luxroadie

I stopped regularly reading BF about six months ago. The lead up to the TdF did me in as all I could find were stupid posts by wackos about doping.

So I finally came back to see what was on hand for the fabulous races Down Under and I see nothing has changed. We've got wackos making up stuff about Lemond, we've got nutcases arguing about Betty Andreau, and people sitting on the Ricco watch.

I was a big advocate for changing this forum from the Tour de France to Professional Cycling. I always found it odd that to see useful, informative, funny, and insightful posts about the Classics and myriad other awesome races that define Professional Cycling, that I had to come to a TdF forum.

Now it just seems like every two-bit hack with an email address can come on line and "learn from the mdeia" and "substantiate my point with tons of documents I found on the internet" as the spew.

Let's change this to Professional Cycling and Doping forum. Then let's open a new forum that is JUST ABOUT Professional Cycling, which would include a NO DOPE DISCUSSIONS clause.

If anyone wants to rail on about the topic they'd have a world all their own. And anyone who misses the discussion about doping (as their argument will be 'but it is such an important part of the sport') can go visit it as they wish.

If I were better at this, I'd start a poll. Can someone please help with that?

SBRDude

How about just leaving this one for pro cycling and disallow doping talk, and then open a new one for just doping?

JoelS

How about leaving it alone and not reading the threads you aren't interested in?

SBRDude

Because so many threads get hijacked or otherwise diverted.

JoelS

And you think that would change with a new forum? Highly doubtful. The folks are the same regardless of where they post.

SBRDude

The Road Cycling forum doesn't allow these arguments about PEDs and it has much, much more activity.

LowCel 

Unfortunately just about every pro cycling thread ends up being about doping. Since that is the case most of the threads started in the pro cycling forum would just be moved to the doping forum. I wish it wasn't the case but it is. Just read through the threads and see how many of them go from a positive pro cycling thread to a doping thread. There are a few members that push them that way more than others but as long as they are not breaking any rules there is nothing that can be done about it.

collegeskier

If you look at the views on the Professional Cycling thread well then you will see that doping is what people care about. After AC news the viewers and post here skyrocketed. Not saying it was good quality or content but it is something to talk about, good or bad.

kleinboogie

I think there's lots of forces at work that shift to what is essentially gossip. Just to name a few; makes them feel important, better by tearing someone else down, conspiracy theories are popular now, it's simple talk that is the lowest common denominator, easy to get an exchange by p.o.'ing someone off and sitting back with their bag of popcorn and marvel at what they created, etc. It's human nature. Also, if you look at the number of posts actually about pro cycling it's pretty scarce. This forum would probably die if not for the people who just babble about nothing.

I like many came here hoping for a discussion about pro cycling and equipment but that's just not going to happen. I go to other forums and sites for that. This has really just turned into let me cheer for my favorite team or rider. It happens.

VT Biker

I hate to break it to you, but you can title a forum however you want, but you cannot separate the racing from the doping, especially during weeks such as the week we just had.

VT Biker

To be fair, pro cycling in the United States, outside of the TdF is extremely tough to watch unless you have Universal. Even when there are races (such as the classics on Versus), they are on tape delay by sometimes as much as 1 week. Now, add to that (a) the number of people who actually watch, (b) the number of people who watch who understand pro racing, strategy and overall tactics; (c) the number of people who fall into the above categories who actually post on BF.

Unfortunately, doping is something everyone can have an opinion on, and opine on. But even most cycling fans (I am included), are not well versed enough to necessarily hold a conversation on a given race.

I would love to discuss the worlds, as it was an amazing and exciting race. But I am guessing the thread would not turn over to a second page.

Sea Green Sky

Nevermind that the Road Cycling forum is 87% crap - which ___ should I buy because I'm incapable of formulating my own opinion based on the data, I just bought a new ____, where can I find <easily searchable item>, I got dropped/race-faced, I crashed, PCad blah blah blah, Psimet wheels blah blah blah, etc, etc.

SBRDude

That doesn't change the reality that arguing about PEDs isn't allowed over there.

USAZorro

Unfortunately, there are times when doping scandals are very prominent news stories. When they are, people are going to talk about it. There was quite little discussion of doping during the Giro and Tour this year. If/When it fades from the news, we will take a more active role in discouraging that discussion, or attempt to confine it to specific threads.

SBRDude

I have to say that I agree. Doping is what it is and I recant my support of another sub-forum dedicated to it.

However, I do think the forum members shouldn't be allowed to insult each other because of their opinions about the subject. We should all be able to talk about doping, say who we believe or don't believe and why or why not, without being called stupid, naive, etc. for having an opinion.

merlinextraligh

I think a doping sub forum to the Professional Cycling forum would be an improvement.

Any threads, or comments about doping go in the subforum.

Anybody posting about doping outside the sub forum in the regular threads in the rest of the forum gets redirected the first time, banned the second time.

LowCel 

Insulting is not permitted on any of the forums here so feel free to report the insults and they will be dealt with.

kleinboogie

Good points. The two guys at my work who watched the worlds were like me though, they wanted to throw a brick through the TV because the picture quality was so bad. Probably just spoiled by Versus in HD. I like the tactics while it's happening but agree that it's hard to hold or find a conversation about it. Cheers

USAZorro

We actually had this discussion about 2 years ago. The separate forum and sub-forum were both felt to be less viable than enacting the policy that I allude to in post #14. Unfortunately, work has been keeping me busier for a while now, and I have not been keeping up with this forum as I would like to have for the past two months. If you see a thread hijacked, or insults (legitimate insults, not "fan boy", or someone saying you are "trolling" (which is different from being called a "troll"), go ahead and report it. It will be considered, and acted upon if the moderators agree.

Cat4Lifer

What are the criteria for "legitimate" insults versus "illegitimate" insults? And in what way do legitimate insults diverge from supposed illegitimate insults? It seems to me that that fundamentally there is no difference between calling someone an "ass" (or some other "legitimate" insult) and calling someone a "fan-boy."

FogVilleLad

Maybe do what I think we all do on the other forums: read what interests you.

luxroadie

But on other forums topics are grouped so you aren't inundated with 95 posts about cycling building if you are trying to read about Treking.

Point is -- whether Drugs and Racing are linked to Pro Cycling or not -- the amount of Drug posts overwhelms those who come to the "PROFESSIONAL CYCLING" forum to read about things more "mundane" like, races, rosters, transfers, new teams, UCI ProTour structure.

Sure, the amount of posts/threads in the ProCycling forum would drop if Drugs were given its own forum or a sub-forum (I dare say the proportional QUALITY of posts would likely increase treble fold!).

The reason there isn't ONE BIKE FORUM and that this is the BIKEFORUMS.NET is that forums are supposed to group related topics so that users (that is us) can find like minded users.

I'm not saying we ban Drug talk, I'm not arguing it isn't relevant to the sport. I just don't want to come here and have to search down 15 pages to read a new topic created about a race in Europe this weekend because 15 TROLLS decided to each open their own topic on the latest dietary intake of Alberto Contador!

Phantoj

You don't need a subforum in a forum as slow as this one.

merlinextraligh

That's a good point.

However, I think there's a reasonable case to be made that the never ending drug comments, that end up invading everything are in part responsible for how slow this forum is.

The drug sub forum would give a very bright line rule for the moderators, and might just lead to people returning to the main forum that have left due to the Armstrong doped/ Armstrong didn't dope diatribes.

kleinboogie

Maybe start with a sticky dope thread and all "news" and rants about doping goes there. I've seen this done on other forums where it's kinda related but it avoids multiple threads about the same topic that's only one part of the forum.