Facebook page goes bad again

Andrew Jonell · **Joined:** Mon Mar 23, 2009 6:43 pm **Posts:** 1350

Jason Mauldin wrote:

Rob Keehner wrote:

The main argument against doing so is it further dilutes the field. SCCA has added so many new classes and categories over the past 8 years it's obsurd so on the local level we have 100 entrants with 2 cars per class.

I don't disagree with your sentiment, but I think that the "diluted" field would work itself out. Most people like competition, and they'll find it by moving to more populated classes.

It did work itself out; there were spans of time where there were no entrants into Ladies class, so we dumped them into Open.

I'm also liking the dichotomy of "We're not an SCCA club, yeah!" to "B-b-b-but what does the SCCA say?

"

Keep in mind, most of the vocal people causing trouble clearly stated that they have no intentions of going to the NCAC event. That alone should put their requests and comments to the bottom of the barrel for consideration.

Jason Mauldin · **Posted:** Fri Sep 18, 2015 12:08 pm

JamesMilko wrote:

Zach Hill wrote:

Someone mentioned NCAC by-laws. Does anyone know if this actually exists? Or are they just making rules up so that we cater to them? If they really exist, then we will adhere to them.

I'm curious to see if these actually exist. I remember the club cup being tallied a few different ways in the past. That implies there are weak bylaws, if any.

Last info I have on this is that Donnie Barnes was the webmaster for the http://www.soloii.com website which was the NCAC website. Obviously, that's no longer supported, but if you wanted the bylaws, I would start with asking him.

RobLupella · **Posted:** Fri Sep 18, 2015 4:33 pm

Zach Hill wrote:

I'd like to propose that we rename the THSCC facebook group (which is completely public, and has almost 1,200 members) to something like "North Carolina motorsport enthusiasts" and let it continue as an open, unmoderated discussion place for all things motorsports in NC, which is basically what it is right now.

The private THSCC forum would continue to be the place where our members can "cut loose" and have heated debates with other club members.

The THSCC facebook presence would be replaced by a facebook "Page" for THSCC, which has a few key differences from a "group," namely that we can post officially as the page (and delegate the ability to do so to officers and staff), and anybody can subscribe to the page for updates. Others can post to the page like they do a group, however those posts are not shown very prominently and I think we would be more justified to moderate those posts since it would be the official club page.

I have to say that the behaviour by Remchak (and many others, but I believe he was one of the few THSCC members posting so negatively, downright instigating hatred and blatantly spreading misinformation) on the THSCC facebook yesterday has had only one result, and that is to make our club look bad and alienate noobies who may be looking at our group. Whether or not that was your intent I frankly don't care, but that is exactly what you have done and it really disappoints me as I'm pretty sure you knew exactly what you were doing. I just don't get it.

As to why everyone seems to be out to hate THSCC this year that's beyond me and I'm pretty tired of it. I'm going to try my best to keep moving forward to put on good events, take reasonable feedback and criticism into account, and ignore all the rest.

It will be very hard to police a fb page on a regular basis, especially when someone starts a firestorm. Does someone want the job of permanent fb hall monitor (w/o pay of course and woe behold them if they screw up and make a wrong decision). Why don't we use SCCA classes for this event? AS WE STATED BEFORE if a club wants to cheat the system fine oh boy they won a bigger magnet or they won the club cup by being uninclusive and gaming the system. We can then monitor a more locked down page.

I have been messaging the one person who did get the wrong impression of us and quite frankly got the wrong impression of most of the people in the other clubs. Most of us get along at least reasonable well but there are always people that can't play well in the sandbox and then instigate from there. When it is difficult to recruit and keep people in the sport as it is let's not make it more difficult by acting like poorly behaved children and at least have a page we can control and at the next officer's meeting lets come up with some guidelines for posts so no one starts another flame war by acting in good faith and deleting a post.

