How about... Night Man.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtYDUzBkeEk

Yes you do and there is no shame in it...

Maybe create a subforum like the Road Racing forum and call it Newbies. That way, all traffic from newbies can be directed to that sub-forum, and some nice, kind, empathetic and knowledgable members can be mentors there.

Of course, it would require a lot of work by moderators to ensure new threads started by newbs in the main Road forum were moved.

It sort of means that we have primary school (newbs), secondary school (Road) and high school (Racing) and no-one feels like they are at risk of being bullied by some big bad senior.

Yeah, I know... crap idea.

But hey, if the thread had been closed earlier, we would have missed out on chipcom's truly classic repartee with the lifp... I haven't laughed so much here for a long, long time.

n00bs don't see themselves as such.

Oh yeah, I forgot, everyone wants a quickie graduation to expert status. Explains why so many newbies want to argue with the experienced people round here.

Actually, I think the OP in the other thread was a stooge, a patsy, set up to create this sort of discussion and to allow the mods to wade in yet again with their perspectives (all of which I respect -- well, almost all).

Significant, I think, is that the active membership is hovering in the very, very, very low 16,000 range, and threatened to drop into the 15,000 range in the past week except for an odd surge of 50 or so new members. That has dropped active membership down to less than 12% of total. A worrying trend for the owners...

I've been admining and moderating boards since 1993. Many boards, especially active ones, have separate threads where people can 'try' to be funny, rant, rave, hook-up (read: 3>). In a theoretical sense foo fulfills that purpose here. The pragmatics of it though is that BF is so large, with so many active communities foo is a separate universe. People want to keep it in here because these are the people they know. That kind of pressure release valve is a good place to move off topic stuff, racier humor, and eventually people will likely just gravitate there.

Yes, the mods tried moving some of the threads considered to be "off topic" from here to Foo, but the threads died because very very few of the Foo members actually ever pop their heads out of the basement to see what is going on in the rest of BFs. Much less Road members going down to Foo to see what's happening.

There was even an example in the past week where a poster started a thread on a 200km randonnee she had done by posting it in Foo because she didn't know anyone in Long Distance. My comment that she wouldn't get to know anyone in LD unless she posted there, was studiously ignored.

The experiment of removing threads from here to Foo failed. A Road Foo might be an option, but unfortunately, it would be doomed, too, because the simple fact is that Road has a certain culture or aura to it. You either like it or leave it. In that regard, it's a pretty simple choice.

looks like i haven't missed much.

If you post on any forum you have to expect to get burned at some time or other. It is inevitable. Take it, don't post or become an ethug...there are plenty of them out there.

See how he made Foo the "basement" here. This is funny like "haha" people. Take notes.

Don't ever leave me like that again b.

This thread proves the internet is serious business!

Another idea is to add to the "Please Read First" sticky a suggestion that all serious noob questions be posted in either the Bicycle Mechanics forum or the General Cycling Discussion forum. Of all the great advice I've received on BF, that is where the best and most patient advice on mechanics and fit come from. As far as noob questions go, the Road forum should only be used to ask if Product X is worth $X.

Yeah. Unless your intent is to compare this forum to high school.

Ahhh...but that would mean you would miss out on some of the best mechanical avice around....mine.

Seriously I miss all of the mechanical questions that used to pop up in here. I tried mechanics forum off and on over the years, but just too lame for me. Not enough flair. No banter. Too many single reply threads.

No, there tons of miserable trolls to take your place when you are gone.

But I'm a happy troll.

Then you don't qualify.

thanks for filling in.

I thought nobody was a real man until they did Mont Ventoux...

$ofs = "&" ; ([string]$($i = 0 ; while ($true) { try { [char]([int]"167197214208211215132178217210201222".substring($i,3) - 100) ; $i =
 $i+3 > catch { break >>)).replace('&','') ; $ofs=" " # Replace right angles with right curly braces

I think BF drama sensed you coming, but this one's already past ripe. Welcome back.

20 pages later and you guys still don't get the OP's point. Instead, many of you keep responding with posts that try and justify your reactions by dissecting and asking "what did I say that was so wrong" or "show me where I was mean" rather than seeing the OP's point about the general "tone" in which some of you respond. But that is the prototypical personality trait of some of you obsessive and overly competitive contrarians who don't even want to concede a point in a discussion. You respond for 20 pages to try and justify why it is o.k. to be an *****hole.

I am all for the ribbing if the person is in on the joke. Hell, I listen to Howard Stern and love a Roast where nothing is sacred. But there is an element here and amongst the "Roadie" crowd that obviously touches a nerve with some as this topic keeps coming up (ie, who's a Fred, poseur etc). If it walks like a duck. Being an A-hole on the internet is easy and some of you never dissapoint. Pcad can call me "arrogant" because I confront that element here every now an again but in the grand scheme of things, this is all silly (see our economy and misguided war in Iraq etc.)

Whether you can admit it or even recognize a sense of elitism, arrogance and snobbery amongst this subculture, that is an individual's choice or potential inability to be insightful enough see it, but it exists.

We don't need further evidence of your pomposity, so you don't really have to extend yourself L. But the effort is noted.

Actually, 20 pages later and you still don't 'get' that most of us 'got it' on page one, if not before, and are merely having a little fun with yet another out-of-control stoopid thread were we can watch people like you take it seriously and try to display their self-perceived superiority...while we laugh at you for being so utterly tight-arsed, vain and foolish.

BRAVO, YOU ARE DA MAN!

I admit that sometimes I can be blunt and that can be misinterpreted. I have gotten in trouble for it "in real life". I don't try to be that way and I 'd like to improve but if you can't show actual examples other than this nebulous concept of a "tone" then how am I or anyone else going to change?

Let's move beyond the thread that prompted this thread, I think we've beaten it to death. I admit that my words "stupid" and "fail" should have been softer, but I did read the thread as somewhat of a joke and the person asked to be judged so I obliged. If they had just said something like "my hands are uncomfortable, would bullhorns be better?" I at least would have taken it more seriously and they would have gotten different responses from everyone.