2021: The return of Grand Prix Rejects

Post by **Miguel98** » 20 Jan 2021, 16:54

Hello and welcome back to Grand Prix Rejects! :badoer:

Sorry for the downtime, but we heard 2020 was a damn crap year for pretty much everyone, and GPR was, sadly, quite affected. For 2021, we are back, and we hope now for good! As you all can see, nothing has changed since July 2020, the last day the website was back up. Now, we have plenty to catch up on, so I would like to share some of the ideas with you for how 2021 is going to play out. :vergne:

Firstly, and foremost, let’s discuss content: as usual in GPR, members are free to present ideas for articles, and create them. I would like to know how we can make the process more agile, since I do believe we have plenty of potential in this regard – see Klon’s monthly column “The Gravel Trap”, which usually springs up quite a good discussion on its topic.

Secondly, we need to discuss how to “facilitate” possible new users coming in. GPR has a “small” but dedicated fanbase, and as Reddit and other facilities have showed up, forums have lost a tiny bit of relevance over time, but users still search for them. A good way to help in this front was with the GPR Discord server, which continued to be very active and pulled new members over the last months of downtime. :deletraz:

But I do believe that a good discussion topic would be how to present ourselves to others, while keeping the reject topic still – especially on the forum, it can be quite “hard” for a newbie to understand what is going on. So, I do believe that we would have to that process a little bit more agile as well. A possible idea would be to reformulate the forum a bit more in terms of main topics, and to write a small introduction on GPR that would stay pinned in the announcements, where its sub-forums and concepts, like ROTR and its variants, would be explained. :chilton:

Thirdly, I would like to hear on everyone’s opinion on what was just presented. This includes both moderators – please, answer to this topic if you’re still around – and normal users. Fourthly, and lastly, don’t forget to follow our social media – we plan on being more active there, especially on Twitter, and if you haven’t, join the Discord as well! Everyone is free to come along and it acts as a great counterpart to the websites activities. :shock:

To everyone: we missed you, and we’re sorry for the downtime. Enjoy your stay!

Post by **Frogfoot9013** » 20 Jan 2021, 17:01

Praise be our benevolent overlords.

rachel1990 · Post by **rachel1990** » 20 Jan 2021, 17:06

Not sure how to reply- Glad the forum is back.

Given how crazy the 2020 season was, with so much going on, I missed this forum a lot.

(I can't seem to find this discord link- if anyone has it I would be grateful)

Dom_Wings · Post by **Dom_Wings** » 20 Jan 2021, 17:07

Just click the link in my signature!

girry · Post by **girry** » 20 Jan 2021, 17:10

Gib :flavio: or I'm outta here

Post by **Nuppiz** » 20 Jan 2021, 17:10

rachel1990 wrote:(I can't seem to find this discord link- if anyone has it I would be grateful)

It's in the top right corner, disguised as a Mibbit link because we haven't updated the forum layout yet. :deletraz:

I played a small, but significant part in the restoration process by giving Miguel the necessary access. And all I originally wanted was one race result from Artemio Matarazzo's F1C career, but here we are a week later. :badoer:

Post by **Miguel98** » 20 Jan 2021, 17:19

rachel1990 wrote:Not sure how to reply- Glad the forum is back.

Given how crazy the 2020 season was, with so much going on, I missed this forum a lot.

(I can't seem to find this discord link- if anyone has it I would be grateful)

It's here! https://discord.gg/UfDyQagK

Paul Hayes · Post by **Paul Hayes** » 20 Jan 2021, 17:20

Welcome back! Good to have you back with us.

Aislabie · Post by **Aislabie** » 20 Jan 2021, 17:27

I'm not crying, you're crying.

Seriously though, I'm a little overwhelmed that it's all back. I'll never get another piece of coursework done ever again - and I'm okay with that.

I've got a reasonable amount of stuff to clog up the PMMF with (AMU and Alt-FE) but for now it's just so therapeutic to be able to browse the wiki again and remind myself of Georges Burggraf's F1 career.

