MLR Forum
Nov 13, 2001, 12:08 PM
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MLR Forum
In response to some of the key concern's raised over the temporary closure of the MLR forum.
Myself and Darin with support from Dominic decided to close the forum temporarily as opposed to a trader requesting us to do so. We performed this action to make sure that visitors & message posters understood how serious an issue we had with the status of the board and that we wanted to improve things.
We have no problem with our members sharing good or bad experiences with traders to help get other members get better service or deals - that is one of the benefits of a forum such as this. We do however request that the critisism of incidents are justified and would hope that they had tried to resolve the incident with the trader first before making the issue public.
We are fully against swearing on the board.
We want the messages posted to add value to membership and be relevant to Lancer ownership.
We are 100% against any form of direct personal attacks on people - either club members or trader employees
We are definitely not a money making enterprise and I am bothered that anyone believes this. Any revenue we get from members and traders help us buy equipment for shows, have money to put deposits on track days, run the web-site and pay for the production of our semi colour magazine.
Following this action we have had a large number of supportive comments along with some justifyable concerns raised. We will try to answer all feedback in the near future.
Brian
PR, Mag
Myself and Darin with support from Dominic decided to close the forum temporarily as opposed to a trader requesting us to do so. We performed this action to make sure that visitors & message posters understood how serious an issue we had with the status of the board and that we wanted to improve things.
We have no problem with our members sharing good or bad experiences with traders to help get other members get better service or deals - that is one of the benefits of a forum such as this. We do however request that the critisism of incidents are justified and would hope that they had tried to resolve the incident with the trader first before making the issue public.
We are fully against swearing on the board.
We want the messages posted to add value to membership and be relevant to Lancer ownership.
We are 100% against any form of direct personal attacks on people - either club members or trader employees
We are definitely not a money making enterprise and I am bothered that anyone believes this. Any revenue we get from members and traders help us buy equipment for shows, have money to put deposits on track days, run the web-site and pay for the production of our semi colour magazine.
Following this action we have had a large number of supportive comments along with some justifyable concerns raised. We will try to answer all feedback in the near future.
Brian
PR, Mag
Nov 14, 2001, 02:59 PM
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Brian,
Point well made but did you really have to close the board? I'm sure that an alternate way would have had just as much impact.
As far as discussing with the trader before making it public, its difficult to get advice and compare experiences if we can't share what's going on at the time, I'm sure that in some circumstances it would be inappropriate to discuss things but for the majority of the time I really can't see how it can be. The vast majority of us arent as experienced as a small minority of people we look up to for advice on the board.
Not swearing on the board is fine, but to be bluntly honest the people who you are likely to offend either isnt old enough to drive or are too old to be driving Evo's anyway
I guess this is a PR thing..
"We want the messages posted to add value to membership and be relevant to Lancer ownership"
Fully agree and they almost always are, even the controversial ones.
As for the money making issue, I don't believe that is the issue its really the perceived conflict of interest that can be read into the message that was left on the MLR site. I note that its still up....
Just in case you aren't aware, we are very grateful for all the time that you and others spend on the MLR, I'm sure its not an easy job, keep it up.
Michael,
Hopefully this will be covered in the "some justifiable concerns raised" section.
Ta
Ryan
Point well made but did you really have to close the board? I'm sure that an alternate way would have had just as much impact.
As far as discussing with the trader before making it public, its difficult to get advice and compare experiences if we can't share what's going on at the time, I'm sure that in some circumstances it would be inappropriate to discuss things but for the majority of the time I really can't see how it can be. The vast majority of us arent as experienced as a small minority of people we look up to for advice on the board.
Not swearing on the board is fine, but to be bluntly honest the people who you are likely to offend either isnt old enough to drive or are too old to be driving Evo's anyway
I guess this is a PR thing.."We want the messages posted to add value to membership and be relevant to Lancer ownership"
Fully agree and they almost always are, even the controversial ones.
As for the money making issue, I don't believe that is the issue its really the perceived conflict of interest that can be read into the message that was left on the MLR site. I note that its still up....
Just in case you aren't aware, we are very grateful for all the time that you and others spend on the MLR, I'm sure its not an easy job, keep it up.
Michael,
Hopefully this will be covered in the "some justifiable concerns raised" section.
