Originally Posted by NeilGunton

Um, no. If I say that allowing motorized bicycles here is a slippery slope, then that is entirely consistent with my position on my own site. I think you're a little confused about the meaning of language, which does make it difficult to have a meaningful conversation with you. I'm sorry, not trying to be mean, it's just the truth. It's like you're just tossing up what I said and throwing it back at me as word salad.

You seem to have entirely missed the point about the difference between having a discussion about x, and having a discussion about whether or not x should even be part of the discourse.

What I saw was repeated instances of people being called trolls and being told that they shouldn't even be here. It seems that the standard response to someone who persistently disagrees with you now is to label them a troll. This is a perversion of the word, since it should only apply to people who are not arguing in good faith. I believe that arguing that a bicycle touring forum shouldn't include motorized vehicles is anything but trollish - it's just common bloody sense, but maybe that's just me.

Here's the thing, though - I didn't see anybody trolling. They were making a very simple argument that made perfect sense to me. And when they didn't sit down and shut up like they were instructed to by the "include everybody, as long as they agree with us" crowd, they were labeled as a troll and kicked off the discussion. I read the early part of the thread where that was going on, and I was struck that I would have said many of the same things, and thus been labeled as a troll, and that irked me because I don't think of myself as a troll. I've been running a fairly popular bicycle touring website for over 15 years, and during that entire time I have been under the impression that one of the basic tenets of bicycle touring is that, oh I dunno, you have to use a BICYCLE. And to most reasonable people, bicycle means no motor. Otherwise it's a motorcycle. But that's the entire crux of the argument here, so no point in going over all that again.

Listen, the mods here will decide whatever goes, goes - but in the meantime, I believe there was something that needed to be said, so I said it. And that doesn't make me a hypocrite - the meaning of the word entails saying one thing and then doing the opposite, and my viewpoint here is entirely consistent with my opinion over on crazyguyonabike. And it's not hypocritical to argue against something if the thing being argued against is the thing under discussion - it's the very nature of discussion, otherwise how on earth would anybody ever dispute anything.

I think this has gotten a bit personal again, what with people questioning why I'm here (I can hear the wheels slowly grinding around to labelling me a troll too). I don't want to be blamed for getting the thread locked, so I'm just going to say that I've made my points and had my say, and try to leave it at that. If the rest of you want to keep going around the same circles, then feel free. No doubt this will generate the standard gleeful "Oh good, now we can get on with discussing that thing you keep saying we shouldn't be discussing", to which I can only reply in advance, "whatever". If this is what you people collectively want your bike touring forum to be, then have at it. I tried.

Neil