mvigod

The AMA forum has always been a hot bed of controversy. It is often times politically charged and I've seen more "noise" around this forum then every other forum on rcu over the years. I wonder if the benefit it produces is worth alienating those who become divided by the politics or attacks that often occur in this ama forum.

Sound off and vote if you think we should keep it or close it down

marc

kid chuckles

Just shut the AMA discussion part down. That is where most of the stuff starts or is.

gunfighter

My Feedback: (1)

Uh Kid...The AMA forum IS the AMA discussions part!

Mark, Why not just black ball the repeat offenders. It's not hard to pick the out! Ban some of the worst offenders from RCU and the rest will most likely straighten up. If they come back on under a different name / e-mail account it will not be difficult to weed them out again.

Kanain

My Feedback: (1)

Looks like I got in early - 7 total and I am currently only the second for keeping it open.

Marc - the discussion has merit. I agree with both you and Ken that it seems more often than not to get heated and produce what may at first appear to be damaging results. However, this is yet another thing in our society in which a "few bad apples" spoil the bunch. Please don't let the actions of a select few cause this valuable source of discussion and information go away.

The dialog and debate is vital to any organization. I don't see the AMA having many such outlets. There are other forums on other sites that seem to be more amicable, but I submit to you that this is because of the people, not the forum.

Also, in discussions I have had with people from all over the country - unfortunately much of the views expressed here are the exact views of existing AMA members (both good and bad). Many of the people I speak with are not even Internet savvy or know about RCU. So, it would seem that while much of the discussion in this forum gets ugly, the underlying views or concerns are that of the common AMA member.

50%plane

My Feedback: (5)

shut it down, at least for a while.

Tired Old Man

My Feedback: (1)

I cringed when I did it, but voted to keep it open. Yes it gets pretty heated all too often but shutting it down is not the way to handle it. If evereyone agreed it would be Utopia. Utopia does not exist and can't be made to exist by force of will.

combatpigg

My Feedback: (3)

In a society where Little Leaguers who are too fat to run to first base on their own power have "courtesy runners", shutting down the AMA forum would seem the right thing to do.

F106A

My Feedback: (2)

The forum used to be a place to discuss AMA policies and direction.
I was an active participant back when the late J_R was posting. Believe it or not, 99% of the time it was civil and interesting.
Now it's the same 4-5 guys attacking each other ad nauseum. I know a lot of former participants don't bother anymore because they know they're going to be attacked and their post marginalized, so why bother.
Also, 90% of the issues being discussed can be answered by a simple call to their DVP or HQ, where they will get the correct answer instead of the BS that goes on here.
Of course, some could care less about the correct answer; they’re here just to argue.
I’m sure if someone posted the sky was blue, a few of the regulars would say its green just to get something going.
IMO, the MODS time and effort could be used more advantageously somewhere else.
Jon

SSRCCPREZ

Look this is like blaming the gun and not the shooter. I think you keep the forum and deal with the problem people. If that,after being given a real effort, does not work then shut it down. But frankly this discussion is not new either....If you're way of dealing with controversy is to shut down the forum it will still crop up but be more widespread and harder to deal with.
Does this have anything to do with RCU asking AMA to buy them?
just sayin thats no secret anymore.

vicman

My Feedback: (10)

I think it should be left open with a hard pop in the rear to the badgers who instigate the new posters and each other, hijacking most of the threads over the past few years.

Two weeks ago Ken came in here and made his intentions known. I have noticed a bit of change in both who is posting, and what is said as a result. It may result in a smaller forum but a more peaceful one just the same with an air of helpfulness versus the jabbing that has been your source of grief.

mvigod

Politics divide people. Do we really need a forum that is based on politics where people are obviously emotionally charged about the topics? I've seen people who were with me from the beginning get disgruntled in there. I'm talking legends in the rc community. Do we want a forum that makes people this angry when people are supposed to come to rcu to have fun and get away from things?

SSRCCPREZ

YES. Politics,Religion, money, gays, abortion are all emotionally charged issues...Again you seem to want to blame the gun and not the shooter!!!
If people do not have the maturity to conduct themselves in a reasonable and rational adult manner then deal with the individuals.
Shutting down the forum does not stop the people from being emotionally charged but instead they will go into the PF section to complain about the PF's, they will go into the sport to complain about certain clubs or fields, they will go into the sub forums and you will then what...shut those down also? Guns do not kill people, people kill people. Let the infintile egomaniacs the proper spanking they deserve when they deserve it. Otherwise they usually just are given enough rope to hang themselves, do not punish the whole class because one child is unruly.

mongo

My Feedback: (15)

marc, i have been here since the early days as well.
just what "legends" are you talking about?
i can not remember a post by a single person i would refer to as a "legend".

bkdavy

My Feedback: (1)

I voted to keep it open, but I hope that RCKen has the time to enforce his stated policies. Another alternative might be to simply rename the forum disgruntled AMA bashers. then those that want to have intelligent discourse about AMA programs and policies won't bother checking in.

What I don't understand is why people get so charged up over an organization they spend $58 a year to belong to.

