Advocacy & Safety - Is there life in A&S after the antagonists are gone?

I'm curious what others think, overly quiet this week or finally some decent decorum around here?

Keep in mind that I am NOT hinting that HH or JF be given the freedom to do and say whatever they want but so far I think this forum is lacking a certain "entertainment" value that it had. So I find myself thinking (out loud) it might be interesting to allow these guys one week a month to stir things up but not too much time to drag things into the ground. Well that's my random thought for the day,

Well I think that at least HH brought some ideas to the table... granted some may be a bit over the top, but he provoked discussion.

I'm not so sure about JF... he seems to be pretty curmudgeonly about his responses... I find it rather telling that he keeps pulling out "bikeways" as an over all negative comment, not willing to "entertain" that indeed there is a difference between bike paths, bike lanes and sidepaths.

When did this happen and how long are the bannings for?

Wait, John Forester is banned from BF?

Yes, for a week I understand.

http://www.bikeforums.net/showpost.php?p=6468065&postcount=24

And HH, apparently forever! (though the date of this post is April 1)

http://www.bikeforums.net/showpost.php?p=6439959&postcount=20


Ed

If those two are gone there's a couple others that need to be. Fair is fair.

When did this happen and how long are the bannings for?

http://www.bikeforums.net/showpost.php?p=6439959&postcount=20
Helmet Head, permanent ban, chronic inability to be a beneficial member of the Bike Forums community.

http://www.bikeforums.net/showpost.php?p=6468065&postcount=24
John Forester, trolling insulting other members. 1 week.

I'll start off with a joke:

Two guys are sitting in a plane and one asks the other "What time is it?" and the other responds "No you can't marry my daughter." The first guy is like WTF? and the other explains that if he tells him the time they will start chatting and become friends. And with being friends he will eventually be invited to the house where he'll meet his beautiful daughter, fall in love and will ask for her hand in marriage. So to simplify things he just answered the critical part of the line of questioning.

For JF I think his decades of experience has lead him to this kind of reasoning, it may very well be that the process of answering a question eventually comes down to bike lanes (No you can't marry my daughter) but even so that does not make "No you can't marry my daughter" (bike lanes) a valid response to "What time is it?" There is a more appropriate place and response to interrupt this process then jumping to the "heart" of the matter.

With JF I remain pessimistic that he can provide an appropriate response for the discussion at hand without some giant leap in logic (positive spin) or trolling his anti-bikeway agenda (negative spin.)

And sort of bouncing of Gene's post if I had to pick one or the other I too would prefer HH over JF and the fact that next week is going to be the opposite is ... well something to think about.

If those two are gone there's a couple others that need to be. Fair is fair.

+1

Wow, you can get baned for RickRolling. What has the world come to?

Wow, you can get baned for RickRolling. What has the world come to?

Well, for one, I was hoping never to hear of Mr Astley ever again... it was bad enough first time around.

I'm betting that the people that were put off from A&S primarily due to the 'antagonism' will gradually return (there's been a couple already), and with them more traffic. I remember this place pre-Serge, and I'm pretty sure it can be like that again. I don't miss him one iota.

Personally, I'm kinda surprised that Forester got banned. I never thought he was that bad, and he at least contains himself to the VC forum, and is an intermittent poster at the most.

Apart from that, if I know the internets, there's little doubt that sooner or later someone else will turn up to 'entertain' us.

If those two are gone there's a couple others that need to be. Fair is fair.

I have to say I agree with that sentiment.

I never found those two to be among the most objectionable members. I don't agree with a lot of their ideas, but I generally believe that honest disagreement about ideas is a healthy thing, and I feel that they have been scapegoated mostly for having unpopular ideas. There are a few members of A&S who never learned to disagree respectfully with others, who feel to denigrate and attack personally those who disagree with them, mischaracterize the position of their opponents, and generally engage in ad hominem and straw-man attacks.

I'm bothered by the notion that VC has become a taboo topic for A&S. I never believed that the topic was the problem, rather the problem was that certain members were incapable of disagreeing with others in a respectful manner. And that problem was not isolated to one side of the debate.

There's a simple rule for respectful discourse: attacking a person's ideas is constructive, attacking a person himself is not. I wish that the moderators would apply that simple rule.

can't I get banned for all my helmet stuff?

A lot of people don't like it

I have to say I agree with that sentiment.

