Where is Evan?

[HAULN-SS]

or


or

[Maengelito]

i think both evan and gerald have valid points. perhaps things were said and done that sparked overreactions, but i think its pretty apparent that a set of guidelines needs to be placed whether for general posting or for mods to follow. one point i do wish to accentuate is that evan said that all posts for people introducing themselves has been overly friendly. i brought it up in the thread that was locked and i'll bring it up here too. newcomers usually put up as their 2nd or 3rd post as "hi, my name is X and i drive Y and i was just checking this out." thats usually followed by 15 posts that say "welcome to the club, i have always liked Y cars." if thas not inviting for new members who have no idea who 99% of the existing members are, i dont know what is

[G.Irish]

Well since you took it upon yourself to say I was acting on some 'false authority' and that was the reason you left the forum you were taking it public.If you didn't want to get called out then you shouldn't have brought me into this.

wrong. Jeff specifically asked where I was. I made a one sentence statement that you deleted my post and I didnt agree with the reasoning, NONE of which was private information or deragatory to you. In fact, I risked making MYSELF sound petty and whiny by not talking about the reasons.
I went out of my way to not bring ANY of the details of why I left the forums out of it. I didnt make any dramatic posts about how I was wronged, I wasnt even all that pissed afterwards. And then you turn around and pull this shit?
Dont try to rationalize your deleting a non-inflammatory public comment with private comments. That doesnt fly, and you should be smarter than that.

You made a one sentence statement that I deleted your post on a "whim", that I was acting on "false authority", and that your post was not inflammatory. If your intent was to say, 'Hey, we don't have any forum guidelines here so any moderation is unfair', then you should have said that. When you accuse me of deleting posts on a whim I interpret that as you saying I just delete things for no reason like I'm some kind of control freak megalomaniac mod.

Maybe I misread you but it sounded like you were calling me out. And maybe in a way that is the point of all this. Sometimes things can get taken the wrong way on the internet and maybe we need to think about how we say things. I've known you for over 5 years and apparently I took that the wrong way, unless of course you meant that to be a jab at me.

If it is your opinion that what you put in a PM should never be posted publicly then I apologize for angering you. I don't say anything in PM's that I'd be upset that someone posted in public.

The whole reason I PM'd you in the first place is because I thought you could be reasonable about it but instead you got all angry with me and left the forum over it. Why wasn't your response to post in the Site Suggestions forum that we need forum guidelines?

Why wasnt YOUR response to PM me FIRST instead of just deleting it? I would have chuckled and changed the post if you really thought it got anybody butthurt. You STILL cant get it through your skull that this is not about the deletion of one post, its how you treated me, someone you have known for a long time with COMPLETE disrespect.

And what did you tell me? Fuck him if he can't take a joke. You didn't up and say, you didn't need to delete my post, I would've changed it. You brought up the point that there are no terms or guidelines for the forum. Ok, good point. Then you turned around and accused me of protecting ricers and douchebags. Nowhere didn't you even maybe, possibly entertain the notion that it could've been taken the wrong way. And obviously it was taken the wrong way because Jack had already made a retaliatory post to your original post.

If you think I should've PM'ed you first then why didn't you say that? You just got all angry and left the forum. You need to communicate better if that was the problem.

Let me break it down for you, in that situation you had 2 acceptable options. and let me remind you what I said before about this community being an electronic extension of the real life relationships, NOT a typical car forum.
#1- PM me FIRST and say you think my post is inflammatory and please change it. I probably would have busted your chops (because it wasnt inflammatory) but I would have changed it to keep the peace and moved on. No big deal.
#2- PMed me to tell me that my post violated the rules of the forum and deleted my post. You dont have rules for the forum, so you are fucked here.

In your opinion there were two acceptable options. I deleted your post so it didn't have to be dueling banjos thread about, 'this club is about motorsport', 'but no, you can be into other stuff too', 'you guys don't appreciate what we did to start the club', 'you guys never listen to us'...