Frentzen127 · Post by **Frentzen127** » 20 Jan 2021, 17:29

Well would you look at that, I honestly thought this was gone for good now

Back to being the perennial lurker i always was then. :deletraz:

LadyMarussia295 · Post by **LadyMarussia295** » 20 Jan 2021, 17:35

Nice to know the forum and the website are back. <3

Post by **Bobby Doorknobs** » 20 Jan 2021, 17:36

Post by **Londoner** » 20 Jan 2021, 18:10

What an absolutely beautiful couple of hours, a presidential inauguration and the return of Grand Prix Rejects. :dance:

Can confirm we've got new articles in the works, possibly as early as this Saturday. Watch this space.

Jan Magnussen · Post by **Rob Dylan** » 20 Jan 2021, 18:42

It's good to be back, 2021 is off to a good start! I'm happy to return to my moderator role, to run the Paul Stoddart Memorial Forum, to get ROTR and IIDOTR awards decided upon, and of course Predicament Predictions! Order shall be presumed under my watch. And Felipe Nasr shall never be forgotten!

I would also be happy to write an introductory sticky "Introduction to Rejectdom" or something along those lines explaining to newbies what it means to be a reject, why we're all here, what our interest is and what it's all about being one of us

Most of all I'm happy to be able to use this emoji again :dance:

CaptainGetz12 · Post by **CaptainGetz12** » 20 Jan 2021, 18:48

Of all the days it would come back, it's the day the salesman leaves the Oval Office

My heartfelt thanks to everyone who worked hard and for a long time to get this forum back up!

dr-baker · Post by **dr-baker** » 20 Jan 2021, 19:05

Rob Dylan wrote:, and of course Predicament Predictions! :

Some people did submit PPs for last season on the temporary forum. Can these be scored? No worries if not...

Jan Magnussen · Post by **Rob Dylan** » 20 Jan 2021, 19:12

dr-baker wrote:
Rob Dylan wrote:, and of course Predicament Predictions! :

Some people did submit PPs for last season on the temporary forum. Can these be scored? No worries if not...

I had absolutely no idea this temporary forum existed! :shock:

I would have definitely organised there if I had known. Well let's have a look-see, I can get back to you on that front

dinizintheoven · Post by **dinizintheoven** » 20 Jan 2021, 20:10

The temporary forum was certainly a welcome distraction while this site had its six months of downtime. I would hope that there is some kind of explanation as to what happened and why, the likes of which were denied to us when Formula One Rejects went 404 and GPR was created in its place. I would also hope that we get to hear it sooner rather than later. If the reasons for the downtime include words such as "COVID-19", "Brexit" or "Trump", I will assume that there is something to hide.

There's no point in beating around the bush - throughout 2020, my interest in F1 - motorsport in general, even - took another hit, and it was nothing to do with GPR's absence. Whether it was Mercedes having no realistic competition, the virtue-signalling crusade of Saint Lewis of Stevenage, or the constant parade of drivers bending the knee to a new secular religion, no amount of unexpected wins by Pierre Gasly and not-quite-so-unexpected wins by Sergio Pérez, and no amount of all-new-to-F1 tracks or the return of those long abandoned could compensate for that. We're in for another year of the same, and not being able to watch any race other than the British Grand Prix live is no longer the nightmare scenario that would once have convinced me to sign my life savings away to Sky Sports that it would once have been. It may be that I get some kind of enthusiasm back when 2022 kicks off, but I won't count on it. I'm not even the same person I was when the last proper chore of a season dragged on like a slug on Mogadon towards the end of 2013, and 2020 has done a huge amount of damage.

