How to improve forum content / moderation?

[Richard]

I'd advocate very strict interpretation of what is "technical" on the car threads. There are many posts I'd happily delete given the mandate (incl some of my own )

The race threads will have a bit more leeway because racing incidents are subjective.

I'd ban all driver or team idolatry. Ban driver avatars & names. I'm serious on that, some people talk about "we need to" as if they owned the team. Others seem to have a crystal ball "they need to get a better DRS and an improved front wing, and driver x prefers a car
made on a Tuesday with 33.576 points of understeer on Rascas but only if he is wearing is pink socks".

Terms such as "the boss" should incur instant deletion of a post. If you can't use the diver's name then don't bother cluttering the technical boards with your drivel. Repeats should incur a temp ban.

Criticising another member or getting personal should be deleted and repeaters banned. Its like two whining children, "I don't care who started it, the two of you need to shut up".

This is an added burden for the mods. I'd happily help, not as a full mod, but a defined remit to target particular unwelcome behaviours. For example some of us could be "pointless-long-quote-or-repeated-big-photo" killers. Others could be "the boss" killers.

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

That facility is already available Richard.

Flagging comments helps mods no end

[mep]

richard_leeds do you think pointless-long-quotes, repeated-big-photos and driver nick names are the reason why he is upset?
I would rate them more as minor incidents not worth to bother much about.
To improve the site we should know first what happened exactly. Something more serious must have happened because when he is going to delete his posts.
In my opinion we should not restrict the users with rules about minor things. This might just drive more valuable users off.
I think we should make the forum more attractive for technical discussions. This requires a big amount of freedom because F1 alone doesn't give enough technical topics anymore since it got technically to restricted.
We must be able to talk about technical topics even when they have nothing to do with F1. The world has changed, other racing series are technically more appealing than F1 these days.

I also think it must be possible to go off topic in a technical topic when some new technical question came up. That's how some of us learn about new things or get new ideas.

What we should do is to reduce the amount of non technical discussions. I must admit I am also bored little bit of the forum. The most interesting discussions at the moment is one guy claiming that a diffusor doesn't work and another one that a suspension is not needed.

Lets collect some ideas how we can make the forum technically more appealing.

[Pup]

You can't limit discussion without pissing off good members.

And if you continually piss off good members you'll see the forum slowly wither away.

The inevitable solution will be to ban users who can't behave. No wimpy time-outs or multiple warnings - warn them once, then kick them out.

It's not rocket science, yet I've seen two F1 boards go belly up because they couldn't accept this simple advice.

[donskar]

I'd advocate very strict interpretation of what is "technical" on the car threads. There are many posts I'd happily delete given the mandate (incl some of my own )

The race threads will have a bit more leeway because racing incidents are subjective.

I'd ban all driver or team idolatry. Ban driver avatars & names. I'm serious on that, some people talk about "we need to" as if they owned the team. Others seem to have a crystal ball "they need to get a better DRS and an improved front wing, and driver x prefers a car
made on a Tuesday with 33.576 points of understeer on Rascas but only if he is wearing is pink socks".

Terms such as "the boss" should incur instant deletion of a post. If you can't use the diver's name then don't bother cluttering the technical boards with your drivel. Repeats should incur a temp ban.
Criticising another member or getting personal should be deleted and repeaters banned. Its like two whining children, "I don't care who started it, the two of you need to shut up".

This is an added burden for the mods. I'd happily help, not as a full mod, but a defined remit to target particular unwelcome behaviours. For example some of us could be "pointless-long-quote-or-repeated-big-photo" killers. Others could be "the boss" killers.

I'd say that richard_leeds is right on target with his comments, especially those I bolded. And I empathize with 747heavy -- I got fed up and left for several months

In addition, I suggest F1T should aspire (among other things) to share knowledge. My resume includes a few semesters of Mech Eng courses, several years as an auto mechanic, 20 years in high tech and 10 years in auto sales -- and I am technically incompetent when compared to several other members. That's OK. I want to learn more about F1 and racing tech in general.

Last, I support ruthless moderating. Throw out the fan boys and preachers.

[Richard]

JET - I'm a habitual reporter of posts, it's getting embarrassing!. What I was proposing was broadening the mod rights so I can delete posts myself within well defined circumstances to save the mods energy for the tricky stuff. A bit like an army of mini mods, or mod bots.

MEP - Stopping the anti social and minor stuff sets the tone from the start. Of course jokes and flippant comments would be OK in an off topic context. I still want to be able to joke about 6 tents, but that should never be in a race, car or driver thread.

ps Its great to see so many high quality constructive posts together.

[Tim.Wright]

I'd include a ban on discussing anything related to the sporting regulations.

This would remove the pages of posts following a race when people spends days analysing overtakes, crashes blocks etc. Have a look at the silverstone thread.

Tim

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

Richard
I see what you are saying, that could work but would be entirely down to Tomba.
My issue with it is, over-moderation. The F1technical thread could turn into a very cold, clinical place if it was devoid of discussion and just pure facts. Opinions are the bread and butter of any forum, some more qualified than others.

Tim.Wright
I think discussion is a must post race. Not with bias, but to reach general consensus. Why start a race thread, and have no discussion apart from the facts? Nothing is ever black and white, especially in F1, and it is this grey area alot of us chew the fat on.
If the particpants engage in constructive debate, then the outcome can only ever be positive.
I see the potential for fanboyism, ying yang dross etc on these threads, but using the ultimate moderation tool(thinking before posting...yes im guilty of not doing that at times) or a more extreme measure as Richard suggests then I think it would help be a step in the right direction.

