[DrCar]

You know you are addicted when you check your internet connection by typing https://www.team-bhp.com/ instead of Google.com.

But, honestly this is the only addiction which isn't harmful to us in any way. Instead it opens up the world of information for us.

Fun fact -
When I am immersed in my mobile phone continously and my wife asks "What are you doing?".
Me - Replying to important messages.
Wife - Don't lie. I know you are checking Teambhp.
Me- Yes
Wife gives up and says- Okay, we can talk later when you are done.
She knows what is more important for me

Congratulations once more for Teambhp.

[pd_scorpio]

It's my pleasure to be a part of this great forum.

My most favorable reading topics here are travelogue and Official Review,From last few years I dont think i have missed a single of them.

This help me to give some output from them to close friends and family which is very much helpful.

Once again, Happy Birthday to the great forum....

[sgmuser]

Beautiful story by GTO about one of the most unique Automobile forum. Probably, the only one surviving, because of the fact that the quality content. Congrats. I joined this forum in 2006 when I was in Brunei and moved 3 countries after that. I had some ups and downs with health, career etc but the passion for cars and bikes was always there and I somehow stuck to this beautiful place of like-minded people. Only place on internet where no one get bashed for their open talk.

Great place to be GTO! Thanks for running this forum as it should be and not bogged down by umpteen legal notices, you had been slapped with all these years. You took all these pressure to maintain the FAIRNESS.
You might have come across innumerable moments of quitting with those pressures, but you took the right decision to fight it out! Starting from infamous Skoda, VW, Tata, Renault and so on. Kudos to you for that guts and as well the passion for the Quality. Otherwise, this would have been a gone case long back with all the internet bubble burst in the late 2000-ish and as well with the Social Media storm in the later part of this decade.

Even though, I am a fluent speaker of English, I started to proof read my writing in tbhp (after I got infractions and then I was banned at least once) When I read it back, then I understood, how bad I was in my expression while typing and the grammar which was more like talking. Another thumbs up to you all for sticking to the basics, enforcing the quality un-tiringly (I know it is not a word, but you get it right?).

Finally, thanks to each one of the contributors, starting from the admins, moderators and enthusiasts (both in writing and riding!) for those beautiful write ups! Some of the crazy stuff like Train reviews, Airplane reviews can only be seen here in tbhp! One backpacker travelling to South America alone, bicycle ride to places even cars can not go, Scooter ride for 600+ kms...to name a few which brings smile even if I think of it now!

I can continue writing all those nice things, but this is just to thank everyone for keep this clean, up and running. Keep it up.

Coming soon, my Jeep Wrangler JL review and need your guys push and guidance to do that. Driven it almost 13k and yet to make that mind to DO it. You guys have made it look so difficult with those detailed reviews and I feel lazy.

All the best
Regards
SGMUSER

[motorotor]

Happy 16th Birthday! I am not an active contributor on the forum; more of a reader than a writer but I have to say that every single automobile-related decision in my life has been taken after deliberation and research with Team-BHP. Kudos to the team for creating India's favorite hangout for petrol, diesel (and now electric) heads.

[SPB_drives]

After reading this post, I suddenly feel so amazing to be a part of this group. You guys are taking care of aspects which many will easily give up in the interest of better commercial prospects. Kudos to your spirit of honest automotive reporting!

[manaa45]

Happy Birthday Team Bhp.

OMG its a long way and I am proud to be a member since 2004.....Those were days of fun, made so many friends, learnt so many things here. Female members grew through the years and made it better for me :-P


Few moments that I can recall.

My team bhp meets or rather drives that i was part of, infact managed a all women meet of team bhp too. It was so much fun then. Sadly life happened and Tbhp took a back seat as far as physical presence was concerned. But I read through it regularly.









Forum used to be giving out information on various drives too and I had the honour of attending two editions of Blind man's rally in year 2010 and 2011 respectively. I stood 4th in the first edition in the TSD format and it was fun as well as a proud moment. My navigator was awesome at reading braille and that helped us achieve the unthinkable. Met many Tbhpians then for the first time.