The alternative forum only had a few topics that would get a few posts here and there, usually when a Grand Prix was about to be held. Likely as not, I'm only going to be around at those times, and that's if I remember. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad GPR is back, because I thought this day would never come - but it won't be on the daily basis that it once was. I'm going to be reasonably well occupied trying to uproot myself to a new part of the country (which, until very recently, I thought was a done deal) so that I can live out the remaining few years of my life in some sort of... what's the word? It's certainly not "normality", it's "a minimal level of catastrophic abnormality". But I'm also more heavily involved in running the comp.sys.sinclair Crap Games Competition for this year, and my aims for that are to make it as big a job as I can possibly take on, one that dwarfs the publication of the final F1RMGP season where the race reports had grown way out of hand.

Now, if someone would like to dig up that post about the life and career of Justin Wilson from this sub-forum and turn it into a proper profile before it's potentially lost forever again...

Post by **Miguel98** » 20 Jan 2021, 20:25

dinizintheoven wrote:The temporary forum was certainly a welcome distraction while this site had its six months of downtime. I would hope that there is some kind of explanation as to what happened and why, the likes of which were denied to us when Formula One Rejects went 404 and GPR was created in its place. I would also hope that we get to hear it sooner rather than later. If the reasons for the downtime include words such as "COVID-19", "Brexit" or "Trump", I will assume that there is something to hide.

There's no point in beating around the bush - throughout 2020, my interest in F1 - motorsport in general, even - took another hit, and it was nothing to do with GPR's absence. Whether it was Mercedes having no realistic competition, the virtue-signalling crusade of Saint Lewis of Stevenage, or the constant parade of drivers bending the knee to a new secular religion, no amount of unexpected wins by Pierre Gasly and not-quite-so-unexpected wins by Sergio Pérez, and no amount of all-new-to-F1 tracks or the return of those long abandoned could compensate for that. We're in for another year of the same, and not being able to watch any race other than the British Grand Prix live is no longer the nightmare scenario that would once have convinced me to sign my life savings away to Sky Sports that it would once have been. It may be that I get some kind of enthusiasm back when 2022 kicks off, but I won't count on it. I'm not even the same person I was when the last proper chore of a season dragged on like a slug on Mogadon towards the end of 2013, and 2020 has done a huge amount of damage.

The alternative forum only had a few topics that would get a few posts here and there, usually when a Grand Prix was about to be held. Likely as not, I'm only going to be around at those times, and that's if I remember. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad GPR is back, because I thought this day would never come - but it won't be on the daily basis that it once was. I'm going to be reasonably well occupied trying to uproot myself to a new part of the country (which, until very recently, I thought was a done deal) so that I can live out the remaining few years of my life in some sort of... what's the word? It's certainly not "normality", it's "a minimal level of catastrophic abnormality". But I'm also more heavily involved in running the comp.sys.sinclair Crap Games Competition for this year, and my aims for that are to make it as big a job as I can possibly take on, one that dwarfs the publication of the final F1RMGP season where the race reports had grown way out of hand.

Now, if someone would like to dig up that post about the life and career of Justin Wilson from this sub-forum and turn it into a proper profile before it's potentially lost forever again...

It had nothing to do that: Biscione was very busy through 2020, and only very recently I got access to the database to fix what was broken. If I/we could, we would have done it earlier - I guarantee you that. I'm very sorry for that, really.

Essentially, with the fixes applied, there shouldn't be no problem in the forum staying up for the time being - I will be monitoring everything carefully and periodically make backups of the entire website in case something bad happens. I am really, truly sorry.

On the rest of the post: I definetelly understand your points. I also would like to wish you good luck on your new adventure! 2020 was not an easy year, and we all changed in many ways. I hope we can all find some sort of peace regarding what is happening soon enough.

Also, on the Justin Wilson post: I can't remember that post, but it surely must be here somewhere - nothing got deleted. What was it?

Aerond · Post by **Aerond** » 20 Jan 2021, 20:30

We're back in biznezz booooys :glasses:

madmark1974 · Post by **madmark1974** » 20 Jan 2021, 21:18

Welcome back one and all!

