Escalation in race and team threads

[hollus]

This is ok?

British personnel in generally are biased to a point of toxicity

If it's considered ok on this forum then you can kiss goodbye to it being anything other than a toxic dump.

What next? General negative comments about black people, or Muslims, or Jews?

Is it ok to say that Germans are all anti-semitic? After all, there is a documented history about that.

I am a bit confused here, and maybe it is me being obtuse or insensitive, but I don’t get it. What exactly was so offensive on that post? You tried to explain, but only by comparison, and I’ll call it: by escalation.
The tone of that post was ugly, agreed. But the actual accusation against british media is of bias. Bias. I mean, what could be worse than bias.
And in context, this is a sport, Hamilton (and others) drive under the british flag. (I really get confused with british, english and UK, but I digress). They get that anthem and that flag (dis)played if they win. And monday’s newspapers in Exeter celebrate it as “their” win. This national bias is at the very center if the success of any international sport.
So again, the accusation is if bias, and I refuse to be too shocked of offended by it.
He talked about british media in general. He did not say “all” (he might have mildly implied, agreed).
Is there an insult, aggravation, or anything there other than the accusation of bias?
Now, going for the word “all” that wasn’t there is a fine example of escalation, as is playing race, religion or certain examples from history. In my opinion.

For full transparency on how these things often play out: I did see a report in that post as xenephobic. I don’t think it is, for the reasons I explained, so I closed the report without action. A while later I saw the second report being discussed here. I still disagreed, but hey, maybe I am biased, so I did nothing, I let it all stand, by design, report included. This way a second mod gets to see and judge by himself. If the post is still standing (I just checked, it is) it means that other mods that might have seen it did not find it so horrible either. And a third or fourth mod might still remove it. It becomes a bit of a consensus decision in this way, because any one mod will normally refuse to judge the same matter twice.

[dans79]

I am a bit confused here, and maybe it is me being obtuse or insensitive, but I don’t get it. What exactly was so offensive on that post? You tried to explain, but only by comparison, and I’ll call it: by escalation.
The tone of that post was ugly, agreed. But the actual accusation against british media is of bias. Bias. I mean, what could be worse than bias.

Steven has edited the post now, but the user wasn't just talking about the media!

We know the British media, British personnel in generally are biased to a point of toxicity

British media, and British personnel are two different groups. British media is a handful of people. British personnel is the majority of the paddock!

Do you really think the personnel supporting Verstappen,Bottas, Perez, Sainz, Leclerc, Ricciardo, Alonso, Ocon, Vettel, Stroll, Latifi, are all secretly biased towards British drivers? And those are just the non British drivers, driving for teams officially based in the UK.

[nzjrs]

Steven has edited the post now, but the user wasn't just talking about the media!

We know the British media, British personnel in generally are biased to a point of toxicity

British media, and British personnel are two different groups. British media is a handful of people. British personnel is the majority of the paddock!

Tbh I read the original post 3 times and still missed the middle sentence where he explicitly accused the British people - that's not acceptable in my opinion.

No problem on the other hand calling out media. I love to do it

[hollus]

I did not interpret “personnel” that way either, i took it as the people working in the (brutish) media.
Now I wonder if paddock people in general is what was meant?
If it is paddock people working with the media then it gets really muddy.
But still, if the big accusation, the big offense, is of bias, I can live with that.

*Which does not mean that I agree or disagree with “them” being biased, it is not a mod’s job to judge that, I just do not consider an accusation of bias as an insult.

[Steven]

*Which does not mean that I agree or disagree with “them” being biased, it is not a mod’s job to judge that, I just do not consider an accusation of bias as an insult.

Exactly. It is the responsibility of members to be able to deal with biased members, and be aware they may be equally biased from time to time. It is inevitable in race and team threads really. Should very much be avoided in the other topics though.

We've always tried to let conversations run, relying on people to be enough of grown-ups to deal with silly comments and extreme bias. Only when it shows people can't, the mods step in.

PS: I read "personnel" as British workforce in general. Seems like it was just not clear enough (in which case, it could be another translation problem, and we need to be constantly reminded that this forum is an international one, with many many people not speaking English natively). It's gone now, so let's move on please.

[cooken]

So, the mods and site owner are fine with people making denigratory statements about a group of people based on nationality. I see a bit of a problem there....no?

Lest we forget, there is a big difference in stating:
"British people are likely to have a bias for British drivers."
and
"British people are biased to the point of toxicity".

The latter goes a step too far, and is unnecessarily flamboyant. It is also untrue; the original context was in claiming lack of critical assessment of Lewis, while it is well established that several members of the British media (let alone the British public) hold nothing but contempt for him.

[nzjrs]

So, the mods and site owner are fine with people making denigratory statements about a group of people based on nationality. I see a bit of a problem there....no?

Lest we forget, there is a big difference in stating:
"British people are likely to have a bias for British drivers."
and
"British people are biased to the point of toxicity".

