I just poked a whole bunch of eyes over at FEP, I'll probably do it again here.
I started a thread over there questioning as to why some people continually offer one line fluff replies to anything and everything that gets posted.
I.E. "Looks good, Awesome, Keep up the good work."
Why?
Now because the original message became lost in translation over there, I'll be sure to set it apart here so that I can refer back to it after it gets mutated a few replies from now.
3 days, over 1000 views, 58 replies. That's how quickly the ants poured out of the mound, once I made that statement. Half of them were so incensed, that the original statement became twisted to convey that we should hate on poor quality work.
This is how I see it. One guy said that there was 100 ways to do something, and who was I to judge what was good, and what was bad work.
You can say what you want, but there is really only one way to do something right, and a few ways to do it "almost as good", and a whole bunch of ways to do it wrong.
Take an engine compartment refresh/ engine rebuild as an example:
Most of the time this is done w/ the engine out, so we'll start there.
The right way starts w/ a gutted engine bay. No wires, no grommets, no hoses, no brackets. Depending on the condition of the existing paint, we'll say that only the area where the battery was needs a little intense sanding, the rest of the bay needs cleaning w/ a degreaser, and scuffed w/ a scotchbrite pad.
The compartment is primed, then painted body color w/ a gun.
Since most don't have access to or the skills to spray the engine compartment w a spray gun, and compressor, and a lot won't want to blow the AC charge, open the brake system, and have to do a complete rewire, the "almost as good" involves taping up all of the "danglers" the firewall grommets, and using a rattle can that was either close to the original color, or going black. In the end, it'll look almost as good as the first example.
The engine is fresh back from the machine shop so everything is cleaned, and all of it is painted.
Exibit A. 100 % rattle can.
This can be anybodies engine compartment, I only use this because I know for a fact that it was spray bombed.
From there, the standards drop,
B. Cleaning, but no sanding. Some bracket removal and a hasty masking, engine is the main focus, it gets all of the detail love.
C. No prep before, no cleaning, no masking. A quicky detail on the engine w/ skanky accessories bolted back on
D. A new shiny painted engine w/ skanky accessories gets shoved back into a 150k engine compartment
Now again, I'm not gonna dog the pic of exibit C, or D, but I'm not gonna tell the guy that it looks awesome either. Yet there are those that rush out there in support of their fellow enthusiast that are just gushing out the positive reinforcement, and there is the rub.
Is it so important that everybody get a trophy?
If you want to tell the guy that that looks awesome where is the reference standard when you also tell somebody like a raceoholic that his engine compartment looks awesome too? I'm not saying that nobody should post a pic of their progress if the work is like C, or D, I'm wondering why somebody else needs to blow smoke up his ass when he does it.
More or less I got killed over at FEP, matter of fact, I said it seemed a little Stepford. Had it been a mob mentality, I'd be swinging from some tree.
Here there is a like button, and that is a tough one to call. I believe that you can like something about anything, so I'm conflicted about handing out likes as compared to handing out a written one liner pat on the head.
We'll see how this goes here.
I started a thread over there questioning as to why some people continually offer one line fluff replies to anything and everything that gets posted.
I.E. "Looks good, Awesome, Keep up the good work."
Why?
Now because the original message became lost in translation over there, I'll be sure to set it apart here so that I can refer back to it after it gets mutated a few replies from now.
- I'm not saying people should slam somebody for posting pics of inferior work, I'm saying you shouldn't hand out a fluff comment like "Awesome or looks good, or keep up the good work." Conversely, say nothing instead.
3 days, over 1000 views, 58 replies. That's how quickly the ants poured out of the mound, once I made that statement. Half of them were so incensed, that the original statement became twisted to convey that we should hate on poor quality work.
This is how I see it. One guy said that there was 100 ways to do something, and who was I to judge what was good, and what was bad work.
You can say what you want, but there is really only one way to do something right, and a few ways to do it "almost as good", and a whole bunch of ways to do it wrong.
Take an engine compartment refresh/ engine rebuild as an example:
Most of the time this is done w/ the engine out, so we'll start there.
The right way starts w/ a gutted engine bay. No wires, no grommets, no hoses, no brackets. Depending on the condition of the existing paint, we'll say that only the area where the battery was needs a little intense sanding, the rest of the bay needs cleaning w/ a degreaser, and scuffed w/ a scotchbrite pad.
The compartment is primed, then painted body color w/ a gun.
Since most don't have access to or the skills to spray the engine compartment w a spray gun, and compressor, and a lot won't want to blow the AC charge, open the brake system, and have to do a complete rewire, the "almost as good" involves taping up all of the "danglers" the firewall grommets, and using a rattle can that was either close to the original color, or going black. In the end, it'll look almost as good as the first example.
The engine is fresh back from the machine shop so everything is cleaned, and all of it is painted.
Exibit A. 100 % rattle can.
This can be anybodies engine compartment, I only use this because I know for a fact that it was spray bombed.
From there, the standards drop,
B. Cleaning, but no sanding. Some bracket removal and a hasty masking, engine is the main focus, it gets all of the detail love.
C. No prep before, no cleaning, no masking. A quicky detail on the engine w/ skanky accessories bolted back on
D. A new shiny painted engine w/ skanky accessories gets shoved back into a 150k engine compartment
Now again, I'm not gonna dog the pic of exibit C, or D, but I'm not gonna tell the guy that it looks awesome either. Yet there are those that rush out there in support of their fellow enthusiast that are just gushing out the positive reinforcement, and there is the rub.
Is it so important that everybody get a trophy?
If you want to tell the guy that that looks awesome where is the reference standard when you also tell somebody like a raceoholic that his engine compartment looks awesome too? I'm not saying that nobody should post a pic of their progress if the work is like C, or D, I'm wondering why somebody else needs to blow smoke up his ass when he does it.
More or less I got killed over at FEP, matter of fact, I said it seemed a little Stepford. Had it been a mob mentality, I'd be swinging from some tree.
Here there is a like button, and that is a tough one to call. I believe that you can like something about anything, so I'm conflicted about handing out likes as compared to handing out a written one liner pat on the head.
We'll see how this goes here.
Last edited:
