Moderators

[Francois the Postman]

You still have not addressed why my post was deleted about Riccos wife lactating Cera. If you could let me know why that happened that would be great.

I have not seen it, didn't know the context, so had no reply to that. Susan appears to have dealt with it. (see above for her answer).

On the whole, we do get a lot quicker to jump in when people start to make (good and bad) points that revolve around minors, or invent them, to make that point. Adding minors to loaded language for shock effect is unlikely to survive the eyes of any of the mods here.

 

[Skandar Akbar]

Ricco tested positive in July 2008 for CERA. His son was born the summer of 2009.

Also, the way you worded your original question was not necessarily very nice.

Susan

How else was I to word it? I tried to be as PC as possble and it stilll got deleted. Can you please tell me how I should word that?

If you would have left it up somebody would have told me she was not lactating in 2008. That would have saved me wondering about it the last day.

I am unclear on why I was treated this way but I respect your decision.

 

[Skandar Akbar]

I have not seen it, didn't know the context, so had no reply to that. Susan appears to have dealt with it. (see above for her answer).

On the whole, we do get a lot quicker to jump in when people start to make (good and bad) points that revolve around minors, or invent them, to make that point. Adding minors to loaded language for shock effect is unlikely to survive the eyes of any of the mods here.

Huh? I said nothing about minors. Was Riccos wife like in high school at the time?

 

[Francois the Postman]

so now you are the arbiter of what is "quality"? moderating duties pertain to rule infractions, not your taste in what is a quality topic or opinion.

Moderating duties pertain to the brief given by the site owners. Which includes a request to step in when the totally of people's actions are starting to dilute the purpose of the forum. Or merge threads, or stop threads that are covered at nauseum and thus shouldn't have been a new thread for starters.

We are not in the habit of closing threads. A handful were closed at a time when too many people started to create frivolous threads or saying the same thing again. And again.

Yes, we do decide what is "too frivolous" or "the same".

Can I ask if your objection is "theory and principle", or if you have witnessed a series of quality threads that were closed down here?

 

[Francois the Postman]

Huh? I said nothing about minors. Was Riccos wife like in high school at the time?

Life is too short to get to the bottom of this, sorry. I simply responded to the above, where you apparently used "lactating wife" at some point. Hence why I commented about minors. If it has confused you, sorry.

 

[Hugh Januss]

so now you are the arbiter of what is "quality"? moderating duties pertain to rule infractions, not your taste in what is a quality topic or opinion.

Exactly. Posts which are not "quality" ones will just rapidly drop out of sight. I thought that was how forums work. If they stay on page one then obviously more than one person has found them interesting.
We aren't solving the world's problems here we are talking about a sport. In the particular section where all the trouble is we are talking about doping in a sport. We are not gonna find World Peace no matter how tightly the place is moderated.
There are probably as many slightly different opinions about doping, how bad it is, who is doing it, and what to do about it, as there are forum members. It shouldn't be any person/group's job to decide who has the "quality" opinion. That should be left to public opinion and sometimes public opinion is ugly.

 

[Hugh Januss]

Life is too short to get to the bottom of this, sorry. I simply responded to the above, where you apparently used "lactating wife" at some point. Hence why I commented about minors. If it has confused you, sorry.

Are we now going to have to debate during which trimester a fetus becomes a minor?

 

[Skandar Akbar]

Life is too short to get to the bottom of this, sorry. I simply responded to the above, where you apparently used "lactating wife" at some point. Hence why I commented about minors. If it has confused you, sorry.

It seems that you are the one confused since you were off about minors and threw that out not having the slightest idea what you were talking about.

Also you say upthread the CN site tells you how to moderate. Barrus say the forum and the site are independent. So which is it? After this 'minor' stunt Barrus is now my favorite moderator instead of both of you. Please get with Barrus to see how the mod rules work.

 

[Francois the Postman]

It seems that you are the one confused since you were off about minors and threw that out not having the slightest idea what you were talking about.

Read the above. Which is what I said and acknowledged. Even said sorry. At this point I think you are baiting me. End of my input.