The latter goes a step too far, and is unnecessarily flamboyant. It is also untrue; the original context was in claiming lack of critical assessment of Lewis, while it is well established that several members of the British media (let alone the British public) hold nothing but contempt for him.

Calm down, the English ambiguity (you did it yourself, people vs personnel) was sufficient explanation for me, let's move on.

[cooken]

So, the mods and site owner are fine with people making denigratory statements about a group of people based on nationality. I see a bit of a problem there....no?

Lest we forget, there is a big difference in stating:
"British personnel are likely to have a bias for British drivers."
and
"British personnel are biased to the point of toxicity".

The latter goes a step too far, and is unnecessarily flamboyant. It is also untrue; the original context was in claiming lack of critical assessment of Lewis, while it is well established that several members of the British media (let alone the British public) hold nothing but contempt for him.

Calm down, the English ambiguity (you did it yourself, people vs personnel) was sufficient explanation for me, let's move on.

I'm quite calm. I just see it as potentially problematic.

I went ahead and replaced people with personnel. To be honest I don't think it changes much. The underlined is what I would consider mostly inappropriate.

Anyways, I'm fine to agree to disagree. Just thought I'd throw in my take as I didn't see that nuance represented by anyone else yet.

[Tizz]

It may be much more effective if the mods were to reach out to some of the "senior" members of this forum who, through their own actions, are setting a bad example. Members with 100+ rating are attacking other members or are making comments that are over-the-top. It's no surprise then that the teenagers assume that this is acceptable behavior.

Agree completely.

[914hald]

I also loved this site for all the technic stuff, reading fantastic techical articles and forums about powertrains, aero and so on for hours every week.

What about banning naming drivers in all techical threads?
Aren't all the hate coming from hooliganism of one driver against another?

With F1 being more popular than ever, it beeing more like soocer fans now. We all have the same love for the fantastic techical side.
So what can bring us more together as a group?

[AeroDynamic]

Well, I expected to have rational, balanced discussion on here. I then came across a post from a member who wrote something completely unbalanced, and polarising. I have now realised this is the same member responsible for writing comments that generalised British personnel. Not surprising.

Anyway, I have to hold my hand up and say I took the bait and made an argument with the intent to balance that assertion. I then found myself getting negative downvotes from others in the same thread who accused me of being one sided (which wasn’t my intention, it was a consequence of responding to an extremely one sided assertion from this other member)..

Those other members then reacted to me the same way I reacted to that first member: offering one sided point of views and accusing me of the same thing they were doing. It’s A vicious cycle that anyone can find themselves being drawn into.

Perhaps long time members can form a committee here, and every 6-12 months, vote to extend new members registration or not.

[Gettingonabit]

Surely the offensive part is not the word "bias" that is objected to, it's the word "toxicity"?
The English dictionary defines the word toxic to be "very harmful or unpleasant in a pervasive or insidious way" - and insidious to be "(of something unpleasant or dangerous) gradually and secretly causing harm".

A blunt and offensive way to describe anyone of any nationality in my opinion.

[Steven]

It may be much more effective if the mods were to reach out to some of the "senior" members of this forum who, through their own actions, are setting a bad example. Members with 100+ rating are attacking other members or are making comments that are over-the-top. It's no surprise then that the teenagers assume that this is acceptable behavior.

Agree completely.

I think you grossly underestimate the effort that the mods put in here. I won't even try to estimate the number of PMs that pass around, and certainly no less to the long timers.

[Steven]

Surely the offensive part is not the word "bias" that is objected to, it's the word "toxicity"?
The English dictionary defines the word toxic to be "very harmful or unpleasant in a pervasive or insidious way" - and insidious to be "(of something unpleasant or dangerous) gradually and secretly causing harm".

A blunt and offensive way to describe anyone of any nationality in my opinion.

When exactly a publication is biased to such an extent that it's toxic is probably arguable, and not as clear as 1+1. The remark to "personnel" has been removed, so what stands is Mr. S saying British media are biased and toxic. There are several events in the history of F1 when British media was indeed at this level, but so were media of other countries. So again, we're now just mumbling over a detail. Please do that somewhere else.

Perhaps we can continue this thread with suggestions of how to resolve or at least mitigate some escalations that we seen in race and team threads (more often than not resulting from arguments based on bias).

[Tizz]

It may be much more effective if the mods were to reach out to some of the "senior" members of this forum who, through their own actions, are setting a bad example. Members with 100+ rating are attacking other members or are making comments that are over-the-top. It's no surprise then that the teenagers assume that this is acceptable behavior.

Agree completely.

I think you grossly underestimate the effort that the mods put in here. I won't even try to estimate the number of PMs that pass around, and certainly no less to the long timers.

I don't want to belittle the mods effort in any way. It has just been invisible to me so far as I haven't been warned and the hostility in the topics is still there. There is only one conclusion to be drawn: it hasn't worked as we hoped. The solution is easy: 3 strikes is out. At least for a while...