Forum Suggestions & User Assistance - critical mass/biker rights forum?

I think it would be neat if there was a forum on critical mass rides, and biker rights. We could discuss how to overcome fuel dependency and highlight the advantages of biking. We could also discuss biker rights and solidarity.

that is if there is enough interest.
thanks.

Is this not what Advocacy and Safety is for?

Ditto.

Koffee

Ditto.

Koffee

what she and he said ^^^

You can also check out the forums at www.bicycledefensefund.org - not very active right now, but that's only because we're not there. And it's pretty CM-specific, being an advocacy organization founded by CM arrestees.

hmm, ok. ill check that website out too.

being an advocacy organization founded by CM arrestees.

That sure isn't going to be biased.

That sure isn't going to be biased.

Hey, the man's LOOKING for a pro-CM forum! Go troll someplace else...

why not talk about that kind of stuff in the car free section

Pro CM's have a right to toot their horn...I believe there is a lot a hype about their motives..Yes, there must be some truth to their detractors..Just I would wait until I meet up with one, to make up my own mind.
Cyclists' self defense actions are a part of what we are about. many a motorist would force us to ride on sidewalks only..
way to work tonight. I had some negative motorist interactions. apparently they thought a road bike can be ridden on a dirt shoulder..
When in a bad mood and having to deal with these azz ****s. an idea.
you know those "# 1 fingers" you have a basketball games.
well, my adaptation of these fingers, for the commuting cyclist.. impose the whole hand below the middle finger and extend that finger, upon a closed hand.
take this symbol and attach it to your helmet as you commute down the road. I like that. but, not quite fair, only about 1/3 of motorists are jerks.

why not talk about that kind of stuff in the car free section

Because anti-car stuff is specifically forbidden from that forum. Non-car stuff only!

Hey, the man's LOOKING for a pro-CM forum! Go troll someplace else...

We already have a forum for that. But no you chose to post a totally CM biased place for him to post.

WTF? They closed the "men's only forum" thread -- which was fun! -- and leave this silly stuff going on?

Re-open the other thread! :p

We already have a forum for that. But no you chose to post a totally CM biased place for him to post.

Oh hush. The OP asked and I answered. Go wash your head; this is the last time I'll be wasting on you.

I think it would be neat if there was a forum on critical mass rides, and biker rights. We could discuss how to overcome fuel dependency and highlight the advantages of biking. We could also discuss biker rights and solidarity.

that is if there is enough interest.
thanks.OP -- Is there a reason that you think the Safety and Advocacy forum is not a good place to post on CM issues? Or maybe you weren't that aware of it?

WTF? They closed the "men's only forum" thread -- which was fun! -- and leave this silly stuff going on?

Re-open the other thread! :p


:p....

but a place there is for such rambling young padwan, hmm

it is the forum advocacy and safety senction for your posts should go, lest to teh dark side you shall fall.

/yoda

Because anti-car stuff is specifically forbidden from that forum. Non-car stuff only!
even so , i think it would fit well. criticall mass has a valid critique of car culture to contribute to the car free discussion

i think i'll post about it right now

Critical mass is an advocacy group. As such the Advocacy forum suffices for discussions related to CM issues.

Koffee

then why can cm be discussed in the singlespeed section and not get moved to advocacy. in fact, how come that section has so much leeway in what is discussed andnot moved/deleted

then why can cm be discussed in the singlespeed section and not get moved to advocacy. in fact, how come that section has so much leeway in what is discussed andnot moved/deleted

Because we're cooler than everyone else. Really.

Honestly, a LOT of threads get moved out of there, and it used to be even worse. We may be posting about something that belongs somewhere else, but looking specifically for input from other SS/Fix riders because our mindset seems to be different than a lot of other riders...

I'd like to echo the sentiment...sorta.

I read the safety and advocacy forum because I, and the most precious people in my life, my wife and kids, ride bikes. The more I know about safety while riding, the better I feel taking them out to ride.

However, there are way too many safety threads that get hijacked by some idiot screaming for anarchy or saying "all cops are pigs" or coming out with some stupid comment about the government and foreign policy in the middle of a thread about spoke reflectors. It's discouraging, and a lot of the so-called advocates take every possible opportunity to spew some "I'm 23 and I know better how the world should run" crap.

I would very much like to either see safety divided from advocacy, or safety simply deleted from the forum thread so that appropriate discussions happen in the relevant forums.

I would very much like to either see safety divided from advocacy, or safety simply deleted from the forum thread so that appropriate discussions happen in the relevant forums.

*nod*

OK, what's a *nod* mean? I'm about done with the safety and advocacy forum, which is a real shame. It's perhaps one of the potentially most useful forums here as far as drawing new people, but here we go again. "Conservative think-tank..blah blah blah."

I'm a little tired of it. The guy was an ass, it has nothing to do with his political views, but there it is turning into another political debate, unabated. Let me correct myself, I'm more than a little tired of it. Do I have to sacrifice any potential benefit to my family's safety in order to not have to read political crap?

Yep twahl, but it's just like cycling advocacy all over. That's why I walked out of the door of the office on Friday as a paid advocate, and am unlikely ever to go back to it. There are a few good, intelligent people in the game, but they get run over by anarchanistic, uneducated, plain stupid people who claim to ride bicycles, but have their own agendas that simply won't work. Advocacy and Safety throws all those problems open for public view.

Yes, me too, I'm just about done with the safety and advicacy forum.