 

[Barrus]

Exactly. Posts which are not "quality" ones will just rapidly drop out of sight. I thought that was how forums work. If they stay on page one then obviously more than one person has found them interesting.
We aren't solving the world's problems here we are talking about a sport. In the particular section where all the trouble is we are talking about doping in a sport. We are not gonna find World Peace no matter how tightly the place is moderated.
There are probably as many slightly different opinions about doping, how bad it is, who is doing it, and what to do about it, as there are forum members. It shouldn't be any person/group's job to decide who has the "quality" opinion. That should be left to public opinion and sometimes public opinion is ugly.

I'm sorry, but Sanitiser especially continued to post stupid inane threads about nothing, giving absolutely no information or anything in his opening posts. If some people do not put even the sligthest of effort in their opening post why even open a thread. I have in prior instances reacted in the same manner and did not receive any comments about this action at all. Only now, when it were a lot of threads in a short span of time (at a time when a lot of threads started) did you people notice. Also we created a thread for short blurbs of info, short links or the like for the most prudent of cases on here. We were getting quite a few annoyed complaints and annoyed statements by people who had enough of the inane threads. It has nothing to do with the validity of your argument or in many cases even with the quality of your argument but when you start threads with posts such as these:

They seem more prone to take risks and hence injure or die compared to other athletes that dope.
What is it? It seems to me to be the nature of the people the sport attracts.

First of all get RCS Sport (who already have contempt for the UCI) for the Giro d'Italia and Italian classics, get News Corp to televise the smaller , exciting one day events and create cycling events in the new world.

Then you need to steal stars like your Cancellara's, Cavendish, Basso's and create new teams with no team doctors\medical staff- the tour monitors do everything. Pay the riders more, standardize testing etc and some other **** I can't be bothered explaining about now.

And there are many more of these cases of other members as well. All frivolous and stupid. If you create a thread at least make some effort or include some new information

The problem here on this forum is also that most often these threads do not just fall down to another page but gets filled up with personal attacks

 

[Francois the Postman]

Exactly. Posts which are not "quality" ones will just rapidly drop out of sight. I thought that was how forums work.

Then you also know that some good Clinic topics have disappeared off the front page quickly when we had a multitude of baiting ones and frivolous ones, especially at times when there is plenty of ammo to sling at each other.

And that some people are heavily invested in "having fun" in those baiting ones, not caring too much what it does to the atmosphere and quality here, as it "suits them". The Clinic is there to discuss doping, and if people's contribution, on balance, starts to slide from constructive to disruptive, we take action.

We prefer to keep the quality posts more visible, and just dump the fluff when it shows up, at certain times.

 

[mewmewmew13]

Thank you Francis you are my favorite moderator along with Barrus. Even so I think the qualifications of those that want to be mods should be under public scrutiny. I thought the thread was going along fine and you guys don't need to feel like you need to delete everything all the time. I see others complaining but those are the usual complainers in the forum, but hopefully my opinion means more since I am currently having no problems in the forum and making new friends.

You still have not addressed why my post was deleted about Riccos wife lactating Cera. If you could let me know why that happened that would be great.

Oh SA, this is rich. I've watched this 'poor innocent me' for quite a while now. Good game.
What are your interests in cycling? Do you ride? Are you on this forum to 'play' with others' comments? ...I have yet to see you speak with any cyclng knowledge or serious contributions.

W/r to your comment on Riccos wife....and Cera...Really?? This is a seriously worded and thoughtful post by an adult? hmmm...

I for one found it offensive...maybe I'm the only one

Sorry, mods, just had to say this once.

 

[hektoren]

If "fruit for thought" means that we should be "less prudent" and be totally ok with people posting that they want someone to be brutally assaulted.... "I like my prudence."

[to all]

Again, what is it with these weird words. "Prude"? Have you looked at the Clinic and what we let through day in day out. Encourage even?

Come off it guys. The reason why you are facing pretty agitated mods is that we actually ask for very little, on balance, and initially always friendly, giving more things a lot more time than they deserved, out of respect for the poster and position we hold, overseeing a cycling forum where people are pretty damn free to say what they want, and do so day in, day out.

And a handful of you keep rallying against request to follow the house rules you signed up to when you joined the forum here, and simple requests to post civil and on topic (mostly).

Somehow it keeps being depicted as if we just proposed to go all Big Brother on you guys, and are really stopping you "giving your opinions".

Nope, we want to have some folk START giving opinions and STOP the messing about. See the difference?

