It hurts. It really bloody hurts.

“Oh, oh. There aren’t going to be any winners here”.

TBH, that sums up this thread succinctly. IMHO.

I’m with taxi25, scotroutes, gauss77, outofbreath and no doubt others, the irony is many of the criticisms levelled at GT would be far more appropriately aimed at a number of his detractors.

I am afraid STW got this badly wrong, very shabby.

The chat section of this forum has **** all to do with cycling or cyclists or inclusion (other than it’s cliquiness). Never has. Never will.
it’s basically Dadsnet.com
ie. a big group of folk of mainly of the same sex generally married with seemingly no real mates other than those they’re “allowed” to go cycling with. Just instead of sharing motherhood as a connection it’s owning an expensive pushbike.
Get outside and ride your nice bike as much as you can. It doesn’t matter what sex/colour/religion/ability you are (or want to be) or where you ride. If nothing else riding a bike is great for a bit of temporary relief from the shit going on in your life.
Not everyone you meet on a bike will be a dick.
infact most won’t be.

By “nice bike” I don’t mean expensive BTW

Scotroutes – I did not accuse him of transphobia. Be very clear about that.

tj- I didn’t see you accuse him of transphobia but you did tell him to “stop making comments about gender”, just below where he had explained his support for trans rights.

Anyway, as I said a few pages earlier, this discussion includes several people slagging off specific individuals or members in general and makes pretty unpleasant reading.

There was someone in “that” thread who persistently used a very offensive term which was rightly pulled up, but now there’s a lot of hatred being bandied around.

I got really sick of this place and have had a break for 6 months and this is the first and will be the last time I post.

Most of you on here are clearly leftist liberals and obsessed about being pc. Some people are more traditional or conservative socially and should be allowed their opinion. This leftist (dare I say neo-marxist) attitude to identity politics and the vitriol that you throw at anyone who doesnt share your very narrow views is so disappointing.

I’m out of here. I have no desire to share anymore of my time with a forum so up its own ass that it can’t accept that people have other views to you

I’m out of here. I have no desire to share anymore of my time with a forum so up its own ass that it can’t accept that people have other views to you

Different views are fine.

Refusing to moderate yourself and tone it down, even though it’s clearly upsetting someone, isn’t fine.

If you can’t see the difference maybe it’s best you do leave.

It’s almost irrelevant what GT wrote. He was told that his behaviour was upsetting people, and instead of apologising (or just stopping), his response was to continue – to try and prove how ‘right’ he was. That is at best rude and at worst vindictive. The temporary ban was a reasonable response.

It’s almost irrelevant what GT wrote. He was told that his behaviour was upsetting people, and instead of apologising (or just stopping), his response was to continue – to try and prove how ‘right’ he was. That is at best rude and at worst vindictive. The temporary ban was a reasonable response.

^^This. There should always be a discretionary line in the “is this behaviour adding value to or detracting from the forum?” and “does this content enhance or damage the reputation of the forum and by extension singletrack as an entity?”.

If either answer is a negative, then sanctions need to be applied.

Scotroutes – I did not accuse him of transphobia. Be very clear about that.

No, but you made a repeat drip-drip of postings *not* accusing him of transphobia, which we now know is exactly the same as accusing someone of transphobia.

…and you invented the ludicrous drip-drip pretext for banning people [1] *and* you claimed he had made misogynistic postings and when challenged came up with a load of stuff that wasn’t misogynistic.

It’s almost irrelevant what GT wrote.

So it would seem. None of his recent posts have broken the rules or needed to be deleted: https://singletrackworld.com/members/geetee1972/forums/replies/

[1] “However its not an individual post that is offensive – its the continually drip drip drip of repeat postings.”

I felt GT could have split his post in half. Kept his statement of his belief in his view here, and then carried out the rest of his post on his actual views on gender in that thread with a sign post to it.

I only looked at the gender thread after this one, and we have to ask where we want to be with opinions raised, freedom of speech, diversity and lots of other topics. It’s nowhere near where I think it should be and I dont think it is what people think it is. It didn’t take long for the merits of the body of Miley Cyrus to crop up. In a thread recently where I and others defended a certain woman’s rights, someone accused myself and others of forming this view based on the assumption we wished to have relations with her.

So, let’s start a thread on gender.

What a good idea. Do you have a range of views that would allow the casual observer to feel that some balance and sensitivity is achieved?

