Heads up on forthcoming doping website

[L'arriviste]

As I have mentioned before in this forum, I've personally spent the last year or so working on a project to log all doping-related incidents in the European pro road scene since 1980.

The project was partly inspired by some unsourced mudslinging on this forum in July last year and the fact that, certainly in the English language anyway, pro cycling deserves a good doping almanac.

Sneak preview

In the future I may expand the dataset beyond Europe, to include 'cross, track and mountain bike and earlier than 1980 but I would need help to do that and for now I had to limit my enquiry due to the size of the task at hand.

The product of my work will be a strictly non-commercial dot org and its content will be Creative Commons.

How Clinicians can help

Of course, this is my project and I curate it, but I would prefer it eventually to become a collaborative exercise. Here's where you come in!

I'm very close to releasing the website now but all that raw data is lacking some prose. I'm looking for a small number of short but scholarly essays on subjects within the domain of pro road doping, to be fully credited to you (or your avatar ) but otherwise satisfying the CC licence.

I'm particularly interested in illustrated chronologies of testing and/or scandals (for example, we had an excellent chronology posted here a long time ago as reproduced in PDF by red_flanders, but I have been unable to trace the original author, who posted it on a now-defunct Team Saxo Bank forum) but I would also welcome opinion pieces, as well as discussions on specific subjects and cultural problems.

Anyway, if you'd like to contribute an essay or if you know somebody who might, please PM me with your chosen subject. Given the amount of effort that gets put in here at times, I wouldn't think that was too difficult for many of you.

Once the website is live, I'll post the URL here. I would also welcome any and all corrigenda, additions and sources for any information or incidents I may have overlooked (of which there are doubtless many). The facility to do that will be available on the website.

Thank you for your help!

L'arriviste

 

[Mrs John Murphy]

Thank you for this it looks really interesting.

Thank you for your hard work.

 

[hrotha]

The idea is awesome, and on top of that the design looks great. I can't help writing anything, but hey, if you ever decide to translate it into Spanish, let me know.

 

[euanli]

I can't wait until this is live. I bet it can have a strong impact.

 

[Benotti69]

Well done on your efforts.

Hope you can get some live$trong advertising on it

 

[rickshaw]

Honestly, being obtuse..

As I have mentioned before in this forum, I've personally spent the last year or so working on a project to log all doping-related incidents in the European pro road scene since 1980.

The project was partly inspired by some unsourced mudslinging on this forum in July last year and the fact that, certainly in the English language anyway, pro cycling deserves a good doping almanac......

Thank you for your help!

L'arriviste

I didn't quite "get" what your goal is here. Obviously you have done / will do a lot of work. What is the purpose? What do you want to achieve as a result?

 

[L'arriviste]

I didn't quite "get" what your goal is here. Obviously you have done / will do a lot of work. What is the purpose? What do you want to achieve as a result?

There are educational, professional and personal elements to this project.

Looking inwards, I work in information design professionally and I wanted a non-commercial outlet, to work (and hopefully to collaborate) on a dataset that fascinates me personally and does not have to be hamstrung by a client's requirements. This was my initial approach. A thirst for knowledge, for getting up to speed, for reading (in several languages) what I never read before.

But instead it turned out to be a bigger, more intensely personal journey, which I had rather underestimated. When I was first following cycling closely as a kid, I believed in the sport as a measure for my own aspirations and - in my own childish way - those of humanity. Working on this project enabled me to revisit my own memories, to remember how I saw the world then and to see it as it really was. At first and very briefly I was mad at my heroes, then I came to understand them better. So you could say that it's been a bit of a growing up process.

Looking outwards, I think that doping is not particularly well understood and a lot of this is due to ignorance and the monochromatic treatment the media give the subject.

There's currently no single resource (in the English language) which gathers together as many threads of the story as are publicly available and presents them as a properly-sourced topology of doping.

For me, the only purpose of the Internet is sharing. I still remember the days before web marketing and advertising, when communications agencies still dismissed the Internet as a non-medium. I am frequently disappointed by the narrow minds that dominate web communications output today. This forum has been an exception, at times a revelation. I've learned so much from it, about doping and humanity. I've been inspired and occasionally disgusted by both. But, cretinous as some of them sometimes appear here, the majority posters are dedicated to sharing information. I wanted to share something too.

 

[Stingray34]

Congrats on a timely and worthwhile exercise. Concise, factual information sharing such as this can play a role in cleaning up sport.

I do some freelance writing and I'd be happy to contribute something in the near future.

 

[Dr. Maserati]

There are educational, professional and personal elements to this project.

Looking inwards, I work in information design professionally and I wanted a non-commercial outlet, to work (and hopefully to collaborate) on a dataset that fascinates me personally and does not have to be hamstrung by a client's requirements. This was my initial approach. A thirst for knowledge, for getting up to speed, for reading (in several languages) what I never read before.

