Courtesy

[Carlos]

The outstanding feature of our F1T Forum has always been the generosity that our many members offer each other. Unfortunately this has been undermined in the last few months. Many of us have grown to enjoy the comradie of the Forum. Many of us have formed friendships that may last a lifetime. The name calling that has occurred over the last few months is certainly undermining the spirit of conversation. Some longterm members post very little. I can't help but think that these discourtisies are changing the welcoming character that has differentiated our Forum from many others. Of late I have considered some of my own shortcomings in this respect and have made an effort to curb my own behaviour. At first, I readily apologized for this. In the last few months I have developed a habit of thinking before I post. Thinking of others dignity, considering the integrity of others and my respect for the hosts of f1technical, Principessa and Tomba. Some members have made a point of gently chiding the forum for namecalling concerning not only each other, but the professionals of the sport. If a team principal or driver has shortcomings, so do we all. They have earned their positions by some measure of excellence. I'm not suggesting that we suspend criticisms of opinions or performance of drivers or teams. The net allows us to namecall without consequence - all to easily without any responsibility. Yes, we are passionate people, passionate about Formula 1. It's one thing to think someone is a moron or an idiot, we all do, it's another to freely spew insults - human nature is not admirable in many respects, niether is everday life , our workplaces, our neighbourhoods - but f1 technical is.

Edit April 15th

Thanks for all the comments on my post, good to see so many share my concerns, good to see we all support and enjoy the Forum - Cheers

[flynfrog]

i agree

although I was rather enjoying learning new ways to insult people from around the globe

[tomislavp4]

I agree too...
Everyone has bad days and can make a mistake but let´s try to not do it so often...

[vyselegend]

Well, Formula one is a sport for gentlemen, not hooligans

I think we can be proud being a big "team", composed of supporters of Mac Laren, Ferrari, Renault, BMW etc... All of us able to speak without animosity about our opinions and our own perception of the facts we see in the races.

I don't know if you remember but last year we had a new "member", a MS fan, who allways posted crap about Fernando, and created new topics saying MS is the best driver etc. (ironically his post were most of times blessed by the "blind" smiley)--> Of course none of MS "mistakes" ever happened and if you rose the hypothesis there might have been cheating in the red team you were just a jealous lyer who can't admit MS superiority.

At that time I was under the negative impression that this spirit was the very one of Tifosi, and I failed to see the difference between a tifoso and a hooligan. But, on f1technical, I learned to chat with real Ferrari fans like TP, bhallg2k, or allan to cite a few (ketanpaul I didn't cite you because your avatar makes you somewhat an extremist )
While on the other hand, I discovered the french part of the Renault blog... And yes, I can guarantee, the moronic, stupid, name-call deserving attitude described above is just the same in both camps. I'm sure it is the same with every other teams.
It is just the same thing as in racism. You can't decide someone is bad just because he's from one or other team, but on the other hand there are morons everywhere...

[wazojugs]

I have only started looking back at this site as i got fed up with comments that were in the forum that were coming up nearly in every thread and it got tiresome to read.

However i am back and look forward to some good posts for this season.

All the best everyone

[DaveKillens]

Thanks for the post, Carlos. And welcome back wazo, real nice to see you're still around.
It pains me to see some posters attacking other's viewpoints, or disrespecting the best drivers in the world. Of course we're not expected to agree in a forum, but there's no reason to get personal or nasty about it. And if you disrespect a driver, how can you expect respect to be given to you in return?
The hosts of this forum, Tomba, and Princepessa (with a few more assisting in the background) are hard-working nice people who have definitely earned my respect. And this is definitely a wonderful forum, I haven't seen any better.
Racing is a great sport, and Formula One epitomizes this wonderful exercise. And what's really cool is that from many other cultures, from all around this world, we are brought together by a common love and passion. That should bring us all a bit closer, instead of just providing a common location to argue and snipe in an unsavory manner.
I have a personal philosophy that any form of an abusive relationship is just that, an abusive relationship that alienates people. I may seem an old codger with issues, but that's just the way I am. So please remember, we are fans of a wonderful sport, exchanging opinions with people from all around the world, from many wonderful cultures. Personally, this is one of the major factors that attracts me to this forum.
If you don't give respect, be aware you probably will not recieve it yourself.

[pRo]

The name calling that has occurred over the last few months is certainly undermining the spirit of conversation.

Very good post Carlos and I'm sure many have noticed it.


I'm not really a longterm member myself. I have been reading for years, even before the domain change to http://www.f1technical.net. I really enjoyed the technical details and huge knowledge that the posters had back then and I have learned so much from the people on this site. Thank you everyone!


There's one thing I never understand though. And that's personal attacks, including name calling and whatevers. What's the point of that? I'm probably too old to ever understand it. There will always be different opinions on discussion forums and that's perfectly fine. I enjoy a good debate, as long as it stays focused on the matter itself and doesn't get personal. I have learned that often getting personal means you have nothing more to say, but you just have to say something. It's a real shame that this has gotten more and more popular in recent years. Not just on this site, but everywhere.

