I went to one "S2k local meet" and one D-bag spoiled the day for the rest of us. He had blacked out tails that were incredibly hard to see in the sunlight, crappy aftermarket LEDs that completely washed out in the sun, crossed the center double yellow at every opportunity to "apex" the nonexistent next corner, even though none of us needed to.

He was such a douche that I NEVER wanted to do another local meet where there wasn't a code of behavior. Like reading that UmarS2k thread where he rear-ended someone's brand new CR because he was overdriving... no thanks.

I have lots of friends and a few of them own S2000s. I'd rather get together with a bunch of autocrossers who own different cars than be stuck at a table with S2000 owners that share completely opposite philosophies.

I'd do a tech day BBQ, but then there was that UMW meet that people's stuff was stolen out of their cars while they donated their time and homes to help other members. That stuff NEVER happens at autocross events because people have a sense of community and the type of people that show up aren't selfish like that.

So I love S2000s and I would love to meet a few UMW members that I've gotten to know on the Interwebz for years. But a random free-for-all meet to "hang out" with nothing in common but the car? No thanks.

That's my $0.02. I like the direction Patinum and Jeggy have taken the forum with arranged UMW autocross and track events. I'd nominate both of them for CO.

 

I'm not saying I love it; I wouldn't do it myself. Moreover, I'm not saying it should be okay with you. I can certainly understand someone taking a moral position against it. Ultimately though, I'm saying that people have a right to their private life. If someone wants to organize a private event, we have to live with it and move on. The community should not police that. In fact, this is a fact of life, not limited to the S2000 community. We're adults, not children; so, we get the right to have private gatherings with our own friends, etc., even if we happened to meet those friends on this site.

As to your comments regarding pics posted afterwards, so what? I've seen pics posted of everything on this site from weddings (which I wasn't invited to, nor expected to be), to business events (again, which had nothing to do with me), to birthdays (which I didn't expect to be invited to), etc... I even saw some wedding pics with some great S2000 photos, was anyone really offended, I doubt it.

Not only that, but your characterization of this activity as "cliques' is frankly a little offensive, we're not in junior high anymore. I'm an adult; therefore, I'm not in any "cliques", rather, I have friends, relatives, acquaintances, etc... I've matured beyond cliques and so has everone else here.

Talk is just as important as doing in this setting because even talk gets people more involved which is the goal IMO.

 

Haven't really read all this thread...just this last page. Not sure why I've decided to chime in now.

I think it's more than acceptable to have an S2000 related event organized via pm (or other means). Just because I met some of my friends here and they happen to have S2000's, doesn't mean every time I hang out with them has to be an open event.

I've made some really good friends here (including "team shocker", which I'm not sure I was ever "officially" a member of). It was never my intention to exclude people. And if people felt that way, I'm sorry. I'd like to think that I'm pretty open to meeting new people when they show up to meets. On the other hand, there are some members I just plain get along with better than others. Members I would and do hang out with regardless of their membership status. And when I think about the people I hang out with now, some of them are people I met 5+ years ago when I first joined. And some are people I've met in the past year or so.

I guess what I'm trying to say is you can't stop relationships from forming, even if they turn into cliques. What we can do as a community and individuals is to keep in mind the larger community. I have a meet planned for tomorrow. All are welcome. On other nights, I just want to cruise with some of my friends. I do both. And there's nothing wrong with that.

 

[QUOTE=Luder94,Mar 31 2010, 01:16 PM] [B]Edit: Just re-read my post.

 

Was the general lack of interest already an issue last summer when I joined the forum? I sort of noticed a drop-off in participation in December, but I thought that was because of winter was approaching. I still browsed the forum during our "off-season," but mostly visited other sections of s2ki because there wasn't much going on in UMW.

If the lack of interest is the main issue, then the question I pose to everyone participating in this thread in response to the few solutions that have been presented...

