[Pampered-Z]

OK, I usally stay out of these things, but this time I feel I must add my opinion to this discussion.

I really think it’s a good idea restricting language and conduct in the general forums and offer a "almost anything goes" forum. It makes perfect sense to me.

I didn’t join here just to post in a forum; there are plenty of other forums on the web for that type of interaction. I joined here because I wanted to be part of a local car club! I’m not a lawyer, but I think freedom of speech does not apply if you’re told there are rules to being a member. And if you want to be a member you must adhere to the rules of proper conduct. If anyone doesn't like the rule of the club, then why do you even come here?

I’ve been in other clubs that didn’t match me and I am no longer involved. I did not make it my quest to change others to suit me. This is exactly what happened to MAFBA. The Mid Atlantic F-Body Association has less members then NJFBOA, but any event could draw in excess of 100 members. Even when MAFBA came to the Cops~n~Rodders show members from Virginia, Maryland and the Carolinas came up. Then some members tried changing things, the club got split and instead of the members leaving, or the officers throwing them out, they were allowed to stay and eventually most of the members left and reformed other clubs and MAFBA slowly fell apart.

Right now this club is getting itself into a similar situation. The constant threads of bashing and lame rebuttals do nothing to help promote the club or its members.

Again, I feel this is just like the East Coast Nats. This was a perfect way to promote the club and its members, yet few showed? There were enough classes for everyone to race in as well as various awards, or just to be a spectator. I don’t think people actually realize how much time and efforts went into getting this to happen. How many other clubs can actually pull something like this off? Tim and Justin and a few others worked very hard on this, and Tim did a good job of building classes that will bring in more cars and keep racing fair and prevent class killers for entering. If you follow NMCA, in a few years they went from low budget racing to $100,000 + set-ups that now prevent the common folk from even making the field!

But back to the topic of this forum, I feel the bottom line is that Tim and Justin paid to do this, they should have ever right to decide what is and isn’t acceptable.

As already stated, when someone new comes to this board and sees it is nothing more then a lounge with constant fighting what would make them want to join? And if they don’t join, then the club has the potential to lose out. There are some very knowledgeable people on this site that bring allot of experience and know-how. And although this club and site is not exclusive to F-bodies, I do feel it is still a key reason why most people have joined. But all this knowledge can quickly get lost in all the thread hijacking!

So if anything deemed offensive could result in the loss of members, stop new members from joining, or possible sponsors from joining, then as club members and not just the club founders, we need to certainly address it. This also makes the Basement a perfect venue for post that may push the envelope of 'good taste" or "being offensive" It keeps the general boards open to the masses. While the basement is enter at your own risk. So if certain people are easily offended or thin-skinned, they need not enter. And if they enter they should have no complaints!

If you read all of the post about how these rules can improve this site, then all the post about allowing people to curse or bash other members openly simply don't hold up.

OK, I’ll get off my soap box now.

John