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This last couple of pages sort of illustrates why I spend more time on the ‘Bike’ rather than ‘Chat’ forum these days.
I don’t think I’m one of “the six” but I’ve shared my thoughts and views from time to time on the various political threads and variously been accused of being a wet lefty and a closet fascist. While I like that politics and social issues aren’t off the menu on STW it does run the risk at times of becoming a bit “Facebook-ish” with a few personal axes being ground and some ‘strongly held’ views being aired…
I don’t think that’s killing the forum, or the mag, but I wouldn’t be shocked if the discourse in the attached forums maybe puts some people off of ST from time to time, rather than growing it.
Can we get "the six" in a big brother type house, maybe a Halfords warehouse, for a week?
Justice for The Singletrack Six.
Periodic Navel Gazing.
this thread - not the first ever of it's kind after all, and also I've decided, will be the name of my first album.
Can we get "the six" in a big brother type house, maybe a Halfords warehouse, for a week?
This Halfords warehouse? Does it (or could it) have no internet access?
Ironically this thread has a tonne of posts, clearly engagement is dying off because the usual topics being created aren’t interesting enough as this one demonstrates there are plenty people reading the forum as Mark pointed out, they just aren’t often replying to threads.
I was just thinking of posting the same point airvent
Do we all need to step up with more topics?
Do we all need to step up with more topics?
Yes. There should be a minimal requirement of two new topics per week per user. I'll kick off my first one for the week with:
Is there anything better than a good fart?
Wednesday or Thursday I'll fulfill my quota with:
BOILING MEAT: 10 TOP TIPS THAT THE "EXPERTS" DON'T WANT YOU TO KNOW!!!
Teaser: Always maintain some liquid in the cooking vessel.
This place just needs more silliness and piss-taking in general, it's a forum, it's supposed to be a bit undignified and anarchic. There is nostalgia for 10+ year-old 'classic' threads but not a lot of sign of the right conditions for next one showing up or enough energy to sustain one if it does.
Also, if I was getting frequent bans, I'd probably look to my own behaviour rather than come up with conspiracy theories about other posters - friends of the owners or no...Just saying.
If I was going to post a reply to another user I would actually read and understand what had been written before throwing my contribution in the ring...Just saying.
Do we all need to step up with more topics?
Well, that was part of my reason for starting the thread. I was genuinely curious as to what topics folk thought weren't being started/replied to compared with the "golden era".
This place just needs more silliness and piss-taking in general, it's a forum, it's supposed to be a bit undignified and anarchic
Yeah, I already alluded to that in one of my posts up-thread somewhere too.
This place just needs more silliness and piss-taking in general, it's a forum, it's supposed to be a bit undignified and anarchic
To be fair, the most recent thread I started was about horse jizz planning permission but the links were so screwed up I don't think anyone even got to appreciate the full batshit craziness of the Daily Mail article.
Good bad puns though.
I was genuinely curious as to what topics folk thought weren't being started/replied to compared with the "golden era".
During the golden era there was more diversity, and I don't just mean more Tory supporters, also more class diversity and a wider range of beliefs, eg a Baptist church minister and a practicing Muslim who would both contribute to discussions, several STWers living in the United States (I mean Americans not Brits living in the US) and a lot more women, at least it seemed that way.
the most recent thread I started was about horse jizz planning permission but the links were so screwed up I don't think anyone even got to appreciate the full batshit craziness of the Daily Mail article.
In the old days, all the potential would be milked dry from such a thread.
Brucewee you’re absolutely delusional as to what you believing what mods do and don’t do. There is no conspiracy to who is modded and who isn’t, you break the rules and it’s spotted you get modded. If you’ve been happened to you regularly then maybe it’s your behaviour.
Brucewee you’re absolutely delusional as to what you believing what mods do and don’t do. There is no conspiracy to who is modded and who isn’t, you break the rules and it’s spotted you get modded. If you’ve been happened to you regularly then maybe it’s your behaviour.
I was quite happy to let this go (especially after getting the mod message) but since you apparently don't want to, OK.
I've had a few warnings over the years and like I said it's always been fairly obvious what it was for. I've had two warnings each when arguing with dazh and binners as far as I remember and none of these times has it been clear what they were for. Every time my responses have been deleted while theirs is allowed to sit primly where it is. When questioned I got a 'You know what you did' answer. Which I didn't.
