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Tesla has closed its forums to launch a social platform and fans are not happy
- x775 6y agoOutline: https://outline.com/V8LGp7 https://outline.com/V8LGp7
- alacombe 6y ago> one commenter with supposed “inside info” alleged that the forums were closing because Tesla couldn’t afford to hire multiple full-time moderators to keep up with the barrage of spam and trolls that would frequent the threads. They can afford putting 1.5b aside to buy bitcoins, but not spend the money to hire actual people ?
- fabianfabian 6y agoBecause having bitcoins preserves value, you might see it as spending but it is actually saving. They can still choose to spend it on hiring people if they wanted.
- alacombe 6y agoJust wait for the next dip, I'm gonna laugh my ass off...
- spurdoman77 6y agoTheir BTC bet is already profitable to the tune of 1bln. Yeah BTC will crash at some point but still those who either manage to sell at good enough levels or have long enough time preference to hold til the next rally will make some serious profit.
- mrkramer 6y agoThe day when Satoshi left Bitcoin Project is going downhill. Bitcoin without Satoshi is like Apple without Steve Jobs. Without good leadership it is hard for anything to survive.
- pjc50 6y agoThe price has gone up by several orders of magnitude, and Satoshi hardly provided much leadership beyond the original paper.
- lupire 6y agoIs the price going up good?
- pjc50 6y agoIt's the only thing it really has going for it.
- mrkramer 6y ago>Satoshi hardly provided much leadership beyond the original paper Except he designed and coded the whole thing and provided every day support for 2 years. >The price has gone up by several orders of magnitude Price of the Bitcoin doesn't mean anything if it is not used as cash as Satoshi intended. You don't receive your salary in Bitcoin and you don't shop with Bitcoin. Speaking of price even regulated assets like stocks are prone to hype and excessive speculation see Dot-com bubble [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dot-com_bubble https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dot-com_bubble
- gverrilla 6y agoSocial creations not always go like the creator wanted, that's how it works. Bitcoin is a whole movement that goes way beyond the btc protocol.
- xirbeosbwo1234 6y agoAnd the market agrees with you! Spending $1.5 billion on Bitcoin during the middle of a massive speculative bubble is just the sort of responsible leadership investors want to see in these uncertain times. That's why Tesla's stock has been as rock-solid as Bitcoin since they announced their purchase.
- emteycz 6y agoTesla has resources for hundreds of engineers but not a few community managers (which they do employ, btw)? Obviously that commenter is bullshitting.
- xirbeosbwo1234 6y agoTesla is cash-poor. I entirely believe the penny-pinching story. This makes blowing so much money on Bitcoin all the more awesomely stupid.
- avolcano 6y ago> In the replies of a March 2 Tesla forum post announcing the 13-day countdown until the platform’s demise, one commenter with supposed “inside info” alleged that the forums were closing because Tesla couldn’t afford to hire multiple full-time moderators to keep up with the barrage of spam and trolls that would frequent the threads. Truly amazed at the number of companies that set up social platforms like this and then refuse to actually moderate them in any way. While it's obvious Tesla "could afford" to moderate it, it's also probably the kind of line-item no one actually considered being part of running a forum. I'm sure they think of a forum's overhead as just being hosting and maintenance, without considering the human cost of moderation until they were forced to, at which point they said "eh, fuck it." We all talk about the moderation problem a lot with massive platforms like Facebook, but the number of people who just think "let's just throw up a small little forum/Reddit clone/Discord channel for people to talk to each other on" and then don't consider that, maybe, there might be some bad actors on there, is... I dunno, the majority, it seems. Maybe it's because I grew up posting on forums like Something Awful that were famed for strong moderation, and IRC channels with as many ops as lurkers, but it almost seems like this was a weird forgotten aspect of building social platforms. I kinda blame the proliferation of upvotes and downvotes, which people seem to think is a replacement for moderation.
- riffic 6y agoyou can't automate good content moderation, and it's just not worthwhile to provide this service if you can't keep up with the duties. Another link to Masnick's Impossibility Theorem: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20191111/23032743367/masnicks-impossibility-theorem-content-moderation-scale-is-impossible-to-do-well.shtml https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20191111/23032743367/masni...
- djanogo 6y agoSmart move by Tesla, instead of letting their customers and enthusiasts discuss general forum topics, pivot them to social goals which also benefit Tesla. Weaponize forum members to help achieve Tesla goals (The first item in "engage.tesla.com" is asking people to send letters to Nebraska Senators).
- fallingknife 6y agoHow dare they exercise their 1st amendment right to petition the government.
- sofixa 6y agoThere's nothing wrong with that. However, when a for profit company asks you to exercise your rights for them, it's at least a bit dubious.