I never found those two to be among the most objectionable members. I don't agree with a lot of their ideas, but I generally believe that honest disagreement about ideas is a healthy thing, and I feel that they have been scapegoated mostly for having unpopular ideas. There are a few members of A&S who never learned to disagree respectfully with others, who feel to denigrate and attack personally those who disagree with them, mischaracterize the position of their opponents, and generally engage in ad hominem and straw-man attacks.

I'm bothered by the notion that VC has become a taboo topic for A&S. I never believed that the topic was the problem, rather the problem was that certain members were incapable of disagreeing with others in a respectful manner. And that problem was not isolated to one side of the debate.

There's a simple rule for respectful discourse: attacking a person's ideas is constructive, attacking a person himself is not. I wish that the moderators would apply that simple rule.

+1,000,000

I'm surprised that I didn't get banned for some of the stuff I've posted (and got edited out by mods later). :D

http://www.bikeforums.net/showpost.php?p=6439959&postcount=20
Helmet Head, permanent ban, chronic inability to be a beneficial member of the Bike Forums community.


that has to be the lamest ban explanation I have ever seen. I fail to see how this breaks any forum guidelines. There are plenty of people who server no benefit on these boards. Most of us actually.

I didn't always agree with HH. He can tend to post the same argument ad nauseum. But unlike many who disagreed with him (who constantly belittled him etc) he was far more civil.

pathetic

-D

derath is correct. HH was overly verbose, but made good arguments. To say he had a "chronic inability to be a beneficial memeber of the Bike Forums community" is absolutely nuts.

If those two are gone there's a couple others that need to be. Fair is fair.

+2

derath is correct. HH was overly verbose, but made good arguments.

If this means he was long winded, but had useful things to say, then I agree.

I agreed with maybe 5% of those user's comments.

If there was a petition to un-ban them, I would sign it.

Metrics aside, "inability to be a beneficial member" is apparently grounds for a permanent ban, who would of guessed.

Can someone point to the "rule" that says membership here needs to be beneficial? And while we are at it, who gets to decide the definition of beneficial and who the benefactor is? Who does the measuring? How do they measure it? This has to be the most piss poor reason I've ever encountered for a permanent ban!

I'm guessing the true benefactors are the people at the top - and all the hackneyed cliches by Internet Brands, will do little to change that truth.

Corporate spin and main-stream-media style manipulation - this place is fast becoming truly sick.

BF has grown from Joes original community type board to a business venture, like it or not.
To have people who harangue other people and insult them (As HH did to me at first) and
bombard them with PMs critiquing every post ( yes, this was done too) is not in a business
persons best interest. Shortly you become aware that HH is a harmless wack and JF a
bloated windbag but I believe their presence was disruptive due to the items I mentioned
and the inability to not be able to rationally take part in any conversation and stay on
topic. 4,0000,00,0000000,00000 bytes on every thread to tell people they dont know what
they are talking about wont be missed by me.

BF has grown from Joes original community type board to a business venture, like it or not.
To have people who harangue other people and insult them (As HH did to me at first) and
bombard them with PMs critiquing every post ( yes, this was done too) is not in a business
persons best interest. Shortly you become aware that HH is a harmless wack and JF a
bloated windbag but I believe their presence was disruptive due to the items I mentioned
and the inability to not be able to rationally take part in any conversation and stay on
topic. 4,0000,00,0000000,00000 bytes on every thread to tell people they dont know what
they are talking about wont be missed by me.

Yeah, but that shouldn't get you banned.

P&R turned out to be a happier place after a few bannings. I dunno, I would like to see everyone be able to stay but a lot of people, dare I say most people, dont like what feels like personal attacks when they first start posting on the forum, probably lose a lot more people than BF gains. stopping the disruption is for the greater good, and P&R is more fun. It seems the mods are doing well, at least for now.

can't I get banned for all my helmet stuff?

A lot of people don't like it

O_o I hope not... I actually thought about your posts when I was reading the first two pages of this thread, isn't that funny?... but I never found your posts abusive/inflammatory, they didn't really turn me off of the 300+ page helmet thread :).

I don't know what HH did/say recently cuz I stopped reading A&S a couple months ago... and I always passed on those long essays...

Wow, you can get baned for RickRolling. What has the world come to?
Dobber, it's not the usual "RickRolling" that we're banning people over. It's when they post links to malicious sites that result in computer problems for the person who clicked on the link. And - it's not an automatic ban. We're only banning the ones who continue to link to malicious sites after they were asked to stop.

As for the rest, please read this post (http://www.bikeforums.net/showpost.php?p=6170225&postcount=1).

