Moderators

[Zam_Olyas]

oldporn and ramganja....are they still on the forum?

 

[Susan Westemeyer]

oldporn and ramganja....are they still on the forum?

Neither of them has been banned, if that is what you mean.

Susan

 

[Zam_Olyas]

Neither of them has been banned, if that is what you mean.

Susan

thank you, i hope they come back.

 

[BroDeal]

When are you going to start banning the toolbags who give one star ratings to every thread about a subject they don't like?

 

[ChrisE]

What's up with all the recently deleted posts in the LA thread?

Cobblestoned posted something "interesting", we respond and then it gets deleted. WTF?

 

[patricknd]

What's up with all the recently deleted posts in the LA thread?

Cobblestoned posted something "interesting", we respond and then it gets deleted. WTF?

remember the governator. posts about the attractiveness (or lack thereof) of mistresses are off limits.

 

[Martin318is]

What's up with all the recently deleted posts in the LA thread?

Cobblestoned posted something "interesting", we respond and then it gets deleted. WTF?

He went straight for the 'similarities in LAs girlfriends' topic via pictures. Hardly the most likely post to be left in palce when all the mods are currently watching the thread...

 

[Anonymous]

He went straight for the 'similarities in LAs girlfriends' topic via pictures. Hardly the most likely post to be left in palce when all the mods are currently watching the thread...

Why don't you guys just close the effing thread?

You and the others are behaving the same way you did during the stupid time of the Babes thread. You all are flexing your muscles because you can. It's really this and nothing more.

Power trip yourself to the end. Oh, and I forgot this

 

[ElChingon]

When are you going to start banning the toolbags who give one star ratings to every thread about a subject they don't like?

Hey now! I haven't thread voted in some time, we should have such a counter though I think you'll see a nice corollary to those votes but I doubt I've one stared you (I think?)

 

[Hugh Januss]

Why don't you guys just close the effing thread?

You and the others are behaving the same way you did during the stupid time of the Babes thread. You all are flexing your muscles because you can. It's really this and nothing more.

Power trip yourself to the end. Oh, and I forgot this

Yeah, this.

 

[BroDeal]

Hey now! I haven't thread voted in some time, we should have such a counter though I think you'll see a nice corollary to those votes but I doubt I've one stared you (I think?)

I think I will start rating every thread I read a five. It will counteract the dooshes who rate everything a one.

 

[Boeing]

Dear Mods; May I please cancel my user name and come back with the user name 'DrugMule'

Seriously. that would be awesome

 

[TexPat]

Dear Mods; May I please cancel my user name and come back with the user name 'DrugMule'

Seriously. that would be awesome

I'm sorry but that epithet has already been taken.
Perhaps you can come back as PexTat. Very original.

 

[Francois the Postman]

Why don't you guys just close the effing thread?

You and the others are behaving the same way you did during the stupid time of the Babes thread. You all are flexing your muscles because you can. It's really this and nothing more.

Power trip yourself to the end. Oh, and I forgot this

Kinda the total opposite.

We have been utterly hands-off of that thread for days, if not weeks. Over the last few days it totally derailed, and became a shouting match between a few. We logged in and were looking at a very very long list of reported posts that broke the rules here that all of you guys have signed up to. When we investigated we ended up with a long list of people who had broken rules one way other the other, and 200 out of 550 posts that were off topic or poster attacking poster, troll calling, slander, etc. It took me 7 hours to clean the mess.

I, nor any of the other volunteer mods, will be doing that over the coming days. Nor will we tolerate a repeat of what went on.

If the people involved post on topic and within the rules set out by CN, the ones they agreed to abide by, we won't be doing anything. I hope we won't. So if you have a problem, it is with the poster who are breaking those rules, our flaunting them, not us. If we come in hard, our hands were forced by them, not us.

If we wanted to flex muscles, we would have sent a lot of people packing for a bit, after cleaning up that train-wreck. If we want to make our lives easy, we have very easy options out our disposal, but, despite some of the claims here, we are utterly reluctant to use them.

So, instead of using "our powers coz we can", we pretty much let everyone off. And posted a clear warning that was laying out what would happen next if you posted something that would trigger the flagged "red buttons" in that thread. We also pointed out that they could press the red buttons here, just not there.

Since then, some people since couldn't help themselves, and insisted on pressing anyway. If they can't help themselves, neither can we.

 

[Anonymous]

Kinda the total opposite.

