[Normy]

Here's a question for y'all:

* Does the forum revolve around the hobby,

Or...

* Does the hobby revolve around the forum~

-THERE is another fairly famous web forum that deals with Porsche automobiles. Their forum is well done, though it still uses the same Vbulletin software that many others does, and they have all the same problems. On this other forum, people discuss Porsche details in minutae- it is amazing what you can learn there! This particular place is also very good for Porsche maintenance information. The big difference between the two: Level of arrogance.

Over there, the management has the attitude that "we are everything, and if you don't agree then you are gone, f*ck you, we don't care-bye" The paying members call this being "Pelicanized". That's right- you're now consigned to the "second rate", or Pelican boards, from what I've read from the members. Nobody at this web forum has said any thing of this sort to me, but it is obvious from the people that post there that they think this way.

Well, on top of being arrogant, they are also intolerant. For YEARS I posted things over there in their highly-political "Off Topic" section, and wound up being called a homosexual on dozens of occasions.

Fine. I didn't complain for the most part, and I refuse to even address any accusation about my sexuality. That is, until this past year, when it got especially nasty. The moderator of the form, a San Diego resident that I'll call "Captain BiPolar" sat around for years and let people rant their bigoted views toward me, all the time sitting around and watching my every single post while looking for a reason to give me a hard time. Since bigotry is obviously a horrid thing, he banned me for a week for advising another poster on here that his extreme right-wing tendencies were better vented at a Nazi party website. Yes, I was banned for a week.

And yet the idiots derided me continuosly. Captain BiPolar sat about and gave me comments on my various threads with regard to maintenance issues on 928's, but he really didn't do me any good. The long and short is that I started to realize that the
ownership of this website [non-Pelican Parts] considered themselves above the fray.

You know what I wonder? I swear- sometimes I wonder if the people up in New Hampshire that run that place actually sometimes think they are above Porsche itself. I wonder...do they actually believe that the hobby revolves around the forum...instead of the other way around?

They threw me off of there recently, and I deserved it. I purposely got myself thrown off. That forum is addictive, and I wanted to make sure that I wasn't tempted to come back there. But also, I wanted to send them a message: You are NOT the Porsche hobby!

Thoughts-?

N