Just get slowman to change the forum rules and everyone has to follow them. Forum masses don't get to decide what other people do. I've been around for lots of masses coming and going. I'll follow what slowman asks us to do in his house. I just have a different set of values of what a forum is about (to discuss things freely), and what the internet in 2020 represents in terms of pro sports. But hey, if slowman decides what we need to follow I will follow it. I won't just follow masses because of a popularity contest though.

Wow.

Aw not again! I haven’t had a chance to watch Lionel’s hour attempt yet. Now you spoiled that too!

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Scott in Whistler

I mean no offense to anyone with this remark, just a remark: if I don't want to read spoilers on endurance sports events, I stay away from Slowtwitch forum until I've watched said event. This allows me to control my own destiny concerning spoilers. Sometimes means I have to delay reading Slowtwitch, but such is life.

Wait through the credits for the extra scene that teases the next episode

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"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin

I wasn't personally affected by the title change, but why should people stay off slowtwitch? It is not an endurance sport news site after all. A few of us managed not to spoil things for anyone with our Classics Thread, and yet we post all sort of spoilers in that thread.

The issue is narrow in scope and nuanced. It's whether we should allow thread titles to contain spoilers (post spoilers all you want within the thread). This would seem to balance the interest of those who want to talk about the latest events with interest of those who haven't had a chance to watch. It's a small courtesy and really does not burden anyone. Why not extend this tiniest of courtesies to your fellow forumite?

And as for @Dev, since you asked for it, I have requested that Dan personally consider the issue.

 
Hey, how about that awesome Giro !!!! That week 3 was one of the greatest of all time and the lead up into the last day ITT best ever, with a tie, plus 4 hour record holders and the UCI worlds ITT champ on deck in the start gate!!!!














As for people interacting on ST, I am not in favour of any restriction of open interaction. Titles of threads are important in terms of how they create engagement and interaction between us (vs restrict the interactions). If some people want interactions restricted for others because they need their personal viewing offline from ST protected, that's their personal view. Its not a forum rule that everyone has to follow (and generally I respect it anyway)

If everything has to be buried deep in thread in the equivalent of a private room for 5-10 people then that's Dan's choice and I will follow it if Dan does not want public knowledge of what is going on in the outside world in thread titles and then the forum interaction on that topic is largely restricted to 5-10 people. All good if this is what Dan says the rules are in his house.

But then Dan has to decide which events have restrictions on their updated situation in thread titles (be it announcing that Wurf got first to T2 in Kona in thread title, Richard Murray running 28.04 in a 10km, the real time standings of your local bike time trial, or the intermediate split at mile 20 at the Boston marathon, or where things are in a Grand tour going into tomorrow's stage).

I was aiming to strike a balance in terms of intiating discussion about a tied Grand Tour (first ever) on the last day, and who was in the tie (no one could know from thread title). I could have just said who was tied, but didn't.

I'll follow the rules Dan sets but won't be bullied into conforming to what a few squeeky wheels who make noise think everyone needs to conform to just for them. It may or may not be the best thing for the forum overall. Dan can decide that. I'll conform.

Poor you, playing the victim card already?

Wow, you're really obstinate about a simple request from just about everyone chiming in on this thread. You could have just as easily written a similarly intriguing subject line without giving it away.

We've managed to annually have 3-4 threads for "the bike racing nerds" over years, with a different OP each time, and all ascribe to the same philosophy of not spoiling it for others. SL doesn't give away what happened and anyone knows not to look at it if they don't want that day's outcome revealed. It's just a simple courtesy.

This is why I stick to our 'official' bike racing threads. In the years and thousands of posts in them, it's remained a no drama zone (other than racing-related).

Same here. I stay off social media when I don't want a spoiler, and clearly don't click into any racing-related threads if I don't want a spoiler, but it's poor form to post the spoiler in the thread title. I felt like it was common knowledge to not post spoilers within thread titles.

And to think, if he'd just left the thread title alone, it wouldn't have ruffled any feathers...

IDGAF if you spoil something inside the thread. That's why I don't open the "Official Bike Racing" post during a race I'm watching...ever. But to do it in the thread title is something else.

