I don’t think you can blame the ‘keyboard warriors’ or the mods for the increasing dullness of this forum. There’s enough non-hostile contributors on here surely to overwhelm the few sour grapes with their intelligent, inspired positivity… but IMO the chat forum is now overwhelmed with advice threads and underwhelmed with funny.

TSY, as mentioned ^^^^ was generally a positive influence. He’s banned I think.

When are these glory days you allude to?

Back when at least 25% of the posts on a given topic were ‘tick’ and the hamsters took regular fag breaks (wipes tears from eye). Glory days indeed.

And I do mean examples of actual racism. Casual or otherwise. Not some soft-arse, just-itching-to-be-offended, PC over-sensitivity.

Every single gypsy thread has it tbh

Last one ended up with someone claiming that slavery was part of their culture [ not to mention using pikey*- i dont think I could say that about the non white skinned folk and get away with it tbh.

* I doubt I could use a pejorative/derogatory term for Asians on her either and get away with it

I have not read the thread and I agree that it is generally politer and less ranty but it also more boring
I do not know why TSY was banned at all he never did anything bad IMHO
The others I may agree or disagree but I can actually see why they were culled. Miss many of them but still cannot understand why TSY had to go
It is bland on here at times

I thought it was terrible the way the TJ baiters were allowed to continue ion here. on
his last thread i had said the same thing and no response on it all ….he said it and they descended immediately to attack and provoke…we let the bullies stay and hit the victim – like all victims of bullying in the playground his reaction was the often the reason they picked on him

There’s still those that chooses to go on personal tirades, as happened to me yesterday. I just tend to ignore it but it does spoil the threads.

Even one of your friends – well he called you by name – said you were not making sense.
It was nowhere near personal or insulting

Boring?
Depends what you want/expect from a forum.
It can yoyo a bit in here ,but overall it covers a lot of subjects.

It’s also a bit like a Big Brother experiment.
The more some posters type,the more their true nature leaks through,they just can’t help themselves.
Over time it’s easy to get a sense of who to ignore or respond to ,and (probably) what they would be like in RL.

I know who I would have a pint with,and who I would ride in the opposite direction from 🙂

It’s a shadow of its former self.

+1.

Having frequented this forum for over ten years, I have to say that many of the current crop of dwellers are as dull as ditch water, and anyone who says that this place is better than it was would probably find the flat farm fields of Iowa and interesting place to visit.

Having said that, STW is a business, and has to look after it’s public image. And in today’s capitalist society, business is the more important than anything else.

Now, does anyone know any good knob gags?

I only joined 4ish years ago so I didn’t know any of the “Big hitters” but I did see a few threads where banter went too far and the comments become cutting and seemed genuinely hateful so maybe the ban was a good thing – At the end of the day they’re probably all here under new names anyway.
As for Moderation and boring I think they’ve got it spot on. I don’t personally get offended easily but the cleaner the site can be the better IMO. This place is extremely helpful and I have yet to start a post needing help and not get a genuninely helpful response. Maybe some humour has been lost but there are still enough witty, clever comments around to end up laughing at your phone in public.

I’ve come to the conclusion, from reading a lot more than I post, that this place has a small clique of those that are either in the vicinity of and ride with the powers that be or have at some point in the past and can pretty much get away with anything, whilst newcomers have a pretty random and unfair application of the rules. Those rules also in themselves are difficult to quantify, personally I might use the term ‘Pikey’ in real life with no expectation of anything other than light humour or riposte, does that make me racist, I sincerely hope not.
Having said all that it must be a total nightmare having to keep an eye on every thread in this much volume and we are living in tough commercial times, any threat to a businesses existence has to be dealt with, but that should be weighed with the need to keep the community engaged especially with the huge competition from other social media and diversions like actually going riding.

I must just post this quote I read somewhere (wish I’d written it) it sums up my feeling about people who go on the internet often anonymously and then get ‘offended’. I can’t even remember who to attribute it to it was a columnist or blogger, Guardian I think, doh the joys of alzheimers..

“I hate offended people. They come in two flavours – huffy and whiny – and it’s hard to know which is worst. The huffy ones are self-important, narcissistic authoritarians in love with the sound of their own booming disapproval, while the whiny, sparrowlike ones are so annoying and sickly and ill-equipped for life on Earth you just want to smack them round the head until they stop crying and grow up. Combined, they’re the very worst people on the planet – 20 times worse than child molesters

That quote is Charlie Brooker

full article here

And its absolutely bang on! Some people seem to exist purely to take offence at everything

You do not have the right not to be offended!!!

