Overly aggressive forum behaviour

Hats off to you Fizzy, for I have just read 20 posts here where there are no arguments, just sensible discussion and sharing of thoughts and good advice, coupled with heartfelt sentiments from a humanist standpoint and passion for a sim that is sometimes frustrating, but is actually very very, good, in many ways.

Yes, whether its forgetting to put the sump plug back in a motor after getting distracted then filling the unit with oil, worst still starting the engine, choice of words on an international forum with interpretational/language differences, or stuff that effects other peoples lives physically. what the hell, list is endless.

Gave this break of yours much thought at the time ref the last few posts back then, was a shame. You were missed, and the hrs you put in for the input you gave with your positve informative thread, just reflects on what I mention about passion for the sim, Good wishes with the more personal stuff also.

Here, Here,
Even with the swings and roundabouts. Just bought ACC in sale just for a back to back despite Im no big fan of the cars class. No need to elaborate here in the differences. or my opinion on the 2 sims.

I recall Renato said much the same about 1 of his posts, I replied no need for that, same for you here. Good post same as all on this thread so far.


lol sry about this/my lenghty 1, Post, not appendage
A break is as good as a rest.

Thanks @Jason Pladoh and @F1Aussie mine should not be either see how it goes next week.
. My apologies to all for even mentioning it, case of personal frustration, little bit of anger followed by dissapointment about forum and Fizzys considered action.

 

WTF man, where you there in my 1st year of my apprenticeship? I did exactly that to an old XD Falcon Drained the oil, lowered the hoist and fired her up Sat in it listening to this knock get louder and louder only to call over my boss asking him what was wrong. He raised the hoist standing under it with his ear up listening, only to shout "DID YOU PUT OIL IN IT"!!! Man the panic set in, i couldn't lower the hoist fast enough to shut it down. We filled it with oil and an additive and fired it up again now we could hear my heart beating louder than the knock the engine knock slowly got quieter and quieter until we couldn't hear it anymore He said i got super lucky because it was a tired worn engine but i probably took a few kms off it life!! We didnt tell the customer
Well that was the least of my F ups during my apprenticeship wasn't it

 

No but I do recall myself doing it, just bought back memories of my mess ups, mistakes, HHaa yes the noise just gets louder esp when you dont notice the puddle under car for a minute or so..lesson learned.
The whole workshop jumped out their socks when the 'sparkie' left a battery on fast charge and the thing exploded lol, was not funny at the time nasty acid every where
I was lucky as you were the oil thing did not big damage lol.
Many I suspect have apprentice error logs somewhere. Exploding vapour in an empty fuel tank kinda gets ones attention when it picks you and the apprentice up and throws you flat on your arse lol

 

Long post incoming... sorry

I’ve found reading this thread pretty interesting. The contributions have been pretty much universally useful or generous.

I hope that if it’s done anything, it’s served as a prompt / reminder to all of us, myself included, to be a bit more civil in our postings, and maybe in the heat of debate, we might remember at least some of the stuff that’s been written here.

Just one thing I want to mention, it feels a bit weird talking about this stuff here, but I feel I need to clarify... when I mentioned the death of my parents, I was trying to demonstrate a point: all of us here will be dealing with some personal sh!t to a lesser or greater extent, and that is why we should try to avoid being hateful towards each other... even if it’s meant in a ‘laddish banter’ kind of way. We’re all here in the name of fun and stress relief.

I do not accept the argument that says online communication can’t hurt people. It definitely can. It’s a well known fact. Anyone in the UK will probably know about that young tv presenter that killed herself because of online abuse. I know myself that I’ve been virtually tearing around a race track, but thinking about stuff people have written on forums. Our brains do not have a clear cut off between the real world and the virtual one... it’s just not the case. To think it is, is naive.

I fully accept that people might not agree with me on that point, but I would say the fact that I and many others, are of that opinion, demonstrates that like beauty, it’s in the eye of the beholder. Therefore the ‘safest’ thing to do as an internet user is err in the side of caution and assume your words CAN cause harm to people, even if you don’t think they can harm you.

There is just one more thing I want to say. Not entirely related to the subject at hand, but I want to get it off my chest. I think a lot of the more mature folks on here will already know this, so bear with me here... the following, might be useful to someone....

In the English language there is an expression that goes ‘the more you know, the less you show’. What this means is that truly smart / fast / brave / kind people don’t need to show off about how great they are, they just are great. Conversely, if someone on a forum makes a point of typing that they are great / intelligent / fast etc etc, most people reading it will recognise it for what it is.... meaning quite the opposite is probably the case, or the person that typed it is trying to cover up some other shortcoming. I very much doubt Usain Bolt has ever been on an athletics forum typing ‘Dude I can runz faster than you, cuz I’m l33t’. Just sayin’.

