I guess I just don’t understand how not putting a spoiler in the thread title prevents you from discussing it. Discussions don’t happen in thread titles, they happen in the threads. You can, for example, title a thread “let’s discuss what happened in today’s race” and then proceed to discuss just that very thing within the thread.
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I view most of these things live as well as I have a tv in my office and stream cycling each morning. I don’t typically start threads, but if I did I’d certainly put spoilers in the title because it’s 2024 and the information is everywhere and if other people want to scan the board that don’t have a tv or iPad in their office then that’s too bad for them - for goodness sake, it’s 2024, you should absolutely watch a race replay or highlights that may take a few hours rather than log in for a brief 5 minutes between meetings. It’s 2024, did I say that yet?
I’d like to know this as well.
I’m with ClayDavis being somewhat ambivalent, though bemused by the notion it’s “tyranny” to request a courtesy that requires near-zero effort. I checked the “triath-a-lon” categories, and don’t see obvious spoiler titles for triathlon races. So not sure what the burning desire is to have them for road races.
Anyway, if the admins do want to allow us to ignore topics form ignored users, this maybe the way to add that (requires admin access):
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Correct me if my logic is wrong, but if there’s a thread to discuss something freely as the race is going on, wouldn’t it be impossible to put a spoiler in the topic title?
Unless you went back and edited the topic title after the event was over. Which would be going through extra effort just to annoy people…
I’m ambivalent/zen, but frequently because of my timezone, I’ll wake up when the men’s race is going on, and I like to discuss that live with people here sometimes. The women’s race is already finished, but I like to return to that later in the day/week. So it’s nice to go to the thread about the men’s race without seeing who won the women’s race. Just a nice courtesy is all.
We are generally avoiding adding plugins at this point. Part of that is so we can get the core of the site right before we start customizing it. Part of it is also the fear that we dead end ourselves into features that aren’t fully supported down the road.
You should see threads around the respective WCs. Or Olympics. Lots of new threads as the race is happening with names involved.
It’s really just cycling that has asked for spoilers to be avoided. Which, well, I don’t think of newsworthy events being spoilers…that’s more a movie / pop culture thing to me. But…here we are.
That part in bold about movie/pop culture thing may JUST summarize the sentiment. Some of us treat cycling like we may treat pro hockey or soccer or football. Games happen in real time, the results are all over the world, and if you want to “tape the event” and watch it later you literally have to hide from the world. But no one is expecting to not get bombarded with results in real time in society.
Perhaps cycling is niche enough that the sport results are not all over mainstream headlines, so a group of people treat it a bit like a movie that they have not watched yet.
While a bunch of us want to discuss specific things from a specific event in real time with the topic of discussion in the title. The reality especially with stage racing that if we don’t discuss today’s racing in real time or near real time, by tomorrow there is another stage to discuss. Let’s say there is a breakaway that succeeds, 4 person pileup in a sprint finish, or maybe a change of leads due to a uphill finish time bonus, what happened on the tarmac IS the storyline. And that can create discussion. Having it buried as the 1975th post in a massive thread, unless you go into the thread and happen to read that someone posted about that episode during the event of the day, then there is no discussion other than maybe 7 people who know to go into a specific thread to find out if there is any “news” to discuss.
Having said all that, I appreciate the clarity that you have provided. Inherently we’re in a forum with people living in different time zones in different countries, with different cultural norms. It is just much easier when those in charge just tell people what to do. Certainty in rules and frameworks is more important than pleasing all of us. With a clearly defined framework it takes the emotion and mudslinging out.
Heck even in war they have the Geneva convention to provide some framework to the otherwise free for all killing that goes on. So if that is possible, its possible in a forum.
thanks Ryan and also thanks to those who are in the “opposing camp”. We can all respect that we have different points of view in life, we don’t need to like the other person’s point of view but its cool you all have different ones from mine
I find it petulant that a vocal minority doesn’t allow the majority to discuss it freely as it happens. Why should we all wait for someone to view it later? Absurd.
Please cite support for “majority”. And it better be more than just you and Dev.
Having said that, I will concede that you and he account for the vast majority of angsty teenage grumpiness in this subforum. Just look at the not-so-subtle thread title you chose for this thread.
You find others “petulant”. Might give your bathroom mirror a good shine and take a good self-reflection.
