Keeping it California - Last Chance to VOTE

[Meoncoast]

Reminds me of all the Brexit threads. B word and C word should be in their own treads or baned. More Camping hacks needed. But I must say I have lost intrest in the forum due to content in recent weeks. So I.have been self isolating from most of the content.

 

[Vagophile]

I find myself in agreement with virtually all the preceding posts except 2into1. I joined the club primarily as a place to find information (which has now made me paranoid about what can go wrong!), but also to share other experiences; holidays; humorous incidents and in general, anything that any group of people with a common interest might want to hear or discuss.
This club is one of the most diverse that I am a member of, as would be expected when you read posts of £80K purchases and searches for £10k bargains, retired couples heading to Africa and couples with young children touring Europe. It has regular contributors from many European countries and much further afield. This being so, a lively debate is to be expected over non technical issues (and even some technical ones), but we should be allowed to have it.
As someone who occasionally goes off topic, intentionally or otherwise, perhaps a football style card system (yellow followed by red for persistent yellows) might bring some order.
I will be voting no.

 

[Big Ron]

In general I agree with Granny Jen’s comments above, well put Jen ......some additional points to add;

Why are we asking whether we ban a subject matter when it’s the abusive behaviour that appears to be the issue?

The abuse is not new. I had been reading posts on here for a year/so while convalescing before contributing and there were several key protagonists trading downright abuse and insults. That continues, and is called out by some brave Members.

The quality of feedback and depth of thought on matters in this forum is high, that’s one reason why I come here. On political matters as much as anything else. Difference of opinion is normal, heated differences are also ok aren’t they....we’re grown ups? I love the back/forth on disagreements and learn a lot from that.

For me;
- I love it when, say, Mike (T6 CFO), disagrees with me or someone else because there is a reasoned argument that accompanies it
- I find it unpalatable when I see abuse to anyone (or me) because there is no reasoned argument offered just an attempt at a win/lose post

So I would say ‘keep’ these Subject posts in a separate thread and address the abusive behaviour.

 

[GrannyJen]

Is it possible to have a 'Please Stay on Topic' emoticon?
It could be trialled and dumped if not useful.
Perhaps this emoticon.
View attachment 59774

We used to have one. I am sure it can be reinstated.

 

[calikev]

 

[2into1]

The problem is with any blurred lines, is that some members start a post with a seemingly legitimate question and within a day are (on the same post) labelling half the community as "ignorent tw*ts" (and that's not "twits").

 

[2into1]

While that is useful, it's not the recent problem.
'let's be honest, this is political " and "Respect other's politics" are the required warnings.

 

[ArunAlec]

I tend to resist my initial inclination to “call out” those posts that are insulting, offensive or deliberately trying to start a row. I have “real world” friends whose politics, sexuality, class (however you define that) etc are different to mine but I wouldn’t dream of ridiculing them because of where/how they live or their beliefs.

 

[Velma's Dad]

I've been a forum member since 2015 and in that time most of the stramashes have I think been around (1) Brexit, (2) diesels and by extension the electric vehicle debate; and (3) coronavirus and the govt's responses to it.

I do think that's really pretty inevitable, given that those particular topics do impinge directly on practical Cali'ing by, respectively: (1) potentially affecting continental travel and costs of imported vehicles etc; (2) the future of diesel Calis; and (3) whether we can go camping, and where, during the outbreak. Those aren't just tangential to a forum about campervanning, they are of the essence to the Cali lifestyle in many ways. But unfortunately they do inevitably all have political dimensions because every aspects of the regulation of the public sphere has a political dimension.

So I personally don't think there's a hope of banning politics (however you define that) from being mentioned, nor would I myself want to see it tried. But we should have some ground rules for how we talk about things when they do come up. Asking for basic good manners seems a good start but probably not enough.

I would say I think some forum members (possibly a minority, but a vocal one) find it almost impossible not to treat any criticism of the government of the day as an attack on their personal political or ideological affiliation. That's unfortunate, but will always be so. But when a thread takes such a turn the best way to chill things back down does seem to be to move it to Three Cocks, where the antagonists can continue to throw stones if they want and the rest of us can either visit the cockpit, or ignore it.

