Well I got a lovely little email from Jemal today saying that he has banned me until we can resolve our issues. I told him my issue was with him and a whol lot of other stuff that he does. I told him he is the one that keeps derailing threads and provoking me, and I wouldn't waste my time groveling for him to un-ban me. Looks like this will be my new permanent home.
I told him I thought it was ridiculous that he banned me for asking him to contact me offline after I had contributed to a thread and he just waltzed in with nothing to add and started making provoking comments towards me. Especially considering there were numerous threads made (and not even by me) to ban other members. Then once that member was banned, he laughed it off when the person returned... that person was banned AGAIN, and he has welcomed him back for a 3rd... or 4th.. or... god knows how many times that moron has come back. If he chooses to lift the ban... great. If not... whatever.
So with that said, I have to ask... am I perceived as a raging asshole? Someone should probably tell me if I am so I don't infect this forum as well. I'll share the email traffic if anyone is really interested, but I'm really only starting this thread to get your feedback on whether you think I should have been banned and if I need to change the way I come off on this forum.
You seem OK to me.....but I didn't read your thread on MM...
Just post here. Screw those bastages.
Oh, I fully intend to keep posting here. You guys are the home of my build thread. Lol.
He's got some superiority complex about him and I'm just not willing to kiss his shoes.
The post that got be banned is in the "Classic Mini legal issues" thread over there. I have no idea where that all came from, but I hope that place gets their crap together before they go bankrupt and fall completely apart. I don't know how Don allows that guy to get away with the crap he pulls.
You are just politicly incorrect and are not too worried about what others think. Good for you. A spade is a spade, but sometimes it's just a friggin shovel. 77.gif
I do not understand this Triggerboy/Boison guy, what a maroooon.
And why does he feel it's necessary to pop into every thread and give such ridiculous advice?
Mtymouse, I've found you to be nothing but helpful and at times entertaining in the way you speak truth. I appreciate your input and if people have a hard time when you say things on a forum they need to grow up and get their panties out of a bunch.
Jemal supporting Boison is why I completely stopped posting over there.
When Don and company seem to be out racing, Jemal takes over as an a-hole stirring things up and doing things like banning MtyMous and others he starts stuff with.
Bans normal people yet unbans idiots. 8.gif 11.gif
Well I'm glad I've at least got a motley crew here to hang out with. haha.
I agree with all of your points. I'm not a very politically correct person, but compared to some of the guys I work with, I do hold my tongue quite well. The military works a bit differently, and I call it like it is most times. But I also try to remain respectful. I'm fully aware of what I don't know. But if I have something I think is constructive or an addition to the conversation, I try to share. I told Jemal that I disagree with him, but I still respect his knowledge and experience. The fact that he can't respect MY experience and knowledge is what pisses me off.
He has since sent me another email saying he did it just to get my attention and he has already un-banned me... what a joke. I'll spend next week in the garage building the short block and transmission on Tink with parts I DIDN'T buy from MiniMania.
Cool! 4.gif
What amazes me also is that I never got banned, not even when my conversational tone became more 'colorful' and primitive.
I've not posted very often since Tony returned to MM, I figured that it's operation lost cause and I've got better things to do than jerk around with a bunch of fools. There aren't too many 'good guys' left over there, so it's no big deal for me.
If Don wants to sh*t where he eats, so be it - there are plenty of places to get advice, inspiration and parts.
So, my mini has been parked pretty much since, I've rekindled a new hobby/interest - trout fishing - but this time it's sea trout on light tackle. Woohoo! Tons of fun! (A bit cold, though, standing in waders in the frigid ocean chop - the grunions just don't like it...)
I honestly think the Racine's don't get on and read their own forum anymore. They leave the forum's management to their "employees" like Jemal.
I only know you on here and you seem like a good guy to me so no, you are not coming across as a raging asshole.
I'm the same guy over there. But there are a lot of jerks over there that feel they know everything and no one else can possibly know how to do what they do... or heaven forbid a different/better way. haha
I haven't spent a dime at MM since maybe like 2004 or so when I bought new headlights and they shipped me the incorrect parts. I sent them back and then they sent the correct parts. I ended up paying for shipping three times for their mistake. After that I decided to not give them any more money.
