Not good enough answer Rob. You need to address the points I raised about you being "out of tune" with us. You've got it wrong again. The UK can only take so much of this. We all pulled together last time, and will again. This will do Manu's sales no good at all, and he'll have you to thank for it. I wouldn't be surprised if his 'phone is ringing off the hook tomorrow morning (from about 9:30 I'd say) Already the early departers are off to pistonheads and sponsors of your site could well be "black-balled". Happy yet?
Most of us here own our own businesses and know very well the perils of trying to run a happy ship. It ain't easy.
As a marketeer if it seems that your sponsors are upset or indeed yourself as you run this site as a business. This is extremely poor publicity for yuorself and for your associate sponsors, this kind of behaviour is not going to encourage people to part with cash for exhausts, subscriptions or whatever it may be. If I acted like this to my customers, i would be out of business within a week, think what you say and the effects it can have on yuor business and your sponsors business, ferrari uk owners and F Chatters are not interbred but word surely moves extremely quick on and offline - Uk f chatters are certainly a decent and supportive bunch of people - I need only refer to the charity work done by people and in recent to the make a Wish foundation thread.
Hey Joe I'm not a shrinking violet. There's another motor racing list where I am up to nearly 3,000 posts. I have been on the Ferrarlist (email) since 1997 and a regular poster. So ask yourself why this one doesnlt do it for me.
OK, I have to go home. I want to address each and every post/concern. To do that I need to close this thread, but I will reopen first thing in the morning my time. It will be good for everyone to sleep on it anyway. Rules still apply, no mention of this anywhere but here. We'll have plenty of time to talk tomorrow. My Scottish friend and I were racing last weekend and after a few beers he had some funny British humor... Why do you shag a sheep towards a cliff? So it doesn't run away and provides more pressure. Thought that was pretty funny. I get that British humor.
While y'all are getting some sleep and I've had the chance to respond to PM's, let me make some points to clarify the situation from my perspective. While I'm sleeping dreaming of sheep in the morning you can think of ways to pick on me some more before I open the thread. I banned steve f because of a personal attack directed at me. I'm pretty thick skinned these days, but steve f has constantly attacked me. I initiated the 2 month ban to get his attention with the intent after we talk things through I would lift it. It is obvious steve f has a personal problem with me and it is fair for me to ask that we work it out offline or we decide to accept it and he just keeps his mouth shut. When he follows me around looking to attack me I consider that "bad karma" and as administrator I shouldn't be subject to that. I really consider that ban insignificant and a slap on the hands. I don't consider too many temp bans very significant. If you are a real uncorrectable problem, then you will be permanently gone. That was the end of it for me except to talk with steve offline. Then I checked the UK forum and there were several threads with several aggressive attacks towards me. This is where I lost it and I think rightly so. Same thing that happened before when I banned a user for breaking our avatar rules. These are slaps on the hands, but the UK bullies come out in force and ruthlessly attack me. I believe this is completely uncalled for and really hurts my feelings. I am always trying to do the best for the community and a small insignificant action that effects no one but that individual causes all the *******s of UK to attack me like I'm the devil. Damn straight I will fight against that type of response. Yes it makes me look bad when all you see is my response, but understand my intensity is in direct reaction to your initial attacks. I'm not sure what is wrong with the UK forum, maybe nothing as many argue. When a major sponsor and multiple users tell me it is a mess, then I take notice and look into it more. I apologize, but once you got me going I was trying to fish for the bad apples. To my surprise most of you pushed the limits, but didn't go overboard, so that gives me some confidence in the UK section. However, I do think there is a level of unruliness, cliques, bullies, and inappropriate behavior that needs some analysis for improvement. Maybe just some small corrective actions are needed, but the UK forum is a **** hole compared to other regional forums and I don't want good UK users being scared away. I don't think it is so bad yet, but I would have no problem shutting the entire Ferrari UK section down. I would loose sponsors and subscribers, but at some point it isn't worth it for me to put up with *******s, conflicts, and attacks. I think anyone that wants to publicly attack me with a complete lack of respect while I am only trying to do the best for FerrariChat.com is an ******* and doesn't belong here. I will find you and take appropriate action. I was hoping this thread would bait a few, but there have only been a few bites. If steve chooses, he knows how to contact me and we'll try to workout what is personal. To everyone else, if you have a problem with me or FerrariChat.com, then let me know what it is. Remember, all I did was ban a user and that was related to nothing any of you did. Only when a handful of users go on the attack did I fight back. I really don't want to have personal issues with anyone here. If you don't know I'm a good person and really want the best for FerrariChat.com and even the UK forum, then you are so far out of touch or stupid that you aren't worth my time anyway. For those that truly want to be good users, but want to clear some things up with me personally, then please PM me like others have done. Everyone that wants to be a good user I want to be friends with. Sincerely, rob
I'm up and about ready for work, I will open the thread in 90 minutes. I will also start responding to PM's at that time. Right now I only have 3, are those the only people with a problem? Thanks, rob
I'm at work finally. One hour commute! Anyway, I have 6 total PM's to respond first. If you sent me a PM, please read my response before posting. Thanks. Thread should be open in 10 minutes and I'll leave it open as long as I can keep up with responses. I many have to close periodically to make sure I respond to everything.
