I have a question

[rick haynes]

Greg wrote:
"Craig, given that your commentary basically plagiarizes a rude, abusive, and insulting Rick Haynes' PM to me,"


Greg posted this statement about me and I deny it. I have never said anything rude, abusive, and insulting to Greg or anybody else for that matter.
and to support my protest I am giving Greg permission and encouragement to copy and post publicly every private email I have ever sent to him [ or anyone else too]. I am confident that if he does that it will confirm the truth of my claim.

I also have a question

The Hp web-site was started by John Sailsbury Sr in about year 2000 , and as I understood it John voluntarily transferred its administration to a person out west.
At that time the site was relabeled the prodcar website. presumably to widen its readership. For years it functioned well with several administrators who acted as custodians of the site for everyone's benefit.
I do not know the names of all the previous custodians but it ended with Darren Laher as the last administrator of record and with whom I did have contact with. He helped me with a few problems with my account through the years. I believe I am right in saying that Darren was an active and involved administrator of the website. And as we all know Darren transferred the custodianship to a new volunteer willing to take on the job with what I had assumed to be in the spirit of the past custodians of this shared resource. During that time I think almost everyone would agree that it was well run and served the many different interests of the SCCA members and many other racers that interacted on the site..

So my question is this, how did a website started 24 years ago by another person and administered for years by still others get to be owned by anyone?

How did it go from essentially a self-policing public form, where a Topic survived or died on its own merits based on the interest shown in it by the readers, ,to the way I understand it is administered now? Or am I misunderstanding the new rules that the new administrator has laid down? If I did it would not be the 1st time this has happened to me.
But if I have not,, was this John Sr intent? Darren's intent? and was it the expectations of the long-time readers of the website?

Does anybody have any insight into this?
rick haynes

 

[Al Seim]

1. I agree that the ProdRacing site, for much of its life, was virtually unmoderated. That worked OK at times, and at times I think that it did a disservice to the Prod Racing community in that it was (at those times) considered by many to be a very toxic environment. I've been reading this forum, its predecessors, and others for 20+ years and I have over the years seen a number of references to the Prod site as, well, toxic, and even a cited as a reason not to consider Prod as a category. Seriously. These were periods when a few very strong personalities (not naming names) tended to dominate discussion and run over and insult other participants. There were other periods when it worked fine.

2. Also in my opinion, totally unmoderated forums do tend to descend into obnoxious anarchy.

3. Referring to the related Dec 2023 thread, anyone who thinks that the SCCA is intimidating Greg Amy into censoring posts doesn't know Greg Amy very well.

4. John Salisbury Sr did a great service to HP and Prod in general by founding the HP forum, but it seems unrealistic to think that present management is bound by his precedent, nor am I sure (didn't really know him) that he would favor a completely unmoderated forum in today's online environment.

5. Lawsuits involving past expenditures on SCCA Pro Racing seems pretty far off of the intended topic of Production car racing.

 

[rick haynes]

Al
Interesting reply and lots to disagree with starting with your view on the purpose of this or any web-site. I see it as being an opportunity for many differance people to voice a point of view and to hear others views. Otherwise what’s the point? living in a echo chamber isn't of much value. And from what I have observed the label of toxic is used as a reason to just shut down opinions some people don’t want to hear. Personally I am not annoyed by opposing points of view but I know some people are.

As to your " far off of the intended topic of Production car racing” comment, the subject matter is the financial health and activities of a club many people are members of. Need I remind you that any topic in the past so titled was at the very top of the numbers in views and replys on this site? So clearly there is a lot of interest with the readers in SCCA's financial operations In fact I would bet that it was the topic many people tuned in to and read 1st , maybe even you? I know one group that hung on every word of it. But with all those posts I do not recall one disagreeable exchange between people that engaged. Disagreements yes, strong opinion ofcorse but that is what makes it valuable.

My hope is that people do not agree with you because in the end censorship is very corrosive to a healthy flow of ideas. , here and anywhere else.
Free and open dialog is the best course, and should be the goal of every web-site