Here's for the better future of F1T!

[checkered]

Carlos, et al.,

I’m sure the generosity hasn’t gone unnoticed or unappreciated by an overwhelming majority of participants. As opportunities arise, such generosity won’t remain unreciprocated either. This has a lot to do with the overall quality and mindset of the participants, not to mention that Tomba and Principessa have successfully created a format and an environment that encourages generosity beyond a normal message board. Simply naming the venue “F1Technical” thankfully seems to have largely discouraged those who don’t have a clear rationale for their enthusiasm (and actions) other than immediate and undeserved personal gratification.

Having witnessed other kinds of environments, the relative serenity of this place hasn’t escaped me. My tendency is to pick one msgboard (per subject) to discuss on, so while BBC’s 5Live was still in its original form, I didn’t register as a member of F1Technical even if I recognized the possible advantages here, but mainly used the excellent features as a reference. I’ve noticed that a handful interesting posters in F1Technical I took note of in those days are largely silent nowadays. 5Live, even if it was predictably moderated as a publicly funded service, often had an undercurrent of unruliness and it was politicized (along team or driver “party lines”) and to an untrained eye, downright chaotic. Nevertheless, having been a (very) long time member, quality postings and members with a good and constructive attitude, whether we agreed on the subjects or not, were often clearly discernible through the static and I thouroughly enjoyed that.

Why I came here, though (beyond the apparent camaraderie and other positives), was a lack of that static, which enables efficiency in co-operation and communication. To find “static” here, even occasionally, pains and worries me somewhat because what I, and many other 5Live contributors, had to go through. The experience of BBC deciding to join the 5Live with their 606 board was nothing short of traumatic, some acquaintances blown away like ash in the wind and encountering truly anarchistic, nihilistic and disruptive behaviour as life was drained from the pages of the board. Only a handful of contacts remain. I stayed on to the end, feeling a certain indebtedness towards the place in general, seeing the msgboard to a proper end. It didn’t happen. I learned how to draw a line in the sand, too. That comes with a price.

I hope that despite my experiences elsewhere, my respect towards every other poster, irrespective of the content, is apparent or at least somehow discernible. My style can be convoluted and I apologise for that, profoundly, mainly because I find it so very hard to change it. I’m still finding my way around here (and I’m very aware of that), in whatever time frame my other activities allow. My previous experiences haven’t made it clear to me whether Gandhian stoicism alone will frustrate people from using empty one-liners, provocation, harrasment or inane insults. All I can state at this point is that I have nothing better to suggest, beyond striving to up one’s own standards as long as self-criticism doesn’t prevent participation altogether. The balance here, compared to my previous experiences, is excellent. Thank you.

[Scuderia_Russ]

Good post mate.

[miqi23]

Why not that we stay away from useless posts and not reply to it at all? It will die away and hopefully will be deleted in the end. This way we can keep the forum to the point and no time wasted what so ever. This could only work if we commit to it. Most importantly we should take action against some one who is trying to ruin the forum

[Tom]

Thank you Carlos, you're absolubtly right, this is a fantastic website and we need to keep it that way. In the past week sarcastic snipes seem to have taken over good friendly debating and I'm sure I'm as responsible as anyone so I promise to be more considerate.

There was a sign in the church I used to go to with my school,

'Love your enemies...it will drive them nuts.'

Obviously not very PC but I think its a good tactic to use on here, that way no one gets insulted or offended. Not very healthy mentally though.

[RH1300S]

Good post Carlos - worth bringing up.

Intelligent debate and discussion are so much more rewarding than name calling.

[zender05]

Good post Carlos - worth bringing up.

Intelligent debate and discussion are so much more rewarding than name calling.

Amen to that

[zac510]

I had been thinking of this too. Not the abuse, but the general trolling topics that have been raised recently accusing drivers of being crap and so forth.

I come here because I want to read about technical issues not about which driver is best. Call me narrow minded but if you want to argue about which driver is best then there are hundreds of other forums out there for that. This could potentially be big and unique on that basis but it would need to be heavily focused on just tech. Allowing non-tech discussion only welcomes other forum users that don't have the inclination or desire to contribute to tech discussion.

F1tech could use a couple more moderators that are around the place a bit more often. Tomba could set out guidelines for what is on topic and what should be deleted/locked and this will set the destiny for the forum.

To start I nominate Carlos, Ciro and RH1300s. Not me. I'm too angry - I'd ban everybody

edit: Forgot to mention that with cross promotion with Racecar Engineering magazine we should be having discussions to the standard and genre of the magazine to make the collaboration worthwhile.

[ketanpaul]

Well I always loved defending Schumi and Ferrari with manchild and other anti-ferrari members
I think we are all mature enough to not take criticism on a personal level and feel that the way we treat each other is really good, and this is displayed when we post on controversial topics such as politics and religion. I dont know if I need to say this but I think we all have a lot of respect and concern for each other on the forum. All hail F1T !!!