What Mentalic said about not noticing moderators here is what makes this forum unique. It shows that the folks posting on here must have been doing pretty good sofar. Obviously with any group of people with different opinions there has to be a little clash at times or a disagreement, but in the time I have visited this forum I have found it to be very interesting (and at times mind boggling).
Sometimes people get a bit carried away and I think a thread like this reminds everybody enough of the fact that this forum is largely as succesful as it is because someone can come here for help and there will be a lot of people eager to try and help. So after a little reminder like this I think we can mainly agree that this is a pretty cool and unique place to be and that we all like pitching in to keep it that way.

Moderation is for natzis. Free Speech Rules!!!

Really though, arm-chair psychologing aside, not everyone who visits here is serious about saving gas, and I think it is ok to cut the chaffe a bit since you will waste a lot of time and energy for nothing, and produce a lot of misleading posts that folks can pick and choose from to convince themselves that they need do nothing different.

Gas prices dropped, that is why attendance is down, if it is down, we are that selfish. I like the idea of this being a place for people who are serious about saving gas/energy.

If you're still here, good. If we scared you off, that's good too.

When the HP-Junkees board invasion occured, those people were obviously being stupid and not serious about joining the board. However, Hummer - H2 and Blue 03 Civic were. The guy with the Civic could have made a lot of improvements and I hope he stays around!. Even without instant MPG feedback, he could have made a big improvement. Perhaps, if someone has said 'How much do you spend on fuel per month', then we could have worked out how long it would take a Scangauge to 'pay itself back' based on 10-20% improvement simply by having it.

I have always felt that the quality of people on this site is pretty good. That is why the whole Blue 03 Civic thread really shocked me. I still can't figure out how that how conundrum started in the first place.

Personally I wish that people would start doing more experiments though. There is too much discussion and not enough action. People need to start thinking outside the box... myself included.

And yeah, the whole H2 thing was ridiculous. The guy made a mistake. He acknowledges that, and in his original post said that he knows how hated his vehicle is. Even so, he wanted help to try and alleviate some of the damage he made with his purchase. He even went so far as to only use the car when absolutely necessary. I would take positive-thinking H2 driver over a CRX cock any day of the week.

We are all in this together, thus attacking people gets us nowhere.

This was the type of thing I was thinking of. The guy made a mistake, realized it, and wants to try to make the best of it. He would be the perfect person to go back to his H2 buddies and try to enlighten them. I truly hope he and the others don't leave when they need to be here the most.

"The true sign of maturity is the ability to let an insult go unanswered"

Its and interesting tread I have noticed. I certainly pick a few fights here and there but they are never about saving gas and I dont think they are usually about people sucking. I also follow the internet/face to face idea, but then again, I say a lot more to peoples faces then I would on this forum, so there you go.

Iono why this trend has grown up, but I spose its the way things go with the internet and the best we can do is be cheerful when cheer is needed and make sure those who might feel attacked know that they are not in the wrong...

*shrug* I like my bike too much these days, :p

An important thing to remember for future threads...

(1) If someone does a high mileage, and *has* to do it... then if they come here to get better MPG doing the miles they will do anyway, then it is good!. The extreme example is, if someone did 1,000,000 miles per year, then small savings in fuel usage will probably save, overall, more CO2 emissions than most of the rest of the board put together!

(2) If someone drives a 'Super_Ultra_Hummer', which gets 1MPG, and they do 10,000 miles for year. If they can hypermile it to 2MPG, then they will save 5000 gallons per year... And again reduce CO2 by a lot more than the rest of us put together!. If we frighten them away they will go back to 1MPG driving.

Hello -

I agree with the "internet/face to face" thing.

There isn't much reason to knock them when they arrive. If they do any homework and start reading threads, it won't be hard for them to figure out what the majority of GasSavers think of their cars.

However, along with generic useful advice (slow down, get a ScanGauge), there is nothing wrong with telling them that their best bet is to get a second small car for commuting.

If they say they can't afford to have two cars, then show them the math that spells trading the car in for a fuel-sipper down the line.

I always give posters the benefit of the doubt until they prove otherwise.

CarloSW2

I am not in favor of piling on, or driving off anyone who is interested in improving their mileage. However, in each of the instances you have observed, it seems to me that the new members were doing a lot of double-speak because on one hand they claimed they wanted advice and help in getting better mileage, but on the other hand they weren't really interested in listening to someone tell them something they didn't want to hear.

When someone is looking for help or asking for help, but they lay down a whole bunch of ultimateums about what they aren't willing to do, it's like saying they are interested, but only as long as you tell them something they want to hear. That I sort of have a problem with. If they don't really want to know what they can do to improve their mileage, or they really aren't willing to do or consider doing what someone tells them and then they get their noses out of joint, it becomes a little bit of a self fulfilling predisposed offense, before anyone said anything, in the first place.

It seemed to me like these particular folks didn't want to hear what people had to suggest and they took issue to what people did suggest, when they asked. My feeling is that I would rather have people be able to make whatever suggestions they have, if people ask for help, rather than have everyone avoid posting because they are afraid someone might be offended, when those people seem like they were already predisposed to being offended, anyway.