Moderators

[Irondan]

How on earth is a newspaper putting forward a completely unsubstantiated allegation being allowed to stay in the evidence/links thread. Might as well just start putting ever single rumour in there. There is supposed to be some sort of standard for evidence as laid out in the forum rules but it seems to be ignored.

The evidence/links being posted in that thread are off topic and will be moved to their proper threads. That old thread was stickied a long time ago for the LA Reasoned Decision evidence. Up until not that long ago it had been mostly ignored, by myself along with everyone else.

I never actually read that thread so I didn't know the topic was LA and the reasoned decision, because of this I let this run of off topic postings run entirely too long without knowing that I was allowing the thread to take on a life of it's own.

I've locked it for now until I can clean it up and move the off topic posts to the proper threads. I will also unsticky the thread as it was never intended to be stickied forever.

 

[Brullnux]

The rule that all posts with links to foreign websites must have a complete translation else they'll be deleted is pretty ridiculous tbh. I understand this is an English language forum but not everyone has the time, or skill perhaps, to do a full and proper translation of a link they found interesting. If a link is posted in say, French or Flemish, then even if I can't understand it I don't get angry, I click on it and browse for some key words that I may be able to translate to gauge the sense of the article. Of course having a translation always makes it easier, but it is far too harsh to force it upon people. Even if the link is unintelligible to some people, others will find it very interesting, and by deleting posts that have these links you are ridding them of a useful and interesting article. Because, while this forum is an English language forum, it is a diverse and multi-cultural one too.

 

[Irondan]

Re:

The rule that all posts with links to foreign websites must have a complete translation else they'll be deleted is pretty ridiculous tbh. I understand this is an English language forum but not everyone has the time, or skill perhaps, to do a full and proper translation of a link they found interesting. If a link is posted in say, French or Flemish, then even if I can't understand it I don't get angry, I click on it and browse for some key words that I may be able to translate to gauge the sense of the article. Of course having a translation always makes it easier, but it is far too harsh to force it upon people. Even if the link is unintelligible to some people, others will find it very interesting, and by deleting posts that have these links you are ridding them of a useful and interesting article. Because, while this forum is an English language forum, it is a diverse and multi-cultural one too.

The rule that all posts with links to foreign websites must have a complete translation else they'll be deleted is pretty ridiculous tbh

First of all, that's not at all what I said. Read it again.

This is mainly regarding the articles that are linked as images, and not searchable text. If it were searchable text it would be easy enough for anyone, including moderators to copy and paste into a translator, not to mention the auto translating capability of google chrome. But since it's an image it can't be copied and pasted as text. That means that "someone" has to translate it by manually typing it into a translator, that responsibility falls on the poster of the comment.

Quite simply, there has been links to old newspaper articles that have been posted as being "proof" of a riders doping history in a language other than english. This "proof" should be readily translated for all to read, and then discussed/debated. This can only be achieved by having one universal language, and for this forum that is the english language. This policy was established long ago, well before my time and mostly everyone else's too. I didn't create a new rule because I thought it would be fun to start making up new rules, this has been forum policy since the very beginning.

Anything that has been posted before in a language other than english was doing so against forum policy. Obviously that policy has been very lax due to the readily available translators available, including the auto translate feature in google chrome.

Again, this policy is not new. I'm just reminding members that the responsibility falls on the poster to ensure that whatever they're linking to and the point they are commenting on has to be translated or translatable text. Images of articles are not translatable text, therefore the member must translate the pertinent information of the article.

 

[Brullnux]

Cyclingnews Forums is an English Language discussion forum, please post all comments in english only. Any links attached to posts that are in a language other than english must have an accurate and complete translation of the pertinent subject matter, otherwise the comment runs the risk of deletion.

I was talking about this. I have no problem if the policy is as it is in your post, but how it's been written in the 'Links and Translations' section is unclear and probably needs revision, because reading it I still see 'Links must either be in english or have a translation otherwise we delete it'.

I still see no point in deleting images not in English without a translation. It makes very little sense really. Yes it is easier to have a translation and it should be encouraged to do so, but nobody is winning if the post is deleted. It isn't going to achieve anything, as 90% of people who post pictures of articles (Echoes and Flamin usually in the PRR section) do it anyway, and those who don't aren't all of a suddent going to start doing translations, they just won't post at all.

 

[Irondan]

Re:

Cyclingnews Forums is an English Language discussion forum, please post all comments in english only. Any links attached to posts that are in a language other than english must have an accurate and complete translation of the pertinent subject matter, otherwise the comment runs the risk of deletion.

