Why does this forum appear to be dead?

[mrrc]

Is it just me that is seeing this?

Did COVID ruin forums too?

Apparently there are over 300 people visiting this site while Reddit only has say 30.

However, nobody has posted here for a year.

How long has this site had HTTPS issues?

The formatting is broken on my desktop but I can still open it on my phone.

[DougMilliken]

Welcome stranger. My foggy memory is that some old school (non-PC, etc) posters scared away all the students...who then migrated to Reddit/r/fsae and perhaps other sites. I won't name names, just to be polite. Personally, I can't stand Reddit (ads everywhere, weird navigation, stuff jumping around on screen), so I check here for signs of new life.

While I don't know the owners of FSAE.com, it has been functioning just fine for me--see my infrequent updates on the Tire Test Consortium. The web interface works same as ever in Firefox under Windows. Search takes a little time to figure out, but generally works OK. There is a huge wealth of experience archived here, hope you stick around and bring a few pioneers back to explore.

[John McCrory]

Well said Doug.
I wholeheartedly agree with you. I will add that the situation does hurt me on a personal level as i have had good relationships with many of the "bad actors" that made the site unpopular,
but i will acknowledge that my relationships with these people was and continues to be in a different context than mentor - student.
Ironically, i'm seeing more "tough love" on the Reddit site, but nothing i would consider abusive or offensive.
Moving forward, i think it will require some trust and understanding from all parts of the community to move this forward.
Posters of inquiries will have to acknowledge and respect that many industry professionals such as yourself expect, and frankly deserve inquiries more focused than
"what's the best suspension for FSAE" type questions. Any poster should be able to ask focused questions. After all, no one got into school by writing "i want to go to your school to learn" as their sole application.
There is a wealth of good knowledge here, valid and helpful to the community, that needs to be accessed, and to be grown upon.
At this point, i think all participants and stake holders should be willing to move forward while acknowledging past shortcomings.
Thanks again!

[DougMilliken]

Well said Doug.
[...]
There is a wealth of good knowledge here, valid and helpful to the community, that needs to be accessed, and to be grown upon.
At this point, i think all participants and stake holders should be willing to move forward while acknowledging past shortcomings.
Thanks again!

John, you are welcome and it's nice to see you here again. For anyone that reads this, follow this link to John's "intro" post to this forum:
http://www.fsae.com/forums/showthread.php?5759-New-to-Forum-Introduction&p=26071&viewfull=1
And then read some of the follow-on comments from design judges...

[John McCrory]

Short notice, but something very worthwhile attending:
All FSAE Students and Faculty:
Annual Race Car Education
Learn Formula Cars in One Weekend
Location Road America, Elkhart Lake Wi.
Date: June 27-30, 2024
Purpose: Education, Team Building, Find Jobs in motorsports,
Guided by : Angelo Zarra (former FSAE Judge), top level Race Engineer, Suspension Engineer, Formula car expert.
Meet the teams, see and touch the cars, ask specific questions, learn how to improve your car. Find design answers you were looking for.
Run Groups: F1600 / F2000 - Atlantic / + Trans-Am / IGT
Sponsored By:
https://www.racefrp.com/
https://www.anzesuspension.com/
https://www.roadamerica.com/trans-am-speed-tour
Email sales@anzesuspension.com

[John McCrory]

So back to Doug's post, the second in this thread.
Once again, there is a post on Reddit asking about suggested reading. Such a post comes up at least once a quarter. And the respondents typically list the same handful of fairly modern texts (including one by
some guys named Milliken :) ).
Nothing wrong with the suggestions, but i get the impression that they come from fairly recent competition alumnus.
What gets me is that there is a thread within this site that has a veritable library of Alexandria list of suggested readings. I am honest that i am a boomer - worked a long time to get here-
but there are a number of old school books such as Costin and Terry that are pragmatically helpful.
Do people purposely overlook this and other resources on this site?
To confirm Doug's comment that old school posters scarred away all the students. I am constantly preaching to new students that not all here are misogynistic, sadistic, or however the elders (and i user that word purposly) are percieved.
Further I believe that anyone who takes the time to post has students best interests at heart. The responses suggesting a certain level of professionalism and focus regarding posting questions are
just asking for a level and standard of communication that will be required in all industry. It is not pulling wings off fly's. As i near retirement age, i still adhere to the belief that teachers and mentors
that challenged me were the ones who helped me the most, even if it was uncomfortable at the time.
I think all of us here who care need to spread the word that this site is an extremely valuable resource that should be given a chance.
So that's my rant.
Perhaps someone needs to bump the suggested reading threads.
To those who would like to discuss further, you know my name, look up my number. Or see me at the PRI show!

[John McCrory]

Man, I apologize for the inelegance of the above in terms of layout, spell check, and general proof reading!

[Kevin Hayward]

As someone that used to post here quite a lot, first as a student, then as a faculty advisor, seeing these forums decline was very sad.

I think the main reason it died was because it stopped being a place for students to discuss ideas and learn and argue together (including occassional alumni) and it became a place whether the student-teacher relationship was being asserted. Even good intentions (mine included) from more senior people can reinforce that relationship. Students already have most of their life in the student-teacher mode, this forum used to be less about getting things absolutely right, and more about open discussion of peers. Or maybe that is my rose-coloured glasses.