On the three other cycling forums I'm on, it's a guaranteed 30-day time out for posting a spoiler in a thread that doesn't say *Spoilers Contained* in the title, and Dev'd probably get banned for what he did here.

Either way, It was a good Giro, I'm equally gutted for Jai as excited for Tao. Going to be a fun next few years to watch.

It was fairly easy to figure out who was tied if you had been watching the last few stages (as I had) but hadn't got around to watching the final mountain stage - which I'll remind you had only just ended only a few hours after you posted it.

Either way, even if I had watched only to Thursday's Giro stage over the Stelvio, let's see if we can deduce who this might be...

TGH and Hindley are within a few seconds of each other.
Kelderman is in the lead by `10-15 seconds but fading fast

If you were a betting man, which two racers would you say were most likely to be tied after another mountain stage? Once I read your thread title, I knew exactly what happened. Kelderman was dropped, and the other two either only briefly distanced or otherwise equal on time bonuses. The odds of any other outcome happening are much more slim. Even Kelderman losing exactly 10 seconds would be fairly rare (why not 9s or 11s), when the alternative (and general trend of the race) was that TGH and Hindley were so equal in just about every way leading up to the final mountain stage.

Sure, I suppose if you hadn't seen any Giro, you'd wonder if it were Thomas vs Nibali or Yates vs Fuglsang who was tied. But spoilers for a Grand Tour don't usually work that way - we're all coming at it from varying levels of knowledge/how far we've all seen and for most of us, any knowledge spoils the race outcome. During the Grand Tour/Classics seasons, I usually am pretty good about staying off social media because of the potential to spoil the result before I've seen the action. I come to ST because I generally expect that unless I open this thread, it won't come to that.

Well , i’ll put my hand up and cop to the fact that i acted like a pedantic git a few times.

But overall, yes, i like how the few of us kept the tradition going (i think it started circa 2014?).

I’d buy the first two rounds of Belgian Ale should i meet any one of the long time regulars in those threads. And to think, @trail and I once squabbled over what’s considered a flyer pick.

The tie could have been with a number of riders as you pointed out. Any guess of the permutations was in the realm of possibilities. Crashes, bonks and bonus times all factor into the uncertainty.

But if people want a safe zone where no results of any endurance sports are revealed hours after they happen, then slowman needs a rule for what sporting events can only be discussed deep inside threads and what is the the time cutoff after the event has happened. Once those are established I will gladly follow. But a bunch of guys inventing their own themes and saying everyone has to follow, well the number of messages I got in private suggests another view is out there too in 2020.

But rather than actually discuss an amazing race (you never showed up to discuss the race) we are broiled in multiple pages of negativity with people on the internet saying what behaviours they want from others. No problem, let's make it a rule. If not it's different people not liking how others behave.

You brought the negativity because you couldn’t help yourself by changing the title thread name. You specifically went out of your way to do that. You couldn’t just let the thread discuss the topic.

That’s fine. Notwithstanding my comments above, I really don’t have an agenda here. To be honest, I don’t even care about this specific race. I did care that you deemed it okay to to take it upon yourself to ruin a many-year-old forum tradition of not spoiling such results. If everyone—starting foremost with you—wants to live in the forum by the “rule” that unless Slowman bans it, it’s completely fair game, so be it. While I understand at the core that Slowman owns/controls this forum, I very much believe he prefers us to self-police our own behavior. Unlike you, I’m completely fine with that state of affairs and happy to capitulate to the preferences of the masses when it comes to something like this. Because I don’t own this forum and I don’t believe I am above it or should dictate my personal will upon it. We collectively make it work through Slowman’s grace. Just understand what you are advocating here and if—no, when—it comes around, you have no basis to complain as you stood strongly against it.

I won't complain if slowman chooses to make discussion of live sports only inside threads rather than in thread titles, a rule.

He can pick which events must be discussed inside threads only vs in titles and when it is OK to discuss outcomes in any form in titles.

The rest of us are welcome to influence him to make that a rule. Then it's clear cut. I will not complain with what he sets. I am just against random posters setting mob generated unwritten rules and calling them traditions. Lots of traditions change over time.