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You can make all the points you have done, simply by saying that neither I nor Nordicskier have proof of what constitutes a majority and we can also say that a number of posters here who want a time lapsed spoiler culture don’t have proof of what is majority. It is not productive mud slinging at people with opposing points.
Which is why the owners of this place get to decide how the place operates, not any of us, because we all have opinions, none of us have facts, and when decisions are opinion based, the formal leaders make the call. It can’t run as democracy although the leaders here over history have been pretty good and taking all kinds of input and threading the needle of the community
This would all workout if we collectively put certain posters on ignore AND there was a way to get the threads started by ignored posters to disappear. Im still looking for a reason as to why I can’t actually ignore people and have it apply to threads started.
What’s even worse is that it would appear that the ignoring function has an expiration, so that we can’t just permanently ignore someone unless we keep on choosing to re-ignore
You can make all the points you have done, simply by saying that neither I nor Nordicskier have proof of what constitutes a majority and we can also say that a number of posters here who want a time lapsed spoiler culture don’t have proof of what is majority. It is not productive mud slinging at people with opposing points.
One of you two was upset enough at the presence of the long-running thread to start this present thread, and the same poster then went with the unsubstantiated allegation. So burden of proof is very much on you to produce the goods.
Which is why the owners of this place get to decide how the place operates, not any of us, because we all have opinions, none of us have facts, and when decisions are opinion based, the formal leaders make the call.
No, some of us do substantiate our contentions. You are just attempting to generalize your refusal to substantiate your claims to those who disagree with you.
I’ve posted this before and will do so again. I never made the claim that a majority of those interested want a spoiler free title, I only contended that such a policy is a wide-implemented one. To recap, I am active on the Paceline Forum (formerly Serotta forum), V-Salon, and weightweenies. All three places have a no spoiler in thread title policy. I was formerly active on bikeforums; it also has a no spoiler in thread title policy. I occasionally browse the r/peloton subreddit; it allows for no spoiler in thread title until 18 hours has elapsed. All those policies are shaped by the rancor resulting from some posters spoiling the results for others.
As to your other point, it’s simply not germane when your fellow poster wants to convince others that s/he has the facts to back up his/her contention. S/he made the claim re: majority on his/her own volition; s/he has the burden to back that up, or else it’s just garbage-in-garbage-out.
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It’s as simple as “don’t be that guy”. Most of us are courteous enough to not be that guy in most situations, including this. Others need their overlords to provide rules that prevent them from being that guy with punishment that scares them enough to not do it. It’s unfortunate, but that’s the way it goes I guess.
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Exactly…don’t be “that guy” who imposes how he wants others to operate on others. Don’t force others into rules that are crowd formulated when not eveyone in the crowd agrees with them.
That’s what you’re asking if you ask others who don’t want time lapsed viewing to conform to a system that those who want time lapsed viewing to conform to.
The thing is people can have their time lapsed viewing without forcing others to conform to a system they desire. The solution is simple, bookmark a thread you want to go directly to, but don’t ask an entire forum to navigate around personal viewing.
The definition of “that guy” is in the eyes of those who formulate a club and anyone who operates outside it is “that guy”. Generally the way things shake out is anyone who stands up to bullies and pile ons is exactly referred to as “that guy”.
No one is harming anyone in having real time discussion in thread titles. It is just a divergence of values.
In any case @rrheisler threaded the needle just fine. Everyone gets their 4 hrs of time lapse (I’d personally be fine with 8 hrs so we can discuss the same evening before tomorrow). What I am not cool with is anyone making up house rules that they want and piling onto others who don’t want to conform.
@echappist (not quoting because it is a general reply). I am on variety of sports communities online that discuss things live and that would counter that spoilers are a wide-implemented system (it may be applicable in some cycling communities, but here on ST there are many sports at play).
Just because a few cycling forums protect people who want time lapse viewing, does not mean that all of ST has to hold its breath to discuss events in titles. And because they do that, does not justify that being carried over to this multi sport venue.
I appreciate a respectful discussion on different points of view, without name calling, talk downs. There will be many things in life we agree on and others we disagree on, and that is healthy. And its healthy to take the personal shots out, so I thank you for the last response.
This reads like you’ve got delusions of persecution here Dev. Look, I get that there seems to be some fundamental inability of different parties in this discussion to be able to wrap their heads around the others’ perspectives. At this point I think we’re just banging our heads against the wall.
