| DSMtuners wasn't the first site with a forum where DSMers could participate. And it certainly won't be the last. More forum sites are popping up and the DSM community is becoming more divided and scattered. Many DSMers will always choose to call one DSM forum home over another. Sometimes that "home" won't be DSMtuners. That's perfectly natural, as we feel that each DSM site has its own personality and atmosphere. And though we feel we have more to offer than any other DSM site out there, we certainly can't fault some people who may feel comfortable in a certain atmosphere that we may not provide.
With that said, we've become more concerned with the hostile attitudes and harsh statements being tossed around by members of these DSM sites (including our own), further dividing our community. Friendly rivalries are a natural occurrence with sites that focus on the same group of enthusiasts. But making blanket statements and generalizations about members of a rival forum tends to be ridiculous, not to mention extremely immature and even a little ignorant. What most people forget when doing this is that a large percentage of DSMers spread their participation across multiple DSM sites, especially those who are truly passionate about the DSM platform. It makes no sense to make disparaging comments about another DSM site's members, as the members you're insulting are very likely to be members of the site you call home. To think that "your" site has the "best" members is just laughable. We certainly don't encourage this mentality, and would hope that our regular members are intelligent enough to accept the reality that we're all DSMers and that you can't paint the entire membership of another site with the same brush. Just like other DSM sites, we have some very accomplished and knowledgeable DSMers who are very active on our site.
What sets DSMtuners apart from other DSM sites? Besides all of the features we offer that aren't widely available on other DSM sites (like the Parts Catalog, the Project Car Journals, the Tech Guides, dynamic Timeslips/Dyno sections, in-depth Regional forums, etc), the main difference is really how we manage our site and the rules we force people to follow when participating on our site. Some sites allow people to be condescending and belittling to new members. And though we can relate with the frustration in dealing with common/repetitive questions from people who obviously haven't done much research before posting a question, we still feel that treating others with respect and dignity is extremely important. We have a few policies and system in place that address this, as well as a few that are meant to combat the repetitive questions (see our Membership Status policy).
When it comes down to it, the site policies and how they're enforced is the main difference between any two sites, and that's typically the biggest factor for people when they choose one site over another. To see what we allow and don't allow, please read up here.
The point of all of this? If you decide you're more comfortable participating on our site, great. We ask that you not make disparaging comments about other DSM sites. And if you find that you don't care for our policies and feel more comfortable calling another DSM site home, that's fine too. Just realize that insulting our members makes little sense. We're all DSMers and most of us want to improve the DSM community. While making fun of some DSMers might be amusing, insults will eventually lead to unintended negative consequences. And is that something the DSM community really needs? Our cars are over 10+ years old now, some almost 20. Our community will not live forever. We should be working on more ways to come together as a community and accept each other, not focus on our differences and find more ways to divide the community. |
