No thanks for setup files

[Calvyn White]

You know what annoys me and many many others have tried to do the right thing is the lack of appreciation for the efforts that I and many others have done is sharing in the community.
Very very little expression is been put forward to those of which to shared their setups even knowing that may cost them the race.
I have shared setups, many dozens and can count the fingers on one hand of the thanks that I've had for the setups in way of a message in any thread.
I myself have begin to think like others, why bother. And just keep all the effort to yourself and reap the result of it. Like being called up for a league events elsewhere with sponsorship.
The total lack of gratitude for helping others is disheartening if not critical to the way they drive or the view they drive-in. If I haven't said it once I said it a half a dozen times I am no alien I get those times out of effort not from talent.
Years I have shared my setups and all I get in the way of appreciation if any, is a like. Very occasionally I may have a message of appreciation for my efforts to the community. Sooner or later I will become like the rest that one's shared will no longer.
And to think once there was a setup academy tutored buy me for raceroom that now for unknown reasons no longer exists.

 

[UMC 22]

No offence mate, but I can count on one hand the number of times I see a "thank you" each week for all the work RD's staff do to make the clubs happen. Not to mention the leagues, and keeping the forums relatively clear of trolls and negative posting, and keeping the forums online at all. I'm sure most of the other staff could say exactly the same. Building and helping a community is a thankless task.

But that's the thing. We don't do it for praise and kudos, we do it because we love racing, we love RD, and we genuinely want to help the community. Knowing we've helped is enough, without the plaudits. And that's the spirit people need to adopt when they offer their help and advice, if they want to get anything out of it.

I do appreciate the sentiment behind your post, but to expect written thanks and appreciation just isn't realistic. People don't do that these days, if they ever did at all. And personally, I think a "like" on a helpful post is a "thank you" and should be seen as such.

People do appreciate help whether they express it directly or not. Just don't expect them to say so in writing, and just enjoy the feeling that you've done your bit to add to our community.

Edit: Thread title changed as I object to the suggestion that there is no "community spirit" here on RD, as it in fact exists with abundance.

 

[Caramidaru Andrei Bogdan]

In the same way as Ross I posted under the race event that took part

 

[Case_]

(Yeah, since I already posted it anyway - my response is also in the race thread as I had no idea it will also get its own separate thread.)

No offence mate, but I can count on one hand the number of times I see a "thank you" each week for all the work RD's staff do to make the clubs happen.

To be fair, in the races I attend, I usually hear a fair amount of thanks aimed at the staff for organizing after the end of the race(s). Certainly more than I personally would expect Just thought it might be worth pointing out.

 

[DrRob]

I am not associated with RD, do not take part in online races let alone Club events. I do have experience in moderating forums and organising forum meets and such though. I also share knowledge and (real life) findings on a blog regarding a different matter.

Not just towards Calvyn: If you are getting out of your way to share knowledge and information with the community primarily to receive recognition, awe, respect and such you are living in the wrong age. You might get lucky if you receive a "thank you" from closer pals and friends for your work. Be thankful for that. You will have to face the fact, that content on the internet is just consumed nowadays. The culture of creating content was replaced by reposting existing stuff or just sharing things others created, rephrasing or even just repeating others' opinions. If consequently only original material would be posted on social media and other channels, the internet would be a different one for sure. Maybe a better one, who knows.

Honestly speaking I also downloaded a couple of setups for my personal reference and offline racing to better understand setup work and see the possible difference in lap times and also just left a "thumbs up". I was under the impression that as a recognition, that would be enough.

Don't want to rant, just stating the facts I learned over the years.

 

[Case_]

You will have to face the fact, that content on the internet is just consumed nowadays. The culture of creating content was replaced by reposting existing stuff or just sharing things others created, rephrasing or even just repeating others' opinions.

With all due respect, that's just nonsense. If anything, people are creating more original content than ever before, because an incredible amount of tools to do so is available to pretty much anyone instead of selected few. For example, when I was learning to play guitar some 25 years ago, the idea that anyone would be able to have his own professional quality recording studio in his bedroom and do a self-published global release of his album on a shoestring budget of literally just a few bucks would be considered absurd. And yet here we are, just a few years down the road, with YouTube, iTunes, Soundcloud and many other sites overflowing with original self-published and home recorded music.

The "consumers" and "reposters" will likely always be in a majority, but that's just how it is, internet didn't cause that. Not everyone is driven to create his own content.

And if only original material would get posted on social media, the social media would die down, and so would the creators of the original content, because they would lose their audience and the incredible possibility for their work to be shared with literally the entire world with literally just a few clicks of a button.

