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Rik84 - a Eulogy

18K views 134 replies 84 participants last post by  evo101 
#1 ·
To the Forum -

I have spent the last 5 years here as a contributing member. I've been a noob, I've laughed, I've learned, I've made some unbelievably strong friends. Friends that have been there for me personally when I went through a divorce. Friends that have been there when I recently went through a traumatic situation at home, friends that have counselled me on business and personal items of varying degrees of importance. And of course, friends that have helped me along the way with my cursed Evo.

It saddens me that the community I love and support (I've donated to eulogy funds, shipped parts around the continent, stayed up till god knows when talking someone off a ledge) has turned into the mess we see today.

I had/have a very serious issue with SpeedCircuit and Dana LoDico. I am not getting into it herein but this is the main reason the forum has turned into what it has over the last week. It baffles me that staff can not see that their actions are being perceived as supporting and sheltering SC and Dana. Most recently my build thread was wiped from existsnce due to "Vendor Bashing". Much more serious "bashing" has been made towards ex vendors like XTR and Forged but threads were not closed - those vendors were booted. BUT seeing as the venerable Dana LoDico owns SpeedCircuit and admins our home extra caution is being taken.

I can not stand nor support this biased moderation. I do not care if this bias is not the intent, it is the perception of intent in the public eye that is causing the major issues we are seeing.

I am leaving. I am eliminating myself from the community I love.

I will find a new home. I will update those who are interested on my progress and I will always be there to support and help anyone/everyone I can. If this moderation group can't open their eyes and sees that keeping Dana in an admin position and SC as a vendor will kill this forum then so be it - it will die.

It's even more sad that this all could have been avoided by a single shop acting professional and sorting their shit. Instead, it was turned into a sideshow, a sideshow in which I garnished almost all of the forum's support within 24 hours. I honestly was moved to tears when I saw the outpouring of support that came my way. That is not a joke, I cried. This has been such an emotional ride and unfortunately I do not see it ending soon. You all are fantastic. I truly love you as a community. This is a more frustrating and difficult decision than making the choice to leave my ex wife.

I apologize if there are any typos as I'm writing this on my phone. I also assume this will be deleted in short order so if you read this please comment and let's try to keep it open. I will be lurking in the shadows now and again but I will not be actively posting from this point on.

Now, with my departure I can confidently say that MadMartigan, Ut_Evox, Chaz, and Morricus will be leaving as well. There goes another major technical contributor (aside from the gnome known as YXD68 there is really no solid tech resource now, and he's not real anyways). 2 major contributors to the MR platform and our own red headed step child Chaz.

Rik - Out

Thanks Dana - you broke up the family with your closed minded and back yard bully antics.
 
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#63 ·
Easy meow. I'm not supporting or siding with anyone hear. I don't know the half What's going and don't care to be honest. Say what you will about this place, but in my 5 years as a member I will say that there is a wealth of knowledge regarding this platform and some good dudes on here.

Rik, best of luck getting the car back up and running. I know the frustrations of a build.
 
#70 ·
:yeahthat:
 
#72 ·
Sad to see a member of his caliber(And as he said many others) Stepping down and leaving due to ignorance by our admins/mods. Maybe this is their true intention, haven't been here long but I could tell that Rik was a very likable person. I'll be follow Rik and his friends off of here, Rik was the only person I spoke to anyways.

Good luck Everyone!
 
#73 ·
I've been in the US Evo community since 2003. Basically since the first Evo came here and I've owned a Evo since late 2004. Crap, over a decade. You can even look at my join data on the other forum.

I've seen crap like this happen over and over again. It's unfortunately, the way of this industry. I got out of working in this industry because of this. 90% of the people working in it are back stabbers or crooks. I much rather enjoyed just being an enthusiast and a forum joker. The other 10% are super cool and I love sharing tech, stories and track days with them.

An interesting data point is that most of these horrible stories I've seen over more than a decade have to do with the states of New Jersey and Florida. Not sure what they are putting in the water there.

To the OP. Really sorry this happened to you. I really am.http://www.pinterest.com/pin/create/extension/
 
#76 ·
I've seen crap like this happen over and over again. It's unfortunately, the way of this industry. I got out of working in this industry because of this. 90% of the people working in it are back stabbers or crooks. I much rather enjoyed just being an enthusiast and a forum joker. The other 10% are super cool and I love sharing tech, stories and track days with them.
http://www.pinterest.com/pin/create/extension/
Eric @Kozmic said something similar. It's really hard to find a shop you can trust, true enthusiasts who are not all about money but just about the passion of building cars.
 
#75 ·
One of the industry problem is that stock cars have a lot of R&D to make good balanced car. If car like Evo X is intended for DD and light tracking - it's balanced for that purpose. If car is not for that - it's very hard or too expensive to change it. But there are people, who want to make their cars better. And once they start - they just use a lot of personal money for upgrades. But quantity of those people is comparably small. So since there is a demand - there is a proposal. But with low demand in almost all cases those parts done by small companies who have no idea what they doing. Who have no resources and experience in doing any R&D. So they do parts, sell them, find problems, but don't know how to fix them. But they don't want to lose income they make. So instead of telling a truth that they never really tested their parts, that they know about significant flows, they just becoming vendors at the car communities. And try hard to keep truth hidden while using connections to be respected in the community. Some of them becoming mods, admins or build up strong relationships with censoring authorities. Same goes to the installers. Whole industry relies on 2 myths - stock cars made like that to fit in emission requirements and to have low costs. While both of those things are true - in most cases it's not the real reason why parts done like that.