Ta
Ryan
Nov 14, 2001, 04:36 PM
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Hi Dedeffa
Thanks for the feedback, I'll try to answer the points best I can.
We decided to temporarily shut the board as it was important for people to realise how important an issue it was to us. If we just removed one thread and posted a message on there, with the amount of postings the MLR board is getting at the moment the message could easily have scrolled down the page and lost impact. We shut it for several days so that we could make sure that the majority of posters could see.
The swearing thing is a problem for two reasons.
We want the forum to have a professional feel about it. If people log in for the first time and see a lot of swearing an aggressive behaviour on the board they might be reluctant to post a message.
When people join the MLR it is family membership which can obviously include childeren.
Regarding money/ sponsorship/ conflict of interests etc its straightforward.
We are not sponsored directly or indirectly by any trader. We are an independant club and there are no plans to change this. We want to keep up dialogue with all the traders who do things for Lancers to help work on getting better deals for members.
Where it becomes an issue for us to be worried about is when people post inaccurate or derogatory information about any of the traders or traders personnel who post ad's or support our events. A negative comment about a trader can certainly impact their business. We are not saying that anyone should not make negative comments but to make sure that if they are going to do so that they are justified in doing so as a result of a problem they experienced - this way the trader has no argument and we wouldn't expect to loose their support. Obviously if you look at it from a traders perspective you would want the problem to be raised directly first, wherever possible we would encourage people to do this but understand that they may wish to get advice from the board first.
If people post in this fashion there is no conflict.
Brian
PR, Mag
Thanks for the feedback, I'll try to answer the points best I can.
We decided to temporarily shut the board as it was important for people to realise how important an issue it was to us. If we just removed one thread and posted a message on there, with the amount of postings the MLR board is getting at the moment the message could easily have scrolled down the page and lost impact. We shut it for several days so that we could make sure that the majority of posters could see.
The swearing thing is a problem for two reasons.
We want the forum to have a professional feel about it. If people log in for the first time and see a lot of swearing an aggressive behaviour on the board they might be reluctant to post a message.
When people join the MLR it is family membership which can obviously include childeren.
Regarding money/ sponsorship/ conflict of interests etc its straightforward.
We are not sponsored directly or indirectly by any trader. We are an independant club and there are no plans to change this. We want to keep up dialogue with all the traders who do things for Lancers to help work on getting better deals for members.
Where it becomes an issue for us to be worried about is when people post inaccurate or derogatory information about any of the traders or traders personnel who post ad's or support our events. A negative comment about a trader can certainly impact their business. We are not saying that anyone should not make negative comments but to make sure that if they are going to do so that they are justified in doing so as a result of a problem they experienced - this way the trader has no argument and we wouldn't expect to loose their support. Obviously if you look at it from a traders perspective you would want the problem to be raised directly first, wherever possible we would encourage people to do this but understand that they may wish to get advice from the board first.
If people post in this fashion there is no conflict.
Brian
PR, Mag
Nov 14, 2001, 07:07 PM
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Too bad the MLR people who shut down their forum moved here to talk anyway, what's the point?? I would have hoped it would at least shut THEM up!
Throwing away the keys to your handcuffs and then you go looking for them? Not very logical. This is typical female behavior!
Throwing away the keys to your handcuffs and then you go looking for them? Not very logical. This is typical female behavior!
Nov 15, 2001, 03:45 AM
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Would anyone be against asking the moderators to remove this thread also?? I think the MLR should use their own forum to explain what happened like Claudius said. Let's concentrate on all matters Lancer instead of pointless arguments.
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Nov 15, 2001, 06:08 AM
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Well, Ants, not really as I'm asking whether other people disgaree, you seem to disagree, so fine I don't have a problem with it. I'm just acting on a German Proverb :"Der Klügere gibt nach", which literally means means: "The smarter one gives in". Not exactly right grammatically but the meaning comes through the best way. In this case the smarter one is me, of course 
And I really don't want this forum to be the one which the MLR people use to justify themselves, as the only right place for them to do that is their own forum which they've shut down. If they don't realise that then that isn't even worth a comment.
And I really don't want this forum to be the one which the MLR people use to justify themselves, as the only right place for them to do that is their own forum which they've shut down. If they don't realise that then that isn't even worth a comment.