whatever. THAT is what stifles new membership and the forum moving forward, though we aren't going to get anyone new now because Dave sorted them out and unsurprisingly he's jacked it in.

 

I know you won't want to hear this fella, but it's nothing to do with 'flexing muscles', that's just rubbish. There are a few things on here that I don't agree with personally, and I expect Dave and Trigger have stuff they don't like, but we haven't gone gung-ho into moderating everything we disagree with because we're not here for that. I do still maintain that shit, provocative threads like the banger one (for all it's well meaning when it was first posted I'm sure) should be locked or removed though. Oh, if you look back in time this sort of thing DID happen before and many people at the time complained because it took so long to do so. Rather ironically the lack of moderation on here at the time was the cause of a fair bit of grief with comments such as 'if we had full time mod's this sort of shit would have been removed' and I'm not necessarily talking about spammers either.

 

The only thing that can make a forum better is the members and what they type. If everyone wants countless arguments, trolling and the same old shit being posted day after day, that's fine. But they don't and the reports we got told us that. 

[daveb47]

I dont remember actually disagreeing with anybody.

It seems that board is actually run by  a few bolshie members who think they are the be all and end all of autoshite & to who the other members mean not a jot.

In my opinion (Obviously mistaken) Autoshite should be attracting new members not scaring them off.Its like having a trade union on here.

The ones who flex the muscles most do in fact seem get their way.

Every board must have its limits to when a thread goes too far,if not it will end up with a clique of over opinionated members and prospective members will have a quick read and go elsewhere or just not join.

I just dont want to be staff on somewhere like that.

I will continue to run board in background but other than that you can do what you fucking want.

 

By the way returning visitor count has dropped by over 50% over last couple of days

 

New registrations at zero.

 

And just for the record I have been building and running forums since 2005,Had forums with over 200000 members & been staff on much larger ones,still am in fact.

[oldford]

ooh the irony, Autoshite is going the way of British Leyland.

 

Why can't people just stop moaning, I'd suggest that a few simple rules or guidelines are drafted, along the lines that a thread can be locked if it's seen to be getting out of hand or contoversial and that the mods have the final say and that their decisioins should not be questioned on the forum.

 

Without any structure, we'll have chaos, leave the moderating to the people who have volunteered to do it and get on with enjoying our nice new spam free forum.

[CortinaDave]

I didn't see anything on the banger racing thread to get particularly upset about to be honest - Yeah it got a bit heated but there wasn't anything offensive from either side that I saw.

 

Seems to me that some members are pissed off and reporting the thread to mods more because they didn't like the subject being discussed at all because they felt it was old ground. Thats fair enough, but then its a simple case of just not reading /bothering with the threads you're not interested in, rather than reporting to mods simply because you're not keen on a particular topic and creating a shitstorm almost to prove a point.

 

Instead now the mods are upset because they've got a no win situation and have enough to do anyway, everyone's pissed off over something that should have been a non issue, and visitor numbers are down because of the mud slinging and in fighting over whether the thread should have been there or not rather than anything in the actual thread itself which was actually pretty tame.

 

Strangely it seems the discussing of banger racing either for or against now upsets more people than the actual racing of classics itself. Thats just daft.

 

Anyway, lets move on and get back to having a laugh and talking about shite old cars

[daveb47]

I am in process of changing way emails are sent for notifications etc using Mandrill as a mail client.

There will some disruption to emails till i have finished.

[Wilko220]

I haven't trolled anyone. All I have done is express an opinion about moderation (and possibly banger racing) which some, notably Cavette the Diva, don't like.

 

I've never seen such a petulant, screaming schoolgirl overreaction in my life.

[daveb47]

Are we still rambling on about this,forget it,let it lie.

Board is now unmoderated and will live or die,

Thats it finish.

[Cavcraft]

Damned if you do, damned if you don't, Dave. Wilko is the Maestro company car of Autoshite, just block him so you don't have to read his trolling, it makes it loads better on here. 

[Wilko220]

I take the Maestro bit as a compliment. Obviously.

[John F]

Youtube test

 

 

You can now just post youtube links and it will show video

 

Any idea what happened to this feature, Dave? All I get is a hyperlink when I try to insert a youtube video.

[Spiny Norman]

 

It seems that board is actually run by  a few bolshie members who think they are the be all and end all of autoshite & to who the other members mean not a jot.

In my opinion (Obviously mistaken) Autoshite should be attracting new members not scaring them off.Its like having a trade union on here.

The ones who flex the muscles most do in fact seem get their way.

 

There's more than a degree of truth in that unfortunately.

 

Ultimately the issue here is that many members feel, rightly or wrongly, that the trigger was pulled way too early on a thread that wasn't even close to coming off the rails until it was interfered with.

 

Cav, thanks for the PM mate, I'll reply shortly, but in the meantime I really think that this issue needs to be dealt with. I know it's a boring subject but if it's not sorted then every time any of the mods locks a thread or intervenes (or even when they don't...) then we may well end up having exactly the same discussion all over again when people get pissed at not having THEIR chosen views supported.

 

As for the effect on new members, what happens when it's some of the new blood who want to have a thread about something slightly contentious that once led to a stushie in 2007 when old so-and-so stormed off in a huff?

Won't that just make them go elsewhere if what they see as massively premature action gets taken?

 

Having any kind of active moderation on this forum is a new experience for most of us, including I suspect the mods themselves. We just need to sort out how best to keep everyone happy all the time.

 

Should be a piece of piss, shouldn't it?

[Spiny Norman]

Any idea what happened to this feature, Dave? All I get is a hyperlink when I try to insert a youtube video.

 

 

Are you using the YouTube 'share' function? Just copy & paste the short code onto the forum and it should work.

 

If you just use the web address then all you'll get is the link.

[Wilko220]

There is more than a degree of truth in it. One of the prime offenders is the bloke who kicked all this off by locking the thread in the first place.

[daveb47]

Give it a fuckin rest cant you Wilko.

Its done,dusted finished,finito,scrapped etc.