Donnie Barnes · **Posted:** Fri Sep 18, 2015 5:49 pm

I just want to say someone tagged me in a post in all that mess asking about NCAC by-laws. Otherwise I would have been blissfully ignorant of it all, because I'm not going anywhere near a THSCC Facebook page willingly. I saw the shit-storm that was happening and just walked away. I'm kind of over autocross drama. That's not to say I wouldn't do another one sometime, but I won't be in the drama, that's for sure.

Why anyone asked *me* I have no idea. NCAC was created and being run a LONG time before I came on the scene, and I've never been anything but a casual participant in a few of them. I have no idea if there are bylaws or not. Seemed the ones I attended were always just run by the host club however the host club wanted to run them that year, and the next year another club did it their own way, too.

--Donnie

Zach Hill · **Posted:** Fri Sep 18, 2015 6:40 pm

Donnie,

Some folks started threatening - literally - to "whip out the NCAC by-laws" to force our event into proper shape that they wanted. I had never heard of such by-laws but figured if they existed and were something THSCC agreed to in the past, it was my duty to make sure we followed them for this event, so I started asking around. Everyone pointed fingers but nobody could produce any document. Many names were named, including yours. I still haven't seen a document.

Sorry to bring you into the fray. I wish I could walk away from the whole thing but alas the other officers and I are in pretty deep now. I'm trying to ignore the ignorance and negativity and put on a good event while upholding any commitment our club made to the NCAC program (which, I don't actually think is anything very specific as every year in my experience the NCAC is slightly different, and up to the hosting club).

FrancisChan · **Posted:** Fri Sep 18, 2015 7:34 pm

Eh, I reckon the event will go fine and everyone will forget about all the nonsense.

Edit:- We could always run NASA rules and see heads explode, :mrgreen:

RobLupella · **Posted:** Fri Sep 18, 2015 8:15 pm

FrancisChan wrote:

Eh, I reckon the event will go fine and everyone will forget about all the nonsense.

Edit:- We could always run NASA rules and see heads explode, :mrgreen:

Francis for Prime Minister :thumbsup:

JamesMilko · **Posted:** Fri Sep 18, 2015 10:12 pm

FrancisChan wrote:

Eh, I reckon the event will go fine and everyone will forget about all the nonsense.

Edit:- We could always run NASA rules and see heads explode, :mrgreen:

The NASA rulebook for classing is only 21 pages, they clearly don't get autocross.

FrancisChan · **Posted:** Sat Sep 19, 2015 12:06 am

I think this sums up the past 2 days quite well.

MikeWhitney · **Joined:** Wed Aug 20, 2003 9:15 pm **Posts:** 4724

Hey guys - I don't participate enough to have a valid opinion, but that hasn't stopped me from trying to be helpful before

1. I was AX VP and President for a while and I don't remember any NCAC bylaws either.
2. I'm not a big facebook fan myself either*, so I don't regularly scan the THSCC FB page, so I checked out the posts to see what's up after seeing this thread. It may make you guys feel better to know that, from a less-interested perspective, that whole thread was "blah blah blah". I'm not saying that there may be important things to address, but I don't see a huge negative PR thing happening there on FB. Might not be as big a deal as you might think for most people who don't think about this every day, and who DO do this all just for fun.
3. To curtail future problems, I'd be in favor a more closed THSCC FB page. A crappy FB page is far better than even a decent website these days for getting info out and people engaged. FB has numbers

* Before you think of me as a luddite -- I'm a critic of Facebook because I WORK ON SOCIAL APPS as part of my real job and I am quite successful at it, and Facebook makes a mess of so many things from a functional / user / evil perspective, that it's just sad and painful that they don't seem to "get" their users, or be willing to step off the acquisitions and $$$ ad revenue train long enough to solve some basic problems with addressing user needs. End rant. But due to sheer market penetration, there is no other game in town for reaching a lot of people with public info.

Richard Casto · **Posted:** Sat Sep 19, 2015 1:04 am

I saw this last night and the rest of it this evening. I stayed out as I felt I could not do anything to help. I just shook my head in how it was such a trainwreck. But I feel I can post my thoughts and opinions here...

