Restructuring the F1 Car subforum

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Callum
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Joined: 18 Jan 2009, 15:03
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Re: Restructuring the F1 Car subforum

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I'm worried it might discourage the (very nice) people who spend time uploading the great pictures to the site. Will they be bothered to upload the different into 5x as many topics?

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Steven
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Joined: 19 Aug 2002, 18:32
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Re: Restructuring the F1 Car subforum

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Callum wrote:I'm worried it might discourage the (very nice) people who spend time uploading the great pictures to the site. Will they be bothered to upload the different into 5x as many topics?
As said before, people posting a collection of unsorted images about one car should post them in the current car threads, not in a more specialised thread. It's not discouraging anything.

donskar
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Re: Restructuring the F1 Car subforum

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NewtonMeter wrote:I'm sorry, but I don't like it.

In my opinion as user, the discussion is over regulated as it is on this site. Before every single post, you need to weight up wether the a post belongs in a team thread or car thread and the lines are becoming more vague by the day. Therefore, posting on other forums are a lot simpler and frankly more enjoyable because you aren't nannied as much.

It just seems that if so many posts need to be moved and warnings given all the time, that maybe the users of the forum find the post catagories (car vs. team) unintuitive. And from a usability perspecitive, an unintuitive design is a bad design.

This change will make it even worse. IMHO ofcoursre.
As a long-time member, I -- regretfully -- agree.
Enzo Ferrari was a great man. But he was not a good man. -- Phil Hill

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Callum
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Joined: 18 Jan 2009, 15:03
Location: Edinburgh, Scotland

Re: Restructuring the F1 Car subforum

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Steven wrote:
Callum wrote:I'm worried it might discourage the (very nice) people who spend time uploading the great pictures to the site. Will they be bothered to upload the different into 5x as many topics?
As said before, people posting a collection of unsorted images about one car should post them in the current car threads, not in a more specialised thread. It's not discouraging anything.
Cool, I understand :)

Rikhart
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Joined: 10 Feb 2009, 20:21

Re: Restructuring the F1 Car subforum

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Please dont, there are already so many threads to follow daily, it will be impractical to follow 3/4 times as many because of subdivisions... Not to mention a car has to be discussed as a whole, nothing works separate from the rest.

DewCrew88
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Joined: 19 Apr 2014, 07:36

Re: Restructuring the F1 Car subforum

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My first post, long time reader....

I dont like this, I would assume with the assortment of smart people here that you guys would realize that the smallest of part affected the aggregate in large ways on an F1 car.... Keeping everything in one thread seems to be working why change it?

Richard
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Joined: 15 Apr 2009, 14:41
Location: UK

Re: Restructuring the F1 Car subforum

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We're not proposing to subdivide every car into its constituent systems. There will still be the general car threads, but the idea is to give more space to discussions on one theme.

For example "Ferrari revives the blown wheelnut" on the front page of this site might warrant its own thread. Otherwise it gets lost in the F14T thread. Also a separate thread can be more easily linked from the home page, and visitors following a particular story don't have a wtf moment when they get directed to a 100+ page thread.

So that leads onto the thought that why not encourage members to create similar threads if they want to have an in-depth discussion of a particular feature?

I must admit that the everything in one thread approach attracted me to this site, especially bar555's carefully considered cataloguing of the changes to each car. However, I now wonder if the scale of the site means those threads have outgrown their purpose.

Compare this thread http://www.f1technical.net/forum/viewto ... f=5&t=6830
with what we have now http://www.f1technical.net/forum/viewto ... 12&t=17681

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flynfrog
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Joined: 23 Mar 2006, 22:31

Re: Restructuring the F1 Car subforum

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you guys are not being terribly clear how to divide up posts. It could be a different thread but doesn't have to be but maybe should.

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Steven
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Re: Restructuring the F1 Car subforum

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We may not be terribly clear, because it isn't exactly written in stone when to create a new thread, or when not. The major difference here is that the advice has always been "don't create a new thread", and we're stepping away from that.

As Richard says, some valuable posts and discussions these days get lost in very lengthy car threads, and for valuable technical novelties, the mods and a few consulted members have all agreed it would be better to encourage separate threads. This was unanimous, so there must be a problem somewhere.

Previously, thread splits have happened, like with the Lotus DRD. It's essentially a part of the Lotus car, but does anyone still think it should all be within the car thread?

Similar things are happening with McLaren's butterfly suspension or Mercedes' nose cone (especially their new one). It seems there is a lot to say about these things, and it's difficult to make any meaningful discussion or reading when other people are also chatting about other items in those cars.

Perhaps the question that remains is how rigorous and from how far back should the car threads be split. Probably not too much, but I'm very inclined to split off the entire butterfly suspension anyway.

YUL-F1
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Joined: 20 Jan 2014, 19:55

Re: Restructuring the F1 Car subforum

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Hello. I am a long time reader and recently started participating in this forum's discussions.

The Mercedes W05 thread is currently locked because a mod has deemed it to have derailed over a discussion on rear wing movement/vibrations it seems. I have seen this happen many times before. Often the mod is correct but this time I am convinced that it is hurting discussion and the community.

The current way of curating the discussions as you are is in my opinion is extreme. There is over-curating going on here and the information/discussion is trying to be categorized to a degree that is extreme and counter-productive to discussion and community health.

Discussion organization should come naturally from the participating community. The poor/ill-written/ill-titled/misplaced threads die and wither on their own and the good ones last and grow.

Take a look at http://www.neogaf.com for an example of healthy community/discussion curating.

I'm not sure I have the answer but it is alarmingly clear that the current state is very unhealthy.

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turbof1
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Joined: 19 Jul 2012, 21:36
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Re: Restructuring the F1 Car subforum

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The Mercedes W05 thread is currently locked because a mod has deemed it to have derailed over a discussion on rear wing movement/vibrations it seems. I have seen this happen many times before. Often the mod is correct but this time I am convinced that it is hurting discussion and the community.
I had to lock it for a while - there were other things going on and just didn't had the time at that moment to deal with it. The issue was that the discussion evolved into a more general one. One started to discuss resonance frequency, another brought in a video of a red bull. At one point you have to decide that the topic, the W05, isn't part of the discussion anymore, or is lost in the far more general discussion.

I split off the discussion into a new topic: http://www.f1technical.net/forum/viewto ... =6&t=19059. This has several benefits:
-The car thread is again about the car, and not about "resonance frequency"
-The discussion continues
-The vibration thread is far less limited. People don't have to ask themselves there if they should answer or ignore because it doesn't belong to the car thread.
#AeroFrodo

YUL-F1
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Joined: 20 Jan 2014, 19:55

Re: Restructuring the F1 Car subforum

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turbof1 wrote:
The Mercedes W05 thread is currently locked because a mod has deemed it to have derailed over a discussion on rear wing movement/vibrations it seems. I have seen this happen many times before. Often the mod is correct but this time I am convinced that it is hurting discussion and the community.
I had to lock it for a while - there were other things going on and just didn't had the time at that moment to deal with it. The issue was that the discussion evolved into a more general one. One started to discuss resonance frequency, another brought in a video of a red bull. At one point you have to decide that the topic, the W05, isn't part of the discussion anymore, or is lost in the far more general discussion.

I split off the discussion into a new topic: http://www.f1technical.net/forum/viewto ... =6&t=19059. This has several benefits:
-The car thread is again about the car, and not about "resonance frequency"
-The discussion continues
-The vibration thread is far less limited. People don't have to ask themselves there if they should answer or ignore because it doesn't belong to the car thread.
Thank you. Even though I am not in agreement with the degree of curation I can still appreciate the work and effort. In my opinion, all that talk is relevant to the car details and the car thread. If your goal is to have your users curate a wiki simply make a wiki instead of a discussion forum.

We are all F1 fans looking for a place to talk freely and openly about it. We love this site. But It is clear that the forum is not setup for accommodating this. I'm very concerned that others, like me, will start to suspect that this is not the F1 forum we thought it was.

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turbof1
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Joined: 19 Jul 2012, 21:36
Location: MountDoom CFD Matrix

Re: Restructuring the F1 Car subforum

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The thing is, the car topics always were this strict. But back in 2009, a car thread would be around 4 pages, and only a handful of people would post in it. Those people kept the discussion on the car, and no moderation was needed.

But nowadays we have 30-50 people posting what will end up around 300 pages. That requires a lot of moderation to try to keeps things the way it was.

Unfortunaly it doesn't suffice anymore. Today access to details of a car is way bigger then 5 years ago. Combine that with the increased popularity of f1technical, and the whole things spun out of control. In order to keep the quality up of the discussion, we need fragment the car into multiple well defined discussions.

