burning said:
Apart from organized/professional trolls, which I suspect that there are quite a few of these, Sky has precisely zero story apart from being a brit team. For Lance, cancer was a big reason why his popularity took off and he became an idol worldwide, not only in US. On the other hand, Froome is not popular even in UK, and I am pretty sure that he is pretty unpopular in everywhere else in the world. So, I think that majority of the Froome/Sky die-hard supporters that are not trolls thinks that "Sky kicks ***, Froome destroys this small Spanish climber ---> UK is the best, yay!" and majority of these people only follows UK cycling and UK guys in the team, and when something jeopardizes this chain, they just go lunatic and blame media/random journalist/spanish authorities/whoever else that blaming them makes no sense, but anyone in Sky. I do believe that majority of Sky "bots" are geniune fans but they only care about brit success, not cycling as a sport.
Well, I don't know; I haven't studied the demographic of Sky-fans, but I wouldn't be surprised if, for a large group, fandom of Sky is aligned with nationalistic pride. I would actually be rather surprised if that weren't the case, seeing that a lot sports fans in general are rooting for national heroes. It's the same in my country, The Netherlands: You can't openly question our national speed skating heroes or (European) football without drawing people who rely on the same line of defense Sky-fans do motivated by the same national pride.
However, while some of those people might come around, I don't think that's the group we should worry about the most. It's very hard to change someone's mind in a debate, especially if their viewpoint is radically different from yours and radically held. I think that if they do come around, it's because, over time, more and more information leaks to the surface until, finally, they can no longer reconcile reality with their strongly-held opinion. Cognitive dissonance is a sturdy beast, though, so this probably isn't going to happen in a single discussion thread. Moreover, calling them names, insinuating that they are stupid, or outright but obviously ignoring them is only going to make them angry and less receptive to your argument.
So, what I think we should is to present a rational and respectful argument, highlighting the inconsistencies in the Sky story by carefully considering the information we have. The reason is that there is also a large group of "casual" cycling fans who, by their interest in the sport, really want to believe that what they see is "real" and "believable". Think of youngsters getting interested in the sport or people who are drawn in by a national success but widen their view after discovering the beauty of cycling.
They, too, might start out on the "everything has changed" side of things, as that is the PR-message currently being spread by most professionals in the sport (riders, UCI, and even some journalists). But, in contrast to the die-hard denying fans, they might actually be open to changing their opinion, as it is not yet held with unrelenting conviction. However, what they see here probably isn't going to do that. What they see is people jumping to conclusions, e.g., "unknown content of bag --> doping!", and think "That conclusion is not really supported by the evidence". Add to that this thread, which is basically "See this stupid opinion of this stupid denier" without presenting any counterargument supported by evidence. Read in isolation, it will not change their mind and it might even alienate them from the argument as it comes across as cynical, negative, and condescending. People usually react badly if their held opinions are threatened that way and tend to radicalize in their opinion.
Now, the clinic veterans know that we're not really jumping to conclusions based on that one observation, but that it's rather an aggregate of many observations of things that shouldn't happen if the sport were truly clean. That aggregation, however, is buried in hundreds upon hundreds of pages spanning multiple threads that will probably never be read by newcomers to the forum. So, what do they see? They see veterans cynically discussing new evidence and cynically rejecting counterarguments often talking condescendingly about anyone who holds a different opinion.
The alternative to that they see are Sky's "public defenders" who know perfectly well that any observation in isolation means nothing and go out of their away to point that out. Those defenders are constantly attacked for their lack of seeing the bigger picture, but they don't care: They know that the "neutral" visitor sees them as people with counterarguments that, on face value and without historical knowledge, seem to have merit and are only opposed by cynical, condescending "veterans" who seem to jump to conclusions and ridicule everyone who disagrees with them.* They know most neutral visitors will think "Ah, indeed, unknown content isn't hard evidence of doping use, so why do all those cynics claim it is?". Without a respectful and open argument against the trolls, those readers are probably not going to linger on this "negative" website to read the aggregate of evidence that might convince them otherwise.
That means the trolls have succeeded in their purpose. (There are not here, veterans, to convince you, but to make sure your views don't leak out into "the real world".)
*) Obviously, this isn't truly the case, there are plenty of rational en respectful posts on here, but there are enough negative posts on here to give visitors a certain impression at a glance.