Steven Spampinato wrote:

We need to cut this out, and delete the posts and answer their questions. It is not censorship if we respond.

Given how the FB page is currently setup, I suspect this would just make things much worse. Any moderation on this topic at this point in time would not go over well IMHO.

Andrew Jonell wrote:

The issue is that the Facebook page has open permissions versus requiring moderator approval for everything. Someone posed a question at 9pm on a school night in an aggressive tone, and then got bent out of shape that they didn't get the answer instantaneously.

Yes.

Zach Hill wrote:

I'd like to propose that we rename the THSCC facebook group (which is completely public, and has almost 1,200 members) to something like "North Carolina motorsport enthusiasts" and let it continue as an open, unmoderated discussion place for all things motorsports in NC, which is basically what it is right now.

The private THSCC forum would continue to be the place where our members can "cut loose" and have heated debates with other club members.

I don't have deep knowledge on the capabilities of FB groups, but I agree it should be restructured. So how you do it, I don't know. But... my opinion is that anything that has our name on it should be controlled by us and not mobs (be it our own rogue and/or well meaning members or others). I assume it means moderation and clear rules as to what is not allowed so that moderation will be fair and not appear to be arbitrary (I am just saying it's easier to defend moderation if there are rules and they are applied consistently)

Jason Mauldin wrote:

The problem is deviating away from SCCA classes. If you stay consistent with the SCCA then the members can run any of the clubs and you'll have a good general idea of how to handle logistics. Plus you don't have to carry around a different set of class letters for each club.

When you start deviating away from the way everyone else does things, you start creating animosity. Which is part of what you're seeing here. They don't see "why" you have removed Ladies class, they just see that you have, and then they form their own opinion as to why you did it. For example, if I weren't part of the forums, I would assume that the club is less family oriented now since my wife and I would have to run in the same run group and would need to find a babysitter for the child while we are running/working.

This sounds logical to me. I think at it's core was some valid concerns and complaints.

Rob Keehner wrote:

I said it last year and you didn't listen. Remchak is a useless talentless bum who doesn't run our events, doesn't participate, and is a detriment. Ban hammer, he has no purpose in open communication on our page.

I am not sure what to do about Remchak (love you Steve!). I think the number one problem with him or others like him is that the FB page (I say this without looking to verify) appears to have no rules. So is he out of line? Regardless, I would hope that we error on the side of inclusion vs. "ban hammer". Moderation without emotion is hard to do. It takes the right type of person to do it and everyone is not cut out for it.

Zach Hill wrote:

I'm trying to ignore the ignorance and negativity and put on a good event while upholding any commitment our club made to the NCAC program (which, I don't actually think is anything very specific as every year in my experience the NCAC is slightly different, and up to the hosting club).

NCAC drama is not new. I have been on the periphery a few times but not at the heart. Those that have are either gone (Jim) or are no longer active are those who know what I am talking about. From my perspective lack of cooperation between the clubs and any definition as to "what NCAC is or should be" continue to be a problem. Many don't know this, but this forum actually has a private "NCAC" forum that was created circa 2006 to allow officers from this and other clubs to work together to resolve these types of problems. In reality, the forum was a bad way to solve that problem, but it illustrates that it is an ongoing issue. As someone posted on FB, those previously involved (such as Jim) knew about prior and impending drama and the fragility around NCAC.

The FB drama is one issue that generally speaking is unrelated to NCAC. IMHO, the NCAC issue is really about lack of cooperation between the clubs. And to be clear I am not being negative toward our current leadership. My guess is that they absolutely did not see this coming because prior drama was long forgotten by the time they took control. In the immortal words of Admiral Ackbar... "It's a trap!". It doesn't help that those on the outside are so quick to try to stick the knife in if things are not going their way (and the short FB "news cycle" just aggravates that). Additionally the rotational aspect (and how long it takes a club to rotate back into control) feeds that drain of knowledge. People jump in and do their best and are then criticized for not doing it correctly when "success" was never defined.