 

[DrRob]

Martin, I think we do not entirely disagree... but I wouldn't call your arguments "just nonsense". You said it yourself: The consumers are (of course) in the majority, hence the disparity I mentioned. And why thanking original creators if you do not have to? Do I know these people? What do I get in return for thanking them? Nobody forced them to post their original content, right?
Of course not everyone is creating original content. And please do not confuse users with artists. It goes without saying that they are and want to be creative and have more possibilities to release their work nowadays.
Regarding your everyday users hardly anybody references original sources, but is just using it without even remembering the creator let alone crediting them when reposting/reusing/quoting (apart from social media, where hitting the "repost" or "quote" button is easier than retyping the whole stuff.
What I also tried to convey is, that without all the reposting and afterthoughts of original stuff all social media would be more straightforward (you might notice I am not a big fan of social media as it is used today).

Anyways: I can understand what the OP is saying, but I feel that he has too high expectations of "the audience".

P.S.: I also learned to play the guitar some 30 years ago and had the same dreams as you had. Our band had not many chances to be "heard" by the industry, what in hindsight was a good thing I guess.

 

[UMC 22]

To be fair, in the races I attend, I usually hear a fair amount of thanks aimed at the staff for organizing after the end of the race(s). Certainly more than I personally would expect Just thought it might be worth pointing out.

That's true, but I also hear plenty of thanks on TS when people share their setups too. The OP is complaining about the lack of written thanks here on the forums though, which is what I was talking about above. The difference is that I don't expect any thanks, on the forums or on TS. I know people appreciate what I do because they show up week in, week out.

Admittedly it does give me a warm feeling when people take the trouble to show their appreciation directly, of course it does. That goes without saying. But I get more than enough satisfaction just from seeing/hearing people talking about the awesome race they've just had. Knowing that I've helped people engage with their hobby and enjoy themselves is all I need to make this job worthwhile.

Speaking in a broader, non-RD sense as you two are above, this is the time in which we live. I'm a big believer in manners and common courtesy. I am regularly dismayed to see how our modern society is becoming more and more selfish, with people focused entirely on themselves and their own lives with little consideration for others, and with manners disappearing rapidly from many aspects of life. This is particularly evident on the internet where there are no direct consequences for poor behaviour, so the normal filters that would apply to face-to-face interactions no longer apply. We're at a stage where you often can't even have a civil debate with another person without one or both parties resorting to personal insults and ridicule rather than reasoned arguments. It's one of the reasons I gave up nearly 20 years of direct community management. But such is life. I could go on and on about what the internet and social media are doing to human society, but who'd listen?

 

[Case_]

@DrRob Well, you mentioned that "content on the internet is just consumed nowadays" and that "The culture of creating content was replaced by reposting existing stuff or just sharing things others created", which implies not just that's how things now are according to you, but also that it didn't use to be like this in the past. And that, IMO, truly is nonsense, I'm sorry. I tried to put it as politely as I could (but people sometimes do have issue with me trying to put things as politely as I can, it sometimes doesn't exactly work as intended ) and I tried to explain why I consider it nonsense, but I just don't know what else to call it. You can absolutely call my own opinion nonsense if you don't agree with them, I won't get offended (why would I), and most certainly not if you also reasonably explain the reasons why you consider them as such.

And really, the quotes I responded to (and mentioned again above) very much come off like your typical grumpy old man complaining about how much better things used to be back in the day, and that's something I have quite an issue with, for multiple reasons. If you didn't mean it like that, then that's great, and possibly some of that was lost somewhere between our keyboards and monitors.

 

[DrRob]

@Martin Fiala sometimes I maybe behave and talk like a grumpy old man. I feel some things might have been better 20-30 years back, but that is not my tenor normally. But thank you for the feedback.
I can relate to what @Ross Garland said and maybe some of my opinions stem from that.

 

[BrunoBæ]

My explanation of this lack of written appreciation is that in a kinda "public" forum as this people dont feel much community obligation and comradery.
They are allways just passing by.
Because comming from as example iRacings membership forum or an rF2 league then there will almost allways pops up some written appreciation if you share a setup.

 

[UMC 22]

My explanation of this lack of written appreciation is that in a kinda "public" forum as this people dont feel much community obligation and comradery.

This is complete nonsense. There is a great deal of camaraderie here on RD, which can be seen and felt every time there's a club racing event. For reference, the club setting is where the OP posts his setups, not the setup forum.

 

[Case_]

Though it has to be said there are kinda (at least) two sides of the RD community. There's the racing club(s) community where there's a fairly strong sense of community and a lot of camaraderie and it's actually likely one of the main reasons we can't stay away (even if we might still sometimes not see eye to eye or disagree very strongly on various things, or rage quit from races ), and then there's the "regular RD", so to speak, which is more or less just your ordinary gaming news outlet/forum where the sense of community is fairly minor and staying away can not only be fairly easy, but sometimes perhaps even advisable. (And then the two worlds kinda overlap in the subforum posts, and then things might get even more complicated in other forum sections...)

