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General Sticking with the Fiat Forum!

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General Sticking with the Fiat Forum!

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namb

New member
Joined
Oct 6, 2004
Messages
50
Points
21
Location
North Yorkshire
Over the years of owning various Fiats and recently the Abarth, I have to say this is probably if not one of the best forums for technical advice - used many times - down to messages of sympathy when the old Cinq Sporting was written off a few years back with the family aboard. This in contrast to another forum, where I recently received a ban. I've been banned from the Abarthisti forum for.....well, to be honest, I still can't fathom?? Putting my point across....not for swearing or anything like that.....oh I asked and questioned why and for that I received a ban? Anyone a member on there....look up my posts and see where I crossed the line! namb500 was my username. Maybe my complaint about thinly spread Abarth dealers hit a raw nerve as one of the moderators is part of an Abarth dealer....vested interest me thinks? But I wasn't allowed to say that for some reason?

Guys, stick with this forum...open straight forward and willing to have bit of banter!

Long may it last!

Best regards
Mark
 
Namb, nothing like that ever happens on here ; ) To be fair.. It is rare.
This is a really great forum and like you say a lot of very good technical expertise served up with a dollop of common sense : )
 
Have added my thoughts to your other post

Im banned as well

In here is a nice place to be, real people with no vested interests or none Ive found thus far, just what a forum should be

Abartshiyttyy is unfortunately like politics, all open & honest, well that's the impression that needs to be promoted even if under the surface its anything but

Still we are big boys & just move on, let the kids fight on the playground
 
I think I must be one of the few here that isn't exiled from Abarthisti but frankly I can't be bothered with them either. I tend to shy away from any corporately sponsored forums as it is inevitably so far removed from "unbiased" as to be absurd. Some of the things I've seen posted have made my toes curl and equally I've been utterly bewildered as to why some people have been banned. Some of the bans have been well deserved though if only to keep things publicly decent.

The hardest part of running a forum though is keeping within reasonable legal restrictions. The owner and operator of the forum is liable for everything posted in addition to the poster. It doesn't take much to fall foul of this so a degree of vigilance is required and this gets used as a weapon in some places to excuse overly draconian enforcement.
 
The problem is that abarthisti and co only want to sell cars and a service, ben makes his money by people sticking around and getting the advice that they need.
 
306maxi said:
The problem is that abarthisti and co only want to sell cars and a service, ben makes his money by people sticking around and getting the advice that they need.
Click to expand...

Are we funding Bens lavish lifestyle in the far east, is he sitting on the beach with chicks at our expense?

Top bloke, you go Ben, Ill donate a bit more very soon when Ive put the Punto ills to rights lol

Joking aside, this place is not bad at all, not bad at all
 
Hosting a forum is significantly cheaper than it used to be 10 years ago, I'd be surprised if Ben didn't make a quid or two out of this forum, VERY surprised.
 
if the forum was hosted the same way it was 10 years ago it probably would be cheaper, but we would all be sitting here looking at an error message or waiting for ever for pages to load.

but he upgrades to bigger and better stuff all the time so people are kept happy.
every donated member has unlimited storage for photos in the gallery, that's all backed up an backed up some more along with the rest of the forum.

then there is all the stuff needed to promote the forum at events.

last i heard he was still having to top up the funding of everything out of his own pocket
 
dave said:
if the forum was hosted the same way it was 10 years ago it probably would be cheaper, but we would all be sitting here looking at an error message or waiting for ever for pages to load.

but he upgrades to bigger and better stuff all the time so people are kept happy.
every donated member has unlimited storage for photos in the gallery, that's all backed up an backed up some more along with the rest of the forum.

then there is all the stuff needed to promote the forum at events.

last i heard he was still having to top up the funding of everything out of his own pocket
Click to expand...

For a forum to grow & succeed it needs to be popular & have as many members as possible. Banning people for "reasons" only creates ill feeling & with the interweb the bad press gets broadcast. I guess its their business plan and their call
 
Stuart J said:
For a forum to grow & succeed it needs to be popular & have as many members as possible. Banning people for "reasons" only creates ill feeling & with the interweb the bad press gets broadcast. I guess its their business plan and their call
Click to expand...

Two different goals though.

Abarth forum wants to get people to buy cars and sell a service, they do this by positioning the product as a premium one and I suspect that if you made my usual comment of " it's just a 500 T-jet" then you'd get banned. Getting people to do stuff themselves will be less popular than recommending a dealer to do it. Hence why there was a comment on Abarth forum made by a dealer no less, that not changing your pollen filter would void the WHOLE warranty on a car.

Fiatforum essential sells the skills and knowledge of members (for free) and encourages people to break their ties with their stealer and do things and cheaply and PROPERLY as possible. Here members like myself and people like jrkitching are allowed to berate parts of the car which are poor quality and give people the knowledge they need to get their car repaired properly and as cheaply as possible. If someone's rear dampers, front wishbones, droplinks or strut top mounts go, I bet you that the people on the dealer led forum advise you to buy genuine bits to fix the car......
 
306maxi said:
Two different goals though.

Abarth forum wants to get people to buy cars and sell a service, they do this by positioning the product as a premium one and I suspect that if you made my usual comment of " it's just a 500 T-jet" then you'd get banned. Getting people to do stuff themselves will be less popular than recommending a dealer to do it. Hence why there was a comment on Abarth forum made by a dealer no less, that not changing your pollen filter would void the WHOLE warranty on a car.

Fiatforum essential sells the skills and knowledge of members (for free) and encourages people to break their ties with their stealer and do things and cheaply and PROPERLY as possible. Here members like myself and people like @jrkitching are allowed to berate parts of the car which are poor quality and give people the knowledge they need to get their car repaired properly and as cheaply as possible. If someone's rear dampers, front wishbones, droplinks or strut top mounts go, I bet you that the people on the dealer led forum advise you to buy genuine bits to fix the car......
Click to expand...

Fair point

I was banned because I posted that Jabbasport had remapped our Abarth to identical SS spec, Guess Fiat prefer selling £2500 remaps
 
Stuart J said:
Fair point

I was banned because I posted that Jabbasport had remapped our Abarth to identical SS spec, Guess Fiat prefer selling £2500 remaps
Click to expand...

Seems odd. There are whole forums over there dedicated to tuning (split by model). Plenty of aftermarket / non-Abarth stuff being discussed.

We are talking about the same place, aren't we?
 
Oi, don't be so rude otherwise we won't let you mix with the proper 500 owners...... :p Oh wait, orangesport only owns a 500 t-jet.... As you were
 
dave said:
last i heard he was still having to top up the funding of everything out of his own pocket
Click to expand...

Doesn't surprise me at all, good reliable hosting is not as dead cheap as most people think. But in the end the biggest cost is the personal time required to run a website.

I work on the Web for a living and it can be very time consuming running a custom built forum or site.
 
OrangeSport said:
Seems odd. There are whole forums over there dedicated to tuning (split by model). Plenty of aftermarket / non-Abarth stuff being discussed.

We are talking about the same place, aren't we?
Click to expand...

Yep, same place, didn't want to discuss it either, Im a pretty reasonable chap & found it all a tadge childish but at the end of the day its the owners forum, not the members so it has to end with their decision

Im sure I posted as Stuart J or Stuart_J on there so if anyone is still on go back & look at my posts & you will see how awful I really was
 
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