Is driver bashing the soul of this forum?

[Alan Jones]

Personally I like all the arguments, both for and against and the driver bashing , makes for some interesting posts....sometimes

As I have stated previously, RELAX and enjoy the posts for what they are, someone you don't know, who you might never meet, from somewhere in the world you might never go to, who has the same interest as you in F1 and the chance to see things from their point of view.

And if you don't agree, you can tell them

I'd rather a little anarchy than a policed site any old time.

TGF sucks

[RussianFriend]

VB,

let me ask where is the border between criticising and bashing? Or you suppose to move all critics to the Bashing Room? Hope, no. In other case, all our threads will migrate to Bashing Forum.

[bella]

people, people.

naturally, driver bashing is just an integral part of the forum. don't tell me in real life discussions you too don't bash drivers and then have big discussions with friends about why the bit of driver bashing you just did was wrong.

who wants a politically correct hidey-hole of holiness? don't tell me you watch every word you say when you're talking to someone...

[Gt_R]

Critising consist a level of more proper arguments and evidence to back your point on why he is wrong...bashing...is just senseless and often biased opinions on a person being wrong, no matter what he did.

[Run Free]

IMO Peter Mallet is right.

And I agree too with AlanJones....expecially with the very last part of his post

This forum is a bit a self-moderated one. Yes, bashing is different from critising, and is unfair: but you can always replay or ignore it.

[badoer fan]

If u can't criticise a driver, then what's the point of the forum? To agree and worship? I think not.

[Craig]

Thanks for all the interest in our discussion forum folks. And that is the important word - discussion. In my view it is fine for people to come here and post whatever they wish, so long as it is within our rules, and as long as they are prepared to discuss what they post. The moment they start shouting and trying to ram their views down our throat is the moment that our rules are being infringed.

From my views here it is apparent that my view on the subject is that we don't need another forum to discuss F1. Okay, i'll grant you that occasionally things do sway a little too much in one direction, but if you feel that this is the case, please do feel free to post on any other subject to counterbalance this.

Regards

Craig.

[Artwinter]

After all they play a big part in F1. You would think that there is only a driver seat and a steering wheel. This would make for some real exciting racing.By the way if anyone looks up my first thread with Ray Bell I signed off with the name Art. I tried to register under the name of Art several times with no success so I used my wifes name and it worked fine. What a stink over a simple question.

Art

[EERO]

Thanks, Craig, I sgree.

Bouncey, I will concur with you that the bashing gets tiresome, but criticising drivers is merely one part, (albeit the most popular part of this forum)

I also see a big difference between slagging Swerve for his big mouth, RB for being petulant and then not performing and TGF for the myriad of reasons we all find on one hand anmd on the other, conjecture about Hakkinen's future in the sport given an apparent lack of motivation and cruel luck on the other hand. I just don't see how you could even term this latter topic "bashing".


I think you are a tad too sensitive about would people say here. Please don't forget that this is supposed to be fun and in the great scheme of things, what we say really doesn't matter.

[eatapc]

Originally posted by gwen
What a stink over a simple question.

What stink and simple question are you talking about? On this thread? If you want to talk about the cars, start a new thread; I'd be interested to hear your -- and anyone else's -- ideas and insights.

[Artwinter]

The stink that was started with my question about Fangio in 1956. Which was only an honest question and half the board went out of there mind.

Art

[Craig]

I'm sure we're all big enough to get over that though, yes ?

[DMC]

Originally posted by badoer fan
If u can't criticise a driver, then what's the point of the forum? To agree and worship? I think not.

Criticising is one thing, outrightly abusing a driver is another. I think that is what the definition of "driver bashing" is agreed as being.

[Valve Bounce]

So much for another one of my bright ideas.

[Gerard]

Your ideas - or anyone's ideas for that matter - are always welcome Valve Bounce, but I'm not in favour of a separate forum for 'driver bashing.'

I think AlanJones said it best: 'People should be able to express their opinions within the rules of the forum that pertain to all of us.'

I agree that sometimes the words which are used are a little bit out of order but in those cases I usually consider them an emotional outlet.

Instead of creating a separate 'driver bashing' forum I think it's better to appeal to everyone's common sense in order to think before one writes, or at least to try to back up one's words.

Otherwise just ignore the post.

[Diabando]

I have a question!

Can somebody please tell me WHY driver bashing is so prominent here? Sure, I have my favored drivers as well as my least admired drivers - certainly whilst watching a Grand Prix, we are wishing for "so and so" to win, and when a driver we perhaps dislike gets in front, we feel a bit disheartened, this is perfectly normal. Preference is commonplace in any avenue of life.

So why do we have such a strong desire to make people feel bad? It is never the drivers who see what you write, it is your fellow posters, and members of this forum. Why are you all so ready to deliberately upset others?

I DO think that if a driver makes an error during a race, resulting in an undesirable situation, then that driver deserves, to some extent, to be flamed in these forums - I would expect nothing less. But the continual "dog with a bone" complex here is getting old.

With so much else to enjoy and discuss, good and bad, regarding F1, surely we can make an effort to make this forum site welcoming to ALL F1 enthusiasts, and not just a chosen few.

[Peter Mallett]

Could it be that we have a large number of people who have the sense to know when a critism is just that and not a flame post? I definitely dislike a number of drivers for their attitude or ineptitude (at that level) and I don't mind telling people. I also don't mind the responses I get.

Some people do tend to take things a bit personally though and as such maybe they should try and ignore what are, after all, not life threatening opinions.

[Liz]

Now I don't understand what you mean by "driver bashing." Do you mean saying "Ralf can't drive"? or "TGF will never be the equal of Prost because he didn't have the competition, he had the whole of a wealthy team working for him, and he cheats"? or "DC has a square head and TGF has a weird chin"?