BF has grown from Joes original community type board to a business venture, like it or not.
To have people who harangue other people and insult them (As HH did to me at first) and
bombard them with PMs critiquing every post ( yes, this was done too) is not in a business
persons best interest. Shortly you become aware that HH is a harmless wack and JF a
bloated windbag but I believe their presence was disruptive due to the items I mentioned
and the inability to not be able to rationally take part in any conversation and stay on
topic. 4,0000,00,0000000,00000 bytes on every thread to tell people they dont know what
they are talking about wont be missed by me.

On the User Control Panel, near the bottom there is a Buddy / Ignore List item. Individuals (not necessarily you) that fail to use facilities like this and continue to interact with members they disagree with are merely fanning the flames. Helmet Head was not a ****** and new full well that he would need to be particularly careful with his private messages to others. Anything out of bounds would be easily verified by a moderator. Again my guess is a single short message to Helmet Head and you would have received no further communication from him.

One has to question why you chose not to use the obvious common sense approach.

Also we all need to be much more jolly and use more eloquent prose, lest our posts be deemed lacking in "benefit".:rolleyes:

There will always be stuff like this -> http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php?t=120745&highlight=dunkin+donuts that will make A&S, Commuting and Living Car-Free entertaining to visit. As far as I go, I know how to ride my bike in the street, find that I am far less angry at JAMS when I am on my bicycle as when I am on a motorcycle, and beat my tin foil hat into a plowshare long ago, so every commercial with a bike in it is not somehow victimizing me as a cyclist. HH was far too much like Tom Cruise to be a valuable contributing member, so good riddance.

So is Donna saying that HH did stuff we don't know about and she can't talk about, but that's why he was banned, not simply for his unpopular views and aggressive presentation of them?

And is it considered trolling if I asked her that directly?

And can HH still receive private messages? If so, can he reply?

And is it considered trolling if I asked her that directly?

And can HH still receive private messages? If so, can he reply?
You're welcome to send me a PM, John. Any of you are welcome to do so. Many have already done that. If you don't wish to communicate with me, Tom Stormcrowe has also been answering questions about this matter.

Banned members cannot use the PM system, but if you look at HH's profile, you'll see that you can send an email to him. He will have the email address you have on record with BF once you send the message, however.

Metrics aside, "inability to be a beneficial member" is apparently grounds for a permanent ban, who would of guessed.

Can someone point to the "rule" that says membership here needs to be beneficial? And while we are at it, who gets to decide the definition of beneficial and who the benefactor is? Who does the measuring? How do they measure it? This has to be the most piss poor reason I've ever encountered for a permanent ban!

I'm guessing the true benefactors are the people at the top - and all the hackneyed cliches by Brent Conver, Grand Fromage, Internet Brands, will do little to change that truth.

Corporate spin and main-stream-media style manipulation - this place is fast becoming truly sick.

Me thinks there is a lot more to it than that... but the public reasons posted are for PR purposes... there was probably a lot more going on with the banned users that you may not be aware of.

While there may be some corporate spin, the bottom line is that you or anyone else is a guest here in this little community and that those that moderate it have the ultimate final word. You can of course go out and establish your own forum.

I'm betting that the people that were put off from A&S primarily due to the 'antagonism' will gradually return (there's been a couple already), and with them more traffic. I remember this place pre-Serge, and I'm pretty sure it can be like that again. I don't miss him one iota.

Less entertaining maybe... but give it time and A&S may become useful again. I gave up on posting here long ago, and I am happy to give it another shot if this level of moderation continues. Its not so much antagonism I objected to as disruption. When things get to the point where threads are yanked off-topic repeatedly, why bother posting?

There have been several local issues/events I felt like posting about this winter, but decided not to. Maybe next time I will.

I have to say I agree with that sentiment.

I never found those two to be among the most objectionable members. I don't agree with a lot of their ideas, but I generally believe that honest disagreement about ideas is a healthy thing, and I feel that they have been scapegoated mostly for having unpopular ideas. There are a few members of A&S who never learned to disagree respectfully with others, who feel to denigrate and attack personally those who disagree with them, mischaracterize the position of their opponents, and generally engage in ad hominem and straw-man attacks.

I'm bothered by the notion that VC has become a taboo topic for A&S. I never believed that the topic was the problem, rather the problem was that certain members were incapable of disagreeing with others in a respectful manner. And that problem was not isolated to one side of the debate.