Much healthier situation with those who just do maintenance, exterior/interior stuff. But performance related...

Take a look at very famous example - K&N filters. Filter that has a surface smaller than stock can have lower resistance only in one condition - it's filtering abilities are worse. Sure K&N knows that they are responsible in engine reliability degradation more than any other company in the world. But who cares? They also know that you can't really wash a good filter, but hey - you still can say that you have a lifetime warranty. And sad thing that same can be said about almost any company in the aftermarket industry.

That's a reason of backstabbing nature. And you can find only few examples of those guys, who really try hard to be honest, to study as much as they can and really push progress. Others just physically can't, so they pay racing teams for placing their logos, refer to experience they never had and keep lying.

Whole idea of collecting money from vendors is just plain bad. As well as absence of democracy in the community. Forum don't need to make a money to work. It can be managed by community voted volunteers, can run on a extremely small donations, can have karma system (i.e. stackoverflow.com) instead of post number/date of join ratings, can have a real public wiki instead of stick topics which you can't update after one year.

So majority of those forums become just bad, because after some time it's about doing a protected business, feel yourself as a powerful and respected person, collect money from vendors for ads. And once in a while bad case happens - respected company does bad to respected member and don't understand that this fuckup have to be paid off. Why? Because it's so easy to start thinking that thousands of people going to respect you no matter what and you have all options to cover up any fuckup.

So, well, it can be done different. But it looks like not here since we're getting no answers so far.

P.S. Sorry for my strange english, you know I'm not a native speaker.
 
#77 ·
Oh man I've been here since early 2009 and been mostly a lurker reading and educating myself on this platform. Bought my evo in late 08 and been on this site atleast once a day for the last 6 years. Many of the well known username here I recognize and follow their threads or read their tech. I'm just dissapointed that this has to happen. This forum is going in a direction like Honda-tech.. died out cause all the original member and knowledgable member left and everything just stops.
 
#78 ·
Well been watching this thread and seeing who is leaving and it seems there are quite a few good ones already gone. Made several friends here myself since joining in April 2012. I post quite regularly, help others out where I can and get advise from the knowledgable.
I have to say (apart from the political crap that goes on up above) I really liked it here, but I only see a downhill path from this point out so I too shall be leaving but I shall stay a lurker and check pm's just incase.
Sad times for what was once a great forum!
 
#80 ·
Hey guys. I haven't really been on here for the last several months, but regardless, I am sad to see so many guys leaving. If at all possible, can someone give me a brief refresher as to what happened? As I understand it, RIK's build thread got deleted and I suspect that is where most of the problems came to light. If the response is, "use the search function," then I guess I'll put a hold on my curiosity, but I am sincerely interested as this is a place where I once spent all of my limited free time. Thanks in advance
 
#81 ·
I think this forum still has plenty of potential left in it.

A lot of drama and disputes are happening within this forum lately. There will always be disputes/drama/injustice within most forums especially car forums. By leaving this forum and going elsewhere what does that actually achieve? Does that help the community within this forum? Definitely not. I understand the support for the member but why destroy/hurt something that still has a functional community with many questions etc.

I think people are over reacting by leaving this forum because there's a dispute between two parties.
 
#84 ·
I think this forum still has plenty of potential left in it.



A lot of drama and disputes are happening within this forum lately. There will always be disputes/drama/injustice within most forums especially car forums. By leaving this forum and going elsewhere what does that actually achieve? Does that help the community within this forum? Definitely not. I understand the support for the member but why destroy/hurt something that still has a functional community with many questions etc.



I think people are over reacting by leaving this forum because there's a dispute between two parties.

It's the fact the powers to be are not dealing with a dispute correctly, special treatment has been given, things have been hidden and a creditable shop/main admin basically said screw you I can do what I want in front the the entire forum. It's not over reacting at all, it's about standing up for foundations, what's right and wrong, and that there is a serious conflict of interest going on causing severe doubt in credibility, honestly, fair behavior and most users see that as enough reason to walk away.
 
#82 ·
I think that complaint is still online. Its enough to read it.
 
#85 ·
Damnit man! I just spent all weekend learning everything I could about this forum and thought that most of the people that are leaving, in fact are extremely knowledgable and was looking foward to future communication and info from all. Sad, the same type of stuff happened on RX8 Club too.
 
#86 ·
Shucks, created an account on the new forum last night at home, after the personal invite from Rik and Pounder. Get to work to sign in...it's blocked! At work is where I do most of my forum work...hmmmm
 
#93 ·
PM me new site please. Sad to see this forum start to fall apart. All of this could have been avoided by 1 man being a man and admitting his mistake. The damage to the community and reputation is all irreversible over 6k? To me that is beyond ridiculous, being a business owner if I have to eat 6K to right my reputation so be it. Ive eaten 20k on jobs for my reputation. This goes to show a man who is not all about the community and furthering the platform like we have all been lead to believe. I do not have an evo anymore and have since been long gone but I always loved living in the past through this forum. Good luck all!
 
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