We have been utterly hands-off of that thread for days, if not weeks. Over the last few days it totally derailed, and became a shouting match between a few. We logged in and were looking at a very very long list of reported posts that broke the rules here that all of you guys have signed up to. When we investigated we ended up with a long list of people who had broken rules one way other the other, and 200 out of 550 posts that were off topic or poster attacking poster, troll calling, slander, etc. It took me 7 hours to clean the mess.

I, nor any of the other volunteer mods, will be doing that over the coming days. Nor will we tolerate a repeat of what went on.

If the people involved post on topic and within the rules set out by CN, the ones they agreed to abide by, we won't be doing anything. I hope we won't. So if you have a problem, it is with the poster who are breaking those rules, our flaunting them, not us. If we come in hard, our hands were forced by them, not us.

If we wanted to flex muscles, we would have sent a lot of people packing for a bit, after cleaning up that train-wreck. If we want to make our lives easy, we have very easy options out our disposal, but, despite some of the claims here, we are utterly reluctant to use them.

So, instead of using "our powers coz we can", we pretty much let everyone off. And posted a clear warning that was laying out what would happen next if you posted something that would trigger the flagged "red buttons" in that thread. We also pointed out that they could press the red buttons here, just not there.

Since then, some people since couldn't help themselves, and insisted on pressing anyway. If they can't help themselves, neither can we.

The thread has been off the rails since early on. This is not a new development. You mods essentially set the rules in that thread by letting the trolling go unabated. That was the decision of the mods. Fine, it was somewhat entertaining.

So the thread finally implodes and you hand out a sanction for the suggestion that the thread be closed. Got it.

Your site, your rules, who cares.

 

[Cobblestoned]

He went straight for the 'similarities in LAs girlfriends' topic via pictures. Hardly the most likely post to be left in palce when all the mods are currently watching the thread...

This was an actual, brand hot new piece on Lance Armstrong.
Of course some articles from May or whatever time are more interesting than an actual piece.
This special topic was often discussed in this thread, and those issues were taken with kissing hands and never moderated out or considered as trolling, when mainly the haters analyzed Lance's love-life and relationship to his mum.

When you don't like it or suddenly consider it as "gossip", that is not my problem.
What about reopening the "normal" Lance Armstrong thread, which was considered as not worth staying opened, because Lance has retired.

I guess best solution is to light up an "official Lance Armstrong thread 2012" and to post such things there, instead of gossiping the holy and totally serious La clinic-thread.

And finally, I'll say it again: It's the users that give a forum a life, not the mods.

 

[Cobblestoned]

Why don't you guys just close the effing thread?

You and the others are behaving the same way you did during the stupid time of the Babes thread. You all are flexing your muscles because you can. It's really this and nothing more.

Power trip yourself to the end. Oh, and I forgot this

I often stated that this is just part 2 for me, the Lance part, and that there are many similarities in development and behavior.
When I follow the German Radsportnews Forum script again, next thing to follow should be the LA clinic thread completely shut down, closely followed by the whole Clinic subforum shut down.
But I guess that the last scenario won't happen. Those were really hard years for the Germans, German forumites and cyclingfans. 2006+2007. Oh wait.
Also 2008.
We'll see how hard the days will become.
Anglophones need some more riders tested positive for sure, to make that whole bloody thing blow up.

We are still in tears about all our work, our holy grale - the Jan Ullrich thread - beeing executed.

 

[blutto]

The thread has been off the rails since early on. This is not a new development. You mods essentially set the rules in that thread by letting the trolling go unabated. That was the decision of the mods. Fine, it was somewhat entertaining.

So the thread finally implodes and you hand out a sanction for the suggestion that the thread be closed. Got it.

Your site, your rules, who cares.

...if you want to be true to yourself you have got to calls em like you sees em...right ????....

...and the above, dear sirs, is absolutely the right call.....or put another way, we don't come here for the rules, we come here for the wonderfully entertaining on-going food fight....and please note that this food fight has mightily helped this site become the most popular cycling site on the planet ( this copped from a CN claim made in a headline a few days ago...)....

...you can stop the food fight and then you'll have an ultra squeaky clean web site along with all the other such sites all over the internets....and please note, all not as entertaining or successful....so yeah it is your site, and it is your rules but its the who, and how they interact, that made it great ( and damn it, we loves our food fights )...

...your moves...

Cheers

blutto

PS...oh yeah... Merry Happy to everyone.....