1. Would changing the selection process of future CO's boost interest among existing owner and enthusiasts alike in the UMW community? I feel like this is irrelevant. Quite frankly, I don't care how the CO is selected and even if there was a democratic voting process to it, I probably won't even bother voting because there's a good chance I don't know the person on the ballot. However, I firmly believe that to establish any type of culture, you need a leader who's dedicated with good intentions. If I were to vote, that would be my #1 factor in determining who to cast my ballot to. It seems like most of the complaints on here are from established members who have been around to see the changes and can comment on them, but newer members are probably oblivious to this. Something to keep in mind as this thread flares up and publicly displays some of the school yard fights of yesteryear.

2. Out of all the members in UMW, how many of you do not own an S2000? In the grand scheme of all things holy to the UMW cause, would fixing this minor problem help fix the bigger issue? Ideally, I think you’d want an owner or past owner to participate, but of course enthusiasts alike should also be welcome. But I admit, it would be a little weird to attend an S2K meet and be outnumbered by non s2k’s. As long as there are no douchebags present, who cares? (By the way, I think the word asshattary is retarded, douchebags sounds more approriate).

3. Official vs. Unofficial meets? It’s common sense to assume based on the title of Community Organizer, that he/she is responsible for setting up events, and therefore my suggestion to have CO’s by metro region would seem approriate. I categorized Official and Unofficial based on the size and scope of the meet and whether or not it involved local groups vs. the greater UMW group. You want to make this as simple as possible in order to provide clarity to existing and new members. I now see this is causing more of a headache than anything else, so I think it’s best to drop it. I still do find it odd that CO’s don’t set this up, but whatever… And again, resolving this will not engage members to participate, but perhaps a certain level of clarity will reduce bickering & negative vibe.

4. Meets should be allowed on any night of the week; why this is even an issue in the first place? This is a valid request and necessary to promote member participation. I don’t care if some of you have you own meets via PM, nor do I care to join any type of “team” or “crew,” but I think a community event that happens once in a while is important. I didn’t join s2ki with the intention of making new friends that just happen to own an S2000, but that’s great if that happens and I don’t have any problem with using PM, email, text, or phone to communicate private events.

5. Why are threads being locked down prematurely? If there is an heightened level of tension developing on a thread, shouldn’t the moderator warn the aggressor and tell them to take it offline and resolve 1 on 1 via PM.

And after glancing over this thread again, I’m beginning to speculate if the bickering and the issues coming out of them exists only amongst a small handful of members, and if any of this is even a real concern at all? I for one, have no complaints about how things have been going. Perhaps because my expectations haven’t been established, the changes went unnoticed?

 

Good posts Pat and Chris,

Chris, in response to your list of questions:
1. Maybe it's important for those "up for election" to author something about themselves and their views to help new members vote -- I think this has been done before, but I don't know if it was taken too seriously.
2. I don't know how many UMW members do not own an S2000. I don't see S2000 presence at an S2000 meet as an issue especially because I've been to several winter S2000 meets with few or no S2000s present. I don't think it has any effect on the quality of the meet.
3. yet?
4. Don't know why it's an issue, I agree with you.
5. I agree with you.

I'll stand down for a while so, it doesn't seem like a few people bickering. Hopefully more people will chime in.

 

I don't really have any skin in the game, just 9 years of floating around this and many other forums. I really think that nearly everyone here except for Angela (ap1chick) is missing the point. If you're trying to set up a structure to essentially force things to be a certain way, they're not going to be any fun. And that's what this is supposed to be, is it not?


Some random thoughts:

- Who should be the CO? If it's not obvious that someone is CO material, they probably shouldn't be. The role is organizer - not dictator, not moderator, not daddy. If the person isn't putting meets/drives together, they really don't qualify. It's that simple. There's really no magical number on how many there should be, or what area they cover. I routinely organized events in areas other than where I lived (and before I was a CO), it's not that complicated, but whoever ends up being CO needs to be organizing and going to the events as much as possible. As for voting or whatever, there was never really voting. Urmil was planning meets when the CO concept was built into S2KI, he ended up as CO. He needed help, he asked me, most of the vocal forum members concurred. When I left, Urmil and I thought Pete would be a good replacement, most of the vocal forum members concurred.

