Modern Vespa

I recently realized, once again, how good, warm and nice place MV is to hang around.

Seriously, there are not many forums that come even close. Regardless of the topic.

Thank you for this, Jess, moderators and all the active participants!

Thank you, kind sir. It is a pleasure to serve the community.

I have often thought about how when surrounded by people with good manners my manners improve.

That happens here.

Trust me you guys have no idea what an asshole I am.

As a new member, my observations are the sub forums on MV are all two or three wheel related. Where bike forums go wrong in my opinion is where they have a " pub" section. Somewhere to " air your views". This is inevitably the place where politics and beliefs harden and folk get offended.

This offence then spills into the main forums with sniping remarks. The rest as they say…..

Which is exactly why we don't have such a section. There are other reasons, too -- but the phenomenon you have identified is the main one.

The other thing that I think makes this site work better than most forums is that there isn't a different section for every freaking model of Vespa. So someone who owned an ET4 fifteen years ago and now owns a GTS will see a post from an ET4 owner about a problem they can solve. If there were different sections for every model, they might not see it. And there aren't constant ads.

That is a spot-on observation. I have long held that most other forums are doing themselves a disservice by over-organizing their subforums. Or, to put it another way, just because you can organize it that way doesn't mean you should.

(It warms my heart that this point is noticed at all!)

I love the use of General Discussion as the main forum.

It's on The Modern Vespa Forum, so obvs modern Vespa discussion is included in it.

But everything else is included in General Discussion as well, except the things that aren't.

Very clever

One of the things l really like is the impromptu 'show us your .....' threads. normally started as something totally different but turns into pictures of cool stuff.

I have yet to join in but for the record, ive got 2 swiss army knives and small leatherman. A couple of Record stilsons wrenches (monkey wrenches) and have a pair of long nosed yellow handled pliers.

Considering the overlap of more generic issues, it's a great concept. Someone trying to bleed their brakes on an LX, for example can get help from other model owners, who will see the post...

I have TWO pairs of yellow-handled needle nose pliers, and one of them is the only tool I always carry in my Triumph backpack....which I always wear when riding a bike of any sort.

I use it to yank the foam earplugs out of my left ear, which is the side that often refuses to yield to the manual human digital pinch method of foam earplug extraction (properly referred to as the 'plugectomy procedure).

Coincidentally, I utilized my yellow-handled needle nose pliers to yank-a-stubborn-plug just this morning after arriving in Deadwood for my almost daily coffee and scone ritual at 7:00 AM.

Just look at the history and character evident in those old yellow-handled pliers, eh? If only it could talk, what stories it could undoubtedly tell!

Aside from the organization of the sub-forums on this site, our moderators do a good job when dealing with bad actors.

To subvert/hijack an old Honda marketing line..."You meet the nicest people on MV!"

By keeping it civil and somewhat on topic (I know we veer off on tangents or have differing opinions), MV has not devolved as most other forums have.

I call myself fortunate to belong to two busy, agreeable forums of two entirely different subjects. MV is just one.