Wow, I'm actually really surprised about the PM's. I was expecting to get beat up pretty bad, called the devil, and threatened to be placed in a Rangers bar with a Celtics uniform. 3 of 7 PM's were people in support of me trying to clean this place up. 1 was from a mod. The other 3 were in support of steve, but worded in a very positive way that I appreciate. Two of those emails weren't understanding the ban term on steve, so let me make it clear Steve's ban is not necessarily 2 months and probably won't be. Actually, Steve's ban and any users that were banned in his support could be over today if Steve and I work out our personal problems offline. There is a soft spoken group that is supporting my efforts here. I don't think we need huge disruptive changes, but I think there are some small things everyone can do. Please help me work with you and not against you.
Rob, you must have a short memory. IMO, this started when you banned Chris Stimmo360 for using an avatar picture of a girls bottom in a bikini. There was no warning, no PM, just a straight ban, and he had been using the avatar for several weeks prior to that. The way you handled that entire situation and the bans that followed were totally out of order and upset a lot of UK F-chatters. We have not forgotten that. Three months later we face a similar situation. It is your heavy handed and dictatorial approach that we do not like, and calling "most of" us A S S H O L E S really does not help to solve the problem, it merely makes things worse. If you were to follow your own rules you would have to ban yourself, as that is very inflammatory. If I were to go on the US section and say "most of you are just *******s" I know I would get an immediate ban. What I am trying to say is that you over reacted last time, and you have over reacted again this time. Now that you have had time to calm down, you should apologise to Stevef and the rest of the UK section, and then we can move on (if there's still anybody left on here).
Even though I consider myself to be one of the 'soft spoken a s s h o l e s' I still think you have acted wrongly Rob. You have banned SteveF for poking fun at you. You have then given the impression that you did it because one of the site sponsors complained. We all know, as I am sure you do too, that you should un-ban/un-cancel everyone you have banned or cancelled in the last couple of days and then you should just leave the UK section alone to it's moderators. I really can't see why you felt the need to get involved here.
Well said Nige - this pretty much echoes the sentiments of my PM to Rob - I hope it goes without saying that I was one of the 3 in support of Steve. Are the mods former and present allowed to voice their feelings on the bans which are I believe are fourfold - stevef, F308MAN, Hazy and rmdferrari - or would this be seen as a mutiny if their feelings didn't support yours Rob ?
Anthony, Steves post that got him banned was not in the UK section. Rob L, Did you really mean to upset all of us in the UK section?
Easy remedy to this, just let us get on with it and don't interfere. Haven't we got our own mods? surely if you get a stray UK fchatter, then discuss it with UK mods - or do you not have faith in them? I understand you've also banned a number of other UK fchatters today - how pathetic is that? Do you really think these sponsors are going to benefit from all of this negativity? Some seriously bad decisions
I have nothing to apologize about. If the users that attacked me apologize, I will make up with them appropriately. If steve and I talk offline, we can make up appropriately. I see all my responses as a response to what other users did. I obviously didn't start this out of the blue for no reason. I want to get rid of users with a bad attitude and I think you have a bad attitude. Can I remove you? If you don't want to be removed, please PM me offline so we can workout our differences. I run this forum, I'm not the only one that thinks there are problems, when I make moderations I may make mistakes, but there are proper ways to give me feedback and several users here don't know how. I want to clean this place of users with bad attitudes that want to work against me and not with me. Do we have these problem elsewhere? The answer is mostly no and we need to find the root cause of why that is.
Yes I know. My point was that Steve didn't deserve to be banned for what he said and the UK section seems to work best when Rob keeps out of it. You are of course right to wonder why he has decided to 'clean up' the UK section when the 'offending' remark was in the Off Topic Section. ???
No, steve's ban was completely unrelated to the UK section and not even here. Shortly after I came here and saw no less than 3 threads attacking me and going way overboard for a minor moderation. Y'all brought it upon yourselves. If you had a problem with Steve's ban, you should have contacted me offline and I would have been happy to hear your feedback and explain it. Again, best comparisons is a hoodlum mentality in the UK is the status quo. That won't be tolerated at FerrariChat.com though.
Agreed,I've been on here for nearly 4 years and watched as Fchat has grown(especially the UK section)and it is a credit to you,but now you are just becoming a laughing stock,you need now to act like an adult,apologise to steve and the rest of the UK section,then you might get some respect back.
Clean up was in direct response to your attacks here following the ban, obviously not related directly to the ban.
I want the type of respect that comes from doing the right thing. I have a very tough job and it isn't popular, but FerrariChat.com is what it is for the way I do things. You don't have to like it, but respect I'm doing the best I can and FerrariChat.com is successful for it. On a micro level I can't keep everyone happy, but my job is taking care of the big picture.
I think you should also make it clear that your 'clean up' is not related to complaints from any site sponsor.
