[Gary]

I have noted that a correspondent at Pat Hammond's MREmag has stated that DCC correspondence sent to Pat Hammond can contain rude emotional comments about other correspondents and this seems only to afflict the DCC side of things. Pat has said he will edit out comments that contain remarks of a personal nature. I totally support that stance so well done Pat!

If it was me I would take it a stage further and not even bother to publish correspondence that contains such remarks but Pat has refrained from taking this course of action for now.

I have also noted that it is broadly only DCC discussion in any model railway chit chat area on the web that engenders such high emotional outbursts.

This seems to be at odds in a world where model railway hobbyists are generally courteous, friendly, helpful and polite. There is no other subject matter in the model railway world that I can see that seems to bring emotions to the fore as DCC and digital control.

My own personal experiences are that when you have a face to face chit chat with fellow hobbyists about DCC then hobbyists are courteous, friendly, helpful and polite and do the hobby credit.

However things seem to change when confronted with a computer keyboard and hobbyists start behaving badly!

Am I right or wrong and why is this?

Happy modelling
Gary

 

[Brian Considine]

QUOTE (Gary @ 17 Jan 2007, 08:23) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Am I right or wrong and why is this?

A lot of truth here Gary (& this is comming from someone who has exchanged a few "broadsides" with you !).

BTW - what happended to the modular layout project - you were putting a lot of work into that before we all got going with DCC ?

 

[ahammond]

It is the same with several other different hobby forums that I visit. The remoteness of the keyboard and lack of eye to eye contact emboldens people to say things that they would not otherwise dream of. As a result the normal rules of considered argument and discussion tend to go out of the window and matters often deteriorate into a personal slanging match. Most of the Railway modeling forums that I visit generally seem quite mild in comparison to some other hobby/sport related forums.

It is up to the moderators to try and keep everything under control. Which must be pretty much like refereeing a 24/7/365 day bad tempered derby match. A nigh on impossible and totally thankless task.

 

[bangerblueed]

If you want to see slanging matches there is a trade related forum that I am a member of and well some of what goes on would make your hair curl there are whole threads 200 plus posts long between trade union reps and non union trade association bods that consist of calling each other all names under the sun and accusing one another of all sorts of deviant practises !!! At first it is very entertaining but after a while it gets very tedious

What gets said on MRE mag is quite mild by comparison