If it was just a case that the argument was getting too robust for the mods liking then deleting all the posts seems reasonable but that's not what was happening.
I then found if I started my responses with 'I know you're mates with the owners but...' I didn't get any warnings and my posts went undeleted.
This is what I've experienced and if that's not representative of modding as a whole or if it's just a freak coincidence then fair enough, I'm quite happy to never speak of it again.
However, I've been ready to move on for half a page now and yet you and nickc wanted to bring it up. I have many faults and one of them is an inability to resist getting baited.
Like I said, overall I think this place is modded really well and you guys do a thankless job admirably. My experience in this one matter wasn't so good but I admit it may have been a series of coincidences and not a pattern.
I'm "mates with the owner" of another forum and if anything it increases my level of self-moderation because I don't want to abuse that friendship by putting him a position where he has to chose.
On another note, is the swear filter really necessary these days? Anyone claiming it's because this is a family forum is delusional, it's a bunch of middle aged men testiculating over things they have no control over FFS... 😉
A virtue signalling filter would be much more useful but would probably cause the forum to implode.
I got a ban for arguing with one of the aforementioned, #justsayin.
Bruce let it go and have a long hard think about your posting history and style. I've been on here for years and managed a grand total of 2 gentle warnings from the mods despite getting into it with a few people on here including dazh. Both occasions I stepped over the line as I'm not so good at playing the game as some others on here after getting very very frustrated (and forgetting it's just a forum). I have been to STW towers and once walked past the STW tent at Mountain Mayhem but I'm pretty sure the owners don't know or care I exist.
What Stumpy says - after a similar thread when I got called out a few years ago I apologised and have tried to alter my behaviour. Its horrible to have to face but I know having been there
You made it public so I responded publicly Brucewee.
you break the rules and it’s spotted you get modded
Who does the spotting, though?
Is it mods or is it users (who may have an ulterior motive) reporting it to mods - either via the report button or by messaging?
Fully accepting that rule-breaking will need to have taken place for any sanction.
And who watches the watchers? Feels like we need an additional oversight team to keep an eye both on the mods and these 'pet posters' of theirs, given the enormous amounts of life-altering power they appear to hold. 😀
Also, top marks for the perfect use of 'testiculating' above.
Another global pandemic should perk things up 😉. Don’t think I’ve even had a warning let alone a ban. But then I’m not anonymous, and treat others as I would if they were in the room. Civility matters. And when the serious topics come from those in need, this place still shines.
The new platform is however a challenge. It’s crawling on chrome on my iPhone 12. And I never got over the original classifieds forum swap.
Forums have a huge amount of competition. I think Whatsapp must be a big competitor
I still like it here, warts and all. Usability is pretty good now and i like being able to post pictures without going through a third party site.
In the real weird world i think MTB seems to be alive and well. But as an unskilled 59 year old rider i feel left behind. I still riding off road every week and some times on an FS bike. But I don’t get far off the ground and I’m not really pushing hard into the corners.
I went to Chicksands not long ago. Lots of great people. Skilled riders looking out for each other. Wonderful bikes. But I’d say as a group they seemed more doers than typers into forums
i generally avoid political treads. But i have had my views changed but other discussions in here
Who does the spotting, though?
Is it mods or is it users (who may have an ulterior motive) reporting it to mods - either via the report button or by messaging?
Does it matter? Even if a user reports a post with an ulterior motive, the mod will take the reported post at face value and act (or not) accordingly. The forum seems fairly moderated to me, with a light touch. They have to deal with some right old tosh too, at all hours with no thanks or remuneration. Only to be accused by those on the receiving end of warnings or bans of bias. In most of those cases I see it like some incredulous footy player waving his arms at the ref and pleading innocence after blatantly slicing someone's legs from under them. I just can't buy the idea of moderator or site owner "favourites" getting let off with breaking forum rules. Or even of them having favourites tbh - they're grown ups not school dinner monitors.
as an unskilled 59 year old rider i feel left behind. I still riding off road every week and some times on an FS bike. But I don’t get far off the ground and I’m not really pushing hard into the corners.