Beyond that, in my view any direct verbal assault on an individual forum member, using intemperate language or obvious innuendo, is un-putupwithable, even if it's a response to some perceived challenge to one's own political views or even an outright trolling. It's pretty clear when the 'reasonable forum member' would deem that to have occurred, and mods should have no hesitation in acting in that case in banning the offending member from the rest of that thread, and noting why they did so. Other forums use a moderator 'red card' system and that seems to work when necessary although it's not really a perfect system.

Having said all that, this forum is in most respects one of the friendliest and most balanced that I know of. If anyone doubts that, have a look at some other car-related forums, which can be complete pits of vipers.

 

[westfalia]

Although i do feel that the outcome of this poll will be rather skewed.

If we think about the 90-9-1 Rule for Participation Inequality, then the poll will
be flawed.

90% of users are lurkers (i.e., read or observe, but don’t contribute).
How many of those have voted?

 

[Jodalo]

Although i do feel that the outcome of this poll will be rather skewed.

If we think about the 90-9-1 Rule for Participation Inequality, then the poll will
be flawed.

90% of users are lurkers (i.e., read or observe, but don’t contribute).
How many of those have voted?

This is the case with any democratic vote. Those who abstain are not in a position to moan about the result. So listen in ‘lurkers’, make your vote count. Sorry if that had a hint of politics about it.

 

[westfalia]

So listen in ‘lurkers’, make your vote count.

I wouldn't count those votes.
If it is open to anyone who signs up then i might ask my Russian mate Vlad
what can be done to fix it.

 

[2into1]

Perhaps those voting are the very many who've been hitting VW dealers with enquiries, thinking about buying a Cali in a post lockdown world (see Daily Mail story earlier).
They may have arrived at "the vw California Club" hoping to find a friendly source of Cali advice and tips, NOT a political slanging match....and voted accordingly.

 

[Perfectos]

Is it possible to have a 'Please Stay on Topic' emoticon?
It could be trialled and dumped if not useful.
Perhaps this emoticon.
View attachment 59774

I have never seen this on any other forum, but would it be possible to have a “troll” Imoticon ?
Say for example a person is given the “troll” imoticon by various members it could highlight to others and the Moderators, those that the wider “guild” feel that the offending posters behaviour is being broadly unacceptable repeatedly.
The disagree imoticon doesn’t really do anything, but if the “troll” imoticon was used by various members (paid up members) To tag the offending poster, who Obtain a certain number of “trolls” you issue a yellow card, that yellow card is visible to other for three months, repeatedly offending, get a red card and a month exclusion from posting, offend again, second red card your kicked for good (after review by mods)

 

[willwander]

Perhaps those voting are the very many who've been hitting VW dealers with enquiries, thinking about buying a Cali in a post lockdown world (see Daily Mail story earlier).
They may have arrived at "the vw California Club" hoping to find a friendly source of Cali advice and tips, NOT a political slanging match....and voted accordingly.

You mean those that make a couple of posts and never visit again?

 

[clarinetbcn]

The problem is with any blurred lines, is that some members start a post with a seemingly legitimate question and within a day are (on the same post) labelling half the community as "ignorent tw*ts" (and that's not "twits").

The problem more often is when a poster asks that the thread keep on topic and the same 5 or 6 spam the post with irrelevant junk just to show that no one can tell them what to do.

 

[clarinetbcn]

The problem more often is when a poster asks that the thread keep on topic and the same 5 or 6 spam the post with irrelevant junk just to show that no one can tell them what to do.

I think this has destroyed more threads than the immature insults of a few.

 

[Whistler]

For me there is a risk and reward equation at the heart of this. The reward is a wider range of forum topics which stimulate but the risk is turning members off and the loss of useful contributors. In the current environment too many people have entrenched views and refuse to accept that other views may be equally valid. Sadly this means that topics get stuck in ruts and descend into pointless slanging matches. It is a shame, because I found some of the threads in the COVID section where actually quite interesting, but on balance I don’t think the reward isn’t worth the risk.

 

[Amarillo]

After putting up with numerous threads and posts on coronavirus and politics we think its time to draw the line as this is a vw california forum. There is far too much bickering going on i have set up a poll that will run until next sunday if its yes i will remove all and ban any further post about the subject if its a No i will remove this post and let you carry on.

I am not sure where you would draw the line.

For example, a thread titled "When can we camp again?" could be construed as a political thread (it will be a political decision to reopen), a Coronavirus thread (it is Coronavirus that has caused the government to decide to close campsites) or a California thread.