On the hole, some of you, calm down. And please stop seizing on minor issues for over the top grand-standing, and give us some space to do our job.

BTW, If Cav would have said it here he would have had the same response as you had hektoren. We have been pretty consistent with these types of posts, and will remain so. Still not sure why you had to post the PM, or why I have egg on my face, or why you needed to put it like that. But if it helps you to get over a slap on the wrist, I hope it worked. It won't have done much else. Still, the post you made above sounds like you are reasonable enough, and get that it was deserved, etc, etc.

There is a difference between reporting what someone else said, and saying it yourself. That subtlety is lost in your "like for like" equation. The CN site is not more lenient than the forum. The moment a reporter would say that about a rider, I am sure they would face a less lenient ride than I gave you.

I appreciate the tone you took here. I tried to give a full reply as a consequence of that.

Thank you. Really.
And to clarify: The egg-on-the-face was figuratively thrown by CN editors by publishing Cav's statement, not me. They made your PM look, to not overstate it, well, prudish.
Where I come from there's a saying about people pinching pennies but letting their dollars fly, another about shutting the gate when the horse has bolted, both of which are quite apt similes to the situation at hand from an outsider's perspective. After your PM, I was genuinely surprised at all the bells, whistles and space allotted to Cav's statement today.

I do think we have differing views on what the concept of free speech entails as to editors' responsibilities, though, and I could pull up the Sarah Palin "target-list" and the tragic shooting of congresswoman Gifford in Tucson as an example, but I won't go there. As the old example goes, freedom of speech doesn't mean that you can yell "Fire" in a crowded theatre, either. There are limits, and Cav's statement could very well have been nipped in the bud. I bet he wouldn't have complained tomorrow.

Suffice to say, I apologize for posting what I now perceive was indeed a message for my eyes only on a public forum. Full cred for handling this in an adult fashion and being able to look beyond words and get what lurks behind.

 

[Skandar Akbar]

Oh SA, this is rich. I've watched this 'poor innocent me' for quite a while now. Good game.
What are your interests in cycling? Do you ride? Are you on this forum to 'play' with others' comments? ...I have yet to see you speak with any cyclng knowledge or serious contributions.

W/r to your comment on Riccos wife....and Cera...Really?? This is a seriously worded and thoughtful post by an adult? hmmm...

I for one found it offensive...maybe I'm the only one

Sorry, mods, just had to say this once.

Hi mewmew. I also thought about coming up with a userhame by spinning that animal toy we had as a kid. "This is a pig. Oink oink". I think oink oink would be a much better usernam than mew mew but that is your choice.

Yes I have been riding for about 10 years. I have an Edddy Merckz with Campy components. I tried to race once but I could not compete. I also hit a garage sale sign during that road race but I was already dropped.

I am sorry you found the thing about Riccos wife offensive. I did not mean it to be. The outrage over her taking it if she was pregnant or lactating made me think maybe he could have gotten cera in his system by doing you know what. Susan lined me out on the timeline so I understand now. I do not know why you find this offensive and again I apologize.

Finally I am an adult and I own several businesses. I only say that to give you some perspective and to help you realize your gross mischaracterization of me. I am a curious person with lots of questions. I maybe started off wrong in this forum but now I am trying to do better but I know in the future I will ask more stupid questions so please do not attack me for that. I have not had an easy life and am shy, and the internet is so cool I can ask the things that I am curious about without threat of getting my face smashed. Your words hurt almost as bad so please be my friend. Thank you.

 

[Sanitiser]

So yeah just like I thought Barrus is boring, stupid and inane

Edit by Barrus: while I agree that I can at times be two of the three, perhaps even all three, you did not need to insult me further than that.

 

[Martin318is]

I think you guys try to handle too much and try to assert too much control over the environment. Cops have a phone for a reason. They're not expected to be everywhere, and no one really wants them to BE everywhere.

Perhaps it's time that you guys switched your role to that of reactionary rather than supervisory.

(The following is a JOKE - but the point underlying it is valid.)

"Spoken like a man who wasn't here in July 2009 or July 2010."

Anyway - The massive quantity of complaints the mods received continually after last Tour in particular is what has set in motion the current moderation style. the consensus is that if we do not keep things under clear control in the quiet periods, we may as well shut the forum down during the big races this year.

