Hey Guys.

Today I tried to PM a member here in NAM. You know him here as "Partsman".........Unfortunately I could not......Apparently he was locked out from communication by Admin the other day and was given an infraction by Adrian at IB.......Why ? Because he had a reference to Inskip BMW MINI in his signature where he is employed.......

So maybe Admin could have sent him a "polite" PM asking that he modify his sigature ? Didn't happen...........

Maybe they could have sent him an email concering his signature ? Well that didn't happen either.........

What did happen was that he was given an "Infraction" and was temporarily banned from usage ! ? !

We all know Joaquin, he has been a long standing NAM member, a terrific guy, knowlegable with our MINI's, personable, intelligent, approachable, and courtious. So could have Admin handled this in another way ? I think so. What the heck ever happend to the "people skills" these days ? Maybe being stuck behind a computer so much taken those skills away ? I don't know.


But what I do know, is that in my opinion, THEY SHOULD BE THANKFUL for all he has done to make NAM the sucess it is today, and I may even go so far to say that they SHOULD be paying HIM for all the time he helps us out here............. Whether it's questions on OEM tires and rims, ECU issues, swapping out parts from one MINI model to the next, the list is endless. Just check 90% of his past threads and posts and you will see why I say that.

Did admin even consider Joaquin's contribution to the actual sucess of NAM, and providing IT's members with intelligent and accurate answers ? No. Did they even THINK that as a BMW/MINI full time employee, Joaquin could be an invaluable resource to this forum ? NO !

So Booooooooo !

Boooooo to you NAM ADMIN !

In this particular case IMO you screwed up. So do the right thing, apologize to Joaquin and re-activate his account.

It could and should have been handled much differently...........

 

 

I agree with the general idea of what you're saying, but I doubt it played out that simply. I think it should be reactivated, however I don't think anyone should get paid to post on free forums...thats sounds dumb.

 

He didn't follow site guidlines so he got punished. Lots of that going around.

 

I was being facetious about getting paid.........


And now we'll see how long your link to "Cardomain" lasts in your signature............................

 

I could not agree more Raven!! Thanks for the post. Looks like they did the same to another member here who DOES NOTHING BUT HELP PEOPLE!!!! K-huevos DIY's, guides, pics and years of helpful posts gets rewarded with the same treatment. It is UNREAL. I could understand giving ME infractions or many of the others here but people who spend countless hours helping people, providing pictures and ALWAYS helping people diagnose a problem is unacceptable. Just look up K-huevos posts over the years, you will see nothing but detailed write ups, and helpful posts. What nam is doing is unreal. It is truly sad.

It looks like this site is really run by a couple of Vendors.

 

I've been a member since 2002. Due to illness I was away from the site for approx 4 years. Coming back was a shock - it definately was different. NAM has become a commercial site with less concern for members. IB MUST realize the site exists because of the members, not because of IB. I still like NAM, but it is no longer as member friendly as it was.

Just my take on it.

Kevin

 

Unfortunately that is the world. I am pretty new, but I know from many other sites and even online games that went from user friendly to vender/commercial friendly very fast.

 

I'm a still a relative NAM newbie, and I will preface by saying that I don't know if there were exacerbating factors behind the "infractions" doled by the Admin, but I will offer this:

In my experience all communities -- both online and off -- benefit most from transparency. If Partsman and K-Huevos were dinged by Admin for posting links to their places of business, it seems completely bass-ackwards.

Frankly, if I'm being offered advice by someone here on NAM, I'd like to know if they might have any ulterior motives behind their suggestions.

But again, I'm just a newbie.... What do I know....

 

I doubt you will find ANY posts recommending a NAM member make an appointment at their place of business............

AND with regards to suggestions and guidance in fixing our MINI's, there is much that can be said for knowing the "source" of the information, it's voracity and credibility.........

My 2 cents.

 

Exactly!!

Now, to play Devil's advocate for a moment:

Presumably NAM's official vendors/sponsors pay a premium for that designation. It's not fair to them if a non-vendor/sponsor is allowed essentially "free" advertising. (Even if it's not really advertising....)

I belong to another forum where the admins have a policy along those lines, and members are pretty good about self-regulating.

My sense is there's got to be a proper balance between honoring the official vendors' status and allowing NAM members to fully disclose their professional affiliations.

 

Agreed

Policing this site is an important task. But Partsman was not "directly" hawking his wares, nor would he directly or indirectly benefit from someone going to Inskip MINI......just giving us the benefit of his expertise.

Then at the opposite side of that spectrum, we have some Vendor's paying to advertise here selling MINI aftermarket parts w/o little or no basics of research & development and credible data to back up their claims.

It's the members like Joaquin who have the basics down, has access to needed information we need, to weed out some of this stuff, and yet he is the one censured. Maybe NAM should be held to a higher level regarding the companies who are allowed to advertise and sell MINI equipment here ?

To my knowledge and his credit, Partsman never used his position to coerce or sway anyone to Inskip Mini. He is very much a professional and knows the boundries.

Hopefully this will be cleared up soon.

 

Let me first say that discussing issues like this in this forum (banning, etc) is a violation of site guidelines in itself.

It seems like no one wants to actually read or follow them, just act stunned when they are cited for an infraction. Read the site guidelines and follow them, and there will be no issues or "surprises".

It takes more than one violation to be banned...often times up to 5 or 6. Do the math. I don't know the specific circumstances in this case as I was not in the mix on this one, but I do know that it was not just the signature violation that was cause of the banning, but merely the "final straw". The points add up.

In addition, the vendors pay QUITE a premium to advertise, and have been very territorial as a result. If they see a non-vendor ad (including a link in a signature to a non-vendor site), they are quick to report it, and it is acted upon.

In the meantime, this thread is 1) probably inappropriate but I will leave it for now and 2) in the wrong place since I am leaving it, so I am moving it.

I have only a small piece of advice - it's very easy to act outraged when you don't know the whole story about something. There are always two sides.

 

+1

 

Very well said Melissa.

 

Threads is not appropriate ?

Please elaborate on that a litte Melissa.

We understand the vendors req their pound of flesh, that is what they pay for....but as one who takes an interest in
this forum on a daily basis, when it comes to it's members it can be counter productive to put cash ahead of coutesy......

A compromise would be good for those qualified to be able to post their area of expertise would it not ?

 

Pretty straight forward. According to the NAM Guidelines, you are not supposed to talk about banning of members in the public forum. Any questions regarding who is banned, who isn't, and why, should be directed to us through the Contact Us link found in the main menu.

 

Effectively eliminating the ability for any member to leave negative feedback......Got it.

Thanks.

 

You are more then welcome to leave negative feedback, just in the proper location. Speaking about other members should not be done in public.

 

... and this is why I'm very rarely on NAM. Good job justifying yourselves... no really... good job.

Raven, your efforts are futile, but applauded nonetheless.

 

You all are acting like this is the only reason he was sent to time out. He has multiple other infractions on his account, this was just the one that put him over the limit and sent to time out land. He will be back in 6 days, if he chooses to do so.

 

First - Thanks to you and Melissa for not sending this thread to the cyber bucket and according to the forum policy rightfully so. No one better than I understands the need for discipline.

As far as the input here in this thread so far ? It's probably when you stop getting any sort of feedback on issues that it would be time to worry.

But, for the sake of those kids here with issues with their MINI's, my intent for posting was that I just felt that maybe it could have been handled in a different way where everyone would have benefited and no one would have been the wiser. This was on my mind.

Thanks.

 

I do not understand why it is an issue for people to leave negative feedback with the people that need to hear it. Why should every person with a complaint be able to talk about it publicly so it escalates out of control solely because people cant get out of their own way. It would be different if people left positive feedback, but they do not and probably will never do so. If you have a problem let the proper people know about it and don't try and start petitions to get people unbanned after breaking the rules.

 

No one is saying negative feedback is not allowed - in fact, it's welcomed by me quite a bit. However, there are appropriate ways to handle things. Discussing a specific situation (ie: naming names about someone specifically banned, what for, etc) is not appropriate for a public discussion. Discussing the rule itself and how it generally may be applied and why it does or does not work is another story, and is entirely appropriate.

You are all always more than welcome to PM me with questions, send an email via the "Contact Us" link, or post in this particular forum about site logistics (including guidelines). But discussing a specific incident, naming names, infractions, etc, is not appropriate for public consumption IMO - it is an issue between the site and the person involved, NOT all of our members.

You are more than welcome to disagree with me at anytime, too I love a good discussion!

 

Ok I am going to be talking about the "rule itself", so don't give me any strikes, . I think specifics should be discussed as how would anyone know what happened? How would we ever know what happened to someone? Are you saying we can PM you about who and what? We don't want this scenario to happen, "hey what happened to Ivan? I don't know, he just disappeared..........Siberia? ".