nipo wrote:Have you seen this successfully implemented elsewhere? I doubt it.
There are many sites where you cannot post in most subforums until you have a number of posts. This would save mod time and, believe me, I know.
If you want to know the sites where this is the norm, check threads similar to this one (up and including 2002
) or the mail I interchanged with site owners. I don't think the site will pay attention to the suggestion (again) but I had to say it: bettonracing is right. Oh, he's sooo right... so right that he's wrong!
"Truthful" and "workable" are distinct concepts,
allow me to explain.
Proof? I devoted around 2-4 hours of work a day (mostly at night or in the very early morning) to this forum until it became incompatible with me having a life,
just trying to prune the threads of irrelevant comments, leading by example instead of censoring. I think many members will concede
that.
When that proved unfeasible because of personal reasons, in desperation and, frankly, bored, I started to erase entire pages or, worse, I started threads devoted to ridicule the polemic fanboy approach, in the false belief that this would bring inspiration to "the masses".
In the end, anarchists are not adequate for that kind of "bulk censoring", so, after some months I quit(ted) before allowing the engineering quality of the forum to degenerate under my moderation, like, I believe, nowadays has.
I apologize in advance for the wording but, hey, I'm not a diplomat nor I am interested in making friends with this post. I'm talking about MY experience, I don't give a rat's buttock about opinions: gimme numbers.
Don't get me wrong:
I'm not criticizing the quality of this site's programming, nor the speed and intuition that site owners have for client satisfaction through well measured responses neither their excellent handling of news. Owners and actual mods are superb in that sense.
Anyway, car threads are a mod nightmare and I won't make comments about race threads: they are simply unmanageable. To say the truth, most of the comments are irrelevant and lack originality... or they are simply old fights between the more insistent posters (I won't use the word "stupid"... or did I just use it?) who come once and again to insult each other in a thinly veiled manner. They don't like to race, they like to argue with other people (and use racing as a motive).
The people that tried to insert original posts or posts that reflected some research and (let's say it) love for the site and for racing were drowned. You know the posters: those that show respect and admiration for
all drivers and also a deep knowledge of racing... or at least people that
actually races.
Most of those people, in my knowledge, have left and, allow me to say that I worked my neck off trying to keep them on board.
This made no difference in the number of hits, so... keep on moving, this is an enlightened fan site, not a truly engineering one. Probably it is impossible to have a truly "engineering" site (in the narrow sense I am giving to this word) unless you have a staff of engineers devoted to write articles... and, if they are volunteers, they have to be shielded somehow from the most intractable and (this time I'm going to say the "s" word) stupid posts. This shielding takes a LOT of time from mods. Who cares? Almost nobody does.
It is enough to have a couple of engineers on board for this site to survive. Riff_raff, flynn, perhaps 747Heavy and some more (I'm "away" devoted to make money, so I'm not sure who tries to clarify the most blatant errors and the more disgusting "driver racism", but I'm sure they are not a lot).
However, the truth is inescapable: fans are numerous, engineers are few and site owners have to take this fact in account. So, a fan site with moderation adequate for fans we have... and half a dozen engineers. It HAS to be "free for all" and that's the most we can expect from a forum with so many members.
Equations and calculations are sparse, insider posts are hard to find and, except for some notable members that still, once in a while, have the time (i.e. the suspension thread by Belatti comes to my mind) I find nothing I didn't already know (and I still have a lot to learn after 40+ years of racing).
Summing up: most people doesn't come here to learn, but to pontificate. This pontification space sells (check Twitter or Facebook status!), learning doesn't (check Wikileaks position in this new world! "Crushed" is a mild word to describe what Assange is suffering right now).
Live long and prosper, fellow earthlings. Keep the good work, Vulcans (you know who you are).
Well done, Tomba, you rule.
I pray for this post having no answers. I won't write any, anyway... and I still love you all. Besides, this is no suggestion, just a description of the human race, as seen by me.