In the end, you told me what I can and cant say in a public area amongst friends. Thats completely unacceptable. You have no 'authority' here, there is no such thing. If we were hanging out in the paddock and I shouted at you to shut up and stop talking everytime you wanted to say something you wouldnt be too happy about that.

Not everyone on this forum is your friend, neither you or I have even met everyone on this forum. This is the extension of a club, a college club at that. The fact that many of us have been around for awhile does not change the fact that this forum was created for a club. Neither the OG's or the alumni own this club. This forum is not the personal playground of MM circa 2001-2003.

And good god it was one mfn' post. One out of your 4962 posts. I am not shouting at you and telling you to stop talking every time you say something, it was ONCE. You act like somehow moderation means that everything you say is going to be edited and censored. That's not the point and you know that. You need to stop with the hyperbole.

and let me remind you (And everyone else) that I was NOT bent out of shape about this, I was completely happy to move along and never say a word of this disagreement, continue to enjoy my time with MM at the track and Karting, etc. Unfortunately thats no longer possible, as Gerald dredged everything up so Im explaining it. I hate this stupid drama shit as much as anyone else. But if anyone pulls this shit on me, I come to play. All day every day. believe dat.

It will no longer be possible for everyone to hang out at the track if that is what people choose. If people can't disagree and get over it then that is a choice people make. Personally I'm not going to refrain from hanging out with anyone at the track or karting or wherever just because we disagree about the forum. I'm not even really mad at Aaron. He did some things that I disagree with and that I don't think are befitting of someone leading the club but if he wants to continue participating in MM events I certainly don't object. No one here is perfect.

This whole thing got set in motion because the students felt that the forum is dominated by the alumni and that it is not so friendly to noobs. They brought up the idea of a student-only forum and I asked at the time what was the problem they were trying to solve. No one answered the question directly and then the secret forum thing. No one made that public at the time because it was sure to be controversial and it would've stayed out of the general membership if Aaron hadn't tried to bring it up like he pulled some stroke of genius in creating the secret forum. The point of all this is that maybe we need to look at our own behavior if the student leadership is felt that they needed to take the step of creating a separate forum. The other point which has already been forcibly made is that if a controversial decision is going to be made it needs to be made openly, not through secret methods designed to deceive the membership.

If you feel your statements were out of context feel free to post the entire conversation. Bottom line is that your attitude started with 'Fuck him if he can't take a joke' and that you ended by accusing me of protecting ricers and douchebags.

please provide where I said anything of the sort publicly. I was annoyed at the time and YOUR attitude, but you CANT justify what you did, with something I said to you in private, AFTER you did it. seriously, where the hell are you getting your logic? you fucked up bigtime posting a private conversation, and you need to admit it.

Wait first you say you're mad because it was out of context but now you're saying you're simply mad because I posted something you said in the PM?

Look, maybe you say things by PM that would be embarassing to post in public but I don't and it didn't even cross my mind. If you had said something personal about someone else or a personal secret or something I would've left that out. But you were characterizing your post as 'not inflammatory' when you're telling me fuck him if he can't take a joke and that by me moderating your post I was protecting ricers and douchebags. Those two things don't match. Either you meant it totally as a joke or you meant it as some sort of attack.

If I ever say something in public that doesn't match with what I said about that thing in a PM or otherwise I expect to be called out.

btw, the thread/post in question was NOT an intro thread, and it wasnt even a potential member so dont give me that bullshit

*ahem* <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://mmsports.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5590&highlight=">http://mmsports.org/forum/viewtopic.php ... highlight=</a><!-- m -->

Maybe you just don't realize how it appears to people who don't know you but when you start making fun of people like that what are they supposed to think? Why is it that more than one person here expected you to be posting hateful things in here? Could it possibly be because that you've been hostile in the past? Or is it just that everyone is lying and unfairly characterizing some of your posts? You yourself said that you've been hostile to noobs in the past.

bullshit. give me some examples. recent examples. I joke around alot with people I know but I havent flamed anyone I didnt already know in a long time. Travis is probably the most recent, and he damn well deserved it :p

Uh huh, what about Sylvia. You know, Jeff's girlfriend? She didn't post here for a long time (and I'm not sure she does now) because on her first post you had a sarcastic comment for her. I'm not saying you're responsible for all of the unfriendliness to new people and to an extent no one can control how people react. No one person is responsible for a majority of anything, except some of the things Aaron has done and refused to own up to. I'm just saying maybe we need to think about the tone of busting on people that we don't know personally.