Literally nobody is trying to prevent you or anyone else from discussing current events. And I think most of us are of the position that spoilers in the thread titles doesn’t cause us any major problems, but we recognize that for some it could be an issue. It’s just a simple courtesy to not ruin things for people who may not have a few hours in the middle of the workday to watch a race, but do have 15 minute breaks and want to peruse the forum. Bookmarking a single thread doesn’t really help in this situation.
This isn’t really about rules, it’s about being kind to one another. There’s no law that says you have to give up your seat on the bus to an elderly person, or that says you have to tip at a restaurant. You’re free to not do those things - it’s a choice to be courteous or not. Likewise, you’re free to title a thread “The winning move in the men’s WC race”, or you can title it “Tadej Pogacar attacks with 100k to go and solos to the win!” The utility of the thread title is the same, as is the content of said thread. But you’ve made a choice to be courteous or not, and that ends up saying something about your character.
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@ClayDavis, agreed there are heads banging against a wall. @rrheisler has set the framework now.
Prior to Paris Olympics, people around here did not want results in the title when I posted 22 hrs after Biniam Girmay won his third sprint win. There was no cut off to when spoilers end (I did wait 22 hrs in that case) and a pile on ensued, and it seemed the general view was 24 hrs. Then Ryan came on here and said, during the Olympics we are discussing results live. After the road race, where I DID reveal the double being won by Remco the afternoon (EDT) after the win, this was met by pushback by many parties. This was AFTER Ryan cleared talking about live results during the Olympics in titles.
So here was are, and Ryan says 4 hrs. I think “same evening” is fine, but given that there are posters all around the world, same evening gets complicated. So 4 hrs makes sense.
My view and this is not about being nice to others (or not) that discussing results live in titles is very common across sport on the internet.
You point out that some people don’t have time during the day to watch events (fair enough), but they may want to brows a sports forum on the internet and actually not know what is going on in the sports world during their 15 minute break…
Is this not like walking thru a sports bar in Toronto after the Raptors have won a championship and telling people not to talk and put away signs all over the place which are saying “2019 NBA Champions”. It’s like saying, " I don’t want to know about the NBA finals as I walk through this sports bar". And then a bunch of people running around the sports bar shaming people into shutting up because they have not viewed the game yet?
The nice thing about coming to a sports forum is to discuss sport and many people like watching and discussing live sport. I have pro sport sports like soccer, hockey, tennis scores pinned live to my phone (and google does that because people want to know, not because I do), because knowing results live IS a thing in the rest of the sport world and discussing them live is what fans also do.
In the example you cite, the winning move obscured, may not create as much excitement and search results as titles that are decriptive. Ryan has already explained that.
In closing you nor I can judge anyone’s character by what is posted here. You closed with “saying something about your character”. That’s just an unsubstantiated claim based on limited information. My restraint in not calling anyone names nor bad mouthing them also says something.
Let’s stick to the topic, not make things personal.
You still haven’t answered how simply not posting a spoiler in a thread title makes a material difference in the objective of the thread itself. The fact is it doesn’t. You just want to make a scene as evidenced by the fact that the vast majority of posters within this thread agree with the sentiment of not posting spoilers in thread titles.
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@rrheisler already explained how titles do make a difference relative to ST’s presence on the internet previously this year. Titles make a difference for topics all over the internet.
Having said that, the general posters in this thread are from a limited subset of the ST stakeholder group and don’t neccessarily represent the entire community. As in any case in life, if limitations need to be placed on others, the burden of showing why, is by those wanting to impose limitations. Then those in charge make a call which has been done at this point.
So we’re all good. 4 hrs is the cut off
Prior to this thread Dev I had always found you a courteous poster, but you’re currently sounding like a 5 year old in the schoolyard. I’m ambivalent about spoilers as I will avoid the internet, but you being courteous to others by avoiding spoilers in thread titles has absolutely no affect on you, or the thread. Just be nice to people. Don’t put spoilers in. And don’t be like that 5 year old in the schoolyard who says “it’s 4 hours and 1 minute, it’s the rules”, just think of people other than yourself.
Personally I don’t like the one long thread, but the majority of posters within it prefer it, so I can either join their party or go somewhere else. Don’t be that guy that comes in trying to spoil it for everyone, just so you get your way.
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