I'm banned from MiniMania

[MtyMous]

Well this thread sure did kick off. Well I feel good about my decision to just not post over there. Apparently, according to Jemal, "numerous" other people wanted me gone... but I guess not enough you keep a ban more than an hour. His reason for banning me in his follow up emails was to get my attention because he didn't know if my profile email address was current. Which is hilarious because I've told him and the staff numerous times that I wanted to update my email but the software is preventing me from doing so. haha. Heck, I haven't lived in St. Louis in like 10 years and it still says I live there.

As for the parts, yeah... I haven't spent much money with them since 2009, but I was buying onesie, twosie pieces from them up until Jemal's last public outburst. Obviously that didn't even get his attention. I really do intend to spend over $5k before the thing is back on the road completely. It won't be there.

I spend my money with MiniSport, Mini Spares (directly, and usually only if I can't get it in a big order from Mike), and direct from other places like KAD and MED who are willing to work with me on bulk and some of their cool stuff.

I haven't been back on the site since he unbanned me a couple hours after banning me. I hope the knowledge there makes its way over here, and that the bad attitudes, the purist elitists, and other general dumbassery dies with that place. I'm happy to donate to the cause here with Dan and the site. I don't think I have TOO many parts that are worth his time to order. And most of it will be finishing items like seats, custom brackets, sound deadening, and other generic car part stuff that I'll get through some of my other hookups.

Thanks for the support, dudes. Check my build thread soon for some updates before I make it up to Ohio.

[MPlayle]

Folks over there have been complaining for years that they cannot update their profiles.  It just falls on deaf ears - Don and Dennis do not seem to care.

As for the banning - it is more likely just Jemal being a troll-lover and throwing his weight around while the Racines were away again.

[94touring]

I haven't been able to update my profile for over 5 years, I can't upload pics from my phone, and unless I'm hooked to WiFi need to refresh twice per page for it to load from my phone.  Then you have a lousy layout and a terrible moderator on top of it.  The most annoying thing here, at least for me, is no solution within the software to fix sideways mobile uploads. 

[Jims5543]

I never joined and have no idea what the draw to that place is, the format is so outdated and annoying.  As soon as I saw it was a 25 year old format I was not interested in signing up or even navigating it.

I think I have looked on that forum a total of 4 times now and the last two were due to posts on here.

Oh and Dan, just take your pics sideways... problem solved.

[jeff10049]

Jim the draw was the knowledge base and the number of members you could find a used part or correct answer fast. But as the good guys get drove away that is changing combined with backwards moderation only scorning the concerned users and letting the trolls post incorrect and dangerous advice while standing by there side defending them that forum is nearly done. I really can't believe it is let to go on as its part of a business. I guess they think that there to big to fail maybe they're right they been around a while time will tell.

Jeff   

[John Gervais]

Yep - the knowledge base has definitely declined in the time that I've been there.  ... Back in the old days, the Commonwealth had the dominant representative position; TONS of UK, OZ, NZ, Ireland, (etc.) guys who in my opinion well and truly knew their stuff (KC, MadMat, Mk1, M. Chichak, Steve Gault, Geoff, and the list goes on...) and they shared their knowledge and experience freely - no bs and not too much politics.  Sometimes opinions differed, but it wasn't bad.  There were guys who knew straight up restorations, and guys who knew how to get more function than fashion.  Something for everyone, friendships were formed and operational theory / principal formed the basis for some great discussions. 

Today, not so much so.  It's devolved into an inbred band of mouth-breathers spewing the same canned quotations and not a whole lot of analytical thinking taking place.  I suspect that pretty soon everyone will have the same spec engine and suspension because 'he did it like that...' and it'll be the way to go.  The only way to tell the cars apart will be which color pine tree air-freshener hangs from the mirror...

MiniSpares keeps many genuine parts in production, so I support them.  MiniMania, who buys from MiniSpares and used to share the message board with MiniSpares, lost me quite a while back.

[Jims5543]

When it came to heavy hitting knowledge, RX7 Club was the place to be for that. The problem was the moderators were all asshats, there were more trolls there than knowledge, the place was over run with pimple faced Fast and Furious retards. So you would have to sift through acres of cow shit in order to get to the good stuff. No matter how good the knowledge was there, I never used the place other than to sell stuff.

I stuck with the smaller forums and that is how I met Dan.  Eventually some of the good guys wander over to the small forums.


Many many years ago, I was in a shop that specialized in Rotary work and the owner was a legend not only in regards to the work he was doing but he campaigned some very successful cars too. The Shop was called Pettit racing, another shop I knew the ower of was Speedsource.  You may or may now know who either it, unless you watch american road racing. Specifically Rolex 24.

Both shops are pioneers in their respective rights.

I asked both owners at one time in person years ago why they did not have any presence at all on forums. Bot said the same thing, forums are full of assholes who all know better then you. We are racing, winning and are successful, we know what we are doing, we ARE doers. Why would we go online and subject ourselves to criticism from some pimple faced 16 year old living in his parents basement, or some middle aged loser that has done nothing with his life but sit at a keyboard and read. What benefit would it be to us?

I purchased an internet forum owners car, it was touted as the most bestest built car ever, all the forum hot shot experts had worked on it and all bragged about how amazing this car was, I bought it sight unseen because of all the hype around it.  It was the biggest POS I had ever seen, if I was doing it wrong anfd they were the experts, I did not want to be right.

I actually flipped that car over immediately after receiving it via a shipper for a loss with full disclosure as to everything I felt was wrong with it.

My point is, sure, there are some really good guys online some may legitimately know their stuff, many just seem to.  I would be willing to bet the ratio is slanted towards more idiots or keyboard warriors than you think.

There is a reason I am not giving out advice here on the tech side, I am still learning and would not dream of even thinking for a minute I know WTF I am doing with these cars. I could let my ego get the best of me and start copy pasting and making myself seem like something I am not, it is easy to do on the internet.

This is no reflection of the gang here, this place is an anomaly, it seems to be populated with real decent normal people and I like that a lot, smaller forums tend to be that way.