What should we say instead? Ralf is perfect, TGF is perfect, and DC is perfect? Would that not be a short conversation? Should we limit ourselves to technical discussions of pop-off valves? That would leave the vast majority of us with nothing to say.

IMO, we are here to discuss the pilots, their talents compared to one another and pilots we loved in the past, and their prospects for the future; if this discussion occasionally becomes heated, I am sure there are plenty of people here who are capable of saying "Calm down now, it's not the end of the world if someone ugly and inarticulate gets to be champion" ... or whatever the exercised person may have said.

As Gilles Villeneuve, God rest him, said once, "The only way you find out what 'too far' is, is by going too far."

Or in the words of Martin Luther, "Sin Boldly." Go for it. Someone will reel you in if you go too far.

And Valve, old boy, with the greatest possible good humour, I suggest that if the heat in this kitchen is too much for you, the door is over there.

P.S. I agree about Tora Tagaki. He should be deported.

[Diabando]

Liz - your points are valid, and I think the majority agree. I think the problem here is not the constructive arguments as you pointed out, but the posts that are made with the sole intention of aggravating people. I personally find that the Humor in which some threads/posts are made, help level the playing field.

Also, I will be the first one to sit here and say that, yup, the "heat in the kitchen" is too much for me personally, which is why you never see a post from me in the F1 forum. This site has much more to offer than just F1.

[Raoul Duke]

I haven't posted here in sometime(because I haven't had the time), but I feel like this is an apropriate place to add my 2 cents.

I don't have any problem with driver bashing(even if it's a driver I support), and if it does bother me because I feel like the posters aren't being objective with what ther are saying, I simply don't get involved. Expressing your opinions, whether for or against any driver in particular is what these forums are for. Something however that I do dislike is when certain people, who dislike a driver, will resort to bashing that drivers fans, and that really annoys me. Recently I got sucked into this really petty and childish argument regarding this topic that I probably should have avoided(but that's a different story alltogether).

So in retrospect I think that those apposed to driver bashing should just lighten up a bit.
I think it's the people who cannot accept a difference of opinion that really irritates me. Like, for instance if someone thinks that TGF is God, or that there is absolutely nothing wrong with his driving tactics on the track then that person needs to realise that not EVERYBODY has to agree with them.

It annoys me and frustrates me the way some people on this forum(not mentioning any names) get very obnoxious and self rightheous whenever anyone has anything bad to say about TGF. Then afterwards they hide behind the "I'm attacking your opinions, not you" routine, which is complete rubish.

I'm sorry if this seems that I'm straying away from the original topic of this thread but I needed to let off my frustrations towards the attitudes that certain people have which is, "Anybody that doesn't think TGF is the most brilliant driver in the world, or anybody that see's something wrong with his tactics is a moron". There has been a lot of that going on lately and these are the people that really need to clean up their acts. And because of this my opinion of ten-tenths has decreased somewhat from when I first joined it.

[Peter Mallett]

Originally posted by Raoul Duke
I haven't posted here in sometime(because I haven't had the time), but I feel like this is an apropriate place to add my 2 cents.

................................................................... And because of this my opinion of ten-tenths has decreased somewhat from when I first joined it.

Welcome back Raoul.

You should have seen the fuss that I stirred up when I "dissed" RB for crying on the podium.

This was after I'd suggested that he was deluded if he thought Ferrari would let him challenge for the championship. After all that Liz still talks to me (Is that good? ) and so do the others.

If those sort of things reduce your opinion of 10/10 then I must apologise because, to me, its all part of the fun. Those of us who blindly support a driver and don't recognise failings can be just as zealous as those who keep pointing the failings out so when it goes that far I tend to stop.

I've even been accused recently of complaining about a certain driver's lack of anticipated performance. Complaining Moi? All I was doing was pointing out that in my opinion that driver was definitely under performing. Anyway he seems to have listened to me so that can't be bad can it?

No, I think the whole point of this forum is to raise opinions and have them shot at and if that means we are less than deferential to any particular driver then so be it. As long as we don't resort to insults its ok by me.

Hell. These guys get paid to be demolished every two weeks.

[Raoul Duke]

When I say my opinion on Ten-Tenths has decreased. That is not to cause offence to the founders, nor to belittle all the effort they put into maintaning this site. It's rather the people who come here and post the types of comments of which I made reference to in my previous post that I have a problem with. It's because of those people that I don't like this forum as much as I could.

[Alan Jones]

Raoul,
get over it already.



Life is Too Short.

The Sun still rises in the East and sets in the west.
There is food on your table and a roof over your head

WW3 does not seem to be imminent and my wife still loves me

These things are worth worrying about,

Posts you don't like are not.

BTW, you like the forum enough to come back which is what counts, don't you think?

[Valve Bounce]

Originally posted by Diabando
So why do we have such a strong desire to make people feel bad? It is never the drivers who see what you write, it is your fellow posters, and members of this forum. Why are you all so ready to deliberately upset others?

I think that this says it all. I only wish that I could have thought of these words in my original post.

[Liz]

Sad to say, there are some people whose only method of getting attention is to annoy other people. Bad press is better than no press.

Pete, I'll say to you what I said to Tristan - heated discussion and shouting down one another's opinions makes life more interesting, not less - and there are times when I can agree with you and I will say so when I do ... and times when I have misunderstood your position and can change mine if I know what you have based your position on ... and times when I just need to say that some particular pilot ought to be deported and mean 'I am completely exasperated with him and I'd tell him so if I could see him now.'

People who are in the public eye are likely not overly concerned when someone on a bulletin board criticizes them. If they didn't want any criticism they'd be on the internet calling themselves 'DancingMachine' or something and talking anonymously without ever posting their picture.