Brad

mvigod

Early in the voting game but just about split...keep in mind this poll is in the ama forum so this is the audience that uses it that will be voting to keep it or not. Ultimately it is up to the members that use the site what they want and what they don't want. We just want to make everyone happy...a seemingly impossible task... [&o]

ira d

I agree with the post in quote and I voted to keep the forum open.

804

My Feedback: (1)

I vote for leaving it open, and giving participants a little more latitude than in the other forums. Anybody going there a couple times should be able to see what they're getting into; if it scares them, one click and its back to safer waters.


Bill

The Toolman

I think shutting it down will stop most, if not all of the trouble. On the other 2 boards I frequent there is not near the trouble caused as there is in this 1 forum alone.

RCU is a good board an I have learned an given a lot of info on it. Of all the other places I go on this board I rarely ever see any discord among the posters. This is suppose to be a Hobby forum, not politics, and this ama forum is about as political as you are going to ever get

I think it would be to RCU's advantage to just eliminate the ama board altogether period. If they want to argue about the ama, let them go to the ama site an set up a forum or start their own forum for ama stuff somewhere else IMO.

By the way, what is to keep people from double or more voting under different names in this poll anyway? Is there anyway you mods can ck this out to be sure? There's ONE or two on here I wouldn't trust any farther than I could spit.


P.S. If you'll look, you will notice I have never had any posts deleted on any other part of RCU besides this one forum here.


Ronnie-The Toolman

vicman

My Feedback: (10)

I'm with SSR, I dread when I see some of the badgers show up in some of the forums I call home. If you bury this hole they will find another one to stink up. Do you need a list or a poll of who we think the poo stirrers are?

STLPilot

My Feedback: (21)

Seperate it Marc, AMA members in the North, AMA members in the South. That should clear things up.

KidEpoxy

To All:

Many times I have seen RCKen say he gets requests to delete a post solely because it does not toe the AMA line.

Just where do people go to talk about the ama, to say things that are not just business as usual cowtao to the ama powers that be, but to identify areas the ama could do better. We have heard about the Selective Admittance of certain AMA Dist forum, where such ideas to better the ama are not welcome if they are not politicaly inline with a single owner of the forum. One guy has to get district news here because of that.

Last year (oops, I mean 2006) the RCU AMA forum had the Great Paintball Debacle,
where repeatedly the pro-paintballers were decried as anti-ama & as usual there were demands to delete or lock the thread to stop the anti-ama talk. But in the end, when the overwaited end finally came, we see the AMA had published the PaintBall pdf for safe paintballing. Their demands to stifle what some saw in their eyes as anti-ama, was in fact accepted & endorsed by Muncie. The cries to delete the thread would have left us with the question without official answer, and the grudges held. It is not coincidence the AMA put up the pdf trailing our thread.

I'm sure there will be several people happy to see this forum get killed.
All those that sought to shutdown any thread that wasnt 100% along their thin line. They will be happy to remove all opposing views from the entire internet, even when those views turn out to be shared by Muncie.

The AMA is not infallable,
corerecting the faults first requires us to find the faults,
and just where can we congregate to do that?
How about a non-ama operated unbiased internet board that allows posting about successes as well as faults that might need attention.

Besides, there is a Lil Red Hand that more folks need to use if they have a personal problem with another poster. Oddly, I have seen a guy post "I'm ignoring" after several posts a a certain user, which kinda defeats the concept behind Ignoring.

Johnny Mojo

Shut it down please. Dividing it by region will have no affect. If that theory were valid, Scale fliers from New Jersey would only converse with other scale fliers from NJ and so on. If the posters who are so regularly spewing at each other in the AMA forums(virtually exclusively) are truly people who enjoy this hobby then they will be at no loss for places to contribute. However, shutting down the AMA forum would probably flush those who wish to do nothing but argue.

Close her down and don't look back Marc.....it's the right thing to do.

J.

NorfolkSouthern

As per vicman, the AMA forum needs to stay because often, the discussion here helps the AMA officials in identifying the right course of action for a given circumstance. They are better able to weigh the pros and cons of a new policy with better information, some of which is gleaned from discussion boards such as this.

The badgers: Like RCKen said; if they follow the rules, they get to keep their RCU membership. Otherwise, toss the bums out. I am all for an interesting discussion, but abhor heated personal arguments that go back and forth and accomplish nothing for the hobby or the AMA. In the end, we end up losing a valuable tool that gives us the means to determine which direction our hobby, and organization, are headed. I vote to keep it open.

NorfolkSouthern

Gremlin Castle

My Feedback: (14)

Your header statistics show more than 350 K members which indicates that the AMA membership is less than half of the total if every last person in the AMA was active in RCU.
The little group that frequents this forum on a regular basis may appear to stir up controversey but in the real world they influence nothing on a broad base.
As others have pointed out, It is better to leave them with their own venue than scatter them into other forums.
AMA certainly can stand anything that is generated in this forum.
The type of rhetoric seen in this forum has gone one since man assigned meaning to symbols. It has just become easier for people to create or contribute to a venue in this age of the electronic net.
Consider this forum to be just like part of a restaurant. Even the very nicest ones have a dumpster out back.

F106A

My Feedback: (2)

What are you talking about?
Another great post from STL that certainly adds to the discussion.
This is EXACTLY what's wrong with this forum!
Jon