Team TBHP gave me the freedom to pen down my experience as a Customer Care executive at a well known Car dealership and it was a well received thread. Sharing here now for newer members.

https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/india...lership-5.html (Life as a customer care executive at a car dealership)

Friends for life. I made so many here and they have helped me so many times and teased me too. To start with, Addy, Nishant, Deepankar, Gautam, Manson, Bhargavi, Mansi, Rehaan, Late Sam, Late Robin, Late Santosh aka Steeroid and lot more. I miss Sam and his writings the most. Steeroid had named me the first lady of Tbhp and how I was proud of it. Many more whom I might not have met and met across India all thanks to Tbhp.

Teambhp stickers are proudly displayed on my car and I love it. First one was a free on at Blind mans rally and after wards my new car has whole set. :-) <3

Many more memories but I will end it with just saying a big Thanks to Rushabh. Thanks for creating TBHp and Team for nurturing and growing it. Thanks.

[V.Narayan]

Originally Posted by manaa45

Happy Birthday Team Bhp.

OMG its a long way and I am proud to be a member since 2004.....Those were days of fun, made so many friends, learnt so many things here. Female members grew through the years and made it better for me :-P


Few moments that I can recall.

My team bhp meets or rather drives that i was part of, infact managed a all women meet of team bhp too. It was so much fun then. Sadly life happened and Tbhp took a back seat as far as physical presence was concerned. But I read through it regularly.

Forum used to be giving out information on various drives too and I had the honour of attending two editions of Blind man's rally in year 2010 and 2011 respectively. I stood 4th in the first edition in the TSD format and it was fun as well as a proud moment. My navigator was awesome at reading braille and that helped us achieve the unthinkable. Met many Tbhpians then for the first time.

Many more memories but I will end it with just saying a big Thanks to Rushabh. Thanks for creating TBHp and Team for nurturing and growing it. Thanks.

Lovely to hear from a lady member and that too from someone who was in at the very beginning . You should consider contributing more frequently. We would all benefit from your perspectives.

[manaa45]

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

Lovely to hear from a lady member and that too from someone who was in at the very beginning . You should consider contributing more frequently. We would all benefit from your perspectives.

Thanks a lot. Yes will surely try to be more active.

[GTO]

Trivia = Shifting Gears has more posts than any other section! What's more, it is currently no.3 (after Indian Car Scene & Reviews) in terms of number of people viewing it.

Just realised this today, while the "thanks" feature was being enabled for it.

[Raulspace999]

LONG POST ALERT

Well here's a no holds barred bare all confession!

I actually stumbled upon this gem of a forum circa 2006 and was amazed by the high quality insights. Just a 19 year old budding lawyer passionate about automobiles and anything that has wheels.

I was bestowed with a WagonR LX(sans power steering) on my 18th Birthday in the year 2004. Alas, by the time I was allowed rather permitted to go on long drives, the 26 July Mumbai Deluge(yes, people from Mumbai will be familiar with this and it still evokes mixed emotions and the sight of our beloved rides drowned in tons of water comes wavering before our eyes).

Yes, I made the terrible mistake of turn on the ignition of a flood affected car(Should have consulted the 'Gurus' of Team-Bhp, but my care-free teenager attitude got the better of me).

With less than 4K kms on the ODO, i was heartbroken to find it stranded in Ratan Automobiles(Deonar, Chembur Workshop) and since then possibly they have shut shop or re-branded/diversified in a new business.

This was the phase in which i was just a spectator of this 'evolving' forum and true to the spirit of Team-Bhps, the Deluge did bring a lot of like minded people together exchanging ideas about their rides/workshop experiences/insurance/spare parts availability et al. The Bhpians from Mumbai were literally united in grief!!

So after a long gruelling wait the engine of my Maruti WagonR LX was 'overhauled' because of my irresponsible behavior. The expenses on consumables not covered under Insurance created a considerable dent on my(read:folks) pocket. Finally, after a period of 2 months and after beating a long queue of cars waiting to get repaired( in the midst of the likes of the esteems, balenos, vitaras and zens) finally a humble WagonR LX had cut the red tape to make it to the garage and eventually in my driveway.

But...then the things were not the same anymore, it felt like a different car altogether, the unremoved plastic covers on the seats were long gone( yes indians in general have a tendency to retain plastic covers on seats for months together as has been widely discussed on this forum), the new car smell and feeling had diminished and body rust had accelerated( the fact that i live in a coastal city made matters worse).

