Quote:
Originally Posted by sperry
Here's what really sucks about that:
Andy isn't a bad guy. He's been out to autocross and hung out w/ all the SECCS folks there, and he's been part of the whole Subaru "scene" for a while. What sucks is that he, and a few people like him, would rather blow off a club that's been around since 2001 because they don't feel like they belong instead of trying to participate in the club.
I'm not interested in running SECCS forever, I'm not interested in forcing my will on everyone if it's different from what the majority of folks want (with perhaps the exception of my aversion to street racing). And by now other people should have stepped up to run the club on a more active basis than I (and the rest of the founding members) have time for. I'm not interested in having to make all the decisions about what happens with the club, and I'm not interested in SECCS being a static entity that never evolves or changes. It's supposed to be a resource for the Subaru community, based on the participation of the community itself.
But what I'm seeing w/ the whole Flat4 nonsense is anything but community. What I'm seeing is that a few people would rather intentionally create an us-vs-them situation, with an ultimatum about participation that directly hurts the community at large in Reno, and then comes on our board to flaunt their actions by using our resources to try to recruit their members.
So to be honest, if that's the sort of environment all you "young" people want, knock yourselves out. SECCS is not for a bunch of people who are "all badass" who would rather die than come to an SECCS meet. I mean, why do you guys think I run SECCS? Why would I spend thousands of dollars over the years hosting this site? Why would I spend thousands of hours moderating and maintaining the forum? Why would I work for 6 years with timing and scoring and on the Reno SCCA board representing our interests there? Do you think I'm doing it because I've got nothing better to do? Because it strokes my ego? Because I like dealing with spammers and e-thugs and PHP code?
I did it all for the community, for the friends I made, for the fun of getting together and talking about cars, for a resource to the folks that are out at the track. But that community seems to have died. Many of the great people that helped start all this don't participate much or have just gone away entirely. And new members get jumped on by the old folks, rather than rolled into the fold gently. So instead of a forum full of productive discussion building a thriving community, we've got a forum full of people bitching and moaning about worthless crap like how often a thread is bumped. And now people starting a competing club that apparently want to make a war out of who joins which club.
Well, fuck it. I'm not fighting a war. Flat4 is nothing of a threat to SECCS when compared to the cancer within SECCS itself. Clearly if people would rather pick a fight with us than work to improve the community SECCS is supposed to represent, then either SECCS has lost its way or the community itself is dead. Frankly, I get the feeling that both are true.
And that's what really sucks about Andy's comment.
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I think the cancer, as you refer to it, has always been here. You even fostered it yourself prior to your new Zen-like attitude (which I'm a big fan of BTW). You, our fearless leader, are evolving and so is the club. It won't be pretty because this is SECCS/the internet and it's not pretty, but at the end of the day, we've all been entertained and helped eachother out a bit. I think one issue is how serious some people have been taking themselves. SECCS has always had a self-cleaning mechanism where bullshit is made fun of until it goes away. But let's keep it lighthearted. I think we all agree that we'd rather read some good old fashioned ribbing than a bunch of eyerolling smilies and anger in a post.
If we all just lighten up, these growing pains will be far less painful. I mean, keep speaking your mind for sure, that's what is so great about this forum, besides being local, is that free speach is encouraged and, for the most part, you can tell the site owner to fuck himself and he won't ban you. Please don't ban me.
But seriously, those of us who have been here for a while know that thoughtless banter text message-like posting is all too common on the boards out there and it's refreshing to have a more mature board where you don't have to weed through that shit. It's not really an age thing because a lot of the younger guys that have been here for a while fit right in. I think the emergence of Flat4RN.com is a good thing because it will represent one end of the Subaru Community spectrum while SECCS will hopefully continue to represent the other end. Hopefully we'll all meet in the middle at some point and be a happy family, but that's down the road if even possible. I'll be a member of both but expect to spend most of my visits there in the tech forum.