How Did it Get this Way?
 

I began posting under another name on MercedesShop beginning in January 2000. Bill and Donnie were starting their business and their website along with it. The technical savvy available and the high class of the posters seemed incredible.

I was traveling extensively at the time and met a number of posters while on business trips and some of them met with me when they were on their business trips, and every time I met any of them I was totally impressed and wondered how such a great group of people had managed to get to know each other simply because of a discussion forum. Of course, all of us at that time had MB’s as a common interest.

During that period, I was very experienced with the 123 and 124 cars. Coupling that with my many years of car experience beginning in my Dad’s Indy shop at a very early age, I was able to help some of the people with their issues. It was very satisfying to be able to help people cure their headaches.
In the first few years, I checked in on almost every sub forum here on a regular basis including OD. OD was rather tame in the very beginning, but began being a little hostile, so for probably 6 or 8 years, I just simply avoided it at all cost.

In the course of trying to help people with their problems, a poster started heckling me in the tech and diesel forums. He went out of his way to argue over minute details that weren’t germane to the problem I was trying to help someone resolve. He was relentless to a point where it got where I couldn’t even help people with their problems without this guy constantly needling and derailing. I tried ignoring him at first, but he never gave up until he finally got me to start waling at him.

That pretty much soured me of the whole forum and I virtually backed away totally for some period of time, maybe a year or two. Then one day I was needing some MB information and low and behold there was no more MercedesShop. Some idiot at MB evidently sued Bill that resulted in getting name changed.

After a time I gravitated back to the forum and in the course of again familiarizing myself, clicked on OD. I don’t remember at all the issue, but it struck a cord with me at the time, evidently while I was not in the best of moods and I jumped in. Whenever that was, probably in 2008 or so, it was a regrettable day.

The contention on OD at the time, had elevated a LOT since the last time I had checked in several years before. Not one to run from a fight, I began responding in the same nasty tone that was started in whatever thread it was.

When I look back on it, I have deep regrets that I ever allowed myself to be sucked into these kinds of conversations. At least two problems with forum discussion are; the normal differences of opinions and personalities, and the poor communication method of conversing with the written word, sans facial expressions and body language,

Now here we are today. The level of contention between members is to a point where many of us cannot objectively read the post of another without factoring in who is doing the writing and forming at least some, if not all, of our opinion before reading the post.

I suppose it’s one of those situations where it is impossible to go back and start over and make it better. I would love to be able to do a Master Reset and start all over again, but that, of course, is impossible.

I am CONVINCED that if this were the local coffee shop crowd or the local car club, or something, where we all met and dealt with each other face to face, it would have been AMAZINGLY different, but it’s not. On a forum like this, I suppose there is no social pressure as there would be in a face to face group. Whatever it is, it’s not like any other group visiting that I’ve ever experienced.

OD has just taken on a life of its own, and seems to be something impossible to explain.

At the same time nobody is forcing you to post here. I forget who said it, but someone mentioned a few weeks ago "if it seems like everyone else is the problem, it might be time to take a good hard look at yourself" or something of the sort, good advice to live by even outside the context of this forum.

Its just an internet forum. Use it for what it is. Focus this energy in the real world and make a real difference. Leave the Internet to the faceless ankle biters.

So did I say that the problem was only the other people? I thought I had been careful to indicate that it was a two way street.

About a year ago I put four people on ignore. My life here is much more content since. I recently put another on ignore. I don't have Larry on ignore because outside of politics he and I have a lot in common, and for some reason I can vehemently disagree with him and still not get aggrivated about it.

Larry, I heartily recommend ignore for those folks you really cannot stand.

you and I disagree on almost everything all the time apart from liking mercedes cars, but I suggest that you visit some of the other forums out there and get a comparison between this OD and a place where a bunch of 20 year old SOBs are bickering about VWs or other imports that are heavily modded and coveted by teens.

The difference is staggering, no one here to my recollection has recently said he slept with someone elses mom over how high your ride height should be. :D

This place is mild, people are generally polite, and OD is after all, an optional affair. Otherwise its just growth, more people, more threads, more different opinions, and a freedom allowed by the internet for true opinions to come out

Actually the VW forum I frequent is much more mundane than this place, largely because political discussion is heavily moderated.

It wasn't meant to be a personal comment.

I wasn't even thinking OD. Watching arguments over on the mk2 forum on the vortex is where I got that observation. :D

At the Studebaker Drivers forum politics and religion are forbidden. Nobody seems to miss them.

I will also say that Larry is the only person here who comes to mind who complains that everybody hates him.

There is an old saying about reaping what you sow.

Oh, well vortex is a different animal. I'm over there but just lurk, don't think I've posted in years.

I'm not sure what you mean by 'this way' as in "How did it get this way?". I've been here since 2002 and as I see it, it's been 'this way' all along. OD is a free exchange of ideas. Some people get their panties in a wad and some don't. If a person is worried about the effects, it's easy to buy wad-resistant panties.

You staying?

Studebaker ownership IS a religion. Discussion of other religions would be superfluous...

Studebaker enthusiasm must indeed be a religion.

My Aunt married a Rancher in North Dakota. They separated about 15 years later, but when I knew the guy in the early seventies, his farm trucks and his car were all Studebakers. He seriously said several times that when they wore out he just didn't know what he was going to do. It was as if after Studebaker went out of business, there was no one else to bulid cars and trucks, so he would be walking.:eek: