Hi guys,
The written word, especially quickly written notes on forums like this can convey mixed emotions. One reader might see the humour in it and the next might feel its an attack. I've been on other forums that have had out and out bullying, threats of fights at the next kit car show etc. I firmly believe that no one goes out of their way to cause offence at the outset, but, when people misread the intended point then arguments and problems occur.
The only way around that is diligent tolerance by the community and try to accept that what you read is not neccessarily how it was intended to be taken by the writer. I like this forum in that the normal bitching and frankly bullying i have seen on other sites is not present, although i do get the feeling that might have come from an over restrictive moderating of the forum. Which is not neccessarily a bad thing.
Potential criticism for the forums rules is that because it so heavily relies on vendor sponsorship, that its perhaps a bit commercial and then people fall foul of rules about advertising etc, that would otherwise be in the interest of the community. Reading some posts where people are asking for information, there are a lot of PM replies, where normally you would expect the information/reply to be posted in the thread for everyones benefit. I wonder whether that's because people are concerned about breaching a rule. Originally it gave me the feeling that the community are very guarded about sharing information, which didn't seem very welcoming. Now i think i understand it better.
There are very specific issues for UK and European GT40 builders given the rules about getting them registered, so a UK/Europe forum is not neccessarily a bad thing and i can see it working well alongside this forum rather than against it.
D.