GIven that BrunoB is not a Premium member (though he certainly might've been in the past, I obviously can't know that), he might not be familiar with the racing clubs and only know the "regular RD" side of things, in which case it would be understandable to reach the conclusions he did, IMO.

 

[Kurupt CDN]

Think you need to ask your self one question.

Are you doing these tunes for the love sim racing or looking for fame?

If it's #2 you might wanna take your own advice and not bother.

There have been TONS of guy here that have contributed to this community day in and day out and never asked for a thanks........or started a thread.

 

[BrunoBæ]

This is complete nonsense.

When people start their outpourings with this kind of (yes) outpourings - then there is no reason to read on.
Because often its because they cannot establish some kind of reasonable argumentation.
Hehe so I would refrain from wasting my time on answering.

 

[UMC 22]

When people start their outpourings with this kind of (yes) outpourings - then there is no reason to read on.
Because often its because they cannot establish some kind of reasonable argumentation.
Hehe so I would refrain from wasting my time on answering.

I say it as I see it. Shame you have a problem with that. See ya then mate.

 

[natedogg1867]

You know what annoys me and many many others have tried to do the right thing is the lack of appreciation for the efforts that I and many others have done is sharing in the community.
...snip...
I have shared setups, many dozens and can count the fingers on one hand of the thanks that I've had for the setups in way of a message in any thread.

Maybe it's just an RD thing (though I doubt it as I see plenty of people show appreciation), or maybe it's just you.

I've personally shared plenty of setups for RR on other sites and on various discord servers and people are always appreciative and share their thanks. Whether they specifically ask for a setup, or you just happen to post something you have been working on for your own personal use in a competition for instance.

As @Kurupt CDN posited above, I've seen you make similar threads looking for praise when you think you have gone without numerous times in the past too. So, perhaps just try working on setup files for yourself and post them up without any expectation of praise if you want to prevent feeling let down by the communities response

This last comment isn't aimed at you, so dont take offense here since it is more of a general statement regarding setups.

Many people that make setups have zero clue what they are doing and either make bad changes, make completely unrealistic changes, or dont know how to actually diagnose and improve the handling complaints someone has about a car. To go with this, most people sim-racing are slow. Few people are actually what could be considered fast. Im not talking alien pace, but genuinely quick. From personal experience, the fast drivers that know what they are doing tend to get a bit more respect from people when they share their setups since they are more trusted to know what they are doing, and their results are proven.

Sometimes when people make changes, they objectively arent making the car faster, rather they are just becoming more experienced with a car/track combo, so the setup isnt actually better than the default (or whatever they were using before).

I think because of the above, some people gain a reputation for making good setups, and other people randomly browsing forums/threads/discord servers are more likely to try out random setups and share their thanks.

It's never a problem to take a step back and do your own thing for a while without any expectation of how others perceive your work.

 

[Case_]

Many people that make setups have zero clue what they are doing and either make bad changes, make completely unrealistic changes, or dont know how to actually diagnose and improve the handling complaints someone has about a car.

This actually kinda goes full circle, since Calvyn did a great series of "Setup Academy" sessions to basically teach people just that, as in how to go about creating a setup, what to look for and how to customize the setup to your liking, but then it sadly stopped (for reasons I know little about, so please understand that I'm not pointing fingers or blaming anyone here, I'm just saying it stopped). There also exists a recording of one such session, which could be shared with those that could not attend those sessions, but sadly it was never shared outside of people who participated in said session, which I think is a great loss to the community and I would like to take this opportunity to once again appeal to whoever it concerns (again, I have no idea who it is or what was the reasoning, so again not pointing fingers at anyone) for that to perhaps reconsider and give us the permission to share it. I think it would be very well received and help the community a great deal. Just my opinion.

 

[Yetch]

Well having a body that changes posture from one minute to the next, 2 arms one day and only one the next, 2 dodgy knees, 2 dodgy hips, arthritic hands and a handful of crumbled discs in my back. Not to mention one disease attacking my nervous system, while another beats the living daylights out of my muscles. To counter this I take an evolving cocktail of opiates, gawd only knows what the rest of the little colourful things are made of or in fact do for me but 20 or so go down the chute daily, rattle like a ...............rattle finish that off with my weekly 28g of Mary Jane and I can just about be bothered to breathe in and out (now and again).
There is a point but so off my face I can't remember it ah I know.
Some things just aren't worth getting your knickers in a twist about, if I wrote everything online that went through my head, well just thinking about some of the comments I could of made but fortunately I have found that silence has the ability to be deafening! #philosospheremoji

 

[Case_]

if I wrote everything online that went through my head, well

You mean you don't?