GEEK

OK, I'll bite! How is saying this particular aggressor works for a conservative think-tank (which he does) any different than saying "SMU law professor" or, for that matter, "labor leader", "Democratic senator", or "marshmallow magnate" in other cases? Exactly what about the mention of this guy's employment has so offended you?

-chris

Read the thread. The answer is self-evident.

I've read the thread; it seems to me that the conservatives are up in arms purely because the word "conservative" has been used. If I'm wrong, please enlighten me- but if your only purpose here is to complain that not everyone thinks the heritage foundation is an admirable institution, I think you're perhaps being oversensitive.

I think the guy had issues, and it had nothing to do with the Heritage Foundation, which I could care less about. The title of the thread was NOT the headline of the story, and the title was clearly chosen to imply that the reason this guy did what he did was because he was associated with a "conservative think tank". It was chosen to divide among political lines, which is probably the only reason it was posted. If the driver had been carrying 6 people in a Prius, it would have been "Another reason to not ride on the sidewalk."

It made as much sense as the "Woman found not guilty of riding a bike" title.

I missed the "woman found not guilty of biking" thread, sadly, so I may be misinformed. My argument, however, is fairly straightforward. In the hypothetical event that a marshmallow executive assaulted a cylist for asking him to move his car, I can imagine a thread called "Marshmallow maniac runs amok!" in which some group of marshmallow agonists might (incidentally, and not as the main thrust of the thread) attack the marshmallow industry on grounds that overindulgence in marshmallows leads to obesity and / or diabetes; I can also imagine that a group of marshmallow apologists might rise up to defend the industry's prevailing practices. In a communtity of equals, as Bike Forums aspires to be, I hope that each individual reader might evaluate the arguments made on both sides, perhaps turning for additional information to such position papers as the industry might have made freely available, before deciding that one side or the other was correct; I certainly hope that neither side would run to ask that the other be censored or censured, and that neither any individual agonist nor any apologist would withdraw from the community over the fracas. You and I and others in the Heritage Foundation thread perhaps feel more strongly about conservative political think-tanks than we do about marshmallows, but I don't think that in itself ought to discourage free discussion in this case any more than it ought in my feat of marshmallow imagination.

My thrust here, and the reason I got involved in this thread in the first place, is that there are so many "safety" threads that get hijacked by "advocates." Both have their place, as the OP points out when asking for a separate forum for CM, which to me is advocacy. The advocates think they are doing something for everyone. I happen to disagree with many of the methods on the basis that it serves to irritate car drivers, which makes them more angry than they would otherwise be. Then I have to face them. My problem, the reason for me backing the idea of a strictly advocacy forum, is that so many of the threads turn into political discussions when they start out as safety discussions. Someone gets run off the road by a soccer mom driving an Expedition while talking on the cell phone. Next thing you know, it's a rant against SUVs and greedy Americans and going to war for Haliburton. While I love to talk politics, I don't see the point in bringing it up in a discussion about adequate reflective tape or whether or not to signal a right turn with your right hand. I'd like to see the two forum topics separated. Let the advocates have a place to rant about anarchy and whatever, but give safety discussions a fighting chance of not being turned into something that's irrelevant.

OK, sure: I can definitely support the idea of separate forums for safety and for advocacy. But I'm not certain it's fair to equate the fact that politics have entered the Heritage thread (which seems to me unavoidable, given that one of the major players in the event being discussed is a political figure) with the intrusion of politics into a reflective-tape thread... ;)

SUV's are a serious problem

Let the advocates have a place to rant about anarchy and whatever...

This is not advocacy. This is whingeing and whining for the sake of it. Real advocacy is about building relationships, not destroying them.

The Advocacy and Safety forum is far from it. Lazy people post links to media coverage of incidents more to provoke emotional discussion rather than achieve anything useful. Sadly, the discussion is rarely based on fact, just misguided blame. When someone does post information useful in terms of advocacy, it seems to disappear into a big black hole of nothingness, because it doesn't suit the agendas of the anarchists and their CM cohorts... or the spoilers who have no answers of their own except to use puerile criticism of those seeking or promoting solutions.

Someone gets run off the road by a soccer mom driving an Expedition while talking on the cell phone. Next thing you know, it's a rant against SUVs and greedy Americans and going to war for Haliburton. While I love to talk politics, I don't see the point in bringing it up in a discussion about adequate reflective tape or whether or not to signal a right turn with your right hand. I'd like to see the two forum topics separated. Let the advocates have a place to rant about anarchy and whatever, but give safety discussions a fighting chance of not being turned into something that's irrelevant.

It's a great idea in theory, but the reality is completely different. After all, there's already a separate forum for political discussions, yet they still find their way into the Advocacy and Safety forum (and probably several others too). It's inevitable that posts about the "advocacy" side of it will find their way into the Safety forum too. The real problem is that this forum has simply become too big for quality discussions to survive. The amount of traffic here has created a fertile breeding ground for trolls and others who seem to think they can convince the masses to change their mind on a particular issue by posting their arguments adnauseum.

The only real way around it is to use the ignore list, or just skip over the irrelevant posts. My experience from FC (which seems to be reflected here) is that most discussions start to lose their focus once there are enough replies to go onto the second page. Perhaps it's partially because the original post is no longer in view to remind people of what they're actually talking about. Either way, creating sub forums is unlikely to solve the problem -- all that really does is allow cliques to form in certain areas often at the expense of input from others.