 

[BroDeal]

The thread has been off the rails since early on. This is not a new development. You mods essentially set the rules in that thread by letting the trolling go unabated. That was the decision of the mods. Fine, it was somewhat entertaining.

So the thread finally implodes and you hand out a sanction for the suggestion that the thread be closed. Got it.

Your site, your rules, who cares.

Nah, dude. The endless, content free trolling by Polish and co. is the primary purpose of that thread. What the thread really needs is to hand out infractions for inappropriate language for making posts like this: "I have a cynical comment about this but I don't think it will make it through the mod filter." I cannot find any inapproptriate language in there, but maybe there was something about the word cynical in Francois the Postman's version of War and Peace that he posted to the thread. I wouldn't know because it was Festivus and I did not have time to read it, but I am sure a warning will somehow clean up the thread and make it safe for more trolling.

 

[blutto]

The thread has been off the rails since early on. This is not a new development. You mods essentially set the rules in that thread by letting the trolling go unabated. That was the decision of the mods. Fine, it was somewhat entertaining.

So the thread finally implodes and you hand out a sanction for the suggestion that the thread be closed. Got it.

Your site, your rules, who cares.

...ok it is their site ( sort of , actually really big sort of...)...but rules in a food fight ???? ( loosely paraphrasing Butch/ Sundance )...like squaring a circle ????...like throwing out the baby with the bathwater ???...and really, who does care ????....and why ????....

...good call here SoCal...

Cheers

blutto

 

[Cobblestoned]

I don't really remember all of this about you cobblestoned. I drink alot so that may be the issue. I told you I went to Munich and Fussen this summer, right? Those beer gardens in Munich are like xmas morning for somebody like me. Germany would be the death of me if I lived there....what a cool place.

I only remember what JRT wrote and the outrage. Of course I remember RR shouting people down which is his MO, and doc boring people to death with his petty war on nuance.

Who was the "digging user"?

On a side note, it is good the moderators are starting to see how much of the problems on this forum are caused by the haters, shouting down and derailing threads when somebody disagrees with their opinions. While, in the background they are whining to the mods and usually their whines are acted upon.

Yes, I cannot wait for the indictments to fall and trials to begin so we can see who is right here with all of these "opinions". I will be big enough to admit if I am ultimately wrong, but doubtful they are.

I never seriously drink, so my RAM shouldn't be an issue.
If you put Wodka in a 0,33 glass - that would express my personal amount of alcohol consume for a whole year.
This is not my drug, you know.

If you love Biergärten, Berlin should be more suited for you.
It's full of beer gardens, and most of them are small, hidden, but fine.
You could spend your whole life checking them all out, tumbling from one to the next. Hamburg is very nice too.
Drinking beer in a beer garden in Bavaria is very mainstream and for US-tourists, but I would recommend the Hacker Pschorr beer.

The identity of the digging user will never be clarified I guess. lol
Of course he/she/it is one of those, who warship their LA-pee signature through the forum, of course this user can mainly to be found in the LA clinic thread.

About the sidenote, I don't really sure what to say. We have to be careful.
Also Brodeal disagrees about that. Who would have thought. Very strange.

I learned to be patient about rulings on VIP cyclists, waiting since 2006, but I am big too.
Or great ?
My great-grandpa (Uropa) always used to say:
"Maybe you are longer than me now, but not greater !"

 

[veganrob]

I like the LA thread. It is generally the first one I check when visiting. There are many knowledgable posters, Dr. M, RR, Cimacoppi etc that are far more into it than I, so I don't post often in there anymore. Not much to offer. There are also a few fools that don't offer anything of substance but are tolerated or better yet ignored. Whatever. It is an open forum.
Where it all goes to hell is when the obvious trollers enter. Nothing to offer, misrepresent themselves, and argue for the sake of arguing. Nothing at all to back it up.
The mods need to get a grip on the trolling. That is where the failure of the thread is.

 

[Cobblestoned]

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/25/nyregion/cyclists-race-in-bars-going-nowhere-fast-spokes.html?_r=1

My friend Floyd in New York

For a short moment I really thought I clicked wrong, or the "Official another interesting piece I found on Floyd Landis" Thread.
But no, I didn't. Ok, must be ok if the mods do not interfere, like when someone posts an interesting new piece on LA.

I'll just report it and see what happens then. Also Cat-****- and Rollerstories are THE ultimate new pieces on LA and very welcome I guess.