The decline of the forums have taught me a bunch of lessons about working with my own team as a faculty advisor:

- Telling people to not open a discussion because it has been discussed before and they should just read the transcript is not a great way to invite a beginner into your world.
- Telling people that they need to be known by their full name, affilliations, education level, work history etc. is a way to establish authority more than it is to welcome those who haven't yet had those experiences.
- It is just arrogance to assume that my own niche of knowledge is super valuable and someone not knowing it is just ignorant and lazy. Those rare moments where I can be humble with my students I am a better teacher.
- Telling people they are wrong and to do it the way that works doesn't lead to a utopia of no mistakes, it just leads to people not trying.
- How the message is delivered is often far more important than the message itself.
- You will get all sorts of questions, stupid and lazy ones included. I have yet to experience a case where berating the questioner helps them or anyone else. In real life this has led me in my tired/grumpy moments to apologising for my words.

There are so many people that I chatted with on this forum whom I admire for their capabilities, of that group there is a further subset who are great examples of humble communicators. (Doug and Big Bird are two that immediately spring to mind, but there are a lot more).

Nothing has really replaced this forum of discussion. I groan sometimes when my students deliberately look up my posts, especially the ones where I was probably wrong, or had tried to post something with dry sarcasm only to look like an idiot. But if it helps breakdown barriers between students and teachers so we can get on with the business of figuring stuff out together then I am all for it.

So now the forums is a place I visit every so often in the hope ther may be a spark of life so I can get better insight into what the kids are doing these days. I think it involves electromotives and vector torques.

Kev

[DougMilliken]

As someone that used to post here quite a lot,


Hi Kevin.

Nice to see you here and thanks for the kind thoughts.

I agree that nothing seems to have replaced this forum, although for tires & tire modeling the forums on the TTC (secure) site are often similar. When a question comes up over there, I might point to a thread here, usually not too hard to find with either a local search, or a google site: search https://developers.google.com/search/docs/monitor-debug/search-operators/all-search-site

A question for you or anyone, is there a good backup of these FSAE.com forums in a format that is usable/searchable? While I commend the owners for keeping things running, I'm also aware of all the good things that are no longer available on the web. Many were never archived by, for example, the Wayback Machine at archive.org (and even that has problems--currently offline from a ddos attack).

-- Doug

[John McCrory]

2 posts in the past 3 days!
I really appreciate Kevins thoughts as they flesh out some of my thoughts.
One thing that occurs to me is that over the life of this forum, the Google Translate tool has evolved significantly.
I've become aware that many of the posts on reddit that are dismissed for the same reasons that disenchanted community members on this site for years appear to be from posters who are either using Translate or from those for whom English is at best a tenuous second language.
"Poor" questions are dismissed when it may not be the question, but the ability to ask the question in familiar english language and composition.
I really appreciate the sentiment that there is a case to be made for not being afraid to look like an idiot if it advances the discourse. I've had a minor second career in radio for the last 3 decades, and a significant milestone as an interviewer was realizing that i didn't need to always be correct or know the answer to a question.
I generally found that if the subject corrected me, the listener learned more than if the subject just confirmed that i was correct.
In the end, it is a fine line for the person giving answers to challenge the questioner, and of not being dismissive.
One of the advantages of age, and time passed, is that we can objectively look back to passed interactions.
I often adhere to the idea that people who in the past challenged me and presented tough arguments were the ones i learned the most from. I've also learned that that doesn't excuse those who were jerks.
The best mentors learn to balance their responses. And despite the poor examples who have lived in this forum, i submit that there are many more who are amongst the best of mentors.
Those who still care are desperately trying to retrieve the baby that went out with past bathwater.

Anyway, great to see you here again Kevin. This years ECU combustion car was brilliant. Hats off to the team's advisor / mentor!

[Kevin Hayward]

John,

It would be great to have the time to meet everyone at these comps. The UK comp was a lot of fun, and hard work. My co-Faculty Advisor Dr. Nando Guzzomi and I have noted that as we get older these comps just get harder, FSAE is definitely a young person's endeavour. The team is already well into the design of the new car, but I think we are both still recovering.

The team from Cardiff (I hope I got your team right) was excellent and I enjoyed seeing the car run. I hope everyone on the team is rightfully proud of how they competed. If we make it back, there in 2026 it would be good to catch up. We probably have a lot to talk about given our relative research groups.

You make great points about being unafraid of looking like an idiot if it helps advance understanding. I am dealing with that in a very real way as I have just started a youtube channel to track a project that I have been working on for a while. There is enough stuff there that I haven't done before that has me a bit worried that I will stuff it all up in a public forum. Some messages from people I really respect, notably Geoff Pearson (Big Bird) and Scott Wordley (Monash FA) have provided ideas and ways of thinking that were better than what I had put out there. Getting this feedback has been a benefit I hadn't anticipated, and I hope it continues.

I think this forum may be beyond resurrection. I hope I am wrong, but at the very least I have enjoyed jumping back on for a few posts and getting to say a first hello to you, and to chat again with Doug.

Kev