I was talking about this. I have no problem if the policy is as it is in your post, but how it's been written in the 'Links and Translations' section is unclear and probably needs revision, because reading it I still see 'Links must either be in english or have a translation otherwise we delete it'.

I still see no point in deleting images not in English without a translation. It makes very little sense really. Yes it is easier to have a translation and it should be encouraged to do so, but nobody is winning if the post is deleted. It isn't going to achieve anything, as 90% of people who post pictures of articles (Echoes and Flamin usually in the PRR section) do it anyway, and those who don't aren't all of a suddent going to start doing translations, they just won't post at all.

You're making this into something that it's not. It's impossible to predict the future so I won't comment on most of what you said.

I think it's pretty clear what was written, if you read it differently there's nothing I can do about that. I clarified the intent of my announcement in detail with my previous response to your comment. I'm going to leave it at that for now.

Cheers

 

[Netserk]

I think the announcement could have something to do with a LeMond related article.

Regarding the announcement (and the deletion of links), I think a key part of the sentence is ", otherwise the comment runs the risk of deletion" ergo, it's not rigid that it will happen automatically, there's still room for some common sense/judgment from whatever moderator, who will have to deal with the upcoming untranslated links.

 

[Irondan]

Re:

I think the announcement could have something to do with a LeMond related article.

Regarding the announcement (and the deletion of links), I think a key part of the sentence is ", otherwise the comment runs the risk of deletion" ergo, it's not rigid that it will happen automatically, there's still room for some common sense/judgment from whatever moderator, who will have to deal with the upcoming untranslated links.

Precisely.....

 

[pmcg76]

Re:

The rule that all posts with links to foreign websites must have a complete translation else they'll be deleted is pretty ridiculous tbh. I understand this is an English language forum but not everyone has the time, or skill perhaps, to do a full and proper translation of a link they found interesting. If a link is posted in say, French or Flemish, then even if I can't understand it I don't get angry, I click on it and browse for some key words that I may be able to translate to gauge the sense of the article. Of course having a translation always makes it easier, but it is far too harsh to force it upon people. Even if the link is unintelligible to some people, others will find it very interesting, and by deleting posts that have these links you are ridding them of a useful and interesting article. Because, while this forum is an English language forum, it is a diverse and multi-cultural one too.

I have no real issues with links in a foregin language and have used some myself. but when we start getting bombarded with link after link with no translations and posters start implying things from those articles without giving tranlations, then it becomes an issue. It has as much to do with the poster as the link.

 

[sniper]

very well said brullnux. taking the words from my mouth.

@pcmg, it's telling this only became an issue for you when the discussion turned to lemond's possible doping, a topic to which you have contributed remarkably little other than clogging, moaning, insulting (randomly ordered).
Instead of stimulating discussion and thought process, you take every opportunity to kill it. Keep up the stellar work.

 

[Benotti69]

Re: Re:

The rule that all posts with links to foreign websites must have a complete translation else they'll be deleted is pretty ridiculous tbh. I understand this is an English language forum but not everyone has the time, or skill perhaps, to do a full and proper translation of a link they found interesting. If a link is posted in say, French or Flemish, then even if I can't understand it I don't get angry, I click on it and browse for some key words that I may be able to translate to gauge the sense of the article. Of course having a translation always makes it easier, but it is far too harsh to force it upon people. Even if the link is unintelligible to some people, others will find it very interesting, and by deleting posts that have these links you are ridding them of a useful and interesting article. Because, while this forum is an English language forum, it is a diverse and multi-cultural one too.

I have no real issues with links in a foregin language and have used some myself. but when we start getting bombarded with link after link with no translations and posters start implying things from those articles without giving tranlations, then it becomes an issue. It has as much to do with the poster as the link.

Posters could translate badly and lead to misinterpretation and we would not want that....Heck some might get the idea that the sport has clean riders.... :lol:

 

[pmcg76]

Re:

very well said brullnux. taking the words from my mouth.

@pcmg, it's telling this only became an issue for you when the discussion turned to lemond's possible doping, a topic to which you have contributed remarkably little other than clogging, moaning, insulting (randomly ordered).
Instead of stimulating discussion and thought process, you take every opportunity to kill it. Keep up the stellar work.

It becomes an issue when people start putting 5/6 links in a post that are unreadable and a series of posts contain links with no translations.