But instead it turned out to be a bigger, more intensely personal journey, which I had rather underestimated. When I was first following cycling closely as a kid, I believed in the sport as a measure for my own aspirations and - in my own childish way - those of humanity. Working on this project enabled me to revisit my own memories, to remember how I saw the world then and to see it as it really was. At first and very briefly I was mad at my heroes, then I came to understand them better. So you could say that it's been a bit of a growing up process.

Looking outwards, I think that doping is not particularly well understood and a lot of this is due to ignorance and the monochromatic treatment the media give the subject.

There's currently no single resource (in the English language) which gathers together as many threads of the story as are publicly available and presents them as a properly-sourced topology of doping.

For me, the only purpose of the Internet is sharing. I still remember the days before marketing and advertising, when communications agencies still dismissed the Internet as a non-medium. I am frequently disappointed by the narrow minds that dominate web communications output today. This forum has been an exception, at times a revelation. I've learned so much from it, about doping and humanity. I've been inspired and occasionally disgusted by both. But, cretinous as some of them sometimes appear here, the majority posters are dedicated to sharing information. I wanted to share something too.

Brilliant - and it was for the same reason that I eventually joined here. (or more precisely to gather information, learn and form my opinion).

So, chapeau - a dedicated website with all relevant information would be a great resource.

Being a bit of an information junkie, I have some stats from various years that I would be more than happy to share so you can cross check your own data.
Best of luck with the site.

 

[sniper]

(...)

(...)

L'arriviste

excellent stuff and visually very atractive.

To be a bellyatcher: If I'm not mistaken, on this one slide here, you make a controversial statement, saying that doping does not jeopardize the well-being of competetive cycling.
I'm inclined to think it does.

Can you somehow patentize the data in case (German) journals want to draw on it?

 

[python]

best of luck with the noble effort !

drop me a line if you need help/input regarding technical-scientific issues or a substance-specific testing procedure concerns in the so called controversial and/or questionable cases.

i keep thousands of hard references including dozens of cas rulings and will be happy to elaborate if a specific question/issue pops up.

 

[ludwig]

Nice idea, kudos to you.

What sort of doping-related content are you looking for? Raw data? Or articles on specific scandals and/or doping-related figures?

With knowledge comes understanding and, hopefully, tolerance. Presenting as much information as possible in a non-judgmental manner could really help interested parties avoid misinformation and obtain factual, useful infos.

 

[Anonymous]

nice idea. I tend to use cyclismedopage for finding out info like that, but you do need to be able to speak french, and the navigation isnt the most intuitive.

 

[luckyboy]

Yeah I use that sometimes. This looks great.

 

[datalore]

This is great. The topic of doping in cycling is surrounded by a great deal of misinformation. I think it would be extremely useful to have all of the known information in one place. Ideally, it would be great to be able to sort the incidents by method, team, profession, date, individual, or combinations of these terms. Also, it would be great to allow users to submit, rate and suggest revisions to content.

 

[Race Radio]

This is also a good resource

http://www.cyclisme-dopage.com/

 

[Cobblestoned]

This may also help. Big database

Since 1940

http://www.cycling4fans.de/index.php?id=1359

 

[thehog]

Livestong.com is also a good resource for the effects of doping.

 

[Anonymous]

This is also a good resource

http://www.cyclisme-dopage.com/

I had already said that. catch up.

 

[Scatto]

great project

 

[skippy]

Congratulations on your work to date !

Hope that what you report is irrefutable fact and that you check all that is offered you , since there will be some that your Website will affect , who will try to derail your efforts !

Once those who try to beat the system realise that when caught out they will be easily followed for the rest of their days perhaps they will have second thoughts about " Shortcuts " !

 

[ksmith]

This is some project, I wish you all the best. We do need something like this.

Well done.

 

[red_flanders]

As I have mentioned before in this forum, I've personally spent the last year or so working on a project to log all doping-related incidents in the European pro road scene since 1980.

The project was partly inspired by some unsourced mudslinging on this forum in July last year and the fact that, certainly in the English language anyway, pro cycling deserves a good doping almanac.

Sneak preview

In the future I may expand the dataset beyond Europe, to include 'cross, track and mountain bike and earlier than 1980 but I would need help to do that and for now I had to limit my enquiry due to the size of the task at hand.

The product of my work will be a strictly non-commercial dot org and its content will be Creative Commons.

How Clinicians can help

Of course, this is my project and I curate it, but I would prefer it eventually to become a collaborative exercise. Here's where you come in!

