PC1 Pcars: A community divided

[Nathan Robinson]

Continuation of Part 1: http://www.racedepartment.com/forum/threads/banned-for-no-reason.47384/

Its hard to believe a game has taken a community over like this. Now with legal proceedings, its kind of become a joke for simmers. I have been at this a while now and have never seen a game invoke so much negative and positive reaction. May the discussions continue


Ps. While i continue to support pcars, i respect RD for allowing the freedom of expression to all its members.

 

[Peter]

Already closed

No need to tell you who the moderators are.

Nice avatar David

 

[David Dominguez]

Lol, I have seen now who is moderating pCars forum there

 

[TherealWalkman]

Omg Is this Remco van Dijk operating there on NG? WTF?

 

[Peter]

Omg Is this Remco van Dijk operating there on NG? WTF?

And Ian, that's also the reason I don't donate NG anymore

 

[BigSilverHotdog]

It's not important enough for people on NG forum to be allowed to talk about it, but it's important enough for the moderators to discuss among themselves. Sound familiar?

 

[Alejandro Riveiro]

It's not important enough for people on NG forum to be allowed to talk about it, but it's important enough for the moderators to discuss among themselves. Sound familiar?

Seriously? As annoyed as I am with this story, this is the exact same behavior (trolling/provoking) that has originated all this. I'm sure you guys can post better than this. No, really, at this rate we'll downgrade into a child fight in record time. If we aren't there yet.

Let's actually turn this into something positive, please.

RD staff, what do you guys want? To be left alone and not bothered by a thread that is trolling almost for the sake of troling? I mean, it's even nitpicking, come on. Banned for "no reason" doesn't mean there wasn't a reason. Even if none was put on the forum ban anyone got. You guys should know better than this, as you're forum admins after all. Can you say all of your bans were always explicative and laid out clearly why a user was banned? Noone was EVER banned in the midst of emotions running high and provided little reasoning for it? If not, hey, congrats. But the fact is, it's relatively common when it happens. You're being judges here as much as SMS is. They are trying to impose what they feel is fair on you. At the same time, you're trying to impose on them, that indeed, someone was banned for "no reason" because a freakin' forum ban said so. Give. me. a. break.

SMS staff, same for you. What do you want? To pursue this one thread that at this rate will become meme material for years to come? Things are being blown out of proportion so much that at this rate it will hit not gaming media, regular media. It's borderly insane. As disgusting as that thread is, the voice of reason should speak higher here. It's a freakin forum thread in a dark corner of the Internet. No, seriously. Get outside the racing communities and ask a random internet user what's RD, SMS and pCars. They'll probably answer the SMS question to tell you it's the abbreviation of text messages, and that's it. At this rate, that same random internet will still know jack about anything of this, and the outcome will be that your image in the real key areas/communities on your business segment might be damaged.

 

[BigSilverHotdog]

You do realize the above was not directed at SMS, it was directed at NG... which is basically the same thing since one is moderating out criticism at the other. I, too, used to think NG was independent.

And what do you call shutting down debate, attacking people who disagree with you, and insulating yourself with yes-men? Sounds vaguely Stalinist to me.

edit: Redi just added this to locked NG thread:

FYI there is no lawsuit coming, as things seem to have been settled and done with. Hopefully everything will return to 'normal' with that.

 

[Alejandro Riveiro]

You do realize the above was not directed at SMS, it was directed at NG... which is basically the same thing since one is moderating out criticism at the other. I, too, used to think NG was independent.

So? It's their community and they behave as they see fit. It's their call, and just only theirs to decide how to react on something, and the rest of us can disagree or agree with them. Just as it's being done here. By posting that image the only thing you're achieving is to attack others that don't really have anything to do with all this and have decided to stay well away of it.

 

[BigSilverHotdog]

Now see that's where you're wrong.

 

[Nathan Robinson]

Seriously? As annoyed as I am with this story, this is the exact same behavior (trolling/provoking) that has originated all this. I'm sure you guys can post better than this. No, really, at this rate we'll downgrade into a child fight in record time. If we aren't there yet.

Let's actually turn this into something positive, please.

RD staff, what do you guys want? To be left alone and not bothered by a thread that is trolling almost for the sake of troling? I mean, it's even nitpicking, come on. Banned for "no reason" doesn't mean there wasn't a reason. Even if none was put on the forum ban anyone got. You guys should know better than this, as you're forum admins after all. Can you say all of your bans were always explicative and laid out clearly why a user was banned? Noone was EVER banned in the midst of emotions running high and provided little reasoning for it? If not, hey, congrats. But the fact is, it's relatively common when it happens. You're being judges here as much as SMS is. They are trying to impose what they feel is fair on you. At the same time, you're trying to impose on them, that indeed, someone was banned for "no reason" because a freakin' forum ban said so. Give. me. a. break.

SMS staff, same for you. What do you want? To pursue this one thread that at this rate will become meme material for years to come? Things are being blown out of proportion so much that at this rate it will hit not gaming media, regular media. It's borderly insane. As disgusting as that thread is, the voice of reason should speak higher here. It's a freakin forum thread in a dark corner of the Internet. No, seriously. Get outside the racing communities and ask a random internet user what's RD, SMS and pCars. They'll probably answer the SMS question to tell you it's the abbreviation of text messages, and that's it. At this rate, that same random internet will still know jack about anything of this, and the outcome will be that your image in the real key areas/communities on your business segment might be damaged.

Of course random internet users wont know what RD or SMS is. Random users might not even know what BTCC or FIA is as well. Does that mean we dont talk about that stuff because its not important to the general population? If someone is here on RD that means they have passion for simracing. Ive spent thousands on sim racing related stuff because its how i spend a lot of my free time. When you have a group of people that care so much about a niche market, its easy to see how a discussion can get out of hand.

 

[Tom]

Seriously? As annoyed as I am with this story, this is the exact same behavior (trolling/provoking) that has originated all this. I'm sure you guys can post better than this. No, really, at this rate we'll downgrade into a child fight in record time. If we aren't there yet.

Let's actually turn this into something positive, please.

RD staff, what do you guys want? To be left alone and not bothered by a thread that is trolling almost for the sake of troling? I mean, it's even nitpicking, come on. Banned for "no reason" doesn't mean there wasn't a reason. Even if none was put on the forum ban anyone got. You guys should know better than this, as you're forum admins after all. Can you say all of your bans were always explicative and laid out clearly why a user was banned? Noone was EVER banned in the midst of emotions running high and provided little reasoning for it? If not, hey, congrats. But the fact is, it's relatively common when it happens. You're being judges here as much as SMS is.

I'm pretty sure most people in here can do better than this but, sadly, lots of people are offended by how all this went. We're happy to have a supportive community but we won't accept personal attacks against Ian or any other SMS employee. Same goes for fellow RD members with a different opinion. We've said that over and over again during the past days.

Then again, I can assure you that we have never banned someone for "no reason" - to my knowledge we've always filled out the field containing the reason! No, seriously: we're not banning anyone immediately (apart from those guys who advertised pills that might enhance our sexual experience but never delivered the pills after we bought them) but have a clear procedure (that I can't openly post for obvious reasons) how we're taking action against people posting offensive content. All I can say is that almost everyone (people posting nazi stuff etc. won't and we think you're fine with that) is getting a second chance.

In fact, you need to either post a lot of offensive stuff OR actively try to destroy a race on track during our official race events. But even in the latter case we rarely ban people from the forums but merely suspend their license.

 

[Alejandro Riveiro]

Of course random internet users wont know what RD or SMS is. Random users might not even know what BTCC or FIA is as well. Does that mean we dont talk about that stuff because its not important to the general population? If someone is here on RD that means they have passion for simracing. Ive spent thousands on sim racing related stuff because its how i spend a lot of my free time. When you have a group of people that care so much about a niche market, its easy to see how a discussion can get out of hand.