 

[Barrus]

(The following is a JOKE - but the point underlying it is valid.)

"Spoken like a man who wasn't here in July 2009 or July 2010."

Anyway - The massive quantity of complaints the mods received continually after last Tour in particular is what has set in motion the current moderation style. the consensus is that if we do not keep things under clear control in the quiet periods, we may as well shut the forum down during the big races this year.

I do need to put a disclaimer here. With the exception of the Landis stuff in last may, the giro period of last year was one of the best periods on this forum in the road racing subforum

 

[online-rider]

Moderating duties pertain to the brief given by the site owners. Which includes a request to step in when the totally of people's actions are starting to dilute the purpose of the forum. Or merge threads, or stop threads that are covered at nauseum and thus shouldn't have been a new thread for starters.

We are not in the habit of closing threads. A handful were closed at a time when too many people started to create frivolous threads or saying the same thing again. And again.

Yes, we do decide what is "too frivolous" or "the same".

Can I ask if your objection is "theory and principle", or if you have witnessed a series of quality threads that were closed down here?

I guess I've just been to sites which have a 100% user regulated rules system and without any "site owners briefs" to follow. And basically the CN forum seemed almost as liberal as that for a while there and it was great fun to be here and discuss things without bears on our backs. But those days are dead and buried at present. I'm not enjoying this site much at all compared to 6 months ago.

 

[Semper Fidelis]

Oh SA, this is rich. I've watched this 'poor innocent me' for quite a while now. Good game.
What are your interests in cycling? Do you ride? Are you on this forum to 'play' with others' comments? ...I have yet to see you speak with any cyclng knowledge or serious contributions.

W/r to your comment on Riccos wife....and Cera...Really?? This is a seriously worded and thoughtful post by an adult? hmmm...

I for one found it offensive...maybe I'm the only one

Sorry, mods, just had to say this once.

Did you really have to come in a give a critique of a member? I am sure if we look around someone could critique anyone of us. If Skandar made you mad ,,,why not just PM a moderator etc. Instead the way you have done it is going to cause some amount of reply posts from Skandar.

 

[python]

It seems that you are the one confused since you were off about minors and threw that out not having the slightest idea what you were talking about.

Also you say upthread the CN site tells you how to moderate. Barrus say the forum and the site are independent. So which is it? After this 'minor' stunt Barrus is now my favorite moderator instead of both of you. Please get with Barrus to see how the mod rules work.

skandar, why are you so unhappy after only, what 80 posts ?

to paraphrase you, please get with glenn wilson and see how the mod rules work...

.. and if you going to bait moderators, i mean to compare them to each other so publicly, i'm afraid they may have an expected response for you. i'll miss you if they do.

 

[python]

Did you really have to come in a give a critique of a member? I am sure if we look around someone could critique anyone of us. If Skandar made you mad ,,,why not just PM a moderator etc. Instead the way you have done it is going to cause some amount of reply posts from Skandar.

i happened to agree with her and francois.

why shouldn't she express her opnion if you can ? why didn't you sent her a pm instead of critiquing a member ? in stead, the way you've done it is going to cause some amount of reply from me and some other members. I am a member of this forum too and i have an opinion.

 

[Anonymous]

I guess I've just been to sites which have a 100% user regulated rules system and without any "site owners briefs" to follow. And basically the CN forum seemed almost as liberal as that for a while there and it was great fun to be here and discuss things without bears on our backs. But those days are dead and buried at present. I'm not enjoying this site much at all compared to 6 months ago.

I think while you may not like the harsher rules now (like myself), Im pretty sure you (and I) will be glad of them come tour de france and tour of california time.

 

[BroDeal]

skandar, why are you so unhappy after only, what 80 posts?

The anger comes from his previous version on this site.

Pyhton, you should apply as a new mod. I said so in the "new moderator" thread, but in their infinite wisdom, instead of simply locking the thread, the mods nuked it, making all the posts vanish as though they were never written, like an online version of 1984.

 

[Parrulo]

since i already am a mod on another forum i also applied for a postion here ^_^

 

[Polish]

I think while you may not like the harsher rules now (like myself), Im pretty sure you (and I) will be glad of them come tour de france and tour of california time.

Are you saying we will NOT need the harsher rules during the other two Grand Tours?