Jersey Devil 4x4 & Jeep Forum: So... Who's left?

I have a very important suggestion for a new board rule. Henceforth, I suggest that, after reading one of my posts, everyone must send me a Tastycake. Only fresh ones. No expired ones. And nothing jelly filled or you will be banned from the site for no less than 6 months.

But seriously, I don't mind a site that does what it can to foster personal responsibility out on the trails. I think that's a great thing. But it also has to be reasonable and realistic. I've said before that the My Rig idea was good in theory, but it didn't prevent someone from finding a photo online of some busty chick sprawled across the hood of a Jeep and coming up with a fake name and trying to pass themselves off as a Pam Anderson wannabe who is into wheeling. I also think it may have also discouraged someone who was in the market for a rig from joining the site because they got booted if they didn't already have a rig. That's not very conducive to building a community, so I'm glad to see that rule become optional.

As far as "nannying" (and yes, that is a word), I've also mentioned before that I don't think there is a problem with telling people they are doing something wrong. That's how they learn. Whether they keep choosing to do something wrong isn't something people on this site can or will ever control, but I think it is valuable to at least point those things out and give people the benefit of the doubt that they will make any needed adjustments. I, personally, would rather have someone send me a message telling me I was someplace I shouldn't have been rather than letting me go on thinking it's okay to go there and to wind up having Wally impounded and getting slapped with a $1500 fine. It's possible to point those things out to people without making a federal issue out of it and any sensible people will welcome it if the message is delivered with some measure of diplomacy.

We all know there are places in the pines people should not be and the majority of them have no signage to indicate that. Unlike a lot of the members of this site, there are plenty of people wheeling out there who have not been doing it for the majority of their lives and they don't know the laws or unspoken rules. Those people can benefit from the experience of those who have been out there for a while... if they are willing to accept it. Some will be boneheads and don't care -- the kind of people who pitch beer bottles into the woods or drive over trees in spite of the fact that you told them that type of thing is not acceptable. People like that deserve to be banned, shunned, ignored and not invited on wheeling trips. But others will take those comments to heart and will stop doing it and may even encourage others to stop doing it, too.

I know there is a popular cliché that goes, "Ignorance of the law is not an excuse." But you know what? It really is an excuse. If you only tell someone they can't do something AFTER they've already done it, then you aren't doing them or the environment any favors.

So in summation, your honor... opps... wrong speech conclusion. So, in a nutshell, I don't think it should be the goal of this site to police everyone's activity. You just can't do that without unnecessary drama. But I don't think it's a problem to be proactive about defining what it means to be a responsible 4-wheeler, to encourage people to adhere to that and to expect the content of the site to be in harmony with that.

Oh yeah... and continuing to censor people's foul language doesn't bother me either. I don't need to read that

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Wally

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