No no, I didn't mean that. What I meant is that if we continue on this trend, this one thing will actually get to the general population, and might be damaging to both sides. Definitely agree with you that when you have a passionate community, it's easy to have discussions getting out of hand at times.

 

[Bram Hengeveld]

FYI there is no lawsuit coming, as things seem to have been settled and done with. Hopefully everything will return to 'normal' with that.

I can actually confirm this. Just read the happy news myself. Good sign and a very positive gesture to get this all solved after some very turbulent days.

Although the last couple of days were stressful they were also very interesting as I have done a lot of reading on the local law again.

Even if this "case" had gone to court we would have won as libel and slander is first very hard to proof but mainly because we do have the right procedures in place.

As a forum administrators we do have some obligations to take care off in case of libelous or defamatory posts but our ToS is clear that we are not responsible for the expressions of our users.

Secondly we have repeatedly offered to help as the so called notice- and takedown system dictates. Person X can report a post or thread to us; if a complaint is received that is obviously correct, the board administrator intervenes.

The latter we always do when the evidence is clear. The first word however is very sensitive. For us it wasn't obvious (and still isn't) that some postings are factual wrong and since nobody can bring proof to the table they are just personal opinions.

This is what the Dutch law dictates for access providers (and forum admins) and that is in our rules since the early days of RaceDepartment and PlayDepartment.

We really don't condone negative slander and everybody that has been a long time member here and also reads in our other (sub)forums knows that in 99,99999% of the time the atmosphere here is very friendly. Also in this pcars forum where there are positive than negative threads. But you must want to see them first.

 

[BigSilverHotdog]

All I can say is that almost everyone (people posting nazi stuff etc. won't and we think you're fine with that) is getting a second chance.

When did someone post "nazi stuff" in relation to this issue?

I sincerely hope you aren't referring to my picture of historical Stalinist Soviet propaganda shown to exemplify my contempt for the powerful shutting down uncomfortable debate... because there was nothing wrong with that comparison at all, even if you disagree. It was certainly not trolling.

 

[Senad Subasic]

When did someone post "nazi stuff" in relation to this issue?

I think that was just a general example of people who get banned immediately.

 

[BigSilverHotdog]

Oh.

 

[Tom]

When did someone post "nazi stuff" in relation to this issue?

I sincerely hope you aren't referring to my picture of historical Stalinist Soviet propaganda shown to exemplify my contempt for the powerful shutting down uncomfortable debate... because there was nothing wrong with that comparison at all, even if you disagree. It was certainly not trolling.

I was talking about bans in general, as everyone can see from my post. If I'd have banned you, you wouldn't be able to post, uh?

 

[BigSilverHotdog]

It was merely a misunderstanding because the way you worded your post.

 

[Lee Ross]

Respect to SMS for doing so, credit where credit is due. It would never of got anywhere anyway and only wrecked things further. It won't be forgotten though the way they busted in here and demanded control over threads but fair play. It was no good for anyone.

Well done RD for standing your ground and well done SMS for seeing sense

 

[Chronus]

You do realize the above was not directed at SMS, it was directed at NG... which is basically the same thing since one is moderating out criticism at the other. I, too, used to think NG was independent.

And what do you call shutting down debate, attacking people who disagree with you, and insulating yourself with yes-men? Sounds vaguely Stalinist to me.

edit: Redi just added this to locked NG thread:

Alejandro is right. You are not helping. Allow Bram, Xose, Tom and Ian Bell the time and space to resolve this matter carefully and fully. Posts should not be inflammatory in ANY WAY, allow peace between the two parties to set in, otherwise the whole community will be at stake.

And a word of caution: freedom of speech is a right but people should not abuse it. Using a picture of the soviet regime and Stalin to stigmatize another simracing site (NG) is of very poor taste.