Is this extra curation? Of course. Will this scare off some people to post? Yes, unfortunaly that's a probable outcome. Will this ensure we move back to the quality we had when we weren't this popular? We still have to see, but I do believe it will.

So I ask everybody again: please, please give this a chance. I think this looks more frightening then it really is.
#AeroFrodo

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flynfrog
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Joined: 23 Mar 2006, 22:31

Re: Restructuring the F1 Car subforum

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Steven wrote:We may not be terribly clear, because it isn't exactly written in stone when to create a new thread, or when not. The major difference here is that the advice has always been "don't create a new thread", and we're stepping away from that.

As Richard says, some valuable posts and discussions these days get lost in very lengthy car threads, and for valuable technical novelties, the mods and a few consulted members have all agreed it would be better to encourage separate threads. This was unanimous, so there must be a problem somewhere.

Previously, thread splits have happened, like with the Lotus DRD. It's essentially a part of the Lotus car, but does anyone still think it should all be within the car thread?

Similar things are happening with McLaren's butterfly suspension or Mercedes' nose cone (especially their new one). It seems there is a lot to say about these things, and it's difficult to make any meaningful discussion or reading when other people are also chatting about other items in those cars.

Perhaps the question that remains is how rigorous and from how far back should the car threads be split. Probably not too much, but I'm very inclined to split off the entire butterfly suspension anyway.

If it isn't exactly written how do you expect us users outside of the chosen circle of unanimous voters to understand where and how to post in a topic. The issue is not one of organization so much as noise level. Look at the links that Richard posted earlier. The RB5 thread has pictures good analysis. Some theory thrown in. Now look at a newer post we have more pictures probably about the same level of analysis and a ton of posts such as:

LOl. The thread was getting boring so I tried to spice it up. It is all speculation anyways.
I don't think the new nose is a big problem, maybe it needs some fine tuning. It's only friday and balance issues are part of the game. Lewis and his engineers will work hard to solve them. Interesting to see if Merc will turn up the wick again in FP3.
AMUS reported that these new generation of Merc engines are more reliable and durable.
The W05 is in Beast Mode!
The issues isn't organization its the noise level. As Ciro once said motivate your posts.

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turbof1
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Joined: 19 Jul 2012, 21:36
Location: MountDoom CFD Matrix

Re: Restructuring the F1 Car subforum

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flynfrog wrote:
Steven wrote:We may not be terribly clear, because it isn't exactly written in stone when to create a new thread, or when not. The major difference here is that the advice has always been "don't create a new thread", and we're stepping away from that.

As Richard says, some valuable posts and discussions these days get lost in very lengthy car threads, and for valuable technical novelties, the mods and a few consulted members have all agreed it would be better to encourage separate threads. This was unanimous, so there must be a problem somewhere.

Previously, thread splits have happened, like with the Lotus DRD. It's essentially a part of the Lotus car, but does anyone still think it should all be within the car thread?

Similar things are happening with McLaren's butterfly suspension or Mercedes' nose cone (especially their new one). It seems there is a lot to say about these things, and it's difficult to make any meaningful discussion or reading when other people are also chatting about other items in those cars.

Perhaps the question that remains is how rigorous and from how far back should the car threads be split. Probably not too much, but I'm very inclined to split off the entire butterfly suspension anyway.

If it isn't exactly written how do you expect us users outside of the chosen circle of unanimous voters to understand where and how to post in a topic. The issue is not one of organization so much as noise level. Look at the links that Richard posted earlier. The RB5 thread has pictures good analysis. Some theory thrown in. Now look at a newer post we have more pictures probably about the same level of analysis and a ton of posts such as:

LOl. The thread was getting boring so I tried to spice it up. It is all speculation anyways.
I don't think the new nose is a big problem, maybe it needs some fine tuning. It's only friday and balance issues are part of the game. Lewis and his engineers will work hard to solve them. Interesting to see if Merc will turn up the wick again in FP3.
AMUS reported that these new generation of Merc engines are more reliable and durable.
The W05 is in Beast Mode!
The issues isn't organization its the noise level. As Ciro once said motivate your posts.
We believe that if we got down to more specific subjects, the noise gets filtered out of it. There's a ton to say about the W05 car and much more chance for noise like that, but narrowing the discussion down to for instance the front wing will cancel out a lot of jibber jabber.
#AeroFrodo