Are you me? 😆
This place just needs more silliness and piss-taking in general, it's a forum, it's supposed to be a bit undignified and anarchic. There is nostalgia for 10+ year-old 'classic' threads but not a lot of sign of the right conditions for next one showing
Back in the day (early/mid 2000’s) the stw forum was a frenzy of activity and piss taking mostly due to the way we all knew each other in one form or another as we’d meet up at weekends around the 7stanes/welsh mtb centres/out in the wilds along with the very active single speed scene such as the races/meet ups so naturally everyone knew everyone else (especially us SS’ers as we were a very weird bunch 😉), then there was mountain mayhem, sleepless in the saddle, real ale wobble, Bristol bike fest etc.
One weekend I could be riding down at cwmcarn, next weekend I could be up at aviemore, across at hamsterly or merely at my local trail kirroughtree 25 mins from my door, all of these times I could guarantee I’d be in the car park or out on the trail and meet a fellow stw’r…it was almost a running joke that we needed a secret nod/handshake/funny walk to identify each other.
And don’t forget we were all a lot younger and had more free time back in the day, I’ve recently broke through the half century barrier
I personally last rode a “normal bike” in 2016, got Scott e-genius from Dave @ bothy bikes which kept me mobile for a further 2 years then diagnosed with SPMS which led me to fitting my cove hummer with a throttle bafang conversion which kept me mobile till end of 2020 when I could no longer get on it.
I’ll never get on/ride a bike again but this forum is still my go to first page that I look at when I sit down with my toast/coffee, it “does” take an age to load/post/browse etc… the functionality of including YouTube links often doesn’t work, same goes for attempting to post website links/hypertext links or similar so whilst I very often have something I consider valuable or interesting to post I generally give it one attempt and if it doesn’t work I think “**** it” and go do/browse something else.
I wish it was similar to how it looked 20 odd years ago as it was perfectly useable and functional, it looks “messy” compared to other forums I use such as…..edit - prime example as I just attempted to include hypertext links to other forums here but the web address thingy doesn’t seem to be working (iPad pro,,latest software) so I’ll post “functional” forums I use below as examples
https://community.drownedinsound.com/latest
https://pinkfishmedia.net/forum/whats-new/posts/1454051/
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?whats-new/posts/10536590/
Anyway…….thats my gripe over…….heres a pic from 2004, way back in the day at 2004 SSUK champs at Aviemore when all was fine (with the forum and my ability to ride) 😉
[img] 
[/img]
Edit : just as well I copied the above before posting as it didn’t work the first time, and took 15+ seconds the 2nd time, must remember to copy everything before hitting the “post reply” button.
Using iMac/ipad/iPhone safari all using latest software updates etc
Bruce let it go and have a long hard think about your posting history and style.
Yeah Bruce - you might want to increase the patronising level of your posts if you want to fit in with the gang.
Are you me? 😆
I think he's most of us, well maybe not me, my time on the trails is spent building them rather than riding them. Mind you as one of the younger volunteers at 54 I'm looking forward to getting my bus pass and ebike and riding again when I'm old enough, like the others do.
Back in the day (early/mid 2000’s) the stw forum was a frenzy of activity and piss taking mostly due to the way we all knew each other in one form or another as we’d meet up at weekends around the 7stanes/welsh mtb centres/out in the wilds along with the very active single speed scene such as the races/meet ups so naturally everyone knew everyone else (especially us SS’ers as we were a very weird bunch 😉), then there was mountain mayhem, sleepless in the saddle, real ale wobble, Bristol bike fest etc.
I think that was a huge part of the initial success of the forum and the mag.
Much the same way that some folk used to get to Pat Adam's house at 5am with their Mountain Mayhem entry form and it wasn't considered weird; maybe a bit eccentric but he "knew" you and you "knew" him and likewise you'd "know" half the people at the event.
Is it the internet in general that's removed that community feel or has it split, split and split some more into more niche / local groups...? Or is it simply that many people have moved on in life, the events have evolved / died off / been reborn...?
I’ll never get on/ride a bike again but this forum is still my go to first page that I look at when I sit down with my toast/coffee,
I barely rode MTB at all for about 10 years (did road & gravel plus a bit of track) but STW was still the main cycling site that I looked at and certainly the only one I posted on. road.cc forum was overrun by spambots and trolls, most other forums I dipped into had a tenth the traffic of this place. Possible exception being London Fixed Gear & Single Speed (LFGSS) but that had so many sub-forums it was a total pain to navigate.