Pointing out your nonsense is hardly clogging up threads, more like cleansing them of all the garbage. Remind me which one of us has been banned multiple times for trolling and then permabanned?

 

[peloton]

My 1 cent, it would be polite for those who post non English links/articles, to at least put a short translation, from the main parts, into English.
Google translation is far from accurate, sometimes causes even more confusion.

 

[sniper]

Re:

My 1 cent, it would be polite for those who post non English links/articles, to at least put a short translation, from the main parts, into English.
Google translation is far from accurate, sometimes causes even more confusion.

Agreed.
But for the record, in the five or six years that i've posted here i've never ever seen any real problems in this regard. If the poster of the link doesn't provide a translation, and someone else wants one, this is usually peacefully and respectfully resolved between the posters, as it was in the case of John and Tienus.

The words *peacefully and respectfully* are crucial here though. You see, politeness is a two-way street. Or at least it should be.

...
100% Agreed, I was starting to get tired of all these links that were appearing in Dutch or Flemish with no translations but claims being made from certain excerpts that were selectively quoted. I think it is starting to become a bit too obvious.

 

[Brullnux]

Re: Re:

My 1 cent, it would be polite for those who post non English links/articles, to at least put a short translation, from the main parts, into English.
Google translation is far from accurate, sometimes causes even more confusion.

Agreed.
But for the record, in the five or six years that i've posted here i've never ever seen any real problems in this regard. If the poster of the link doesn't provide a translation, and someone else wants one, this is usually peacefully and respectfully resolved between the posters, as it was in the case of John and Tienus.

The words *peacefully and respectfully* are crucial here though. You see, politeness is a two-way street. Or at least it should be.

...
100% Agreed, I was starting to get tired of all these links that were appearing in Dutch or Flemish with no translations but claims being made from certain excerpts that were selectively quoted. I think it is starting to become a bit too obvious.

Agree with both of you

 

[peloton]

Well said sniper, totally agree

 

[pmcg76]

Re: Re:

My 1 cent, it would be polite for those who post non English links/articles, to at least put a short translation, from the main parts, into English.
Google translation is far from accurate, sometimes causes even more confusion.

Agreed.
But for the record, in the five or six years that i've posted here i've never ever seen any real problems in this regard. If the poster of the link doesn't provide a translation, and someone else wants one, this is usually peacefully and respectfully resolved between the posters, as it was in the case of John and Tienus.

The words *peacefully and respectfully* are crucial here though. You see, politeness is a two-way street. Or at least it should be.

...
100% Agreed, I was starting to get tired of all these links that were appearing in Dutch or Flemish with no translations but claims being made from certain excerpts that were selectively quoted. I think it is starting to become a bit too obvious.

More BS from sniper.

Several links were posted in Dutch with no translations but posters suggesting they said certain things. Then Tienus posted another link in Dutch of which he extracted "Noel Dejockherre introduced LeMond to Paul Nijs" and "Nijs said riders came to him for doping products". The implication is clear.

It was Scienceiscool who called that out when he tried to translate the same article and found one of the first lines was Nijs saying that LeMond did not take doping products. He then asked for full translations as it was clear posters were selectively quoting articles to imply certain things.

I agreed as certain posters have a history of misrepresenting articles(even in English) to fit their particular agenda.

Now we have sniper potraying me as if I was being extremely rude when I was merely agreeing with another poster. If you dont want to be called out, dont misrepresent articles. Simple really.

 

[King Boonen]

If someone posted:

" XYZ is a doper" in English and continued to explain why in Croatian then people would complain and expect a translation.

I don't see why it is any different just because someone links to the foreign language evidence rather than types it out. It seems extremely reasonable that if you want to use foreign language sources you should provide a translation.

 

[RedheadDane]

Re:

Just adding my two-cent to the whole language-debate:

The rule that all posts with links to foreign websites must have a complete translation else they'll be deleted is pretty ridiculous tbh. I understand this is an English language forum but not everyone has the time, or skill perhaps, to do a full and proper translation of a link they found interesting. If a link is posted in say, French or Flemish, then even if I can't understand it I don't get angry, I click on it and browse for some key words that I may be able to translate to gauge the sense of the article. Of course having a translation always makes it easier, but it is far too harsh to force it upon people. Even if the link is unintelligible to some people, others will find it very interesting, and by deleting posts that have these links you are ridding them of a useful and interesting article. Because, while this forum is an English language forum, it is a diverse and multi-cultural one too.

