Open Letter to ALL Members - Long Post

[Europa]

I am a fairly new member on this forum. I joined when I purchased my second Spider in 2008. I can honestly tell you that this forum has helped me tremendously. The wealth of information and help available on this forum is second to none, in my experience. There's a certain camaraderie displayed on this forum that goes beyond the text typed here.

Having said that, lately I've seen a somewhat disturbing trend. Thread hijacking, perceived personal attacks and counter attacks, insensitive comments etc. I'd hate for this forum not to exist; this is an invaluable asset for any Spider owner and I have made several friends here since I joined this forum.

Few facts for us members to consider. The Site Owner unselfishly setup this site and maintains it out of his own pocket. I know several members contribute to maintain this site, but I am fairly certain the contributions do not cover the actual expense. The Site Moderator offers quite a bit of help to this site even though he owns an automotive repair shop that works on Spiders. Then we have the collective experience of the Spider Guru's here. The collective, combined technical experience may be well over 200 years. These folks humbly (or not so humbly ) and readily share their expertise to help the Spider community. I've seen offers to go over to a fellow members garage to troubleshoot a problem, rebuild an engine, or just to help with wrenching. A lot of you offer certain service related to our Spiders. You may or may not make a profit, but the point is that we are all helping, together, to maintain these beautiful machines. There is an undeniable passion here that's contagious! We all share a passion for these beautiful machines. We know it's that passion that keeps these Spiders on the road.

I am blessed with a good sense of humor (I am sarcastic and quick witted as well). So I enjoy the jokes and bander exhibited here. I ignore the occasional insensitive remarks, if it offends me. It takes a lot to offend me.

My humble recommendations are:

Follow the forum guidelines. If something is posted in "Off Topic & Social", then treat it as such. You can always ignore the post/poster, if it is not to your liking. I've learned to do just that. If you "give" you may have to "take" as well, keeping in mind that what you get in return may not be what you expected!

Let's not hijack a thread. It doesn't help the original poster and impacts future searches for a topic as the search will return all the OT comments. As a new member, I searched the daylights out of this forum.

I feel that some of us are a bit sensitive to comments and responses. Keep in mind that we have members from different walks of life, with different background, different culture, different viewpoints etc. This is part of our strength. (Actually our international brethren seem to stay out of this stuff and behave admirably). Typed messages whether in an email or on the forum will be read and influenced by the state of mind of the reader, regardless of how many smiley faces you add to the message.

Our Site Moderator is also a Spider owner and has his own automotive business. Mark participates in discussions and offers advice. We should be able to differentiate his personal comments from those he posts as the Site Moderator.

To conclude, I am going to echo a famous quote from Los Angeles. "Can't we all just get along?" I for one would love to see us all get back to discussing our cars, helping each other restore and maintain our Spiders, meet forum members at FIAT shows, enjoy the occasional funnies etc. Let's respect each other and in turn earn the respect of our fellow members. After all, we all have at least one passion in common!

I hope none of you take this post personally. It is not intended that way. You are more than welcome to respond to this post, email me privately, or just plain ignore it.

[MNspiderman]

I'm a laid back, twisted sick humor'd kind of guy. I don't get offended pretty much at all. I haven't yet. If someone has a thread that says "my rear end is making noise". It take every bit of willpower to not make a humorous non offensive joke about it. But sometimes I just cant help myself. But I hear what your saying about post hijacking even though its not intentional most of the times, I hope. It is hard to figure out your carb problem when your thread turned into a multi carb thread then into a FI thread then into a turbo thread. I'm not guilty of this, that i know of. But i will do my part in keeping to the subject line whenever possible.

[wachuko]

Very well said. I am one of the newbies benefiting from the vast amount of information from the members of this site. Hope to contribute as I get more acquainted with these cars.

The format of the forum is the best I have seen from any of the other sites. Easy to search, a knowledge base that is building up quickly...

Besides the suggestions from Abey, a few more:

Provide an option for a paid memberships with additional capabilities. For example, private forum for members only topics, photo hosting (this way the photos will never disappear if the external hosting site disappears or owner cancels the account)

Enable the capability to close a thread. This will minimize some of the topics that go way out of wack...

