100% agreed.
If you don’t want to post on a messageboard, fine, but don’t bitch that it sucks either. That’s all I’m saying. Everyone’s so quick to bitch about Albanyunderground, apgforums, swatautomotive, rspeed… but really what makes them any different from one another? A few banners, some names and that’s it. A board is a board is a board. What kind of AMAZING REASONS do you need to visit a messageboard? Good tech info? oops, members usually contribute that. Nice pics and writeups? Oops, members usually contribute that. How about funny posts, generally entertaining contests and topics for meetups and get togethers.
Yup. Members usually handle that. So suck a dick. Change the world or shut up about it, but if you don’t try you have no reason to bitch.
No shawn, it’s not directed at you or Jesse. I just tire of the same attitude from the majority of the locals here, as if their online hangouts are in no way impacted by any of the shit they do or do not contribute.
You have the ability to post tech, to discuss topics, to add pics, to write reviews, to organize meetups and to contribute in a way that makes a board worth reading. It doesn’t take Jesus to do it and fucking christ, if a Puertorican can post topics explaining how to roughly calculate airflow from a compressor map and some known conditions, then you can do something too. If you don’t use that ability to help out, what good are you?
How is it different?
- RSPEED edits posts based on whatever reason RSPEED wants
- RSPEED offer moderator positions to people for money
- RSPEED dads/family members insulted the client-base
- Want me to keep going?
#1 is the biggest offender, IMHO. Shift518 isn’t doing well out of pure luck. Take care of the members and they will take care of you for the most part via participation. Start pissing off people for bullshit reasons and you get a ghost town. Also, you need a PHD to navigate through RSPEED’s subforum mansion.
I still love ya Red Roof. 
i think shift is goin fine theres alot of members, tons of posts plus most of us know each other so its pretty cool
Shift should do fine. It’s got a good client-base from the area with a mix of people. It deserves a bit more domestics but that’s ok. Vlad/Cossey/etc… seem to get some of the basic rules for moderation/handling of its members. That’s key. Like I said, piss a few people off and people will just move on.
Keep doing what they been doing and they should be fine.
Point in case: Members Area of 3SI started to get moderation. It’s basically a ghost town as a few members made a new forum. It’s taken on life and has pages of new threads a day. They rule based on majority rule via a moderation team and not one person (3SI). That forum is doing very well.
Well, I can’t speak for the individual styles of moderation on Rspeed, but I know mike isn’t the only one. There are a bunch of guys YOU know who are moderators on that board. Mike’s dad came on and insulted the “client” base. Big Deal. Poor decision? Sure, but in the end it was one post, one action and it was over a year ago. Let it die.
More and more, I see reasons why people WANT to hate Rspeed instead of reasons of why it’s a bad messageboard. As soon as a messageboard falls out of favor with a few popular people and it becomes in vogue to hate on it, people jump ship faster than you can believe. It’s just incredibly lame to watch people hate Rspeed for the reasons they do, knowing there is far more heinous shit a messageboard and its admin team can pull than some of the relatively minor shit that’s gone down there.
Again, I will not speak for the moderation. If that’s your main bone of contention, why not take that up with mike in the forums or by PM. To bash it on another forum is kind of a stab in the back, without offering any constructive criticism. I see so much of that type of action around here, not just with messageboards but with businesses, car clubs, groups of people. No wonder this area is dead. People can’t hesitate to bury the knife deep in someone’s back when they get a chance.
I miss APG forums
:sad I give up
Typically, I would but his actions required this. If you punch me in the face for no reason, I am not going to discuss. I am going to come back without reason/purpose hence, this thread. This thread is not a result of anything but the efforts by Mike. He gets what he deserves and it looks like that’s exactly what he has now.
See, that’s just the point: no one cares. You cant inspire people to make a forum a better place when there are already better free places out there. There is no reason to. If I’m giving away free beer, are you going to go brew your own? (PS, I still want some of your home brew booze).
You have to GIVE people a reason to be there. There has to be some reason for me to click the rspeed link on my favorites and go there. Forums are a BUSINESS like any other, you have to do something to get something. If you put an engine together and crank it over will it start without fuel and spark? No, add fuel and spark and you get my cAR IS FASTER THAN YOUR CAR!!! See what I did there?
Get I get a round of applause for the metaphors tonight? Feel like freakin Steven Colbert.
Your metaphor is flawed sir. If a messageboard is an engine, then the members are the air and their posts are the fuel. The engagement between members is the spark.