 

[Francois the Postman]

Some of you are mistaken "uninformed but genuine opinions" too often for trolling. Some of you are mistaken "informed but coming to a different pov" too often for trolling. Some of you are convinced you are dealing with BPC when we know that to be utterly untrue, and keep shouting "troll! troll!" for pages on end, rather than ignoring "troll troll". Some of you are quite happy to use words as "fanboys", "chamois sniffers", "addicts", etc, but get totally outraged if people point back at you and say "you are obsessed". [Not all of you do, you know who you are , thanks.] Some of you are choosing to ignore "don't comment on mod actions here, do it in the other thread" and get huffy when we act on blatantly ignoring that (even if we value other stuff you post). We post it to make it very easy to avoid getting suspended. Ignore "Don't walk this way... ->" and, indeed, you will trigger the stuff we said we would trigger.

Some of you are wanting a troll free thread, and get huffy after I spent 7 hours taking out all the post out of the last 500 that contributed nada to the discussion, and keep derailing it when we are trying to get it back on thread, including a post that explains what you won't get away with in the short term.

You appear to complain simultaneously that you want us to do that, and to stop doing that, as we are intervening. And to make that point, some of you are derailing it again, just to make the point that you don't want it derailed, or something.

And we are the ones stirring and wrecking things? Get real.

There are less and less and less genuine trolls making it through to the forum these days, and it is the invisible work behind the scenes by the mods that has made it so, even if the tools we have at our disposal are far from ideal.

Each and every report of a troll is looked at. If they remain, we haven't got round to them, we haven't made our mind up, or we have information that proves otherwise. Or we simply disagree.

Indeed, it is an open forum. We try to keep as many folk who are here because they share a common interest. We try each and every one to have your bit of fun your way.

CN decided it doesn't want foul language, it wants posts that are respectful. It doesn't like pornography. It doesn't like racism, xenophobia. It has opened a cafe so you can talk about stuff that has nothing to do with cycling. It is very tolerant in what type of speculative posts it allows. If you find all that too restrictive to have fun here, or share your knowledge, and hang out with plenty of folk who can do both or either, than that is your good right. As it is CN's to draw the lines where it sees fit.

People who are purely out to stir are being dealt with, sometimes within minutes, sometimes it takes a few days. People with "edges" that are a bit much are being advised on how to have their fun here, and also make space for others to have theirs. For some we work harder than others to keep them here. On all sides of the aisle, although some of you only focus on the ones that are irritating you. We get complains covering the entire spectrum. Most complaints have some validity. We try to find a way to make space for all of you. Not always to your liking? Probably.

If we are too inclusive, maybe. Everyone here is to the liking of some here though. It is, probably, partly because we are actually not power crazy and turf out folk because we don't like them or to make our life easy.

But some of you are far too exclusive, as I have seen far too many of the "knowledgeable insiders" clobber new folk with different pov as trolls. That sort of bullying is not tolerated, exactly because we prefer a discussion with different povs, over a "user-sanctioned" club of folk who define what is an acceptable and/or tolerated opinion.

Share you knowledge, please do. It's why we all come here. BUT make space for others. It can be very very frustrating to have to answer the same question the same way to people who are not as well grounded in "what went before". I have no idea where the Dr finds the time or energy. But the moment you are becoming so allergic to certain things that sound like a troll that you treat them as a troll for pages on end, folk are becoming as disruptive as any troll could hope for. Frustratingly, sometimes even in the absence of a genuine one.

You can't stand someone, ignore them. Suspect a troll, report them AND ignore them. That simple.

 

[Francois the Postman]

Proposal:

A (2nd) lance thread that is moderated.

ONLY discussion. No jokes, no snarls... boring, but to the point. If I feel something has passed the scene before once too often in that thread, I will delete the post "raising it yet again".

I have proposed it a few times, this will be the last time that I offer it. If you are curious what tone that would take, read the 200 posts before I drew that red line. I will moderate it to that standard. Clear rules at the outset, so folk know what is acceptable and what not. The aim is to have that

ONLY discussion. No jokes, no snarls... boring, but to the point.

It does mean you will have to take me as the one overseeing it, and I expect you will see edits and deletions from time to time. I will open a thread here where you can discuss my moderation. I suspect some of you won't like me as the one overlooking it, but it is my best offer, knowing full well it is a further commitment to more time spent here with material that will only start to really interest me if something new happens.

Thoughts?