I read this excellent article about Geriant Thomas sitting at home, supporting his teammates winning 7 stages, but also having a tough time sitting out not having a chance to compete for the win: https://www.cyclingnews.com/...in-the-giro-ditalia/
I felt gutted for him as I was kind of cheering for him from day 1 after he did not get his chance to even race the TdF. He is not getting younger, so I hope he has a solid chance at next year's Giro (I believe he is aiming for the double).
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Responding in general terms to the banter that I caused with the change of title, believe it or not we had this discussion in many forms around 2003-05 when most were not around here on ST. Back then all we got were text updates on velonews.com and we could then view live stages on Outdoor Life Network at night. Some people wanted to discuss things as they happened live because the internet could give us live text already since the mid 1990's, others wanted no one to discuss Tour de France stages in near real time, because they wanted to view the coverage of Lance and crew that evening.
Like this year, there was always mud slinging. Some wanted their evening viewing not messed around with, while at the same time engaging in threads on the local Ironman event, or the latest bike release, others wanted to discuss today's racing (in any sport) in real time now and be alerted to when a discussion was going on.
If you look at the entire point of a forum it is to increase discussion and engagement on any topic. In the extreme if there is less discussion eventually there is no forum. Some will say, "keep the discussion behind the front door of a thread vs putting a sign on the front door of the thread to advertise what is going on inside". A very recent example of this is a thread about taking a 100m swim time from 1:50 down to 1:30 vs the monthly fish thread. The former thread resulted in a large amount of discussion on the that swim topic. Conversely many of the questions on improving swim form when posted inside the fish thread filled with most of the best swimmers on ST may result in just one answer (if). In a few days, the thread about 100m times basically got as many posts as the monthly fish thread gets in an entire month and 6x the view.
What you see there is the sign on the door matters if the the idea of a forum is to create a discussion on a topic. If not, it is a semi private discussion for the same 5-15 people who frequent the topic, but no one else ventures in after a while (you see that in the fish thread with hard core swimmers, and cycling spoilers with fairly serious cycling fans...these are two examples).
Some events are worthy of an overt statement that creates interest from people who may not otherwise show interest or have not been following what is going on. Sometimes its not that important and the discussion is small and can continue inside a semi private club.
It may be an unpopular opinion for some who have a vested interest in not wanting their off ST viewing messed around with what is discussed on ST. So they will want people to conform in one manner. They will also be the most vocal if someone behaves out of line with their desire.
Others may not agree but they don't have enough vested to really voice anything. That's fine. But the number of posts for or against something does not logically make a certain behaviour something that must be conformed to. Then its a popularity contest and/or trial by internet.
There are lots of things that are unpopular and its easier to just conform than present an altenate way. So, I defer to slowman on what creates more overall engagement on the forum. I know that Echappist posted all kinds of stats (and we can all cherry pick stats), but a few thread on specific topics like the Planche de Belle Filles ITT or Pogacar's climb up Peyresourde created as much engagement over a few days those thread were discussed as an entire season of single thread posts.
But I won't convince people who don't want to discuss results in real time openly that it makes the forum more exciting for the collective to discuss them openly in real time. I understand the other point of view and many times, I get stages "spoiled" by social media because I am watching a stage part way, then go to a workout or a meeting and then while avoiding the internet, someone sends me a "did you know that.....xyz did abc via facebook or email, or just on TV in an airport depending on where I am. I do get that, but that's where I concede that I live in 2020 with media all around me and I subsequently go enjoy the stage knowing the results.
I believe we can agree to disagree on philosophies on how a forum is used. We can also remain adult (not you, just in general) and not call the person with whom we disagree names etc. or poke fun at people we disagree with or start comparing posters with polarizing politicians etc.
Generally I am respectful that what happens in a sport event need not be included in a thread title. A once in a lifetime tie going into stage 21 of a grand tour. The attempt was to strike a balance, create real time discussion while not giving away it all.
Moving into the future, while accepting that there is a cohort that wants no real time overt results shown in thread titles, I am glad to keep it under the hood in a thread, but there are exceptional cases where the thread title makes sense to be overt for larger discussion since we're in 2020 and not 1992.
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PS. I have a funny story about real time results. It was Kona 1990. In Triathlon Today magazine there was an ad for the Kona Surf Resort. This is where T2 was at the far end of Alii Drive. There was no online coverage (CERN had barely invented the hypertext transfer protocol). I used the 1-800 number to call the Kona Surf resort lobby from the East coast. This is before there were call centers so the 1-800 number got you to the front desk of the hotel.
I knew that with the swim + T1 + 4:30 on the bike, the leaders would get to T2 at around 12:30 pm Hawaii time which was 6:30 pm my time. So I called the front desk at 12:25 and asked the lady at the front desk if she would go out to the parking lot and take down the order of the top 5 athletes coming in and write them on paper and if she did not know the names, just ask some of the people loitering around and if she could get the time of day when they roll in. I told her I was calling from Canada and wanted to know know what was going on to tell my friends. She was kind of amused, laughed and said, "If you care that much, I'll do it for you". I said I would call her back at 1pm. This was 7 pm my time to get the T2 results.
So she went out to the parking lot, took down all the names, I called her back, she had a chuckle, she gave me the results and I called all my triathlete friends locally (since most did not have internet) to discuss the live results. We must have talked about the what ifs for the entire 2:52 minute run that Mark Allen ran after a hellish wind day.
Different world, no forum, no internet, but a live sport going on and we had a blast over 5-10 local phone calls discussing Mark Allen, Pigg, Wolfgang, Kiuru and Tinley. 1990 was a breakthrough race for Kiuru from Finland. In 1996 we became friends at Wildflower and told him the story of me calling the Kona surf to discuss the live results and tracking them. Today he is a politician in Finland and we still stay in touch (him the athlete with the crazy sports fan)
PS. I think 1990 was also the year that Mark got a big pull from the press van (you can see the splits here on how he smoked Jurgen and others who biked 4:51 on a hell wind year: https://www.slowtwitch.com/...hers_Archive_58.html What is funny about comparing this story from 1990 with 2020 is when we were starved for information, getting whatever we could was like a lifeline and connected us with our sport. Now we have an abundance of information so we want it limited