I mean regards the regs, teams push beyond the envelope of these all the time. So wouldn't it be the duty of the sites users to question the regulations or interpretations of them? Just interested to know your view on that.

[Robbobnob]

i think we should have a button and if people press it the OP dies, it will teach them for saying anything on the Forum

[bhall]

Have we forgotten how to ignore?

[Caito]

You can't ignore if they chase you.


What if there's a subforum for the not technical stuff and become strict with the technical forums?


As when they say "people get the politicians they deserve" or "politicans that reflect the poeple", maybe a similar thing is happening here.


As always there's good people and bad people, but isn't this the reflect of the forum itself?

I have been trying to stay away of those topics which are very opinion biased. I have also been reporting all the threads that I think are bad. Reporting is like calling 911 when something is going wrong. If all of the ones who, like me, try to avoid useless discussions and report bad threads maybe the thing turns around.

[alelanza]

Have we forgotten how to ignore?

Very much agree. However the problem may become that if there's not enough good content, we'll end up ignoring the whole forum...

I do wonder about 747's reaction though, i agree he is one of the good ones here and seemed to be cool headed. On the other hand i do think moderation here is good, maybe they could do with a few more resources but the principle works IMO.

[wesley123]

In addition, I suggest F1T should aspire (among other things) to share knowledge.

How do you aspire such a thing? You cannot block human stupidity and if you give them space for other things and they will, give a man the chance to murder and he will.
And be fair, we all make enough of those comments ourselves which we dont like to see from others.

Last, I support ruthless moderating. Throw out the fan boys and preachers.

I agree and disagree at the same time. Like I said, we all made those comments that we all hate when another make them, but when we make them it is alright because we make them ourselves. We cannot look critically to ourselves, that is just a part of our humans.

For example, if I posted;

Hamilton is such a cool guy and he is hot and all of that

Then that is my opinion, i dont see anything wrong with the post, yet 90% would describe it as a fanboy comment, why? I dont know, nobody knows.

Humans just are used to blame others for things they are themselves part of, that is just our nature, we all think we are perfect until someone tells us we are not, that is then accepted by someone, but most of the time this just ends in a discussion or fight, that is just the way we work and we cannot change that, evolution will change that.

On the other hand, a thing I have a huge dislike of is the splitting of posts, In for example the W02 thread somebody throws a point about why the exhaust is this and that way, then we go on about that, after a while this is just split up into a new topic. This topic itself would then serve barely any duty anymore since it just was people making a point and confirming these, this in turn causes a, in my opinion, huge mess where nobody knows anymore what belongs to what.

[Richard]

Good points wesley123

However, there are some clear examples of annoying fanboi posts such as:

xxx is going to whip yyy in the next race

or

Team zzz need to copy <long list> feature from RB

or

That team sucks

I think the difference with measured opinion is that is usually objective, avoid judgemental/emotive language, is evidenced based and has some context that considers life may not be black and white. So good versions of the above examples would be:

xxx has beaten yyy by 3 places in the last 4 races, I wonder if that will continue in the next race

or

Team zzz don't seem to have developed a blown diffuser

or

That team seems to be struggling, they have 10 points but this time last year they had 50. I wonder why?

[wesley123]

Agreed here.

Me as a very active member on this forum barely uses the term 'fanboy' at all(correct me if im wrong), I think it is just an easy term to bash someone for his or her, badly documented, opinion. It is just so easy to use since there is no answer available for that, just another offensive post back.

The term 'fanboy' is just one that is experienced different by anybody. sure, with a post like 'OMFG HAMILTON PWNED YO ALONSO'S AZZZ!!!!!!' I want to punch the poster in the face. Yet why should we even bother calling someone liekt aht a fanboy? Sure it is a stupid comment, but it is more likely that he is just overly exited by 'Hamiltons great race' then that he is just really being annoying and trolling anybody. Such comments are pretty much similar to what Hamilton said after the Monaco gp, you are still full of adrenaline and you react in that way, in a good or bad way. yet after a while you loosen up and you just start giving your opinion around that, most of the time without any arguments, which in turn sometimes annoys me. Then you have the posts that go like 'wow Hamilton really drove a great race'. Why did he drove a great race? In this example it isnt a thing that bothers me that much but you have ones that say 'Really Merc can improve a lot', how can they improve a lot? such posts do not have any part of 'excitement' in them and can be more described as postboosting then an addition to the ongoing discussion.

Some people although take it really far in this 'fanboy' story, for example;
I believe it was after the Monaco gp, pretty exciting race and I was incredibly disappointed by Hamiltons performance and the penalties given, I am going on the forum, post my opinion and why i thought so, was not shortly afterwards i was named a 'fanboy'. That annoys me the most, good argumented posts are claimed bs without any argument or you are just being offended. Then you have guys like me who just go full attack back in such situation, and then ta-daa you have a fight going on.

This 'fanboy' ying-yang will go on and on, and it is something we cannot fix. The only thing we, as hardcore f1t members can do is just press the previous button in the browser and do not mind it. Such guys calling you fanboy, posting stupid comments, or whatever are just like insects, when you got rid of one you get 5 back. We can only ignore it, talk to the mods/admins and discuss it with the members, and if we do that we can all just go and discuss with each other happily on the same forum.