There's a simple rule for respectful discourse: attacking a person's ideas is constructive, attacking a person himself is not. I wish that the moderators would apply that simple rule.

I have to agree with this. I dropped out completely for awhile. Have recently started scanning again but have avoided the VC subforum because of the contentious bashes and personal attacks. It looks like the handful I have had to block to keep things tolerable are still free to bash and attack. I won't likely be back.

Dobber, it's not the usual "RickRolling" that we're banning people over. It's when they post links to malicious sites that result in computer problems for the person who clicked on the link. And - it's not an automatic ban. We're only banning the ones who continue to link to malicious sites after they were asked to stop.

As for the rest, please read this post (http://www.bikeforums.net/showpost.php?p=6170225&postcount=1).

If they linked to harmful sites I missed that.

The agonists are still here.

On the User Control Panel, near the bottom there is a Buddy / Ignore List item. Individuals (not necessarily you) that fail to use facilities like this and continue to interact with members they disagree with are merely fanning the flames. Helmet Head was not a ****** and new full well that he would need to be particularly careful with his private messages to others. Anything out of bounds would be easily verified by a moderator. Again my guess is a single short message to Helmet Head and you would have received no further communication from him.

One has to question why you chose not to use the obvious common sense approach.

Also we all need to be much more jolly and use more eloquent prose, lest our posts be deemed lacking in "benefit".:rolleyes:


I dont need a feature to ignore anyone. HH was on ignore by the good, ole
fashion 'just skip over' method. Too mnay times I saw a new person come
in here and ask a simple question or re-tell an event that happened to them
and get flamed for riding 'wrong'. I dont care one way or the other about PMs
and that stuff but if you are a mod or owner of this for-profit entity you are
not going to think that behaviour is in the best interest of the community as a
whole despite how thought provoking a few other members of that community
might feel. If he comes back, great, no problem. But for this week I will
actually enjoy not having to sift through 800 zillion megabytes of nothing to
get to the few that are useful. Its a strange that in the commuter forum which
users of have a lot of the same concerns and postings everyone gets along
and is supportive. It seems that when you click on the A&S forum one
automatically goes into some wack, antagonistic combat mode. Sort of
like the drivers we complain about.

Lem, I think the difference between A & S and the Commuter forum is that A & S is theory and Commuter is practical. Those who ride everyday are dealing with the now - not something in a perfect world.

We don't need bike lanes, we need bazookas! :lol:

Lem, I think the difference between A & S and the Commuter forum is that A & S is theory and Commuter is practical.
Another difference is that HH and JF didn't post there.

Wow. never thought I'd see the day. HH will go nuts. what will he do all day?

We don't need bike lanes, we need bazookas! :lol:

I have seen a T-shirt with a bazooka theme, entitled "Two fewer cars" :p

Wow. never thought I'd see the day. HH will go nuts. what will he do all day?

What will some of his biggest detractors do for fun now? There are a few who spent a lot of time refuting him relentlessly.

I have to say, as tiresome as HH was, there are about 6-7 of his compadres who are just as/way more nasty/insulting. It seems to go with zealotry.

Helmet Head is gone
So now I return to post
But just in Haiku

Helmie may be banned
but his long posts will live on
in bike forums lore

If I had to choose between HH and spoof-haiku, I'd choose the former...

haiku zealot!

I have to say, as tiresome as HH was, there are about 6-7 of his compadres who are just as/way more nasty/insulting. It seems to go with VC zealotry.

It does go with zealotry, but can exist on both sides of any issue. I have been attacked verbally by others on occasion when I have attempted to lay out a VC position on some issue, much more personally and aggressively than I think my post warranted. And they are still around. But hey, it's the Internet. I accept that it goes with the territory, and that I don't know everything.

I guess my feeling is that I hope HH wasn't kicked off only because of what we've seen of him publicly, as much as that may have riled some people or even turn off newbies. If there are other reasons we don't know about, that's a different story and we don't have enough information to second-guess the decision.

Controversy, yes. Waste of time, to be sure...

Malicious links earns an ouster, no question. Hang tough, mods.

Yet, the Steely Dan's "Black Cow" lyrics keep cropping up in my head:
"You should know /How all the pros play the game/ You change your name"

Watch for similar goofy fanaticism under a new moniker coming soon to a computer in near you. . .

I have to say, as tiresome as HH was, there are about 6-7 of his compadres who are just as/way more nasty/insulting. It seems to go with zealotry.

fixed!