Some things never change do they?
I've been away for a while on a self imposed ban. A bit of space has given me the following perspective: This place is absolutely one huge waste of of all our time.

And I mean that in the nicest possible way, I really do. That's kind of it's purpose. As a diversion. To waste some time. To "discuss", to swap jokes, to rant, and some just to troll.
Honestly, none of us have ever changed another's mind about anything. We all come on here believing what we believe. We "hate" who we hate and "love" who we love. The Mods will always get bashed, if us "fanboys" think the tone of the place is a bit "anti" (which it is, by the way

) we get our panties in a wad, and likewise if the "haterz" think not enough of us "fanboys" are getting banned, they get really really whiny and start accusing the mods and CN of being in the employ of Livestrong.
I'd be pretty interested to see, outside of the mushroom farm, how many complaints are thrown the mod's way. I hazard a guess that much of their time is taken up with clinic regulars being told to kiss and make up, and I doubt many people in the Pro Road racing forum are reaching for the "report post" button every time someone calls Evans a wheel sucker.
So, in effect, we're the problem...us...the posters...I admit, that CN having a "clinic" at all, does mean that they are tacitly endorsing people to come online and throw around any unsavoury speculation they wish, and long term i suspect that might be it's undoing. Wonder why we get those random ads now? Do you really think that big name cycling sponsors want their ads displayed on pages accusing their riders past and present of being juiced to the eyeballs.
Chris, I share your frustrations sometimes, I really do, and god knows I have had a few run ins with Alpe D'Huez myself, but I do have to stick up for the mods a bit here. They are damned if they do, and damned if they don't. I would, for transparent fairness' sake, like to see a well known out of the closet "fanboy" being made a mod (not me, I'd be awful and would ban everyone apart from Polish, Chris, Ulrich Relaxes and RaceRadio and then sit back and watch if they could break him down (or should that be: in?)

) I don't see what mods can honestly do, apart from that, to improve things when the clinic exists. It's very nature is going to attract conflict, unrest, name calling and whingeing.
Alpe D'Huez...one thing I would add, and i have said this before, is that I do think balance needs to be monitored closely, with respect to moderating. All views should be welcome, and all posters should be free to express themselves in as free a way as is possible, that after all is what would make this place truly a "community", rather than how it is more and more often becoming seen outside of here, which is as a cult.
As a suggestion, why don't we try bans from particular sub forums? That way we don't lose the really worthy and funny input from TFF, or Chris E, Polish or even, may I say it, myself from all of the forums for calling python a plank or posting porn links or whatever our transgression may be?
Here's another suggestion...why not temporarily ban whole sub forums if the behaviour gets out of hand? for example...Chris E tears LarryBudelman a new one in the politics forum when he finds out he's actually Rick Santorum, it all kicks off, The hitch
misquotes 42 whole pages of the Art of War and someone says it's all a conspiracy started by Armstrong...why not simply say...ok...you've had your fun. No more politics for a week until you learn to play nice. One of you misbehaves, you all go to the sin bin.
i don't think practically it would work long term, but it'd be interesting to see how much your workload decreased if certain threads were out of action for a while.
Anyway, Peace everyone. To quote someone far funnier than me...this place is like a broken pencil....pointless. Let's try and remember that.
On that note, I'm off to start a Lemond doping thread.