- Geography: UMW is a big area, but most of the activity here is Chicago and Milwaukee centric. Part of that is self fulfilling of course. But Detroit never got a good start, a lot of the active Indy guys ended up on S2KCA, and most other areas just don't have enough bodies to get big meets together.

- Stable meets: If you want a weekly meet, it should be at the same place every week, and the people (whether they're COs or not) planning it needs to be there for a while to facilitate introducing new people. I was never very good at that last part because I tended to forget everybody's names. Rotating places is fine for irregular meets, but stable is good for growing a community. I know Chicago is a bitch to get around, but if you can't drive your sports car 30-60 minutes to get to a car meet, your enthusiasm level may be lacking.

- Inclusion: The S2000 is a dead car, don't get too bent out of shape on whether someone owns one or not. The declining participation is a part of this as well. There's just not that much left to talk about on the S2000. In 5 or 10 years, when parts get harder to find, maybe that will change.

- Cliques: They're going to happen. We're cliquish beings. When we find a group of people with similar interests we tend to stick to them, eventually becoming friends. That said, if cliques are "ruining" things then the focus of your meets is probably wrong.

- Private meets: total non-issue with one exception. People did PM/email/phone meets before, then came back the next day and left trails of posts about how much fun the meet was, or posted a bunch of pictures. Great, except everyone reading those posts had no clue there was a meet and now feels excluded. If you want to turn people off, that's a good way to do it. If you want a meet to be limited to you and your friends, don't post about it after the fact. Kamron I understand your point about people posting about many things, but when 10 people are posting about "the awesome meet last night" and there's nothing about the event before hand, it comes across as "We don't want you to be part of our fun". Either you're a community, or you're not.

- "official" meets: really? Does it matter? Plan an event, stick "MEET: blah blah blah April 10th 4pm" in the title and it's as "official" as it ever will be.


Last, to all the people who read but don't post (I know who you are! )... don't let all this bullshit scare you off. The people who post all day (easily identifiable by the high PPD) aren't nearly as big of assholes as we come across online. Most of the people are passionate about their cars and will generally talk at length with anyone who shows interest.

 

Have you guys read my sticky thread. I had hoped some of what I posted would put an end to the role of a CO and the process to acquire a CO.

I see that name tags are important for this group.. 3 pages of that.
I see Official vs Unoffical meets - 6-8 pages
Let's not tell so and so we are having a meeting so make sure he does not get the email. 3-4. We like that guy but his buddy is a jerk. Sounds like life, but this is a whole community.

That guy over there doesn't own an S2000, we shouldn't invite him to our S2000 meet. If this was the attitude in the beginning, we would not be sitting here today arguing about it. We would not have shown others the car, let them experience it, and brought them on board. How many folks have said if it weren't for so and so, in community x, I don't think I would have found this site or bought an S2000. We wouldn't exit, and neither would your other favourite s2k site.

People have to remember this is group of people, not everyone will like each other, but it is a community and that means folks need to work towards a common understanding(?) of what the purpose of this community is. It is up to each individual person in deciding what they want out of this community.

I am trying to read everything and come to some sort of idea where the problems might be. There are pretty strong opinions and that is life. Since there are no CO's at present, this community needs to be free to post what they want. Everyone is equal, and we are starting over in my opinion.

I personally enjoy a thread getting to the point where someone wants to kill the other person, so closing of threads is not a priority right now. There is also a Moderator guide for CO's and how they should moderate. The main point of it is to not over moderate.

Keep this thread going. I do encourage the lurkers to express yourself. I will personally beat up anyone who disrespects your opinion

 

[QUOTE=Luder94,Mar 31 2010, 05:16 PM] ..

First, it's not perceived.

 

https://www.s2ki.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=772901

Not just invited to them, planned them.