For people who supposedly want me to stop posting you sure do seem to like to lay out stuff for me to respond to.
Bruce let it go and have a long hard think about your posting history and style.
I tend to match the energy of the posts I'm responding to. binners' initial post that I answered set the tone and other people have been jumping in and escalating since. Seemingly some amongst you have been pissed off at me for quite some time. OK. Maybe try calling me out at the time directly rather than meta comments about 'some people' on STW. Expressing how others are making us feel is a good way to check in and make sure everyone is comfortable with the exchanges.
My posting style on here is much the same as the way I speak in real life. If anything I'm more reserved here. However, perhaps something is getting lost without the tone and body language of a face to face interaction. That's why it's really important to say things directly to people on here. Very difficult to read the room through text boxes.
You made it public so I responded publicly Brucewee.
Yes, and as I said the reason I started bringing it up publicly was because as I experienced it I wasn't getting deleted if I did so. I'm quite happy to never mention it again.
What Stumpy says - after a similar thread when I got called out a few years ago I apologised and have tried to alter my behaviour. Its horrible to have to face but I know having been there
I actually apologise on here quite often. I apologised to someone on a thread recently who said I was making them feel shit. I apologised and we were able to move forward with better boundaries. I apologised to you as I genuinely don't think you are a bigot and if I said that I must have been having a particularly bad day. I apologised to someone else who said I called them a racist (who I definitely don't think is a racist).
I don't try to wiggle out of it or 'apologise if you feel that way'. Even if I didn't mean it that way, it was taken that way so that's all that matters.
I strongly feel we should just acknowledge and validate the way people remember exchanges going rather than trying to convince them they experienced things 'wrong'.
Within reason, obviously.
Anyway, sorry to all the mods on here. I'm not trying to say you are inherently biased. I'm saying this is what I experienced. It looked to me like there was some unconscious bias when it came to two specific posters but I definitely accept it could all just be purely coincidental.
And sorry to anyone I've been pissing off recently. Just let me know at the time when I've actually said something. Honestly, I will always make the effort to validate the way you are hearing what I'm saying and try to adjust.
reading this thread, i would say the forum is fine and dandy.
loads of middleaged old blokes arguing about **** all.
Bruce let it go and have a long hard think about your posting history and style.
Yeah Bruce - you might want to increase the patronising level of your posts if you want to fit in with the gang.
There is no "gang" to fit in with. Which probably means there's no "them" out to get "us".
Does it matter? Even if a user reports a post with an ulterior motive, the mod will take the reported post at face value and act (or not) accordingly.
On an individual basis no. But if there is a couple of very active post reporters on a particular side of arguments within threads, then they'll prevail in the end. Especially if others are simply not minded to report stuff. And what if the mod is not openly declared as such? I've seen this in operation on other forums/groups and it can become corrosive.
Of course, looked at objectively, hardly anything on STW matters in the wider world in its own right. The issues being discussed may be incredibly important, but STW's take on them is irrelevant most of the time.
loads of middleaged old blokes arguing about **** all.
No we're not...
On an individual basis no. But if there is a couple of very active post reporters on a particular side of arguments within threads, then they'll prevail in the end. Especially if others are simply not minded to report stuff. And what if the mod is not openly declared as such? I've seen this in operation on other forums/groups and it can become corrosive.
There's a lot of "ifs" in all of that. To the point that it's almost whataboutery
I was one of those on the New Forum thread who thought I'd noticed a drop off in forum activity recently. I still think that's the case generally, but over 200 posts in a day or so on this thread proves there's plenty of life in the place yet. So more mildly contentious threads with a sprinkling of nostalgia, introspection and a few handbag duels seems to be the winning formula?
There's a lot of "ifs" in all of that. To the point that it's almost whataboutery
Point taken.
On an individual basis no. But if there is a couple of very active post reporters on a particular side of arguments within threads, then they'll prevail in the end. Especially if others are simply not minded to report stuff. And what if the mod is not openly declared as such? I've seen this in operation on other forums/groups and it can become corrosive.
Doesn’t work like that.
On an individual basis no. But if there is a couple of very active post reporters on a particular side of arguments within threads, then they'll prevail in the end. Especially if others are simply not minded to report stuff. And what if the mod is not openly declared as such? I've seen this in operation on other forums/groups and it can become corrosive.