But yes I agree, Travis deserved it and if anyone else comes in here flagrantly mouthing off and denegrating what we do I expect them to be treated roughly.

I've brought these things up before, as a matter of fact I brought this up when the whole separate forum idea was first discussed.

yet as a mod you havent actually done anything, instead you babysit the forums and tell people arbitrarily what they can and cant say based on your opinion?

Perhaps a bunch of people have forgotten but this is a college club led by a group of elected student officers. I can't force them to do anything. I can suggest, I can argue, I can beg, but I cannot make them to do anything. If I was president I could go ahead and implement things myself and from time to time I've gone out and done stuff myself from time to time (getting information about karting for instance). I've taken the time to write documents for them, call them myself, email them, and I've volunteered my time to help with the car show for just about every year that its been run. I volunteered to moderate but that doesn't mean I can turn around and implement things in the club without their participation.

Hell they could very easily choose to not let alumni participate at all. It is a college club that has the unique feature of having alumni that are still involved but I'll say it again, we[alumni] don't own the club. I hope with all of my heart that this club can retain its mission, purpose, and character but I'm not going to bludgeon the students to death to meet that goal. We can only try to lead the way and encourage, we can't hate them or flame them into keeping the club about motorsport(not you in particular Evan but in general with what has gone on). The only way we can berate people into compliance is if we make the climate so inhospitable that no new members ever join the club.

Even then, for people who are looking to join a group the natural thing is for them to come check out the forum to see if they fit in. Especially people who've found us on the internet. Maybe it would do us well to lay off the sarcasm and flaming and what not for new people? Or am I just imagining that the forum has become unfriendly to noobs?

all of you are imagining things. every intro thread in the past 2 years has been overwhelmingly nice. I even sent the new miata kid a PM to welcome him a couple weeks ago.
Forums are by nature intimidating to newcomers. Its like coming into a room full of people and shouting hi, so naturally anyone is going to feel a bit intimidated.
If you want to ease that introduction you need to create an intro forum, NOT try to tell people what they can and cant say after the fact because just maybe they said something that might possibly hurt someones feelings but probably not.

Well now you are finally admitting that it could have been taken the wrong way. Good.

For you to even begin to say I am not willing to put any sort of thought or effort into solving the problems at hand is preposterous.

so prove me wrong. you have a long standing problem that I just thought up of several solutions off the top of my head that would take a couple hours to implement. yet you and none has done shit. over this problem in the past 2 weeks you have lost one of the most experienced drivers in your club, and a nasa official. both longstanding members. so where is all the effort in solving the problems?

Wait you're saying I don't have any authority, but now I do? Again, maybe you haven't noticed but I am not president of the club anymore, I'm not even an administrator so I couldn't create an intro forum or implement any of that other stuff on my own if I wanted to. Jeff brought up the forum guidelines thing on his own and I agreed and posted some suggestions on some possible guidelines for moderators and pointed them to the club by-laws that I wrote when we started the club for some ideas on member conduct. But if the students don't take steps to implement any of it, I cannot do it myself.

I'm not even going to begin to make excuses for Kaan's behavior from what I've heard but I wasn't around to see any of it. If Kaan decides he doesn't want to be a part of the club anymore that's up to him. I don't know what was said to provoke him, nor what he said so I can't really speak to that.

The truth is I've given a lot of thought of why this forum sometimes descends into a bunch of useless bickering and hate.

Just an FYI, posting a private conversation publicly tends to do that. Maybe you should think these things through.

That doesn't really have anything to do with all of the other bickering going on in the forum now does it?

I find it particularly ironic that you told me how you wanted to keep it private, yet you dredge this thread up after several days of inactivity, when there was nothing bad said about you in the first place.