If I was to try to solve this (don't have the time or energy), I think something like what Donnie tried is the correct approach. I could envision the club officers (NCAC clubs) getting together to hammer out various aspects of what NCAC will be in the future (classes, rules for NCAC specific competitions, expectations around registration workflow, etc.). Document this and then create a "NCAC Playbook". Then a central website could host that info as well as yearly posts as to time, location, registration info, etc. There will still be drama, but hopefully less and less.

Richard

Chuck Branscomb · **Posted:** Sat Sep 19, 2015 6:00 am

Carlton Whitehead wrote:

In the midst of all of that, there was at least one important logistical question. Using a gender-restricted class as a co-driving logistics and tire saving aid seems really weird to me. Why not just rebrand it "Co-drivers' Class" with no gender restriction? We aren't affiliated with SCCA so we don't have to follow all of their rules to the letter if we don't want to. That way we get to put a little bit of a THSCC spin on it and meet the stated needs at the same time.

The SCCA has long had a ladies class, and I suppose the basis behind it is a result of some things like reaction time which have been shown for decades of studies to be strongly biased toward men whether it's sound, kinesthetic, or sight. It's not a gender discrimination thing like many apparently want to form it as.

NCAC always seems to be a nightmare for the host club. Anyone remember the 2007 event when it was about 3 hours late in starting? Some of us lucky ones waited at worker stations (in 95F heat index and climbing) for over an hour, being told it would be 10 mins a number of times, before being called in. It was a great way to start the event having basically two work assignments in unreal heat/sun.

Scott Johnson · **Posted:** Sat Sep 19, 2015 8:43 am

As a former officer of many years, I'll echo the other comments. "What by-laws."

Maybe there are some from the 90's when BFG was giving away free tires to winners. I fail to see how those would be remotely relevant at this point. We could all save some TP samples next time we're in the restroom, box them up and send them to the concerned citizens that are interested in the bylaws. You want bylaws, I've got your bylaws right here!

As for Facebook? What's that.

However, I want Carlton to get going on a live twitter feed for our events. It needs to post car number, class and time whenever someone crosses the finish line. Extra credit for cone counts.

But I don't twitter either.

Alec Moody · **Joined:** Fri Feb 15, 2013 9:02 am **Posts:** 299

Zach Hill wrote:

I'd like to propose that we rename the THSCC facebook group (which is completely public, and has almost 1,200 members) to something like "North Carolina motorsport enthusiasts" and let it continue as an open, unmoderated discussion place for all things motorsports in NC, which is basically what it is right now.

The private THSCC forum would continue to be the place where our members can "cut loose" and have heated debates with other club members.

The THSCC facebook presence would be replaced by a facebook "Page" for THSCC, which has a few key differences from a "group," namely that we can post officially as the page (and delegate the ability to do so to officers and staff), and anybody can subscribe to the page for updates. Others can post to the page like they do a group, however those posts are not shown very prominently and I think we would be more justified to moderate those posts since it would be the official club page.

I have to say that the behaviour by Remchak (and many others, but I believe he was one of the few THSCC members posting so negatively, downright instigating hatred and blatantly spreading misinformation) on the THSCC facebook yesterday has had only one result, and that is to make our club look bad and alienate noobies who may be looking at our group. Whether or not that was your intent I frankly don't care, but that is exactly what you have done and it really disappoints me as I'm pretty sure you knew exactly what you were doing. I just don't get it.

As to why everyone seems to be out to hate THSCC this year that's beyond me and I'm pretty tired of it. I'm going to try my best to keep moving forward to put on good events, take reasonable feedback and criticism into account, and ignore all the rest.

I think that is a good plan. Do we need to vote on this kind of stuff or can we just go ahead and do it?

Scott Johnson · **Posted:** Sat Sep 19, 2015 10:04 am

Alec Moody wrote:

I think that is a good plan. Do we need to vote on this kind of stuff or can we just go ahead and do it?

You do it. If someone dislikes your decision they can go to a meeting, make a motion that we discuss/reverse the decision. If someone wants to second that motion then it will get discussed and voted on.

All in favor? Aye
All opposed? Nay

Soup.

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