tallard

Well like I said, the term VC was entirely new to me until I found this forum, it just happens to apparently reflect the way myself and many of my cycling friends through the years have behaved on our 2 wheels.

So who are these 5 hardcore VCers as you say other than myself I guess? And whereabouts do they live? And why do so many of you harbor so much rage against them? It's mind boggling to see so many adults vent so much anger and personal grudges instead of actually discussing the subject at hand.

tallard

Well I certainly see the point you were making earlier to me, there's obviously been a lot of anger around here
Frankly that's not really my style, I prefer debating over bickering any day.

LittleBigMan

You are saying the "split will work" if it eliminates those who disagree with you from any further discussion. Not exactly the spirit of open debate.

I see the split as a means of isolating a never-ending argument so that other discussions can continue uninterrupted.

I prefer your writings when they are of this sort:

https://dianesoini.com/?p=237

I am also a bird lover (and yes, she is demanding!)

Brian

Exactly. You've summed that up quite nicely.

sbhikes

That's what I mean as well. HH couldn't contain himself, but he was more entertaining. Now all we are left with is the old curmudgeon. The split drove HH away and all we are left with is the second string.

Daily Commute

As I pointed out here, HH seems to be taking some time off from arguing VC to enjoy the watching and arguing about the TdF. Others (on both sides) might be wise to do the same thing.

joejack951

I forgot to respond to this post until so forgive my lateness. My complaint was not about a thread with the words "bike lane" in it being in the subforum. You continue to believe that bike lanes as they exist today are generally vehicular (whereas I believe that it's quite rare that a bike lane is vehicular) so to you, it's a VC thread and that's fine. My complaint is about intentionally inflammatory threads or "junk" threads that some have posted in this subforum. Maybe it's just that this subforum is in it's infant stages and everyone still needs to let out all of their pent up frustration from before the great divide.

Brian Ratliff

^^^
Just don't respond and post threads of your own, and the thread will sink quickly, if it is, in fact, a "junk" thread. If it garners responses and doesn't sink, then I think, by definition, it is not a junk thread. It might be inflammatory, but then again, most threads posted here are, it's just a question of who it inflames.

I'm just trying to say: stop being so judgemental about what people want to talk about and what opinions they espouse. If the conversation isn't going the way you want, if there are too many threads about bike lanes for your taste, then just start a new thread on a topic of your own choosing. I know, it is hard to remain non-judgemental about people who are retorically attacking your ideas. But remember that while they are attacking your ideas (and yes, sometimes your character) you are also attacking theirs (and yes, sometimes their characters). On an open forum like this, what goes around, comes around, and sometimes in a double dose.

Just treat this forum like a horror movie. Yes, some of the opinions are off the wall, and sometimes people cling to ideas which are wrong (in your opinion, of course) like pit bulls. But ultimately, just like in the most scary part of the horror film when you just have to remind yourself that you are safe in a chair in a movie theatre, you have to remind yourself here that this forum is for the free exchange of ideas only and is not representative of the real world. Take what can be taken from this forum; puruse the variety of opinion here like at a used bookstore, take what you judge to be good and leave the bad.

And, FWIW, don't treat the "great divide" as some sort of moral indicator of anything. It was done purely for practical reasons, as there were a handful of us who got into some pretty involved arguments which left others out, and because of the volume of our debate, other, less focused threads got completely washed out. Think of it from the point of view of a person who is interested in discussing, say, the general process of communicating an idea to the government. At post 13, one of us would say something that would ignite the "VC debate" or the "bike lane debate" and 50 pages later, the thread is miles from where the OP started, the originator of the thread has long abandoned it, hasn't gotten much of an answer for his question and hasn't recieved much from the resulting conversation. That is what was happening before. I actually talked face to face with one of the moderators, and it was getting so bad that they were considering shutting A&S down completely, either temporarily or for good, or even moving it into the P&R section of the forums.

If you look at the main A&S section, and also the VC subforum, you can see that they have taken on distinct characters. The basic arguments which were consuming the old, pre-split, A&S forum are still on-going in the sub-forum, which attracts people like you and me, but another culture, one which was previously drowned by the "great debators" has resurfaced in the main A&S forum. I don't see the title of the forum as a big deal. It's called the Vehicular Cycling sub-forum, but it really is a forum for those who like to debate the topics surrounding vehicular cycling. Those who wish to talk about everything else talk in the A&S main forum. You can see that while our threads tend to be 10's to 100's of pages long, the threads in the main A&S forum tend to be in the 5-10 page area. Right there you can see that the A&S forum and the VC sub-forum have taken on different characters.

So, in summary: if you see a "junk" thread or a trolling thread, just ignore it. Flamers can only talk amongst themselves for so long before they give up the troll; and if the thread outlives the first page of posts, then perhaps, just perhaps, it was ligit after all. And if you cannot bring yourself to ignore an intentional troll, then I can't take sympathy on you.

And finally, you will not get past a difference of opinions on bike forums. There are too many differences in opinions, and the moderators are not charged here, as they are on chainguard, with enforcing an initial point of view. And there is no "winning" here. Just endless chatter. If you feel you have to post to "hold your ground" so to speak, I suggest you reevaluate that urge. Just post what you want to say, respond to what you want to respond to, and that's all that anyone can expect.

joejack951

Whoa, you'd think that I've been spouting off about this for a while now, when all I did was second someone else's opinion. Do you see me ranting and raving in the non-VC related threads in the subforum? I may have posted once or twice (honestly can't remember if I did or not) that a thread might be better off in the A&S forum but you seem to be making my comment out to be a lot worse than it really was. My "great divide" comment was me being sarcastic. I should have tagged it as such.

Looking back at CB HI's complaint, there may be less of a common ground between us than I originally thought which might have lead to some of the confusion between you and I in these posts.

If you're done, I'm done