In short within less than a year, the car had taken an immense depreciation hit!!!

The moment of truth came - I had to get enrolled on this elite forum to soup up my car, understand the basics of my ride as i had to pay a huge price for my non chalant attitude.

Signed in chose a handle(fre...ul) and i was ushered in. The attitude to fit in and ask for stupid lame advice on souping the car, power windows, seat covers, K&N cars compelled me to go on a posting spree on this forum.

At times I doled out 'incorrect' 'whimsical' advice to kind souls on this forum and the unsuspecting ones fell prey to my 'expert' advice. This was in the larger scheme of things.

Now, when i Look back i can understand the reasons for me getting 'BANNED' although cannot recollect the exact post/incident which triggered the BAN.

Circa 2014 - Years later now a mature lawyer, humble,rational and who has seen the ugly reality of the world, I decide to again achieve my coveted membership.

Always had to pen down my journey and association with this beautiful forum and jumped at the opportunity when i saw this thread with a dash of Nostalgia on Team Bhp's 16th Birthday.

Its been one hell of ride and my PDI's could'nt have been any better which sometimes puzzle even the sales guy at dealerships and must to their chagrin.

Although, the only thing I regret is my inability to revive my old handle which is still visible on this forum albeit under the head of 'BANNED'.

NOTE TO Dear Mods : Is there anyway to revive that coveted handle and to resuscitate it to life? I promise to be a good boy this time around.

[vivek95]

There is a COVID-19 pandemic within Team-BHP itself How many threads do we presently have on the forum that are directly or indirectly related to COVID-19 ?? Meaning those which otherwise would have never come into existence !

[GTO]

Ever noticed how thread titles are usually perfect? A couple of Mods (including me) have "thread title OCD". I pretty much tweak the title of every new thread in some way or the other .

[Eshan Joshi]

The number of post on Shifting Gears just hit the 750,000 mark

[GTO]

Originally Posted by GTO

Our community is so well-behaved that the most common Reported Posts are for things like “long quotes” or back-to-back posting. Serious offenses such as poorly typed posts are like once in 4 – 5 days, personal attacks may be once in a fortnight, trolling once / month and abusive language perhaps once in 2 – 3 months. Hat's off to the impeccable posting standards of BHPians!

Facebook & Instagram obviously have activity that is a gazillion times bigger, but it's still nice to see the stats. From the Times Of India Newsletter:

Facebook on Tuesday reported the number of online posts its moderators have taken down or took action on in the quarter ending March — an indirect measure of the extent of hate speech in the absence of a reliable third-party data.

9.6 million posts: That's how many posts Facebook took 'action on' for violating hate speech policies in the months from January through March — while a pandemic was raging across the world. It was 2.5 million in the same period last year and 5.7 million in the quarter ending December.
Note: An increase in posts deleted does not necessarily mean an increase in hate speech online, but shows Facebook's greater attempt at content moderation amid complaints by users and lawmakers.

There's more:
2.3 million posts had to be removed for bullying and harassment
8.6 million for child nudity and sexual exploitation of children
39.5 million on adult nudity and sexual activity
25.5 million posts for violent and graphic content

Think Instagram is all about fitness celebrities and sourdough bread?
1 million Insta posts were removed for child nudity in the January-March quarter
2.3 million posts for violent and graphic content.
8.1 million posts were removed for adult nudity
Over 805,000 posts were removed for hate speech

Facebook's quarterly report, called the Community Standards Enforcement Report, is the social media giant's response to calls for transparency and accountability on harmful content on its platforms. To further strengthen its content moderation, Facebook had recently announced the members of its content Oversight Board that will be the ultimate in-house ombudsman on the subject.

But greater content moderation means greater pressure on moderators. On Tuesday, Facebook agreed to settle a lawsuit by agreeing to pay a total of $52 million to current and former moderators to compensate them for mental health issues developed on the job, reports The Verge.

[GTO]

Trivia = We just took the Aura review live. For the first time in a decade, Team-BHP doesn't have a review backlog . Due to the lockdown, we're now twiddling our thumbs & waiting for the City, Creta, Harrier AT etc.