Last year a very popular local Roadie forum was held hostage by an anonymous poster whose entire goal seemed to be agitation. Unfortunately the more friendly posters fell into the trap of constantly responding. The end result was a forum full of uninformative, mean-spirited banter. Not only was it a shame for those that routinely participated on this otherwise great forum, most certainly it kept away new users, which is critical to the propagation of any forum. It simply sent a bad message. Eventually the webmaster banned the flamer (since I am nearly computer illiterate, please don’t ask me how, but it worked). Civility has returned.
My point: It is time to pull the plug on the Primate. What attracted me to your forum about 18-20 months ago was that it was a highly civil, informative forum. The frequent posters on your forum are knowledgeable, collegial and extremely helpful. No one is made to feel silly for posting what to others might appear silly questions. The forum had purpose. It is starting to lose its soul. Sometimes a small modicum of censorship is not deleterious; in this case it will solve a lot of problems.
Reminds me of the behavior we saw back in the old BBS (bulliten board) days - pre public internet.
A true measure of a persons character is how they behave when they think they are alone (or no one is watching). Anonymous postings are only one step short of that.
He seems bent on being a butt. Perhaps its not terminal although he’s building a strong case. If he were ignored, which is strong medicine if he’s willing to take it, he might see that his current methods no longer achieve his goals, which seem to require an audiance. That would be an adult response to his adolescent behavior. Setting limits, although tough to keep up with by a forum cop, might also work. Either way its time to call the young man to step-up and be an adult.
The problem doesn’t seem to be his content, but rather his inflammatory manner.
Ignoring someone’s rantings is the surest way of communicating a complete lack of respect for what they’re doing. Just ignore his repetitive inflammatory posts, and see if his manner improves. (Have you noticed that his threads are some of the most-viewed ones on this forum? We contribute to the problem by providing the guy with a rapt audience, thereby feeding his ego and ensuring his return.) If it doesn’t work after a while, then work to keep him from the forum.
Henry Rollins said, “If someone hands you a bucket of shit, you don’t have to take it from him. Just say ‘F.U. man’ and walk away.” That’s how I handle people like Orang because I think it’s the best method: quiet, powerful, and utterly effective.
Greg
P.S.: Anybody else notice that he added an underscore to his login name? Somebody must have swiped his original Orang Utan! He hee!
I don’t know if I can hang out here anymore if we are going to start quoting Henry Rollins. ; )
How can you knock someone w/ such a magnificent tattoo?
For the record, though his comments can be inane and abusive at times, I think it’s a little premature to consider banning Clyde from the forum. Lets at least hear how his bike tests go. As uncalled for as his attacks on Gerard and Cervelo are, I actually think he might give the Dual a fair shot and I do believe he’ll probably select the bike that feels best to him.
BTW Clyde, I bet if you stop making attacks, that people will stop attacking you & we can get some civility back on this board. Does it really matter who started it?
Has empfield emailed orang to let him know to smarten up?
That might change a few things before we have to boot him.
I do kind of enjoy reading his posts, and the series of flames that come with it; however, i dont think its fair to the innocent bystanders that get brought into the war in such posts as “bike fit…need help” where orang replies with “oh hell, just get a cervelo and its all “virtual and good anyway””
i say give him another chance, and if hes still a moron, ban him.
I didn’t follow this. However, I don’t believe in censorship. If it is truley ging to be an OPEN forum, then let it be so. Unfortunately, the informal rules of friendly and informative discussiuon and debate get tossed out the window and sometimes it is more about ramming someones views down another persons throat. Not sure what that solves.
You are right - the caustic nature of the debate can turn people off. I know that this turned legions of people off the old rec.sport.triathlon(RST) newsgroup years ago and more recently led to the standardization and monitoring of the various North American Ironman race comments pages. On RST on numerous occasions I would get my head chewed off both on-line and off line in long e-mails when I hinted that I thought that ITU style racing had a legitimate place in the world of triathlon. On and on it would go.
Hopefully if you ignore these diruptive types, they will go away.
Both forums in this place are tame by comparison to something like The Daily Kos or one of those true political discussion boards. I was reading The Kos the other day, and some of them were really wishing death upon Margaret Thatcher. I know we can get a little heated over here. But, it’s a nuthouse out on many boards, generally.