Doesn’t work like that.
I have been told off by mods for reporting too much and have had reports ignored.
NO issue with that BTW
Not quite how it happened though.
we got all serious along the way, Friday Kylie being an example. I wasn't particularly a fan of the thread, but was it really that bad?
From memory, it got forbidden because (as ever) there's always someone who has to take it too far. I could be wrong.
Besides, a group of mostly middle-aged blokes thigh-rubbing over women some of whom were half their age isn't a great look and hardly welcoming for new female members.
Plus, I'd be thinking of her sister.
Well I suppose this thread proves the forum isn't really dead.
I ride bikes.
Sorry, playing catch-up.
People have understood what Cougar said decades ago, once you've put something into the Internet you can't get it out again. And as the active community gets smaller it gets too easy to guess who's behind the new login.
I don't know what the new moderation suite looks like (or even if there is a new one) but back when I was a moderator, spotting returning-banned and working out who they were was almost sport. Nine times out of ten it wasn't difficult because some people simply can't help themselves and they're generally not as smart as they think they are.
I kept a text file of shibboleths for the known problem children who had earned the accolade of "ban on sight." They usually get the message eventually (or start behaving, which is all we really wanted anyway) but they're a pain in the arse. There's a couple of posters today who I'm genuinely surprised still have accounts.
This site taking longer than any other I’ve ever used to refresh or basically function as a forum, then popping up with stuff on every page you visit which makes it borderline unusable doesn’t help. I subscribed for over 10 years in the past but to me it’s a pale imitation of its former self and I don’t think it’s worth it. Supporter the raffles too hoping for a last hurrah but nothing works as it did. I don’t care what it looks like and I don’t mind change, but it has to perform its basic requirements and struggles to. Wish it wasn’t the case.
I find other small things annoying. Users post content and then stw towers crack on (after being beaten to it) that something is breaking news wise, then they close busy threads and post their own “news story” to gain traction to their own journalism. Not sure it’s healthy.
Classified died and used to generate a lot of interest and traffic.
Seems a bit of a death spiral if I’m honest.
Besides, a group of mostly middle-aged blokes thigh-rubbing over women some of whom were half their age isn't a great look and hardly welcoming for new female members.
Plus, I'd be thinking of her sister.
If you're a 112 year old bloke and still able to rub your thighs to pictures of Kylie I say good on you.
Yes, we are all getting old.
Kylie is 4/5 years older than myself…….so as she’s not half my age I consider myself not guilty 😉
I've been here since the start and I'll be gutted if it dies, but I think it's inevitable.
There's still half a million people coming to the site every month. And while I get that there's issues with the forum that we still need to work through, to be fair the posts that the forum is dying have been a regular topic for over 20 years. I'm not being complacent but there's a lot to be optimistic about the future of Singletrack. Right now as I type there are 604 people active across the site. 458 from the UK, 43 from the US and the rest from other countries. It's Saturday and this is the quietest day of the week for the site. Typically on a monday evening around 9pm we'll see well over 1000 people actively viewing pages across the site - daily figures are typically 20k+ people on the site. I'm not saying nothing is wrong and all is hunkdory.. It really isn't. It's never been harder than right now to keep a niche media company afloat but there's still a lot to be optimistic about the future. There are very few forums left that are run by media companies now - certainly a lot less than several years ago. MBR closed theirs around GDPR time and BikeRadar shut all theirs down in March of this year. Road.cc is going strong but everyone in this space is struggling and we are doing our absolute best to keep going. You all know how hard it is for the team here and you all know our limitations - Your support has always been appreciated and I don't take that for granted for a second - But... please be patient. The forum is a vital part of what we are and we know how important it is to many of you. There is no complacency at our side and every day we look to make improvements. A forum of 10 million posts is massive. It's a battle everyday to keep that going and especially so alongside a full magazine membership system. The two are intrinsic to each other and they cannot be separated. One cannot exist without the other now. We work every day (7 days/week) to keep improving it.
And we do listen to what you have to say - always and we try and act on it as best we can.
Is the forum dying? IMHO no it isn't. Is it different to how it was? Most certainly. Forums are changing everywhere. How people interact with websites is constantly changing and Singletrack is constantly changing too. That's why we are still here a quarter of a century since we started.
