StephenH

I note that the original question assumes that this forum consists of 50+ individuals and apparently assumes that the other forums do not. That is an erroneous assumption right off the bat. You don't sign up on this site and pick the one and only one forum that you're allowed to visit. There's old roadies, old recumbiers, old cyclotourists, old vintage bike enthusiasts, old randonnneurs, whatever. I dare say that in some of the forums, the average age is probably over 50. Pcad was in here stirring the pot, but he's one of us. "We have met the enemy and they is us" as Pogo declared.

In any forum, as in real life, people tend to follow what's already being done. If you walk into a room full of people and everyone is hooting and hollering, after a while, you're liable to do the same, at least if you want to be heard. If you walk into a roof full of people, say "Howdy", and everyone turns around and shhhhs you, then after a while, you'll be mum like them. That doesn't mean one way or the other is the right way. A library is sedate, and so is a cemetery, but that doesn't make for good entertainment. And then I've been to restaurants that were so noisy I couldn't hardly hear, and that's not good, either.

What exactly should this forum be like? I don't know that there's an answer for that. I'd like to think that it's a place where over-50 people feel welcome, and not where we take turns hollering "Get off my lawn!" at any outsider that dares intrude. That is an easy trap to fall into- I'm reminded of the Dad in Mary Poppins who shouts "I'm in a perfectly equitable mood and do NOT need to be made to feel better!" when in fact he's in a very crabby mood.

Let me finish with a photography story. I used to do lots of photography, for fun. So one time, I went down to DFW National Cemetery. I've seen lots of photos from Arlington National Cemetery and similar places, and thought it might be good for some different shots. So I got out my camera, set up my tripod, and just about then, one of the groundskeepers came over and informed me that photography was not allowed in the cemetery. Really? I looked on their official rules, and didn't see that anywhere. (I did find that anything that might be construed as fun, such as cycling, was prohibited, seeing as how the ground is Hallowed.) I asked the volunteer at the information center about that, and she said she had never heard such a thing, that people took pictures there all the time. Hmmph. So I got in my car and left.

Well, speaking of hallowed ground, right down the road from there was Dallas Baptist College. I saw a neat building, circled through, and saw some neat flowers. So I hopped out with my camera, set up the tripod. Just about then, a security guard came by. "Uh oh", I thought, "He's going to run me off like that other fellow." But no, the guy asked about why I was there, and then told me I could take all the pictures I wanted, no problem.

The moral is that those two different institutions were both "sedate", but one was sedate in a stifling my-way-or-the-highway approach, and the other was sedate in a laid-back seen-it-before-we'll-see-it-again kind of way, and that made a world of difference to my impression of the two places. I'd like to think the over-50's forum was sedate in a laid-back kind of way, not in a stern-librarian-won't-let-us-have-any-fun way.