I’ve come to the conclusion, from reading a lot more than I post, that this place has a small clique of those that are either in the vicinity of and ride with the powers that be or have at some point in the past and can pretty much get away with anything, whilst newcomers have a pretty random and unfair application of the rules.

Miles off the mark there.

Miles off the mark there.

Which, incidentally, is also the name of one of my favourite jazz albums.

I’ve come to the conclusion, from reading a lot more than I post, that this place has a small clique of those that are either in the vicinity of and ride with the powers that be or have at some point in the past

I’ve not noticed this – I don’t think many posters mix socially with the mag people do they?

I might use the term ‘Pikey’ in real life with no expectation of anything other than light humour or riposte, does that make me racist

Perhaps not racist directly, but you’ll be using it as a derogatory term I’m sure. You should be able to see why it’s a bad thing to use the name of a social group as an insult , surely?

personally im dissapointed, i mean we havent had a wheelsize debate for at least 3 days…

Oh look,some more of WGM just leaked out.

No offense 😉

A forum is surely only is “boring” or as vibrant as its users, and if anyone believes that a forum requires endless arguing and spiteful name-calling to avoid being boring then I think we’ll have to agree to differ.

Ultimately, the users control the content of the forum at least as much if not more than the moderators on STW. If you don’t like the content, consider adding something you do like; it’s not a one way system where everyone else exists to provide your entertainment.

Looking at the front page of the chat forum currently, there’s: a joke thread; a thread full of “witty” business name suggestions; a 33-page debate on the ethics of overtaking; several threads asking for help and discourse regarding injuries, surgery and other medical issues including mental health; a couple of political debates; a discussion on not-parenting as a lifestyle choice; what new phone / trainers / wood burner / jar jack threads; bacon; witty euphemisms; “what’s the last thing you made”; cricket; dambusters; photography; walking routes; office politics… and all on one page of a mountain biking forum! What else do you want? About all it’s missing is a religion thread, and I’m sure there will be one along in a minute.

It does beg the question though, why would you choose to frequent a forum which you find boring?

It does beg the question though, why would you choose to frequent a forum which you find boring?

Two words. Word avoidance.

binners – Member
That quote is Charlie Brooker

full article here

And its absolutely bang on! Some people seem to exist purely to take offence at everything

You do not have the right not to be offended!!!

Hey thanks for that, quality, was it really that long ago 2007? My how time flies…
Anyway I clearly forgot this bit.
‘but because it’ll upset them unnecessarily, and these readers deserve to be upset unnecessarily, morning, noon and night, every sodding day, for the rest of their wheedling lives.
which is what forums should do imo 😉 (they’d still come back for more.)

Miles off the mark there.

I guess, it’s just difficult to see the logic sometimes, being remote to it all, do forum types not meet and ride together ever then? I thought I read somewhere a while back that they used to..

molgrips – Member

Perhaps not racist directly, but you’ll be using it as a derogatory term I’m sure. You should be able to see why it’s a bad thing to use the name of a social group as an insult , surely?

You and me, Pub, after a ride we’re talking about that movie Snatch and having a laugh, now, look me straight in the eye and say that to me, whilst keeping a straight face..

Has anyone said ‘Only boring people get bored’ yet? 😀

wilko1999 – Member

Has anyone said ‘Only boring people get bored’ yet?

If not, let me be the first.

That was a boring response

100!!!

Well done kevevs

If Elf was around now, he’d mark this thread length with: ‘wun undered’…

so in his memory…

wun undered

EDIT: dammit, too slow!

What’s a jar jack cougar? 🙂 can i use one to open the marmalade.

What’s a jar jack cougar?

Its what happened to his bottle of chilli sauce.

this place has a small clique of those that are either in the vicinity of and ride with the powers that be

I’m a moderator, and I’ve never met any of the powers that be, whether that’s the magazine / site owners or the other mods. People get together fairly often and I’m sure plenty of genuine friendships have been formed on the back of that, but I can count the other users I’ve met on the fingers of one hand (largely because I’m not sufficiently rad to the power of sick on a bike).

Funny thing though, perception. I’ve said this before, but when someone gets a warning they don’t see whether anyone else does, so it’s easy to take things personally. “Why am I being told off and not him?”

I’ve been using social media systems since before the web existed, and the “clique” accusation is by no means exclusively an STW phenomenon. I think perhaps it’s a side effect of any arena where the ratio of regular contributors to occasionals is badly skewed, and IME that’s pretty much all of them (google the “1% rule”). The regular posters aren’t more privileged, they’re just more prolific.

newcomers have a pretty random and unfair application of the rules. Those rules also in themselves are difficult to quantify,

Again, I’ve discussed this at length. The TL;DR version is that moderation is ultimately a judgement call. There is more than one moderator and individual moderation styles may differ.