We'll keep at it for as long as we can doing the best we can. It's what we've always done.
458 people is not even chump change
head over to eMTB forum there’s thousands
There's a couple of posters today who I'm genuinely surprised still have accounts.
Spill the beans, you're retired from the Gestapo now. " 'ardest game in the world, 30 years man and boy". 😉
I find other small things annoying. Users post content and then stw towers crack on (after being beaten to it) that something is breaking news wise, then they close busy threads and post their own “news story” to gain traction to their own journalism. Not sure it’s healthy.
Actually writing copy, often having spoken to those involved, or providing background takes a bit longer than a few words and a link to instagram.
I've been here since the start and I'll be gutted if it dies, but I think it's inevitable.
There's still half a million people coming to the site every month. And while I get that there's issues with the forum that we still need to work through, to be fair the posts that the forum is dying have been a regular topic for over 20 years. I'm not being complacent but there's a lot to be optimistic about the future of Singletrack. Right now as I type there are 604 people active across the site. 458 from the UK, 43 from the US and the rest from other countries. It's Saturday and this is the quietest day of the week for the site. Typically on a monday evening around 9pm we'll see well over 1000 people actively viewing pages across the site - daily figures are typically 20k+ people on the site. I'm not saying nothing is wrong and all is hunkdory.. It really isn't. It's never been harder than right now to keep a niche media company afloat but there's still a lot to be optimistic about the future. There are very few forums left that are run by media companies now - certainly a lot less than several years ago. MBR closed theirs around GDPR time and BikeRadar shut all theirs down in March of this year. Road.cc is going strong but everyone in this space is struggling and we are doing our absolute best to keep going. You all know how hard it is for the team here and you all know our limitations - Your support has always been appreciated and I don't take that for granted for a second - But... please be patient. The forum is a vital part of what we are and we know how important it is to many of you. There is no complacency at our side and every day we look to make improvements. A forum of 10 million posts is massive. It's a battle everyday to keep that going and especially so alongside a full magazine membership system. The two are intrinsic to each other and they cannot be separated. One cannot exist without the other now. We work every day (7 days/week) to keep improving it.
And we do listen to what you have to say - always and we try and act on it as best we can.
Is the forum dying? IMHO no it isn't. Is it different to how it was? Most certainly. Forums are changing everywhere. How people interact with websites is constantly changing and Singletrack is constantly changing too. That's why we are still here a quarter of a century since we started.
We'll keep at it for as long as we can doing the best we can. It's what we've always done.
458 people is not even chump change
head over to eMTB forum there’s thousands
and yet, it has 6% of the posts this forum does, and fewer total members.
not a lot of sign of the right conditions for next one showing up or enough energy to sustain one if it does.
genuinely curious as to what topics folk thought weren't being started/replied to compared
I'm gobsmacked this is even up for debate. The forum software doesn't work [ properly?]. Any good intentions that anyone might have about starting, or contributing significantly to a thread, are quashed by the hideous battle trying to actually type and submit any input.
It's just not worth the effort. The only things that get posted are quick pointless comments exactly like mine here that the authors don't actually care whether it is posted or not.
And 723 different topic areas some of which have gone weeks without a reply.
reading this thread, i would say the forum is fine and dandy.
loads of middleaged old blokes arguing about **** all.
Yeah it's just like being in the pub. Except I can't afford the price of a pint these days so I'm rarely in the pub.
Maybe we should have a "virtual pub" on here
introspection and a few handbag duels seems to be the winning formula
Ooo we love a bit of handbags at dawn and long may it continue!
yet, it has 6% of the posts this forum does, and fewer total members
How much of that is current and how much 'past glories'?
Anyway - the point i'd make; anywhere I've worked (and this IS a workplace for the staff and mods) customer feedback is gold. Even if it's telling you home truths. What I'm seeing from mods and Mark is broadly rejection of the feedback being given, and that just puts me off further from feeling liked a valued customer.
All the comments about there being many more options nowadays, that there is Facebook and Whatsapp and other SM - they haven't been invented in the last 12mo, and yet the forum seemed to be active and thriving in terms of users and posts even against this competition. I understand why the 'upgrade' was needed but it has not been a success and you're burying heads in sands if you think it has.