Post by **Nuppiz** » 20 Jan 2021, 21:22

I'd like to add to Miguel's post that the fix might've happened sooner if I had given him proper access earlier.

But I wasn't in the right mentality to do that. Biscione's initial comments were that restoring the site would be very difficult, and combined with my own "issues" (see Therapybox) taking a massive toll on my mental reserves I didn't even consider attempting to fix the site myself - or give access to someone far more knowledgeable.

But late last year my situation massively improved and I was able to concentrate on "fun" things again. And one of those "fun" things was suddenly deciding to make a spreadsheet of Artemio Matarazzo's career. As I was making it I found out that one of the race results was missing from my own archives so obviously I did what every sane person would do and logged into the site's root directory in an attempt to extract the SQL database just for that one post.

I couldn't get anywhere so I quite literally handed over the keys to Miguel, who is far more knowledgeable about these things. That was 8 days ago. A day later he was already able to restore the site back online. Then it took a few days before we were able to establish contact with Biscione and ask if he was OK with all this.

And now were here.

dr-baker · Post by **dr-baker** » 20 Jan 2021, 21:27

dinizintheoven wrote:
Now, if someone would like to dig up that post about the life and career of Justin Wilson from this sub-forum and turn it into a proper profile before it's potentially lost forever again...

Is this the post that you are thinking of? https://www.gprejects.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=7557&p=348150

Ducktanian · Post by **Ducktanian** » 20 Jan 2021, 22:52

I can't believe its back. 2021 has been worth it already! :dance:

Nessafox · Post by **Nessafox** » 21 Jan 2021, 02:45

It's great to be back.

Not having this place just felt... weird. Despite the discord being awesome in its own way.

Also this is the first time i hear about a temporary forum existing, owo

FullMetalJack · Post by **FullMetalJack** » 21 Jan 2021, 09:52

Good to have this place back, and I look forward to the new content.

Here's to the losers.

takagi_for_the_win · Post by **takagi_for_the_win** » 21 Jan 2021, 11:19

Goodness gracious me, it lives!

Meatwad · Post by **Meatwad** » 21 Jan 2021, 16:03

It's alive!

After such a long time, I thought the forum was gone for good... but old habits die hard, I still had to count results for that one alternative championship (and now I can finally post them).

Barbazza · Post by **Barbazza** » 21 Jan 2021, 19:11

Wow, this is truly amazing. The best comeback since I showed up at Minardi and scored a couple of points FOR SURE!

Peteroli34 · Post by **Peteroli34** » 21 Jan 2021, 19:57

Its good to be back, Not being able to visit for the best part of the year, coming back on it took me a while to sort of work out where everything is. i can help but feel that some of the forums seem a bit cluttered and could probably do with a clear-out
When you clock on a forum you have to scroll through 10 announcements before you get to the topics. 5 of which are about new articles, couldn't that be combined into one announcement and just change the topic when a new one is released.
I don't know if maybe if we could do a few more sub forums
for example. The The Eric van de Poole Memorial Forum is the random forum as an eclectic mix of other motorsport, f1 history and random stuff. its all grouped together, Where as you could have a sub forum for F1 history and another for other motorsport.

Post by **Miguel98** » 21 Jan 2021, 20:28

peteroli34 wrote:Its good to be back, Not being able to visit for the best part of the year, coming back on it took me a while to sort of work out where everything is. i can help but feel that some of the forums seem a bit cluttered and could probably do with a clear-out
When you clock on a forum you have to scroll through 10 announcements before you get to the topics. 5 of which are about new articles, couldn't that be combined into one announcement and just change the topic when a new one is released.
I don't know if maybe if we could do a few more sub forums
for example. The The Eric van de Poole Memorial Forum is the random forum as an eclectic mix of other motorsport, f1 history and random stuff. its all grouped together, Where as you could have a sub forum for F1 history and another for other motorsport.

Yeah, the announcements will be cleared up tomorrow, when Londoner drops the new article.