 

[GrannyJen]

Touch of irony here. This thread‘s heading down the Br*x*t road!
On balance, as entertaining the off topic chat can be, I think we need the grown ups to keep us in line before there is too much drift. The challenge for the moderators will be deciding what constitutes a “political“ topic.

I've been chewing over that sInce this thread kicked off.

Just today I nearly had to put myself in the sin-bin with a throw-away about using a certain politicians method of counting.

 

[GrannyJen]

Just another viewpoint for discussion.

Brex!t was very damaging, on social media and everywhere else. It also went on for three years and it's not over yet. It was causing argument everywhere until the three cocks was opened, the sin-bin as I call it, anything mentioning the B word was dropped in there and what was posted in there was taken off the "New posts" feed. You actually have to make an effort now to look for anything.

Coronavirus in some ways is a different animal. For this forum it was a double whammy. Something that crashed into our lives almost without warning and was from the outset as much a political issue as a tremendous social issue. It was going to get talked about a lot wherever you were, this forum or anywhere else. It also did something else, it stopped us from talking about what we talk about most, our lives and our travels in our cali's.

Lockdown is coming to an end and hopefully soon we can start posting camping stuff again, pics of our dogs, our cali's, our campsites. Living with CV is now also becoming the new normal. It is unlikely to be the running sore carrying on for years that Brex!t is.

When I came to this forum I found the most helpful, the most useful and the most accepting social media site I have ever found. That forum has not changed, it still is all of that so please do not change it. If that happens then my sense of humour on this forum will also have to change. Indeed just a few minutes ago I posted somewhere else about having to nip off and "do a Dominic", visit my Sister.

Instead of changing the forum just dump the CV section in the three cocks, which will take all new posts off the regular feeds, allow me and other moderators to dump all mention of CV in the sin-bin and allow us to continue doing what we are trying to do now, get rid of the bitchy snarling comments by re-emphasing rules of engagement. If you can't respond to a post without implying or calling the other poster a "twat" or similar epithet then your posts will be removed and ultimately also your ability to post.

Finally please use the report button. A lot of people complaining they "do not come here to talk about politics" .... well, the CV section can be ignored and if reference to it or the politics of it crop up elsewhere, report it. We try our best, but with over 200 messages a day, sometimes well over that, we can't be everywhere and the report button really helps us to get to offending posts popped into the wrong sections.

 

[Rowls1958]

My view is that if you want politics or virus why not turn on your TV or radio? There is no shortage of it there.

IMO the VW California forum has become rather too political of late, unfortunately resulting in all too frequent corrosive displays of nastiness. It's just my view but there should be no place for that here. This space should be reserved for discussing our shared interest in Californias and associated subjects.

Since becoming a member I have enjoyed this forum immensely. It has been a superb source of information and help by, in the main, very friendly, knowledgeable and helpful members. On the whole, the conversation used to be light hearted and friendly. However, I have to tell you that I have become rather dissapointed in the the tone of some of the debates recently. Even some innocuous threads have descended into fisticuffs and eye gouging.

Whilst I am strongly in favour of freedom of speech, I'm starting to think that if these non forum related political issues continue to generate the levels of aggression and rancour seen over the last two or three years then it will change this forum and not for the good.

Time to gong them off!

Hear bloody hear......

 

[BrendanJ]

The basic problem is that most threads don’t start as either political, brexit or coronavirus but along the way get hijacked and go downhill pretty quickly after that.
Pity to allocate the thread to the naughty step rather than the person doing the hijacking.
This is a basic forum etiquette that really needs strong policing at least at initial stage to prevent such behaviour. Just relegating the thread seems wrong direction, delete the “post” and warn the poster.

 

[GrannyJen]

The basic problem is that most threads don’t start as either political, brexit or coronavirus but along the way get hijacked and go downhill pretty quickly after that.
Pity to allocate the thread to the naughty step rather than the person doing the hijacking.
This is a basic forum etiquette that really needs strong policing at least at initial stage to prevent such behaviour. Just relegating the thread seems wrong direction, delete the “post” and warn the poster.

Not quite right.

Of the 80 threads in the CV section 78 have coronavirus or something directly related to it in the title or the OP.

 

[westfalia]

Not quite right.

Of the 80 threads in the CV section 78 have coronavirus or something directly related to it in the title or the OP.

What did you vote?