This thread alone shows that there are people on the fringes of being active users who DO care enough to contribute, even if it is to give feedback that you don't like hearing. Up to you whether you want to act on it.
more to do with people quiet quitting the internet / social media in general.
THIS and SO MUCH this. I have got to the point now where I literally despise social media and everything it stands for. STW forum is unfortunately just another social media channel - and as such I can barely be bothered engaging with anymore.
In my very humble optinion - you can trace all the world’s current problems right now directly back to social media - and the massive, horrible impact it has on people's thinking and behaviour. STW forum is probably one of the least damaging social media channels in this respect, but to my mind - it still fits somewhere inside the Venn diagram. For that reason, I'm out (mostly!)
...And yes, the irony of expressing my oh-so-precious-opinions right here, on a social media channel, is not lost on me.
I find other small things annoying. Users post content and then stw towers crack on (after being beaten to it) that something is breaking news wise, then they close busy threads and post their own “news story” to gain traction to their own journalism. Not sure it’s healthy.
Actually writing copy, often having spoken to those involved, or providing background takes a bit longer than a few words and a link to instagram.
What a very patronising comment. Very little evidence of any inside scoop or “speaking to those involved”. And other outlets manage to break the news.
The owners may not do the modding but I'm certain the mods are just as aware of which users are 'friends of the mag' as the rest of us, probably more so.
This is absolute nonsense, for the reason Drac explained on the previous page. The moderation team are volunteers who are trusted to act autonomously, they couldn't give a shit who may or may not be "friends of the mag" and would have no visibility of that even if they did.
there is no doubt in my mind binners and dazh are given a lot more leeway here to be argumentative and insulting than the rest of us.
How could you possibly know which users get warnings or bans without being a moderator?
I just reckon that the rest of us should be allowed to give as good as we are getting without having our posts deleted.
The site T&Cs are well documented. Stay within those rules and your posts won't be deleted. Break them and they may well be (though it would be relatively unusual).
Anyway, since I've started prefacing every criticism of dazh and binners with 'I know you're mates of the owners but...' I've not been getting warnings and deletions.
Why would you?
If you're a 112 year old bloke and still able to rub your thighs to pictures of Kylie I say good on you.
I said "some of whom," not "Kylie," those threads weren't just of her. Kylie's older than I am, I think.
Anyway, since I've started prefacing every criticism of dazh and binners with 'I know you're mates of the owners but...' I've not been getting warnings and deletions.
Makes you think….
You're the one I got banned for arguing with.
This site taking longer than any other I’ve ever used to refresh or basically function as a forum, then popping up with stuff on every page you visit which makes it borderline unusable doesn’t help.
Odd; I’m not noticing any of those sort of issues, it seems for the most part to be running smoother now than it has for some time. And considering I’m using a six year old iPad Pro, that’s actually surprising me!
head over to eMTB forum there’s thousands
On a forum for eMTB’s? Honestly, are they really the sort of people you’d like to engage with on the wide range of topics that we’ve discussed on here over many years?
You're the one I got banned for arguing with.
It is vanishingly unlikely that you'd get banned for "arguing" in isolation. Multiple warnings; persisting in arguing after being asked to desist; slinging personal abuse about; yes absolutely to all of those. You can play the favouritism / hard done to card all you like, but I don't believe you. In spats of the sort you're alluding to we'd either let it run its course, close the thread, or ban both parties regardless of any perceived guilt. Life's too short for a volunteer moderator to read back 15 pages in order to unpick "well, he started it."
I was a moderator for a decade remember. A ban is a last resort when we were left with no other option, we didn't do it for the LOLs. Pretty much 100% of the time when someone subsequently hit the forum going "I was banned for xxx and it's so unfair" they were being economic with the truth.
Any assumed bias you have is just that, assumed. It's not in the moderators' best interests to take sides, partly because it would spark accusations just like this and partly because they have no reason to care sufficiently. What do you suppose the moderation team have to gain from banning you and not - to use your example - Binners?
As I said, "the mag" allowed us full autonomy and trusted our judgement - they deferred to us even. Mark overrode us occasionally but in ten years I can probably count the time that happened on the fingers of one hand with change and it was likely because there were legal issues we weren't aware of.
I just skimmed back through my emails. It's probably not a comprehensive account due to time, but you got a week off for telling someone to go **** themselves. Which you acknowledged and quite graciously apologised to us for via email. That was in 2019.