Personally, I agree with the rest, I think the forum needs some re-cleaning and re-structuring on that behalf, as some stuff is lost. The Jean-Denis Deletraz Forum and Eric van der Poele forum share some things, but it could be split into, for example, historical discussion (JDD and the historical bit of Eric), and other motorsports (Eric van der Poele).

dinizintheoven · Post by **dinizintheoven** » 22 Jan 2021, 16:44

dr-baker wrote:
dinizintheoven wrote:Now, if someone would like to dig up that post about the life and career of Justin Wilson from this sub-forum and turn it into a proper profile before it's potentially lost forever again...

Is this the post that you are thinking of? https://www.gprejects.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=7557&p=348150

That would be the one.

Post by **Ataxia** » 22 Jan 2021, 19:57

Miguel and Nuppiz have done a great job tidying everything up and getting the site back online. I think before we offer ideas for large-scale changes, we let them get acquainted with the back-end of the site and work out what still needs to be done to ensure it remains functional long-term.

There's a couple of new articles in the pipeline and, as Miguel mentioned, I'm sure further ideas will be very much appreciated!

Hope everyone's keeping well - and welcome home.

Wallio · Post by **Wallio** » 22 Jan 2021, 21:16

Wow, did one of my periodical checks of forum link that I have been doing for the last few months, and was surprised to see us back up. Even better that there is an explanation this time! (Its wonderful not being lied to!) Hopefully the traffic loss won't be permanent.

Also we have a Reddit? As much as I detest that cesspool, a GPR sub may make it worth venturing over there.

I am sort of the opposite of Dinitz, in that thanks to F1TV, I maybe more into F1 than I have been in 20 years, LOLLEWISWINSLOL and all the early season political bullshit aside. Websites like The-Race and The Parc Ferme filled in for here over quarantine. So while I can't promise my pre-shut down level of activity, I will be around, in some form. And I do still have my "Reject Engines" piece that I started somewhere, although its nowhere near being ready.

Fetzie · Post by **Fetzie** » 24 Jan 2021, 15:06

Wallio wrote:Also we have a Reddit? As much as I detest that cesspool, a GPR sub may make it worth venturing over there.

I don't know if splitting the discussion between three places (this forum, discord and a sub-reddit) would be a good idea. I think it would just make it harder to find and have a discussion on a topic.

dr-baker · Post by **dr-baker** » 24 Jan 2021, 17:00

Fetzie wrote:
Wallio wrote:Also we have a Reddit? As much as I detest that cesspool, a GPR sub may make it worth venturing over there.

I don't know if splitting the discussion between three places (this forum, discord and a sub-reddit) would be a good idea. I think it would just make it harder to find and have a discussion on a topic.

Agreed.

Wallio · Post by **Wallio** » 24 Jan 2021, 20:50

Oh, my mistake. I must have misread Miguel's orginial post. I thought he was saying we already had a presence on Reddit. I have no idea what discord and mibbit are, and have no interest in finding out, but I do venture on Reddit occasionally and would support GPR there if it exists. If not, no biggie. I like it here anyway.

CoopsII · Post by **CoopsII** » 09 Feb 2021, 11:55

This thing's had more comebacks than Nigel Mansell. Is this now your McLaren 1995 phase? Or are you up to the Jordan 1996 test already?

Either way, it's great you're back. The world needs Rejects.

pasta_maldonado · Post by **pasta_maldonado** » 10 Feb 2021, 19:33

A bit late, but it's good to be back... too much time spent here for it to be gone forever. Good job to all involved.

BabyG · Post by **BabyG** » 04 Mar 2021, 19:21

Very happy to find the forum back up. Had honestly given up hope, hence being literally the last person to know.

F1/GP Rejects has been my go to place for F1 talk away from the mainstream media for 15 years. Here’s to the next 15!

Keep up the good work those who provide content and those who got and keep this amazing place online.