I'm very close to releasing the website now but all that raw data is lacking some prose. I'm looking for a small number of short but scholarly essays on subjects within the domain of pro road doping, to be fully credited to you (or your avatar ) but otherwise satisfying the CC licence.

I'm particularly interested in illustrated chronologies of testing and/or scandals (for example, we had an excellent chronology posted here a long time ago as reproduced in PDF by red_flanders, but I have been unable to trace the original author, who posted it on a now-defunct Team Saxo Bank forum) but I would also welcome opinion pieces, as well as discussions on specific subjects and cultural problems.

Anyway, if you'd like to contribute an essay or if you know somebody who might, please PM me with your chosen subject. Given the amount of effort that gets put in here at times, I wouldn't think that was too difficult for many of you.

Once the website is live, I'll post the URL here. I would also welcome any and all corrigenda, additions and sources for any information or incidents I may have overlooked (of which there are doubtless many). The facility to do that will be available on the website.

Thank you for your help!

L'arriviste

Great site design btw. Did you do it?

 

[L'arriviste]

To be a bellyatcher: If I'm not mistaken, on this one slide here, you make a controversial statement, saying that doping does not jeopardize the well-being of competetive cycling.
I'm inclined to think it does.

Can you somehow patentize the data in case (German) journals want to draw on it?

Yes, you're right. It's more of a controversial statement than I would want to have for a homepage and I've since clarified it!

As to your other point, I have no wish to protect the intellectual property of the data itself, since it isn't mine. The site merely signposts a huge mass of published material that's out there. I have lots of sources from German journals, so of course they're welcome to use the site to curate their own materials.

What sort of doping-related content are you looking for? Raw data? Or articles on specific scandals and/or doping-related figures?

I have applied very strict rules about content. A single record consists of data about a doping-related incident that is verifiable and sourced in publications. All but a couple of these sources are viewable online.

Anyone who wants to submit comments, corrections, criticisms or whatever will be able to do so right underneath the particular person, team or substance that takes their interest.

But - and this goes for new items as well as things I may have missed - there must be a verifiable, published source which is not an opinion, unsourced allegation or hearsay. I have, for example, logged David Millar's arrest in 2004 but it does not follow that I have logged any of Philippe Gaumont's claims about him or others as fact.

The neat thing is that publications take care of what is or should be verifiable fact. The media have a responsibility to publish fact. If they do not, then the individual(s) harmed can take appropriate action. If the individual(s) do not, and there are other sources to the same effect, then the publication must stand as fact. This is how the world works.

And the dataset is moving all the time. If new facts come to light, with Heras' successful appeal as a recent notable example, they will be logged. There are no notions of "guilt" or "reputation" in the dataset, just a signposting of sources. People must decide for themselves what they think.

Hope that what you report is irrefutable fact and that you check all that is offered you , since there will be some that your Website will affect , who will try to derail your efforts !

Yes indeed. As described above, everything is published fact. If I had no verifiable, published sources I could not enter the information.

The broader point that is perhaps not yet obvious but which I want to underline again is that the project data is intended to be neither judgemental nor punitive. Acquittals and negative B tests are recorded with the same fidelity as any positive test or arrest.

There's no kind of editorial spin and in fact you'll see that there isn't even enough room for such an approach, so spare is the information published. My approach is that, once properly informed, people can and should make up their own minds.

Great site design btw. Did you do it?

I did. As mentioned above, information websites are part of my professional work, so I must confess to an unfair advantage in that respect.

Thanks to everyone for their kind words!

 

[L'arriviste]

Call for essays

In all the buzz about the new website - and I'm trying to stay modest lest you find the results disappointing when published - I just want to repeat my call for essays.

Lots of folks have kindly offered editorial help, which will be both necessary and much appreciated, but nobody yet has stepped up (or 'manned up'? I learned that phrase on CN forums) to write a short essay of their choice.

The only constraints are that your short essay (+/- 500 words or a magnum opus, it's up to you!) is:

a) applicable for the most part to doping in European pro road cycling between 1980 and the present day, and

b) scholarly insofar as it doesn't make unverified claims.

The example I gave above, which is terrific and which I would dearly love to reproduce but for lack of a traceable author, is the one red_flanders published for the benefit of this forum aeons ago.

In return you'll be fully credited (avatar or real name) and you'll get to say something important on what I hope will be a useful and frequently visited website. The only editorial rights that I reserve are the correction of typos and linking up some of your words or phrases with records in the dataset if and when applicable.

The dataset is large and perhaps slightly intimidating at first. What it lacks is a human context, a "way in". Such essays would, as well as perhaps lending a bit of kudos to those who wrote them and casting the right light on the website, put an intelligent, responsible head on this big body of data.

Please PM me with your chosen subject. Again, the reams some of you folks write here would dwarf any short essay.