Banned from cycling

glic71rods46t0

I appear to be banned from the cycling forum. I have received no notice from the mods in the forum and my last post in the forum appears to have been deleted but no reference was made to that fact anywhere.
The thread in which I posted my post was in reply to a poster who stated that he liked to pretend he is a car. I responded to that assertion with a humourous response which I felt was not out of place given the zanny nature the thread had descended into.

I dont think its fair to be banned without warning and have a post deleted which rightly mocked a previous post albeit in a humourous fashion!

Please help.

Fencer

sceptre

Hi there.

I'm not all that sure you got the irony in the other guy's post, even concentrating on that one line (I read the previous links in the thread, which might add a little light).

However, first call is to get in touch with the forum mods (daymobrew, Lumen, uberwolf) and see what they say. If you're not satisfied with the response from the forum mods, drop the sports cmods a line (see here). If you're not happy with what you get back from the forum mods and sports cmods, come back here and I'll happily take a look at it.

glic71rods46t0

Hi

I was just wondering what length of time I should be expected to wait to receive a reply from the Cmod on this issue?

I contacted the forum mods and received a very short and unhelpful response from the mod called Lumen, who basically said that my posts are not welcome on the forum.
I had also sent the same PM to Uberwolf who, as well as being a forum mod is also a Cmod. He cc'd me in a PM to another Cmod calls Sparks whom he asked to look at my complaint/query "in the interest of being seen to be fair".

This was on the 8th July and I have received no response whatsoever.

I would appreciate it if you guys could take up the issue at this point as I fear that the Cmod is not going to address the issue.

Kind Regards

Fencer

sceptre

I've dropped a line to the cmods asking them to look at it. Its probably fallen through the cracks, happens occasionally despite the best efforts of the best of us.

daymobrew

osyjruvlh8zn9k wrote: »

I contacted the forum mods and received a very short and unhelpful response from the mod called Lumen, who basically said that my posts are not welcome on the forum.

Lumen followed up with a longer, more clear reply the following day.

glic71rods46t0

daymobrew wrote: »

Lumen followed up with a longer, more clear reply the following day.

Hi Daymobrew,
Lumen did indeed send another reply the following day but,alas, it merely tried to make an excuse for not notifying me of the ban. It didnt specify the specific reason for the ban or the length of the ban. Over a week later and I cant even get a response from the Cmod on the issue, thus depriving me of due process as the helpdesk will not intervene until the mods and cmods have adjudicated on the issue.
Lumens reply was "I got an error message from boards when I activated the ban, which I did whilst on a crappy GRPS connection from abroad, so it probably didn't send through the notification message to you. There was no obvious way to re-send and I was busy with work."

Longer, more clear reply?

daymobrew

osyjruvlh8zn9k wrote: »

Longer, more clear reply?

My mistake: longer reply

glic71rods46t0

Hi Sceptre

I copied you on PM correspondence from the Cmod Sparks, redgarding this issue. I am not satisfied with his response. Can you adjudicate on the issue?

Fencer

glic71rods46t0

There is an interesting thread in the Cycling forum right now entitled "Moderation feedback" and while the usual suspects (dominant few) have posted that they're happy with the modding on the forum, a number of people have provided feedback similar to an issue I have raised privately regarding group attacks on individual posters and a fear that this puts some people off posting.
This, in my opinion, gives rise to a dynamic on the forum that is completely allergic to contrary opinions. Infractions and bans then tend to be weighted towards posters who express a contrary view to the accepted group view, espoused by the domineering few.
I think that this is relevant to my ban, as it provides context

F

Lumen

Fencer,

Putting aside discussions about the specific trigger for your most recent ban, why should we let you back in?

The Cycling forum is for people interested in cycling. You have no interest in cycling.

Your contributions are nothing but a drain on moderator time.

glic71rods46t0

Lumen wrote: »

Fencer,

Putting aside discussions about the specific trigger for your most recent ban, why should we let you back in?

The Cycling forum is for people interested in cycling. You have no interest in cycling.

Your contributions are nothing but a drain on moderator time.

Hi Lumen,

With all due respect to you I went to this helpdesk forum because I felt I wasn't treated fairly in the cycling forum.
I do however welcome the opportunity to discuss the issue further as long as this is ok with the helpdesk people(?).

You make a massive assumption when you say I have no interest in cycling. This is simply untrue. As well as being a motorist & pedestrian, I am also a cyclist.
I have an interest in cycling - not in the tdf or any manner of the sporting aspect of this pursuit. I cycle for exercise and as a means of transport.

Just because I dont agree with the prevalent views of the dominant few in areas such as cycle tracks, riding 2 abreast, adhering to the rules of the road and other such issues does not make me a troll.

With regard to your question of why should I be let back in, you could answer your own question by figuring out if the cycling forum is an open place for debate, moderated so that all diversity of opinion (within the law) is tolerated, encouraged and respected.
If the answer is yes, then clearly its time to rescind the ban.
If not, then I guess you wont have to worry about diverse opinions, just shout them down in a group attack and if that doesnt work then ban them out of sight!

Fencer

sceptre

I've no problem whatever with the cycling mods and you trying to work something out, Fencer. Actually, ideally all disputes would be worked out like that.

If there's a chance that this can happen, I'm slow to poke my nose in - if there isn't, I'll just explain what I can see as pretty much a totally disinterested party.

I'll say this much though - having given your posts a good look (and I mean a good look, which includes the posts around them), there's what looks like a reasonably high level of internet-style personalisation in quite a few of your posts. People often forget that tone doesn't travel well to text and even adding an occasional happy smilie doesn't tend to do anything to transmit tone. It isn't a case of the many against the few (or if it is, it isn't particularly relevant), there exists a series of repeated personalisation posts and it may be possible that you can't see that this is how quite a few of your posts are read by a reasonable disinterested person, let alone someone involved in any of the discussions. That's not conducive to reasonable discussion of any kind. There are a few forums dedicated to a bit of banter but cycling isn't one of those forums. I don't think it ever has been either.

glic71rods46t0

Hi Sceptre

Thanks for the reply. I gues your l;eaving the ball in Lumen's court.

Please Lumen, let me back in! Go on, go on, ..... pretty please???
I'll be ever so good!!!

sceptre

osyjruvlh8zn9k wrote: »

Thanks for the reply. I gues your l;eaving the ball in Lumen's court.

Not quite but let's put it this way - with the way you've been posting on the cycling forum (as I note above) I reckon you need a bit of a sea-change in that posting style and/or aim to actually add something to the forum. In the absence of that, what's there is a ban of undefined duration that I'd see as valid without that sea-change. So right now, the people you need to convince of that intention are the cycling mods, not me. Given your history you may have something of an uphill struggle doing that convincing so I'd say the ball's in your court. I'm happy to facilitate or help in any such discussion but based on what I can see I'm not going to overturn that decision so it's up to you on how you can convince them, bearing in mind that it's far more a question of respect towards members posting on the cycling forum than anything involving facilitation of opinions that are diverse. There's only a limited amount of time moderators can give to any one forum participant indulging in personalising discussions though before the door gets closed.