Encourage folks to document their projects with photos and videos. It does not matter how small a task is. There is always someone that is too afraid to try something and threads like that encourage more diy for newbies.

and yes, Search is our friend...

[pope]

All good points, most have been brought up several times in the past.

This has certainly turned into a very large, specialized site for fanatics which is great. People from all over the world come here to get their daily dose. There are a lot of newcomers signing on all the time. More than any other Fiat site by a long mile. Some just come here to sell a part or car, advice on one problem, or to throw an opinion in and are never heard from again. Some stay for a while and move on. But there is a constant flow of new personalities, of all different ages here and this site has handled it remarkably well I think. This is just like high school, there is a new class of freshman every year!
I think the weather (snow) has hit the majority of the US harder this year and has made more peoples Spider garage-bound. That makes them a little more antsy than normal, but I can see spring just over there.

The last thing I would say is that if you respond to a forum, you have no control over how the another reader will interpret your answer. Some people have a chip on their shoulder and always read more into it or insert words or arguments that arent there. That you cant help.

I know I miss more pictures of Brady's daily part restoration. Lord, please give New Jersey some good weather so Brady can get outside.

[mbouse]

it's just winter. give us a car to drive and we won't have time to get our feelings hurt.

as i say in my signature winter = bad

nuff said

[So Cal Mark]

Well, I almost hate to respond after what has transpired the last week. I'm sure I can offend a few more members with this post. Between phone calls, emails, posts and pm's it's been hard to get anything accomplished (and I've got lots to do ).
First, I've been accused of censoring Nick and his prank thread. That's far from the truth. I don't censor anything on this forum. I've only deleted posts at the request of a member. It's an open forum, take it for the good and bad of that function. I posted that I was offended by his pranks. That is my perogative to be offended. Any of us have the right to be offended at anything someone does. Personally I don't find inflicting pain on unsuspecting people funny. Those of you that know me, know that I like having fun, we're almost always laughing at work. The fact that Nick bailed on the forum makes me think he doesn't take a joke as well as he plays it.

Several posters mentioned the "Mexican pimped Fiats" thread, that they were offended by it and wanted to know why I didn't censor that thread as I did Nick. As soon as I saw that post I was expecting the worst. As it turns out, not a single person wrote me or asked me to delete or edit any part of that thread. As I wrote, unless a post contains slurs, racial or otherwise or unwarranted obscenities, I'm not going to censor it. Again, it's an open forum.

I try to stay away from the Off Topic section as much as possible. But I am the Moderator and have a responsibility to ensure some level of civility, so I do try to skim the threads. There are many members that I know won't post anything illicit, but I still read most posts. We do have many new members, and more everyday, so I'm on a constant watch for spammers or other undesireables that make it through the screening process.

As for Nick leaving, that's unfortunate, but his decision in the end. Even though I didn't agree with the frivolity he inflcted, I didn't warn or censor him. He was/is free to post any time he wants`

[maytag]

My humble recommendations are:

Follow the forum guidelines.

Let's not hijack a thread.

"Can't we all just get along?"

Thanks Mom!




DOH! Did I just say that!



I'm just kidding.

I actually thought that this post was directed at me (maybe it was?) but it looks like maybe Mark thought the same? I dunno..... but either way....

My $.02? I really don't mind the thread hijacking. Not a bit, actually. This forum is awesome about someone eventually bringing it back to help the original poster out, if need be. But otherwise, I think we have a pretty good time on here, and I enjoy the mindless banter... sometimes they're the only posts I understand!

And as for people getting their feel-bads hurt? I suggest we all take each other a little less seriously, if that's what's happening. I mean, only a few days ago, somebody on here told me to take a stick out of my butt ... and I called him a whiner (or was it a weiner?) and I think we still managed to get over it. (I did anyway... I hope 84P is of the same opinion)

I think this forum is rather calm, and I think that so far I'm pleased with the way Mark diffuses some situations... but most of us get along well with others.

An Who is this Nick character anyway?