"Taxi25" got a lifetime ban for offering you out for a fight a couple of months later.
If there's been further incidents since I stood down, I obviously don't have any visibility of that I'm afraid.
Editing window expired. Swap out "you" with "we." I said I was bad at tracking usernames, I crossed two posters. I was replying mostly to Pondo, I don't have any email trail of BruceWee at all so that incident must be after my time.
Editing window expired. Swap out "you" with "we." I said I was bad at tracking usernames, I crossed two posters. I was replying mostly to Pondo, I don't have any email trail of BruceWee at all so that incident must be after my time.
Yes, despite me apparently doing nothing but going around here arguing with folk I've had no bans (that I remember) and very few warnings. When I did get warnings it was for telling someone to **** off after they posted something genuinely offensive.
Since I was pointed in the direction of the report button I don't think I've told anyone to **** off as the mods have generally dealt with anything better than I could since all I was doing was probably just giving the ****s what they want.
That's why getting warnings and posts deleted with dazh and binners sticks in my mind. It's the only time I've gotten posts deleted for arguing without being aggressive. That and the fact it wasn't a case of all our posts getting deleted, it was just mine.
Now, like I've said several times already, this could all just be a big coincidence. But coincidence or not it is what I've experienced. This is a big forum and I'm sure modding coincidences must happen from time to time.
Anyway, I'm quite happy to never speak of it again if everyone else is.
It's also entirely possible binners is just highly skilled at walking the tightrope of being just annoying enough to not get warned.
Or perhaps he just uses a scatter gun approach that can't really be modded too easily. Like I said, I like to address people directly whereas binners likes to enter a thread, scan the room, and then announce to the World things like this (his post that started all this fun):
When it comes to anything involving current affairs or anything remotely political, it’s the small matter of the same 5 or 6 sprit-crushingly tedious dullards who regard anyone who isn’t Jeremy Corbyn to be a fascist and who all gang up to shout down anyone who dares to disagree with their unbelievably blinkered and narrow-minded worldview
It’s not even worth posting on any of those threads any more, due to the utterly Joyless, humourless, sanctimonious, self-righteous, holier-than-though, virtue-signalling ****s all competing in their Taliban-esque way, for some inexplicable reason, to signal how idealogically pure they are .
It’s not even worth taking the piss out of them any more as it flies about ten miles over their head and they’re just permanently angry and unpleasant
*awaits flaming from said 5 or 6 mind numbingly boring ‘warriors for justice’*
I like to think of this place as a pub. If someone walked into any pub and announced, "There are 5 or 6 people in this room who are utterly Joyless, humourless, sanctimonious, self-righteous, holier-than-though, virtue-signalling ****s all competing in their Taliban-esque way, for some inexplicable reason, to signal how idealogically pure they are" then I'm not sure why anyone would expect there to be no response from anyone in the room.
Perhaps the generalised non-direct insults are the way to go on here. It's not really me though so I'm just going to carry on addressing people directly when I'm not happy with what they are saying.
binners is a funny character. Unfortunately somewhere along the way he kind of forgot he was playing a character and the character became his personality, kind of like a less charming version of Jeremy Clarkson.
I liked the local lad done good after a humble beginning down the northern graphic design pits. It's a shame.
It's easy to get into an ad hominem slanging match if you feel attacked but it tends to just give the comment oxygen and removes your own dignity in the process.
If someone walked into any pub and announced…
Most people wouldn’t though, would they… they’d just stop bothering to go to that pub…
It’s not even worth posting on any of those threads any more, due to the utterly Joyless, humourless, sanctimonious, self-righteous, holier-than-though, virtue-signalling ****s all competing in their Taliban-esque way, for some inexplicable reason, to signal how idealogically pure they are .
Well something I have learnt from this thread...... I did wonder why someone with clearly such a keen and deep interest in UK politics should suddenly and abruptly stop posting on the UK government thread.
I thought it might have something to do with Starmer being such a disappointment as prime minister that binners was no longer interested in discussing politics "on any of those threads" but no, it turns out that binners has apparently been bullied off those threads by lefties. I had no idea that binners was such a sensitive shrinking violet, bless.
And this is a little beauty :
and they’re just permanently angry and unpleasant
Spoken with a complete lack of self-awareness! 🤣