The “rules” are a little organic in so far as every time we try to firm something up, people immediately start pushing boundaries to see how much they can get away with.

For instance, you’d think that ‘don’t make homophobic comments’ is on the face of it a fairly simple rule, yes? But then someone says “your gay” (sic) – is that homophobic or tongue in cheek silliness? How should we moderate that? Do we delete it, issue a warning, ignore it? How about “mincing down the trails”? Common parlance on STW, but it arguably could imply a slur based on sexuality.

So if it’s any consolation, it’s not a particularly easy place to moderate. In the example above, I guarantee that whatever decision we came to, some people wouldn’t like it. Damned if you do and damned if you don’t. So, feel free to lump it. (-:

Its what happened to his bottle of chilli sauce.

*applauds*

And its absolutely bang on! Some people seem to exist purely to take offence at everything

and some exist to give offence at every possible opportunity then try and pretend that the receiver of their insightful “home truth” is the one with the real problems

You do not have the right not to be offended!!!

Nor do you have th eright to be offensive

Balancing this is the job th emods must do and it is not easy

FFS we agree on nothing on here [ and i count binner as a mate*] to see how hard it is for the mods who have to decide which it is for any given post

* Be as offensive as you like to that one 😉

“The person in the room you like the least is the one that’s most like you”

I find this depressingly true and in some ways it applies to this forum.

personally I might use the term ‘Pikey’ in real life with no expectation of anything other than light humour or riposte, does that make me racist

In that situation, yes.

As it’s the one that seems to come up most often, I’ll repeat what I’ve said before about the word – stop and think whether you’d use the very similar sounding “****” in a similar (or any) context, and maybe wonder what the difference between the two terms is?

Fred is decent yes.

Fred seems like a decent bloke but after seeing that ‘banned from STW’ page on Facebook or whatever it was, I genuinely think he needs professional help.

I have to argue the “Pikey” v “****”, the one group is a lifestyle choice, out side of the social norms whilst in some instances preying upon society, the other is a racial group and definitely an objectionable insult.

Some what shall we call them so’s not to offend? Travellers? They go to brick, it’s an option, their choice, they then pay tax like the rest of us, but all the time their lifestyle preys upon ours, in my view they are a legitimate target for base humour.

Nor do you have th eright to be offensive

Oh, you have every right to be offensive, you just have to accept the consequences of your actions if you do. In the meat world it might earn you a smack in the mouth, whereas on STW we ask that you waive this right and refrain from posting offensive comments, and so it may net you a warning or a ban for trolling if you do.

I have to argue the “Pikey” v “****”,

And two short pages ago STW was accused of being boring.

I must have missed that episode of Deadliest Warrior.

Cougar – Moderator
I have to argue the “Pikey” v “****”,
And two short pages ago STW was accused of being boring.

And saying that “I hope you didn’t get that bike you’re going to send me off some ‘traveller'” doesn’t quite have the same ring does it? 😉

I have to argue the “Pikey” v “****”, the one group is a lifestyle choice, out side of the social norms whilst in some instances preying upon society, the other is a racial group and definitely an objectionable insult.

Jesus wept – so you have a low opinion of them and you use a derogatory word about them and then you claim it is humour and ask if it is racist.
Now try this is this racist?

“****” is a lifestyle choice, out side of the social norms whilst in some instances preying upon society,

Shall we try this with the n word?

I have to argue the “Pikey” v “****”, the one group is a lifestyle choice, out side of the social norms whilst in some instances preying upon society, the other is a racial group and definitely an objectionable insult.

More ignorance.

English Gypsies and Irish Travellers – Today, both English Gypsies and Irish Travellers are recognised as distinct ethnic minority groups in law because they are recognised as members of a community with a share history stretching back over hundreds of years. As such they are granted the full protection…

Unless you were referring to “new age” travellers. But you weren’t were you? No one calls them “pikeys”.

we’re talking about that movie Snatch

Entirely different. That film consists entirely of caricatures and their language reflects that – they are not real people, they don’t live in a real world.

all the time their lifestyle preys upon ours

So there you are accusing an entire group of people of thievery. If that’s not prejudice I don’t know what is.

all the time their lifestyle preys upon ours

Who you callin’ a thieving Pikey?

I know what you mean JY. I wouldn’t fancy the mods job. Even with the more …erm… ‘challenging’ members exiled. I do look forward to some very drunken, in-person bickering in a few weeks though 😀

haha I knew this’d turn into one. Fred is my mate and he should be brought back.

Who you callin’ a thieving Pikeyaki?

That one okay? It’s just a joke etc..