Y, do I like to watch Mary Poppins, and sing chim chimney chim chim - charoo ?

E X A C T L Y!

Guilty as charged by the people.

Your honor, I have nothing further.

 

Oh, one more thing your honor, can you please not forget "Phillipe's Espada thread" ??

Thank You.

 

I've re-read about the last 30 posts in here and I have a question, which none of you guys is willing, or maybe able to answer.

Was the thread title change, in and of itself, terribly offensive? Did it hit some kind of raw nerve? Was there not a moment when some of you thought, " Hey, that's kind of funny." or "Well, the threads are dominated by Joe's posts, after all."

Or, are some if not all of you angry now because we seem unmoved by your emotional outbursts, your hue and cry about how unfair this all is. Is it the fact that the thread titles got changed, or that we seem unwilling to change them back even though you are convinced they didn't need changing. Is this all about control? About who "controls" the LamboChat forum?

Maybe it's a maturity thing. What Ralph did was immature perhaps? Take a peek in the mirror before you go too far down that road.

Can I have some honest self assessments here on this? What's really buggin' you guys? I find it almost impossible to believe we could have three threads, and multiple hundreds of posts of outrage over something this trivial.

Now, let me tell you what bugs me about what's going on in here right now. You guys are the toughest bunch of guys I have ever dealt with. You're aggressive, overbearing, and unwilling to bend even the least little bit during this entire discussion. Not one inch, not a millimeter, and that's unfortunate. Being intractable is not a helpful trait in a public forum. It inevitably leads to conflict. I've tossed a couple options out there for you guys to discuss, but we inevitably run back to, "But you changed the thread titles, and that's wrong."

I can't speak to Ralph's motivation for the thread title changes. I've changed thread titles before to add clarity, or remove ALL CAPS, or simply to help the original poster with his spelling or grammar. I've even done it on a couple of occasions when the thread, or the guy who started it, had become so preposterous as to warrant it. I don't think that's a bad thing, and neither have any of the folks I did this for or to. If Ralph did it to have some good natured fun, I don't see the harm in that. If he did it so that some new threads would be started about the cars in question, I don't see the harm in that either. If he did it to put a more appropriate title on the thread, then well, I'm ok with that too. Maybe you guys are taking this just a little too seriously? And, the more noise you make, the harder it becomes for either party to back away from the precipice. It's like Mutually Assured Destruction. Who is gonna blink first.

Going forward, I can't guarantee that no thread title will be changed. Sometimes they need to be changed. LONG, VERBOSE, EXCESSIVE, DRAWN OUT THREAD TITLES IN CAPS seems a little silly too, and might occasionally need to be addressed. Maybe you guys can try to work a little more flexibility into your lives here. What could it hurt? As a moderator, I'll try to do the same.

Dave M

 

Rob: I said "in this thread", thus far its been 100%, thats all.

 

Dave: I suggest you leave the responses to Rob, or even to Ralf to explain his own actions when he gets back from 'vacation'. Clearly you'll never get the central issue and so your explanations are falling on deaf ears. You are immovable and uncompromising in your position of not understanding, so why should anyone afford you different?

I suppose this goes to the basic premise that human beings dont like their communications changed or altered without permission. When you were 6 years old, if your big brother changed the lines on the gun turrets of the army tank that you had drawn and posted on the fridge because he thought it looked better, youd be mad as heck and probably wanna kill him. Its that simple. DONT CHANGE MY **** (unless of course Im being offensive, racist etc). Its human nature. Try changing the title of an essay or an e-mail that your wife or significant other has already posted and see what happens to you!!! Get the picture? Stop trying to act like this is no big deal. It insults our collective intelligence nd makes you look like you have your head in the sand (I will resist...) Yet you note that there has been 3 threads on this. Obviously it matters to many and it IS a big deal. Ralf made a mistake and thats the bottom line. He convinced Rob that it was a good idea, but Im sure Rob in his heart is not so sure now!

Even though this is Rob's place, its has to be run with a certain amount of discretion, or else things go sour quickly. Whilst we are all wasting our time here, no car stuff is being posted, and a noob will come on and see the unyielding administration of this forum - thats what they will see. That should get them to join right away....

I dont want to hear your sob story "moderators dont get paid" etc.... NEITHER do us contributors! Everyone participating is giving their time (well, Rob gets paid, but thats another story), and our time DOES make this place more attractive to a noob who wanders in and says "coool, there is a LONG thread with TONS of info that will help me restore my Dino, or Miura, or whatever, I think Im gonna subscribe!". It happens, and the efforts of us contributors does have a positive effect. The fact that it is being suggested that the focus on the threads I started is anything but the cars is utter NONSENSE. Read them. A wealth of info on the particular model if I may say so myself. Take a poll if you like and Im sure most will agree without hesitation.

The fact remains that Ralf changed my thread but not Freds or Phillipe's. Right there it screams "personal ulterior motives". Dont feed us this "he missed the others" BS... Im willing to overlook anything personal and just stick to a solid premise:

If a poster places a post that is within the rules and is non-offensive, leave it alone.

Im reminded of a PM from poster (he will smile when he reads this). He asks why Rob dosnt jut see that people en masse are not cool with it, and save face and show judgment by just putting it back and moving on. The analogy he gives is that you guys are digging a hole for yourselves: first by hand, then with a shovel, then with a backhoe .... soon with dynamite.

On a personal note, why dont you stop paying attention to those chronic complainers who seek to cause trouble by running to you guys complaining about the Lambo section - you know the ones very well... The envious types who contribute little more to F-Chat than the occasional "great car, enjoy it in good health" comment.

I don't think the Lambo section is that bad, aside from our dear Roy's scrapes - which youll note that I have nothing to do with whatsoever.

 

OK 99%

 

Wow, Dave M, you need to really calm down, you have a seriously misconstrued view of how the world works. I feel like I should be begging to be present here after this thread.

 

I'm glad I was finally able to get your attention.

This never would have grown into what it has if not for the collective passion in this group. If we didn't care about it we wouldn't be here.

Ralph is a valued contributor. That this came suddenly from him with no clear explanation was most unexpected.

 

So Joe was not renewed, but still chose to stick around despite the hint ? Must be some real value to the business to have a presence on fchat.... post lots of stuff in return for the perception of "expert"....can't be bad for car sales eh ?

All this noise over a thread title change ? Hilarious ! Free the oppressed ! FREE JOE SACKEY ! hahahahaha

 

They should let him be anyway... Saving bandwidth on noobs' searches by naming threads more effectively isn't a good enough reason for the moderator's actions.

Why alienate a good contributor?

 

Monster threads with large #'s of bumps and views that only serve to feed an ego/car sales, should be identified as such....hence the title "Joe's _____ Thread" seems appropriate to me....

 

I'd say a few of us have seen forums moderated for many a good reason. That includes titles. Titles like "pics here" don't do much for me and I'm happy to see them edited to be more descriptive.

The problems with some of the recent alterations is that there hasn't been a convincing need for them to be changed. They appear to be less descriptive, less friendly etc and the reasons stated so far seem obtuse and the changes don't seem to be adding value but rather the opposite.

-mick

 

As always, your talent for espousing erroneous information is second to none.

I WAS renewed... do a bit more checking of facts and you'll be a bit more knowledgeable...

 

Your talent for self-righteous indignation is fuelling this thread...keep it up, great entertainment