One thing I really love about forums is their international nature, it’s really cool to speak to people from across the globe, even countries I’ve never visited. Very cool. As a native English speaker, I feel really blessed that my language is now pretty much universally spoken. However, there is a flip side to this that means not all jokes ‘travel’ well, and that it’s important to be clear and succinct, and again, erring in the side of caution with regard to misinterpretation.

One of the earlier posts mentioned ‘walls of text’ being a forum ‘weapon’, so for this post I apologise Peace to all.

 

Well said Fizzy. Spot on. I hope I havent upset anyone in the course of my own meandering online presence. If so, I apologise. Its not intended!
Stay safe everyone Beauty is in the small stuff For those that struggle sometimes, Ive found a lot of calmness through mindfulness, especially if you tend to catastrophise or spend a lot of time worrying about the past/future. Its not a magic bullet, but it helps and is a different tool to try out. Im a total cynic so if Im saying it good it might be worth a shot. Takes a few weeks to adjust/notice, that from 10 mins a day ish of your time.
I actually got into it because Toto Wolff mentioned it in an interview that his engineers started doing it to improve capacity. It does too

 

Edit will repost later

 

Had

Had one of them back in the day. S pack with a shaker, 351 clevo and 4 speed. After an engine rebuild went like s$&t off a shovel.

 

You guys need a hug. No dolls.

The general analysis or cold read on someone in sim racing because the cars are so expensive is that they already feel apart from their hobby. So when you introduce a loss of some kind, maybe you buck their belief or highlight how silly something is (by accident) it can highlight certain aspects of that and make it worse for them as its amplified. And they cling hard to something. This is the denial. Then it sinks in to them, and in their weakness they make threats "I AM GOING to leave!" they cry.

But they don't. Its emotional blackmail and a total power play. Its irrational.

Some of these guys have never ridden a motorbike or driven a car hard (going down the shop at 50 km/hour does not count) or even lived a little, some have. Just because you read something difficult, do not shoot the messenger. What this means is that they 'hold' to their hobby a little harder - because opposite forces react, and they try to cling to it.

If I have said something to him or anyone, which someone bucks the trends on his life, I cannot be held liable - I do not know his situation.

But what has happened, and to the other fellow too, is a storm in a tea cup. If the forum is literally your only outlet for such deep emotional issues and you feel you need to take a break (and sheesh, don't have to tell us or threaten you want to leave)... its just all emotional blackmail at this point, ok? ready, mate?

Then seek help at a doctor. Because today you may feel fine, and all that, but none of us know how you will be thinking in a week from now or months, and please, your emotional blackmail only goes so far. If you are as bad as you say you are, then go get the help, leave the wet tissues on the ground, because no one wants to be the one to tip you over the edge. If you truly are so hard up and pressed emotionally, and the forum actually ends up amplifying all that for you, then get it sorted.

Males talk to each other in varying ways. Not every male you come across is going to want to hold your hand, etc, if anything you could be kicking out over unresolved issues with a parent or something.

I am trying to point out, that if you want to cling to these things, and hold onto notions which simply are not true - and I come in, for example, and tell you "sorry actually thats wrong" then you can't kick back and hit and scream just because. <none of the talk matters if your actions in your own life are lousy, this internet stuff is just playing, just talk online, just chatter, its nothing unless you're backing it up, man....and none of us can or want to. But if its something in your actual physical life you can do, then maybe go do it there. This thread is pretty weird. The only way it exists in the first place, and the only way I could possibly write something long on this - is if the thread is nonsense to start with in some way.

 

To put the above post (20) into perspective start here post 1 THE OP
below

Overly aggressive forum behaviour
'Anyone else concerned by this?

Personally I feel that recently, the ‘race to the bottom’ has been happening quite a lot round here. I think the name calling and personal attacks are just degrading the forum, and a lot of threads just seem to get ruined.

I thought I’d start this topic to see if others felt the same, and if possible,discuss a way of turning things round. A certain other general sim racing forum has got a dreadful reputation and I think it would be a real shame to see this forum go the same way.

edit: Sorry, I meant to post in the General Discussion forum.'

Fizzy, Sunday at 5:54 PMReport
#1− QuoteReply

 

I feel like something small, yet significant, has changed now. Let's see how things develop.

 

As if millions of words of text suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced?

 

Indeed