Mob???? That’s funny. I guess if we want to create labels, we could label you a dictator then. It was basic forum decorum for many years. Maybe it should be revisited in 2020. But, you didn’t start a thread to discuss. You unilaterally and blithely changed it. And then doubled down like only Trump would. I’m fairly sure Dan could give a rip about this topic. But the “f” everyone else attitude in the forum attitude that you have shown in this thread is surprising at least to me considering your long history on ST that lives and breathes through its members more than even Dan himself. I’ve made my point. Carry on. I’m done with this topic.

Hey man. This is not the hill to die on. In my opinion.

I jumped in early because I appreciate your general positivity and enthusiasm, and knew your motives were well intentioned. To me, spoilers are not that deflating. I have missed many big events for work, and didn’t care if I found out before I watched. But I also appreciate it is a big deal to many, and detracts from their enjoyment.

So, I implore you. Just let bygones be. Points taken.

In today’s day and age, expecting to remain spoiler free when going online could be wishful thinking. People want to interact and discuss things that happen, whether that’s movies, sporting events, TV shows, etc. Personally, I avoid forums, chat rooms, and all social media apps if I haven’t seen an episode of something I know will a popular topic of discussion. Unless there are general rules against it, I can’t ask or expect everyone else to hold their discussion and excitement while waiting for me to catch up.

You are conflating different issues. Again, no one is saying one shouldn't post spoilers in the actual thread. In fact, go wild about it, in the actual thread. What the vast majority of us (derisively labeled by Mr. Paul as "the mob") is asking is that no spoiler appears in the actual thread title. That's it.

Ask yourself, what good does posting actual spoiler in the thread title achieve, and what inconvenience is placed upon those who want to discuss spoilers in the actual thread itself? For the former, at the most, maybe a few more pair of eyeballs. For the latter, it places no additional tangible burden.

It's perhaps telling how little interest Mr. Paul's thread has garnered. Your post is the 120th in the thread, but only 69 of those 120 are posted before Mr. Paul changed the thread title to include the spoiler (that is to say, on the day of stage 20). Of the 69 posts, Mr. Paul authored 30 of those. Talk about a thread garnering little or no attention. In contrast, there were already more than 70 Giro-related posts in the other pro cycling thread by the end of stage 5. The Giro may have been tied going into the last stage, but it would appear that one of the threads that discusses the Giro on this site did way better than the other Giro discussion thread ;).

Well, Mr. Paul's got people's attention now, except it's not the type of attention one would ordinarily want. But then again, perhaps he believes that no attention is bad attention?

In contrast, the tradition of the Giro thread goes back at least five years, and the lowest participation was the 2016 edition, with 188 posts (still a good 60 posts more than what's in this thread, despite the instant thread containing numerous posts directed solely to the issue of spoilers). The highest participation was in 2018, with 645 posts. Without fail, each of these threads (from the 2015 one to the 2019 one, inclusive), had the word "spoiler" contained in the title but otherwise didn't spoil anything in the title. If it works well, and it it ain't broken, perhaps it means there's no need to "fix" it?

https://forum.slowtwitch.com/...o%20spoiler#p6925208

https://forum.slowtwitch.com/...o%20spoiler#p6619994

https://forum.slowtwitch.com/...o%20spoiler#p6300064

https://forum.slowtwitch.com/...o%20spoiler#p5936183

https://forum.slowtwitch.com/...o%20spoiler#p5536179

Not a long time regular yet, but I wouldn't mind sharing a few Belgian beers with a lot of the regulars in the classics thread either!

A "2 way tie tt to the finish" is pretty rare and super excitng, and can imagine someone thinks that deserves a better title than "giro stage 21 spoiler alert" but yeah maybe something like "WHOAH - SUPER EXCITING GIRO!!!!! ***SPOILER ALERT***" could convey the excitement while not telling what happened? Or is that already considered a spoiler?


Meanwhile....how bout these bars?

Bloody hell, with all that is going on in the world at the moment, all the crap we have been through this past year, people are getting their noses out of joint because a thread title said that that the Giro was tied for first going into the final stage?
People need to take a long hard look at themselves if this is causing outrage for them.

Some of us can handle and respond to multiple issues.