Unrest for bike geeks

heavymental

Cor, it seems to be a time of unrest for all the frequenters of bike forums. Not only did we have the great C+ membership purge when it became Bikeradar but it seems other forums are undergoing changes leading to an exodus to further far flung corners of the web.

CHRISNOIR

I only started lurking on the old C+ site just before the merger and remember it as a highly entertaining couple of days as people got a bit confused, then a bit cranky with each other, and then some spectacular flounces (is that a word) to other places, a bit of a return to hurl some abuse around, then another flounce etc. Happy days…

It’s really quite touching the affection people feel for their forum of choice and I hope everything settles down for them soon. Where is it all kicking off?

ChrisLS

...there are people out there with far too much time on their hands...so where's the upset now :roll: :? ?

heavymental

Well,from what I can gather, the founder of 'The other place' has had a bit of an attack of flounceyness and buggered off, leaving the soft underbelly exposed to the world of trolls and all other internet villains. Some have stuck around but some, fearing the worst, seem to have jumped ship or at least put a foot onto the deck of another vessel incase of sinkage. It seems a long time ago that C+ had its refit which sent people scattering far and wide to CC, ACF and beyond. Ah well. The good ship BR sails on although its still a bit of a ghost ship sometimes.

Bronzie

I only became a regular on C+ a few months before "D-day" so I couldn't get too upset, and couldn't really see what the fuss was about. But I did always think that CycleChat was all fine and well, but a forum attached to a couple of major bike mags was always going to not only survive, but also draw in new members from the ads in the mags, whereas the membership of CycleChat would be fairly static.

heavymental

Yeh its true isn't it. Most people usually come to a forum through looking at the website of a magazine. Takes a while, if they do at all, to move on to something more independent. Seems like a fair few newbies log on here and there's a fair bit of activity but still doesn't feel as though theres the same level as there used to be. Think thats because alot of the little groups dissapeared elsewhere. Only seems to be a few people talking rubbish in cakestop now. Used to be that cycling hardly got a mention!

Forums are a funny old thing aren't they really. So much gets shared between people that might never meet.

Bronzie

True Cakestop is still pretty dead compared to ver 1.0 - but I did sort of find that a bit intimidating to post to, purely because they all seemed to know each other so well. It reminded me of walking in a pub, choosing the biggest, noisiest group in there and trying to butt in with your own story - could never pluck up the courage. :oops:

VeloRiders is still like that - they all know each other so well, and slag each other off etc accordingly, I always feel like an interloper.

heavymental

True. There's certainly none of that here. Don't think we have any in jokes....but it'd be nice to have a few. Maybe it'll develop again over time.

John Stevenson

I love it when people demand moderators help them flounce.

"Delete my account now I no longer wish to enhance your membership numbers!"

Yeah, okay, that's on my to-do list after cleaning all my bikes. And the loo.

I am amazed at how many cycling forums the UK scene has. It's like the Judean People's Front. Or do i mean the People's Front of Judea?

heavymental

"He's not the international editor. He's a very naughty boy."

I wonder how often the same question has come up accross all the forae(!?). Someone should do a FAQ to cover every bike forum out there. It'd be a comprehensive resource indeed.

John Stevenson

We should get Pete Frame to draw a family tree!

hammerite

CHRISNOIR wrote:

I only started lurking on the old C+ site just before the merger and remember it as a highly entertaining couple of days as people got a bit confused, then a bit cranky with each other, and then some spectacular flounces (is that a word) to other places, a bit of a return to hurl some abuse around, then another flounce etc. Happy days…

It’s really quite touching the affection people feel for their forum of choice and I hope everything settles down for them soon. Where is it all kicking off?

I love it when people start a thread to announce that they are leaving! what do they expect a tearful farewell, a grovelling apology/plea to stay, a kiss goodbye?

CHRISNOIR

hammerite wrote:

I love it when people start a thread to announce that they are leaving! what do they expect a tearful farewell, a grovelling apology/plea to stay, a kiss goodbye?

If I remember rightly a few did seem to want that - then kept popping back to hurl some random abuse around when the pleas to stay didn't appear.

heavymental

Ah well. Those days are behind us. The ex landlord at the other place does seem to have taken the prize for best flounce though. With a parting note and dramatic slamming of the front door behind him.

Nuggs

John Stevenson wrote:

I am amazed at how many cycling forums the UK scene has. It's like the Judean People's Front. Or do i mean the People's Front of Judea?

SPLITTER!

nolf

aaah I remember the good old days of Arch and Patrick's constant flirtation.
Elephants being in everyones signatures....

Good times.

Training forums better here tho.

heavymental

Cripes, its actually gone right belly up. Some new forum has been created and the "I'm off" messages are in full flow. Everyones following the story...CC has a 40 page thread about it. Its like watching a fight in the private school over the road! Shame really. There seemed to be a bunch of people who knew each other fairly well over there and now the house is on fire. Reminds me of here a few months ago but with longer words.

Ken Night

Heavymental wrote:

Cripes, its actually gone right belly up. Some new forum has been created and the "I'm off" messages are in full flow. Everyones following the story...CC has a 40 page thread about it. Its like watching a fight in the private school over the road! Shame really. There seemed to be a bunch of people who knew each other fairly well over there and now the house is on fire. Reminds me of here a few months ago but with longer words.

I've had a brief look-have the threads been closed? would you mind posting a link?

heavymental

All in the Office section. Think you can only see it If you're registered.

jimmythecuckoo

I never bothered registering for CC. As one of the few procycling forum migrants I actually prefer this place to the old version.

VR is ok for a lurk now and again, RCUK doesn't load on my pc any more and ProTourNews needs a few more members.

So here is the best place to be.

Gavin Gilbert

I’ve made a couple of catty posts here about over there, but these seemed to have flown under the radar.

I’m appalled that people who were willing to put up with the ego preening, the bannings, the removed posts, the reading of personal mails then threw a tantrum over something as trivial as the removal of emoticons. Everyone who spent any appreciable time on ACF knew what the place was about.

Walker, The Modern Prometheus, destroyed by his Creature.

heavymental

Looks like everyone has headed off to a clone. These implosions never seem to take long do they! When C+ changed to BR everyone was off to ACF or CC within a day or two. Its like "right, thats it, I'm off, see you over the road", even if they've been there for years.

Mike Healey

I want to know what happened to the Campaigh section. The old C+ had people turning purple with rage over bike lane/helmet/RLJing and other campaing issues and suddenly it's the least populated/popular of all.

redddraggon

Mike Healey wrote:

I want to know what happened to the Campaigh section. The old C+ had people turning purple with rage over bike lane/helmet/RLJing and other campaing issues and suddenly it's the least populated/popular of all.

Sounds like you're describing commuting or soapbox....

Shadowduck

Mike Healey wrote:

*snip* ... people turning purple with rage over bike lane/helmet/RLJing ... *snip*

I think BentMikey usually hangs out in commuting...

Sorry Mikey. Couldn't resist.

rogerzilla

Gavin Gilbert wrote:

were willing to put up with the ego preening, the bannings, the removed posts, the reading of personal mails then threw a tantrum over something as trivial as the removal of emoticons.

That's not true, although the smileys may have been the start of the problems. I set up yACF because, a week ago last Tuesday, we got the metaphorical equivalent of a note on the door from ACF's owner saying "I'm off and you're on your own". No moderators, no admins, no upgrades or site improvements.

After recruiting a couple more admins and four mods and opening registrations two days later, we had our first 300 members within a week, and the rate of new posts comfortably exceeds that of the old forum (the 900 members we didn't get were mostly inactive, although there are a few notable exceptions we would really like to have on board).

Although we unashamedly cloned the board structure from ACF to start with, we like to think we already have a better forum; we have user-selectable themes, we've added a couple of new boards and we have free (yet effective) hosting rather than constantly begging for donations. We have more plans for the future and a number of experienced web programmers who are willing to help.

Our motto, if there is one, is to "re-create the golden age of ACF", without any one person dominating the forum and being able to pull the plug.

Edit: I forgot the URL! www.yacf.co.uk or www.anothercyclingforum.co.uk

girofan

Heavymental wrote:

The good ship BR sails on although its still a bit of a ghost ship sometimes.

If you want to see a Forum that resembles the Marie Celeste, go and look at Cycling Weakly!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

jimik

Heavymental wrote:

Cor, it seems to be a time of unrest for all the frequenters of bike forums. Not only did we have the great C+ membership purge when it became Bikeradar but it seems other forums are undergoing changes leading to an exodus to further far flung corners of the web.

Yeah, I remember the good old C+ days... trolling around making a nuisance of myself. Happy memories.

Still pop onto this site once in a while but its not the fun it used to be... *sigh*

Jimi.K. (The one and only!)

Gavin Gilbert

rogerzilla wrote:

That's not true, although the smileys may have been the start of the problems.

I stand corrected then, I was making assumptions based on information from a third party. The fact remains that many people still were willing to put up with the ego preening, the bannings, the removed posts and the reading of personal mails. I take no satisfaction from having to break important friendships over participation on ACF.

Those doors remain shut, but I hope at least some of my former comrades now appreciate why I objected.

Gavin Gilbert

jimik wrote:

Still pop onto this site once in a while but its not the fun it used to be... *sigh*

Internet forums are like Manic Depression. You either accept the lows because the highs are fantastic or else you drug yourself into a banal mediocrity

rogerzilla

Gavin Gilbert wrote:

I stand corrected then, I was making assumptions based on information from a third party. The fact remains that many people still were willing to put up with the ego preening, the bannings, the removed posts and the reading of personal mails.

I'm no apologist for ACF's owner, but reading personal messages is not an administrative feature of the forum software that ACF uses (and we use at yACF). If you're a MySQL expert you can no doubt get to them in the database, but I don't think he's that technical.

Ego preening, maybe, banning, occasionally, removed posts, not usually; they generally got hung out for all to see on the forum gibbet. There was a Big Brother thing going on all the time though.