Reduce any single one and you have an engine that doesn’t run. I don’t see how it can be considered a business, since businesses usually target a profit, and mike has actually lost money keeping the board open. You think the measly 35 dollar lifetime membership fee covers all the bandwidth you’ll use? PAH! It’s not just for him - it’s for anyone who runs a forum.
It’s a thankless job to provide a FREE place for other people, so that some of them can complain about shit they don’t have to pay for. You don’t HAVE to pay for rspeed, shift518, or any of the other local forums. It’s not required. You CAN pay. You CAN decide to make a contribution, but it’s not required. To me, that’s a charity, just like deciding on whether or not to post on a forum.
In the end, posters make or break which forums survive and that’s all there is to it. There’s no magic and no more metaphor.
Whatever, I’m still Steven Colbert.
Posters DO make a forum what it is, no argument there. But you have to give them some incentive to start being active. You and I tried to do this on Rspeed w/ technical articles and stickies and it didnt work. If it takes off, fantastic, we’ve got a forum. If not, people are already at another already active forum and will stay there.
Forums are a business. They incur expenses and revenue. Many large forums produce huge profits and act as their admins’ sole form of income (I worked for one of these 3 years ago, some admins make an ass ton). If a forum is in the red after being in business for several years, then its probably a poorly run business.
It’s a thankless job because no one asked for a forum to exist. The creator starts one; its his or her decision. If its such a burden, shut it down. No one will care (the reoccuring theme of this whole conversation).
3rd metaphor of the night: If I bake all you guys cookies, and get all upset when no one says thank you, who do I have to blame? Myself for baking cookies in the first place and expecting gratitude. No one gives a shit about cookies, there are tons of cookies in the world. Maybe I just shouldnt make cookies anymore.
Rspeed is all about how much money can be made from forum members. The worst thing is… this fact is obvious in every other thread. That is why most people have problems with that forum. Now dont say it too loud because if you do you will get hit over the head with the whole “not supporting your local businesses” spiel.
After everything I said and all the facts, to see a response like this… I’m done.
You ALL highly disappoint me. You may be decent in person, but the side i’m seeing of you is a sad one. You’re looking for every reason why you cannot do something, instead of finding ways to be active and keep things going. If you don’t like something, you don’t change it. You badmouth it, bail on it and find another identical place to Shift towards [no pun], until eventually THAT place becomes a drag.
NONE of you want to change a damn thing. You just want to keep refreshing the scenery while never fixing the problem that fucks it up. I’m done with this. Can’t say I’ll see any of you around. Can’t say I’d want to.
I’ve never posted at Rspeed, I’ve lurked a few times but its very confusing and me paying to spend my time posting on a forum just isn’t happening in this lifetime. That said, if I posted on any forum and something was modified or deleted for no good reason you can bet your ass that’s reason enough to leave, granted if I said person “X” is a no good lying thief who loves the cock I would expect the post to be deleted/modified. But moderating because the moderator does not like the post or feels its a shot against the site is very unamerican. The rumors of members paying to become mods also raises some huge potential problems in my mind, it would be very easy to implement a hidden agenda. Mikes dad coming on the forum and calling everyone a cheap bastard was not what sent everyone away, but it may have been the straw the broke the camels back. People will put up with a little injustice, and maybe even a little more but when its continually brought to your attention and then your insulted, I’d say that’s a justifiable reason to not like something and voice your opinion about it. But that’s just one outsiders opinion, I have no bias for or against Rspeed, but based on what’s in front of me it has a lot of strikes against it.
well to lighten the mood, i switch abunch a money on gas, by returning bottles today lol
Beat you did see that coming
Its an internet forum, its not an institution, its not anything you need to pledge your allegiance to. These forums are a dime a dozen and if I don’t like one because of the moderators or the color of the background I can move on over to another. Whats the big problem with that? Why waste time “fixing” “problems”
BTW, Mike, if you read this, this stopped being about rspeed a few pages ago (at least for me) and is about forums in general.
:lol Overdramatic much? There are much bigger battles to fight in life than fixing an internet forum, especially when this one is so much better. Again…no one cares.
I am not sure how it become our fault that RSPEED sucked? I didn’t ask for my posts to be moderated. I didn’t ask for Mike to bring some of his worthless friends into the forums.
I still like Mike, but I just don’t agree with the way he runs things on RSpeed. Yes, I still post there from time to time, but it’s mainly OT.
If there’s one thing I’m thankful for is that Vlad has put so much dedication into this forum, the paper, and supporting the scene more than most have in this decade. Let’s all put our hands together for Vlad!