Originally Posted by
Happy Feet
Call it a meta discussion if you want. Isn't meta discussion part of the "slippery slope" you are trying to avoid by allowing no discussion on your site?
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.
I think most people can see the double standard apparent in not allowing discussion in your backyard but participating in discussion in someone else's, call it what you will.
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.
No one was asked to leave the room. Only one poster (Big Aura) was addressed by a Mod and then simply asked to not tell other people to leave the room. Funny eh? It would seem those that mirror your POV do so by trying to silence discussion. I could multi quote the examples but anyone can see the whole thing unaltered on Pages one and two.
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.
I stated that I hoped, when the time came, that the mods would only lock out the poster who was blatantly trolling instead of locking the whole thread which would, in effect, achieve his overall goal. It appears the mods did not intervene and let the discussion develop.
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