Which is exactly why we should take care to translate foreign-language links. Because if I start frequently post links to Danish sites, and others to sites in whatever languages they speak, then it won't become more diverse, it'll simply get split into a bunch of language-based "subgroups".
One of the main parts of a multi-cultural forum is a common language, English is that common language.

 

[GJB123]

Re: Re:

Just adding my two-cent to the whole language-debate:

The rule that all posts with links to foreign websites must have a complete translation else they'll be deleted is pretty ridiculous tbh. I understand this is an English language forum but not everyone has the time, or skill perhaps, to do a full and proper translation of a link they found interesting. If a link is posted in say, French or Flemish, then even if I can't understand it I don't get angry, I click on it and browse for some key words that I may be able to translate to gauge the sense of the article. Of course having a translation always makes it easier, but it is far too harsh to force it upon people. Even if the link is unintelligible to some people, others will find it very interesting, and by deleting posts that have these links you are ridding them of a useful and interesting article. Because, while this forum is an English language forum, it is a diverse and multi-cultural one too.

Which is exactly why we should take care to translate foreign-language links. Because if I start frequently post links to Danish sites, and others to sites in whatever languages they speak, then it won't become more diverse, it'll simply get split into a bunch of language-based "subgroups".
One of the main parts of a multi-cultural forum is a common language, English is that common language.

I fully agree. Anybody that still needs ti be versed in the story on the Tower of Babel and subsequent Babylonian confusion. I am sure I can rustle up an English or Dutch version of that story.

 

[Brullnux]

Re:

If someone posted:

" XYZ is a doper" in English and continued to explain why in Croatian then people would complain and expect a translation.

I don't see why it is any different just because someone links to the foreign language evidence rather than types it out. It seems extremely reasonable that if you want to use foreign language sources you should provide a translation.

I agree, but deleting a post, or even threatening deletion, because it isn't there is a bit excessive. As sniper said, these problems are resolved pretty easily usually.

 

[kingjr]

You need to think about this differently. Look at it not as a requirement to post a translation, but rather as a warning not to take things from an article the article doesn't actually say. If you do, there is a bigger chance of punishment than if you do that with an English article, cause then it would be easy to spot for everyone.

 

[King Boonen]

Re: Re:

If someone posted:

" XYZ is a doper" in English and continued to explain why in Croatian then people would complain and expect a translation.

I don't see why it is any different just because someone links to the foreign language evidence rather than types it out. It seems extremely reasonable that if you want to use foreign language sources you should provide a translation.

I agree, but deleting a post, or even threatening deletion, because it isn't there is a bit excessive. As sniper said, these problems are resolved pretty easily usually.

I guess so but that relies on people catching it, asking for the translation, it being full and correct and no-one using it as described above. It's easy to see the problems the mods have, if someone links a Dutch article, claims it says something when it doesn't, says they can't provide a full translation etc. it becomes incumbent on the mods to try and wade into it and sort it out which would take loads of time. If the post remains, the lie remains and get perpetuated. I'm assuming the threat of deleting posts is just there so if it does have to be deleted the mods can do it without having to go to the trouble of constantly explaining why and having the same argument. I'm also guessing the poster would be given a chance to give a translation if necessary as there is no ban on foreign language articles.

 

[Irondan]

Re: Re:

If someone posted:

" XYZ is a doper" in English and continued to explain why in Croatian then people would complain and expect a translation.

I don't see why it is any different just because someone links to the foreign language evidence rather than types it out. It seems extremely reasonable that if you want to use foreign language sources you should provide a translation.

I agree, but deleting a post, or even threatening deletion, because it isn't there is a bit excessive. As sniper said, these problems are resolved pretty easily usually.

I guess so but that relies on people catching it, asking for the translation, it being full and correct and no-one using it as described above. It's easy to see the problems the mods have, if someone links a Dutch article, claims it says something when it doesn't, says they can't provide a full translation etc. it becomes incumbent on the mods to try and wade into it and sort it out which would take loads of time. If the post remains, the lie remains and get perpetuated. I'm assuming the threat of deleting posts is just there so if it does have to be deleted the mods can do it without having to go to the trouble of constantly explaining why and having the same argument. I'm also guessing the poster would be given a chance to give a translation if necessary as there is no ban on foreign language articles.

Bingo!

 

[Jspear]

Ihay amhay ursprisedhay atthay isthay attermayed isthay uchmay.

 

[sniper]

Re:

Ihay amhay ursprisedhay atthay isthay attermayed isthay uchmay.

Angbay onhay