Well thank you. End of story.

 

No I did not miss that part. To my knowledge nobody who is a paid member lost a badge, whether they have been to a meet in the last xxx years or not.

 

Only persons in guest status after 12-18 had badges removed.

 

It wasn't my intent to start a tempest in a teapot again (though to be honest, my experience with this board has shown it would more than likely end up heading in that direction, so I wasn't oblivious to the likely outcome).

When badging was first started (what, about 5-6 years ago?), it was done merely as a shout-out to the other members... it showed you belonged to (or at least were very familiar with other members of) a specific group. It didn't start in the Mid-A region, though my memory is a bit fuzzy on the exact region that pushed it into the forefront (one of the CA regions?). Some groups became a little loose with the rules and allowed badging to run rampant, with one being handed out to almost anyone who asked, but that was (for the most part) reigned in after a while. Just so it's clear, the original intention of badges was never to show anything other than "He's one of us". Now it has come to mean "He's safe to buy from", which isn't a problem in and of itself... but now people are required to pay for that distinction, which I believe is a bad precedent to set.

As with all things, change is inevitable. What started as a group of like-minded S2000 owners, slowly started to fracture as the foundation of the board became less of a friendly gathering point and more of a cold business model. I saw the need for money as the size of the board increased, so I contributed as a Gold member... a voluntary action for anyone, at the time, not a requirement.

Unfortunately, the balance tipped too far, and members attacked others for not contributing... basic niceties were slowly stripped from long-standing members, such as myself, who donated their time and energy not as COs, but as subject matter experts (mine obviously being in the electronics forum). After years of enjoying time spent helping people and building up a huge database of useful material, guys like me were slowly taken for granted because (as a business model) s2ki was now a raging success.

Am I bitter? Not any more, though I was for a time. Am I disappointed? Most certainly, as I still keep in touch with a number of people who were/are very good friends... but the "Come here just because you enjoy it" feeling has long since passed. And a huge part of that is due because every time I turn around it's yet one more small thing that has been pulled away for money under the guise of the "It's better for everyone this way" mantra.

Does having/not having the badge affect me materially? No. But I don't consider it so simply. Sometimes letting people keep the small things is a good idea... because that's all you've left them with.

 

I hear you. Now hear me: in order to be a badged member of the mid Atlantic chapter of s2ki you must be a member. Being a badged member means you are an active part of the club. It also gets the buyer/seller a bit of security when buying items in the FS pages.

 

Dan it was not you who turned into a tempest.

 

I hate to be overly simplistic, but why would anyone come here if they didn't enjoy it?

I'm not seeing the shift towards the "cold and business model" that you're seeing, but you obviously have a different perspective than I do. I've always found S2ki to have people that are generally friendly and willing to help out fellow owners, and at least in the SoVA area, willing to get together pretty regularly for meets, drives, and outings. Basically everything one would expect from a car board. Are there immature people? Yes. Do know-it-alls sometimes spew misinformation? Sure. But by and large, this is a pretty solid group, and forum in general.

Maybe the whole point of the regional badge has strayed from what it used to mean, I don't know. In the end, does it even matter? I'm sure I speak for most people in saying that I forget they're even down there most of the time, and I'm certainly not rating people by whether or not they have one.

 

Still voluntary last that I checked.

 

Wow, you guys got a badge for recognition and sales?











I got it for the hotties section

 

What, exactly, does my $20/yr badge buy in the way of security? A guarantee if I get screwed the offender will be kicked off of the board? Do I get some form of reimbursement by the board if I fail to get what I paid for? If all I get are a large crowd of people offering their condolences, a small crowd of people offering to kick the offender's A$$, and two people who really know what happened in the end, well, it doesn't sound like I'm getting anything I didn't already have without the badge.

"So why are you complaining?", some are now saying, I'm sure. Well, if they can't step back for just a second and try to see it from my viewpoint, that question can never be answered to their satisfaction.



e3, to clarify... it was voluntary, as in you did not really lose any of the benefits paying members received if you chose not to pay. I think there were some perks added to paying members account, like more PMs or a larger photo database, but things were not removed. Things have been slowly removed for quite a few years now.



vbb, I imagine the view from someone of 10 years on the board looks quite a bit different than someone of half the age. You missed a lot of the arguments early on as the board was changing, you missed seeing what was made available, and you missed seeing the manner in which some of those changes were made. Would your viewpoint be different if you were around longer? I cannot say... but I think mine would be a little more rosy had I not seen some of the past. Some of those changes were the driving reason behind a group splitting off and creating the S2kCA, and it wasn't a pretty time in the history of S2kI. I chose to support both groups, S2kI because I had a lot of close friends, and S2kCA because I agreed with many of their reasons for splitting.

Charging for a badge is, well, you know what I'm going to say. I think it should be noted that I still have a number of badges left in my sigline... not being required to pay money to keep those, as those groups are sticking to the original purpose, the original intent, of the badges.