Not sure what the deal is with the forum over there and how they coddle boisson. Perhaps he is a MM plant just to try to drum up traffic?
I lurk on both forums (not as much recently on either) but I feel that you post when you think you can add value to a thread. Which is the way it ought to be. I've appreciated your fresh perspective on things and "thinking outside the box". Your HID headlights (that you recently sold) is a perfect example
I'm not sure why Jemal has such a crush on boison but he has definately gone out of his way to defend the guy. Early on I was one whom contacted Jemal voicing my opinion that he needed to do something about the guy. Little did I know they would ultimately start dating!
MM members have a lot of tribal knowledge about the quirkyness of the cars, which can be nice when troubleshooting, but what annoys me are the number of "Mini snobs" over there. The guys that think a Mini isn't worth jack crap unless it's some super rare all original model. Several years ago I talked on the phone with a regular MM poster. Wow, what a one sided conversation that was. All he did was talk about how long he'd been into Mini's, how many he's owned over the years and how he has this or that rare such and such model. To me a Mini is a Mini. I like them all because they're all Mini's. Even an 850 model!
Heaven for bid somebody posts a picture on MM with a fan on backwards, or doesn't have the proper "S" script/emblem or whatever, or gasp, has something that Issigonis didn't do from the factory!
You mean to say some of you don't have concourse show minis using only oem parts?
And yet MM is big into other parts themselves, KAD stuff, heck, they even sell Vtec kits......
I'm not really a part of that community, so it's no big loss to me. I appreciate that they warehouse millions of $$$$ of Mini parts for us and for that they have to make a profit, but yikes this stuff is expensive there.
It would be one thing if I could get my order a lot quicker from them, but stuff comes in 3 days from England and it takes 4 days from them in California!
MiniDave,
Mini Mania's website makes it "seem" like they have a huge inventory. You almost always have to call to ensure they actually have the parts in stock. They have SLOWLY gotten better about removing the listings for parts they have not actually carried for a long time, but there still tends to be a LOT of parts listed that they no longer really carry. Most of their parts come from the same UK suppliers we can order directly from (such as Mini Spares).
MPlayle Beat me to it, I my experience (when I used to buy from them) they don't stock much of anything they wait until you order to make their order from the uk. I learned to click on the live help button and ask is this part in stock ready to ship? The answer has almost always been no even for the most common items.
I had a $3,000.00 wish list that I had them check stock on out of the entire list they had 1 upper rebound bumper in stock. went over to seven they had everything except 1 wire clip for the washer bottle that came a few days later and my $3,000.00 order went down to 2,400.00.
Like Mtymous I took about 10k of business elsewhere figure I saved about 3k in doing so.
BTW I award you 10 good karma points Mtymous for calling a spade a spade.
Jeff
Quote from: MPlayle on December 27, 2015, 02:38:03 PM
Most of their parts come from the same UK suppliers we can order directly from (such as Mini Spares).
I know, I get almost everything from Mike at Mini Sport...and like I said I get stuff faster that way too....it gets here from England in 3 days, it takes 4 to get it here from California! Not to mention at half price.....or less.
The other thing I always forget is the store here I think Dan said he can get most anything for I know id rather spend money here. I need to beat it to my head to check here or ask if I don't see it. I guess I think of this site more for body panels and stuff.
Jeff
The few things I sold that weren't in stock I had drop shipped from the supplier. Why should the customer pay on shipping twice and the time wasted? I'd like to get a list of consumables on hand to sell but will take time as I keep setting up shop. Bulk orders that make things worth it are not cheap.
We posted at the same time. I did have a list of parts other than panels listed but I didn't have hardly any in stock. The problem was being the middle man and not knowing what my supplier was out of stock on. I'll still place requested orders if anyone has a list with part numbers and descriptions. I simply forward the list to get a quote and then will have it shipped directly to you.
Quote from: jeff10049 on December 27, 2015, 06:31:28 PM
The other thing I always forget is the store here I think Dan said he can get most anything for I know id rather spend money here. I need to beat it to my head to check here or ask if I don't see it. I guess I think of this site more for body panels and stuff.
Jeff
And thanks for the donation!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.