I wasn't even here when the thread got started. I had been gone for all but 2 days of the last 2 weeks when most of the shit hit the fan. If you're going to be critical of my actions and claim one thing when what you told me was pretty different of course I am going to bring it up. If you didn't want that to happen you could have said, 'I don't agree with moderation without guidelines.', not 'Gerald did this on his whim and on false authority'. I didn't appreciate you trying to make it look like I went out and did something without reason. If you disagreed with the moderating here you should have said that instead of calling me out. I didn't see you complaining when other threads got locked or when other people's posts got deleted. I didn't take it personally but of course I am going to defend myself if anyone calls my actions in regards to this club into question because I have put a lot of my life into this club and I have never knowingly done anything to hurt it.

You don't like the fact I used something you said in a PM, fine. We'll agree to disagree and I won't do that to you again. But in the future don't put your hate on me because of something wrong with club and don't say you didn't mean to be inflammatory and then say something else.

[.paul]

wow, i wish i had time to make posts that long - but i know i would have nothing beneficial to say

[Maengelito]

wow, i wish i had time to make posts that long - but i know i would have nothing beneficial to say

that doesnt stop derek.


G, as stated before, i agree with parts of what you're saying and parts of what evan is saying. the whole part about bringing up PM's i dont think is right. doesnt the P in PM stand for private? and as for it being a college club, while technically true, i think the alumni participation is what makes it better than other clubs at jmu. none of us graduate from loving motorsports. but i think the very specific niche of road racing, karting and autoxing is daunting to your everyday college student who likes cars. showing them how easy it is to get involved is what this club is all about. if the students want to make it a chrome rim/nos kit/altezza light club, then i suggest they join madison icey hot stunnaz or some other car "enthusiast" club, not MM. i think its a responsibility of all those involved to keep the club going in the right direction even if we disagree with which routes to take to get there.

evan, you dont hate gerald, you hate everyone. i think its been bottled up and G just happened to be the one that popped the cap off. people know you to be one of the greatest haters of our era and you admit it yourself. dont get all crotchety when someone thinks your hate is unneccessary. i know you said you were just gonna let it go until gerald brought it up. you guys are friends and dont get pissed at each other in real life. dont try to blame this on G trying to specifically censor your posts because its you, its more of the context at the time.

[HAULN-SS]

My posts are usually concise and clever, thanks.

[Kaan]

Well it doesnt help that that evan and i are roommates... and we get to bounce hate off each other...

[Kaan]

My posts are usually concise and clever, thanks.

what j00 talk'n bout willis?

sorry just shitting the place up again... i'm working on my "ZMFG i hit 3k posts" thread!

[HAULN-SS]

... and we get to bounce off each other...

fixt

[HAULN-SS]

what do you mean waht am I talking about? look at those sweet ideas I posted in this very thread like 6 posts ago. I think there is like 4 in a row worth reading.

[Kaan]

dont leet speak me... type in "Fixed it" if you are going to try to call me out. Always be clear when you get your hate on... that way... you can get banned for the right reasons!

spend one weekend at MM Oakton house... and we can teach you the ways of the dark side! and i'm not talk'n about your backside you homo!

[HAULN-SS]

Oakton? i don't even know where that's at. But, seriously, do you guys have shit to check alignment with? And metric toolz? I think that pothole i hit hard enought he other day to flatten my tire could have probably knocked my shit out of whack, yo.

[Kaan]

Do you know where fairfax is? tysons? reston? we are surrounded by places like this!

We've been talking about getting the tools to do this type of work... and we have mostly metric shit here... but we have yet to purchase the tools... unless evan has more packages sitting on the front steps. If you are that worried... ask RJ where the good alignment place is up here in NOVA... its like $100 or so... but at least you know it will be done right.

[HAULN-SS]

hrmm. I need to get some metric wrenches and sockets...all my shit is standard (fact: there are no metric anythings on my 71 MC)

and yeah, the 100$ is the part i was trying to avoid, I'll probably just wait til these tires are finished off and get new tires and alignment all at the same time..probably another...7 - 8k miles