"The Alps are not steep"

Compared to sustained gradients of 15-20% in England, Wales, Scotland and many places where their miners settled in Appalachia.

https://cyclinguphill.com/british-hi...alps-pyrenees/

You expect rational thought from an Ayn Rand fanboy?

This thread has started to open my eyes a bit to the reality we live in. Never understood how teenagers kill themselves over being "bullied" on social media, but now I am beginning to see it.
The inability to distinguish between reality and virtual reality is becoming blurred for some of those teens, and as demonstrated in this thread, for adults as well. Internet forums are not "reality", forum members are not your "friends". Your friends come to your house and have face to face conversations, hang out with you and generally speaking are involved in your daily living. That is reality.

This is an internet forum, and as such it is not real, it is simply a group of people with an unusual interest in cycling that have formed a "social" network in a virtual reality world. We really don't know each other other than what we "talk" about on line in this forum. I am certain there are exceptions, as some of the forum members may actually hang out with each other during the course of the week.

Simply put, keep things in perspective, choose to engage in reading a thread or not, but to get upset over comments made is a bit weird to me.
Of course, those that know me know I am weird myself!

^ this guy knows as much as anyone it isnt a democracy and members don't have a vote.

related note- I have been banned from one of the forums because I got into it with mods over the creation of it and how inconsistently they were applying the rule of moving threads to it. The forum has proven to not be popular, as expected, and eventually one main thread was moved back to it's original forum, where it should have been all along.
I also am well aware this place isn't a democracy. There certainly are other more accurate terms to describe how the site is run.

Post this in the c&v forum and watch as you receive countless examples that counter your narrative. And statistically, that forum trends older, so people who didn't grow up with the internet as a dominant communication tool.

Report posts which violate the forum rules and use the Ignore function for those whom you feel contribute nothing beneficial.

Forum admins aren't going to have time to read every thread looking for who contributes and who does not.

^^Speak of the devil.^^

I would actually be embarrassed to be on any ignore lists. I would think others would be as well.

I'm certain that I have offended more than one BF member, and am likely on a dozen or so ignore lists.

King Solomon wrote: "When there are many words, transgression is unavoidable, but he who restrains his lips is wise."

Blame it on whatever you want to. I live in the greater Richmond Virginia Metro area. We had 2 incidents in the past week of people showing up at major outdoor functions with prominent F (the president) signs on display. One was at the Veteran's Day celebration at the Memorial. The other was on the Richmond Half Marathon route on Saturday. That's just not a good look no matter what words or whose names are listed behind the obscenity. Show a little decorum, people.

Actually, there's one person I wish would put me on his ignore list. He's on mine but he still responds to my posts with his usual trolling comments.

I am certain I have reported more than 40 posts in my day. I have even gotten thanks for reporting posts. Guessing it was something else about your behavior.

“Can’t we all just get along?” -Rodney King

”This town needs an enema.” -The Joker

“I choose…BOTH!” -Towlie

Depends who’s list it is :)

It does seem to be a little worse here lately, and it does tend to be a small group of usual suspects. But I think this comes and goes.

Expectation too high... We're talkin 'people'/humanoids, not elephants....
'Balance' is also a matter of perspective... but is always a 'mix'. You'll get 'pragmatic', touchy/feely, obnoxious, mellow, snarky, considerate, and every other level of 'content' that a human can generate. Some posters tend to be more consistent in each of these 'types'...
I have been on here for some years, left for some years, and now back for some months... It's pretty much the same... some of the forums are very supportive (50+) and informative in many ways, some are very informative & supportive (C&V), some are informative with an 'image' to uphold (Road) and some find 'contention' just suits their comfort...
At the moment I have no need to use an 'Ignore' list - that's easily accomplished in my mind....
ALL posts are 'opinion', how one presents that opinion colors how others will view ALL of your contributions, even the one which might be 'worthy' of consideration.
some only post 'contention' to other posts - they're very obvious...
I've gotten some great info in the forums I visit - and tend to 'filter' quickly and move on...
Sometimes I go to other forums to learn more about areas of cycling I'm mostly ignorant of... need to apply same filtering.
My Opinion - The need to personally attack another, on such a remote connection, is a manifestation of a very low self-image, or an extreme hyperbolization of self.
sort of like politics...
Be Calm, Be Real, Move On...
Ride On
Yuri
EDIT - BTW, this 'condition' applies to ALL the forums I've ever spend/spent time in... Ski, Outdoors, Hockey, Photography, and on.... LOL!
its endemic, prolly genetic.... LOL!

Lots of good stuff on the BF forums and far more than desired amounts of garbage, though I'll admit 'garbage' is subjective. Lots of trolls..and I think they are tolerated a bit too much. Sadly, many of the same people (that often post good content) chime in with predictable frequency and keep the trolls well fed with more 'replies' to inane topics, concepts, or statements. On the occasions when I do click on a (obviously useless) thread to see what all the commotion is about, more than a few times I've said to myself (about those replying that do offer good content on a reasonably regular basis) "..come on buddy..you're better than this..". And yet..things don't seem to change...trolls are seldom anything but fat and happy. Unfortunate.

As time goes on I find I have less patience with the adolescents (which, apparently, range from actual 20-30 y/o adolescents to some in the 50s & 60s) and hit the 'ignore' button with increasing frequency. I'm up to 62 on that list now..and climbing. The list helps to make BF a better place. I wish there was a way to make entire threads disappear (to me) as inane threads often grind on for weeks..with about 98% of the content being a complete waste of good electrons.

One place I find BF really shines is when I do research on various topics. A big thanks! to BF for keeping historical threads available...even though the occasional new member dredges up a zombie thread from 2006 to make an insightful(1st post) comment like.."hey..I saw a bike like that once" (after which the thread takes off for a while with comments seldom related to the original thread)...and life goes on..

Except for a few, I think most people post something that they cringe about down the road.

I know I will stumble across an old thread and read something and think, what a jerk, only to find out I posted it. At which point I’ll become critical of my spelling errors… lol.

Overall I think BF is pretty tame compared to other forums. Any major sport fan base forum far surpasses anything here. But being a bit more civil is a good thing.

The one positive, if anyone else sees it the same way, is that there are responses. I’ve seen forums that just run their course and a thread just languish and the site slowly dies off.

For me is pretty much just fun, sometimes making fun is an issue I have. Everyone says stupid stuff and if I don’t want to read it or don’t agree I don’t need a button to ignore it. The following week that same person might say something I agree with.

John

Putting offensive people on an ignore list would rob me of the entertainment I derive from reading their self-owning posts.

I didn't say people couldn't be decent to one another, I am simply stating we are on the internet, we are all anonymous beings talking purely in text and emotional icons and that internet is a cold place for the reasons described. It is not aberrant behavior it is just the nature of the internet. If someone say comes onto a forum to troll or to say something like "what bike is this" and stop there for little to no information of course you will get people saying something. We don't need to fawn over everyone and we can be honest here. If you have been able to create and account and start a post chances are you are mature enough to understand how to ask a question properly and get help if you really need it. Otherwise people might say something.

Interesting advice from someone that just suggested an enema two days ago in a weight weenie thread.

How decent of you :rolleyes:
​​​​​​​

I sure hope this thread doesn’t revert into everyone searching the archives trying to find something someone posted.

If you want to really see BF deteriorate, that would do it.

John

Yeah.
After numerous people claim that the forums are being dragged down by rude and uncivil posts why would anyone want to spend about 30 seconds to point out the rude and uncivil posts by those same people :rolleyes:
Good stuff.