Move all Petroleum/Global Warming/Macroeconomic Rants to P&R

[I-Like-To-Bike]

Mods,

I'm glad to see that the thread "President Bush does his part to save the planet" has finally been moved to P&R after 5 pages of political ranting on A&S.

I recommend that all posts on the commuting, A&S, and General Cycling lists that are essentially political/economic/social rants about the evils and degeneracy of the "petroleum culture" be transferred to P&R as soon as they are posted.These posts invariably have little or no direct relationship to cycling except in the mind of the ranters. Might as well leave 'em alone on Living Car Free list, otherwise the thread count there will dry up and that list might wither away

[KrisPistofferson]

I respectfully disagree. I totally see the point, but some of these forums quite obviously cross-pollinate with the political views of the posters. Shoot, they had to make the "Utility Cycling" forum just because the "Living Car-Free" forum was so chock-full of annoying Peak-Oil Zealots and Luddites, but so many people include cycling in their worldview this is hardly surprising. I think people go through life much of the time being blind to how much of the contents of their day-to-day lives have a political aspect, this is unavoidable.

I do agree that threads that have nothing to do with cycling and are overtly political should be flushed down to PnR quick-like.

By the way, ILTB, you should post in PnR, we'd probably disagree a bit but we'd love to have you.

[I-Like-To-Bike]

By the way, ILTB, you should post in PnR, we'd probably disagree a bit but we'd love to have you.
Thanks for the invite, Kris. I'll stick to my usual pet punching bags (the overly serious Serious Cyclists of various stripes, John Forester acolytes, and statistically challenged Safety Nannies.) Those guys don't really get me going and are relatively harmless, not like anyone who has anything positive to spin arout the current Klan in the White House. I don't need to pump up my blood pressure so I'll respectfully decline for now.

[Catweazle]

Bit much to expect that any simple move is really going to alleviate the cross-posting that happens here methinks, ILTB. So many sections here, and the board culture has been allowed to develop in the direction of supporting people's propensity to post in/visit only one section, and go off-topic in doing so. That means it's really a board 'culture' change which would be needed and, whilst that;s possible to achieve, it takes time, effort, and the losing of some active posters to do so.


By the way. I suspect that if some little-used sections withered up and went away it'd be a good thing rather than a bad thing :lol:

[East Hill]

By the way. I suspect that if some little-used sections withered up and went away it'd be a good thing rather than a bad thing :lol:

Don't you even think about taking away my AltBikes forum, you, you, you weasel, you!

I can think of at least one, perhaps two other forums that would be better candidates :) .

East Hill

[Catweazle]

Would it help if I stated that I'm an Aussie who thinks that the 'Australia/New Zealand' regional sub-section is a waste-of-space added complexity on the index menu?

:lol:

[East Hill]

Nah, we do want the Aussies and Kiwis to feel welcome, even if they just lurk most of the time.

East Hill

[Rollfast]

Would it help if I stated that I'm an Aussie who thinks that the 'Australia/New Zealand' regional sub-section is a waste-of-space added complexity on the index menu?

:lol:

Oh nevermind.

[Roody]

I've got a weird idea. If the topic of a thread doesn't appeal to you, don't open the thread. It's one of those options, like channel selectors on TVs, that comes in real handy. Of course some people would rather whine about the content that others submit, rather than take some personal responsibility for their leisure time.

Here's another weird idea. If the threads on the forum aren't to your liking, start your own thread. Maybe others will join you in an interesting conversation. (I notice that this is the OP's first thread start of the year, and one of only eight since he joined bikeforums. And he's about the loudest complainers about thread content here!)

[Roody]

Thanks for the invite, Kris. I'll stick to my usual pet punching bags (the overly serious Serious Cyclists of various stripes, John Forester acolytes, and statistically challenged Safety Nannies.) Those guys don't really get me going and are relatively harmless, not like anyone who has anything positive to spin arout the current Klan in the White House. I don't need to pump up my blood pressure so I'll respectfully decline for now.

I know what you mean. P&R is way too "serious" for this non-serious cyclist too.

But, like it or not, we live in very political times. We can try to avoid exposing ourselves to political discussions, but we can't expect everybody else to go along with us on this. Politics is part of every internet forum, AFAIK. Heavy-handed censorship will usually cause hard feelings and just fan the flames.

I think a couple other approaches are more likely to be effective. First, we should make sure that our thread titles accurately depict thread content so that users can choose which threads to open. Second, and probably more important, mods should make sure that non-political threads aren't hijacked by the more opinionated users. Hijackers should be "punished" individually, maybe by deleting their posts, but the entire hijacked thread should not be tampered with or moved.