- Shakahs 6y agoThis will just push people towards independently operated forums (Tesla Motors Club) and Reddit, which is already the norm for other car subcultures. Most discussion already happens on enthusiast run platforms dedicated to one manufacturer or even specific models/years.
- adamkittelson 6y agoYeah, the teslamotorsclub.com forums have been the dominant forum for Tesla owners for at least the last 5+ years anyway.
- pjscott 6y agoThat could be their goal: they get all the advantages of having a forum, but with none of the moderation expense or guilt-by-association-with-trolls risk to their reputation that come with having an official forum.
- mrfinn 6y agoI wonder what Aldous Hurley would say about a bunch of people fans of a big T, coming from a car manufacturing company :) No hard feelings against Tesla, on the contrary. Just thought about the curious parallel.
- jacquesm 6y agoHuxley.
- yablak 6y agoCharging a one time fee of $1 per account on credit card feels like it would keep most of the trolls out and reduce moderation costs. I miss MetaFilter.
- dehrmann 6y agoGoogle arguably killed MetaFilter as collateral damage from search algorithm changes mean to combat spam.
- kgin 6y agoMetaFilter did a lot of damage to itself by overmoderating. It was my online home for years but eventually there was so much meta-meta handwringing that the sense of community was lost, for me at least.
- benley 6y agoCan you elaborate on this? I thought Metafilter was alive and doing just fine - in fact I still visit it regularly
- dehrmann 6y agoThey might these days, but here are some articles about what happened. https://searchengineland.com/metafilter-penalized-google-192168 https://searchengineland.com/metafilter-penalized-google-192... https://www.fastcompany.com/3030848/what-google-search-algorithm-changes-do-to-the-internet https://www.fastcompany.com/3030848/what-google-search-algor...
- lupire 6y agoMetafilter still exists.
- fermienrico 6y agoI expect this story to hit Twitter and Elon will interject and restore faith in customers. In the end, nothing will be lost, PR game will end and Tesla will garner free goodwill through Elon as a proxy from this manufactured saga. It's hard to not be cynical.
- kgc 6y agoThey should have just linked to the teslamotors subreddit...
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- herdcall 6y ago> Those trolls are likely to migrate to Twitter now, as the Tesla Engagement Platform will be moderated. Says a lot about what Twitter has become.
- LeoPanthera 6y agoI own a Tesla. But I nearly didn't buy one, and it is the "fans" that put me off. They are, to describe them lightly, rabid. Normally I would say that a company can only dream of the kind of free advertising such a dedicated fanbase would give them, but Tesla fans can be intensely offputting. They're not interested in promoting a future for other EVs, or green energy, or reducing emissions. They only want you to see how awesome Tesla is, and if you don't, you're a valid target for a good old fashioned social media flaming. In the eyes of the fanbase, Tesla can do no wrong, even when they obviously do. I genuinely like my Tesla, but I fear that owning one will make others assume I am one of "them". Tesla needs to work really hard to ensure this doesn't get out of control, but given Elon's position as twitter-troll-in-chief, it seems unlikely.
- systemvoltage 6y agoI won't buy a Tesla because of it's UI/UX. Someone should tell Elon that his taste in design sucks, putting touch panels in cars (and in the space X dragon capsule) is outrageous. In general, Elon should be in charge of engineering and nothing else. He is a brilliant engineer and should double down on it. In these forums, people rave about how amazing touch screens are simply because Tesla, their fav brand, has them.
- LeoPanthera 6y agoYou say that, but look at the alternatives. Here's the brand new Ford Mach-E: https://twitter.com/greentheonly/status/1368320371544428555?s=21 https://twitter.com/greentheonly/status/1368320371544428555?... (Scroll down through subsequent tweets for thread.) Major car manufacturers see the software as an afterthought, and the result is a disaster. This is one thing that Tesla really gets right. Well designed software, frequent updates.
- m463 6y agoIt's really unfortunate that you have to buy the worst car to get the best car. The electric drivetrain really is a wonder. It is so completely phenomenally better than gasoline cars. Yet Tesla's UI direction is throwing out the baby, the bathwater and now the customer too. Personally I think they should add a dashboard to the 3/y/truck, even as an option. same for a round steering wheel. I think they should add more - not less - direct tactile controls for critical driving functions.
- Black101 6y ago> I genuinely like my Tesla, but I fear that owning one will make others assume I am one of "them". You seem a bit superficial...
- julianlam 6y agoIt always makes me sad when a company decides to pursue a walled garden approach, because it means nothing inside the new "engage" site will be indexed by search engines, nor available to non-registered users. The neat part about forum software itself is that it allows companies to have that slice of control (insofar as the forum itself is under control of the company), but allows for free and open discussion of the niche subject.