Oh yeah definitely.

Ok, who do you have?

Lots of blokes from a wide variety of backgrounds, ages, jobs and home life situations. We can draw on input from across the globe. We share an occasional hobby of riding bikes.

What would you think if the 1990’s swaggered simian like into the debate sporting a pair of Adidas Sambas, clutching a bottle of Stella in one hand and rolled up copy of Nuts magazine in the other?

Well I disagree with them, however it shows the diverse opinions we have on such a relevant topic as gender. Not having them may result in this place becoming an echo chamber and we wouldn’t want that.

That’s good I like that. So on a discussion on gender do you feel that input from perhaps LGBT people and women in general is necessary, and I assume you have such input for the interest of a balanced debate.

Oh yes certainly? Well we dont have many LGBT individuals I think, and a smattering of women.

Why do you not have many female posters?

Don’t know… can’t think why. We do include womens views in other ways though. We effectively have that base covered.

Oh, how so?

Well we are well read and like research to form our opinions. Just last week I was on a works night out with my wife and her colleagues. 94% of drunk nurses agreed with me on a particular point of discussion. I also know that a few people here frequent mumsnet, so we feel we have a good idea on that side of things.

That’s reassuring crack on!

This is crude, but not a million miles from where we are here. We should be striving for diversity on gender issues not as a white knight to show how we are standing up for others, but for ourselves to be better Informed.

There aren’t going to be any winners here”.

Dammit! Was just going to ask who is patting themselves firmly on the back for being the cleverest in this circlejerk of wordplay.

We should be striving for diversity on gender issues not as a white knight to show how we are standing up for others, but for ourselves to be better Informed.

Not sure how ad homs/bannings on the people on one side of that debate helps us to be better informed. If you close down a debate you can’t win it. AFAICT, in thise thread GT was the only one doing any informing at all [1], everyone else was just posting ad homs.

[1] I’d never heard of the patriarchy until GT mentioned it above.

I have never advocated banning outofbreath. I have to consider whether I think I can add value to a debate, and whether the context and direction of movement of both a debate and this forum is one in which I wish to contribute to.

I do wish people would stop framing GT’s contribution as debate.

constantly repeated his beliefs.

This is what he did, with claims of empirical evidence and research, which anyone within the research community would recognise as false

As to his banning, i imagine that might be rooted in trying to get him to stop saying stuff which was hurting people. It was he who decided to walk

I have never advocated banning outofbreath. I have to consider whether I think I can add value to a debate, and whether the context and direction of movement of both a debate and this forum is one in which I wish to contribute to.

Yup, no quarrel with any of that. In turn, I’m not here just to make posts, I’m mainly here to read what other people think and question them. I’d literally never heard of the Patriarchy until GT mentioned it yesterday arguing that (by one definition) he didn’t think there was one, it’s interesting and I googled it. (I’m not saying you disagree with any of that.)

I do wish people would stop framing GT’s contribution as debate.

But that’s what it is. Just because he is staunch in his views doesn’t change that. When was the last time you saw a televised debate where one “expert” stopped half way through and said”you know what, your right you have completely changed my mind”. Never. It doesn’t happen.

As to his banning, i imagine that might be rooted in trying to get him to stop saying stuff which was hurting people. It was he who decided to walk

But in singleing him out and then continually drip drip feeding the accusations of mysogyny and transphobia what else is GT supposed to do except defend himself?

I do wish people would stop framing GT’s contribution as debate.

I’m sure you do, but it *was* debate. AFAICT he stuck to the topic and never used ad homs.

This is what he did, with claims of empirical evidence and research, which anyone within the research community would recognise as false

I fact checked the bits of his long post above which seemed dubious to me and the most dubious thing he said turned out to be credible – not necessarily true but there was good evidence for (and against). Certainly not “false”. It was interesting, if he hadn’t mentioned it I wouldn’t have googled it. Just out of interest which post of yours in this thread do you regard as most interesting to others? Which post of yours has contained some researchable claim or counter claim that I can google to see if you’re right or not?

Just out of interest which post of yours in this thread do you regard as most interesting to others? Which post of yours has contained some researchable claim or counter claim that I can google to see if you’re right or not?

with claims of empirical evidence and research, which anyone within the research community would recognise as false

Oh, i meant his claim of research would be considered false
Thanks for your interest