Damn, Threads get closed down quickly these days!

['Dale]

36 minutes ago, Mamil said:

I stopped posting on bikehub for over a year after 2 threads p1ssed me off to such an extent that I found my fingers stomping out enraged missives to other faceless muppets who I wouldn't even recognise if they rode past me waving. 

Frankly I prefer the way things are. I'm not likely to read any of the drivel that brings on the red mist and I'm more likely to keep my opinions on non cycling stuff to myself. 

This.

Too much pain and conflict in the world. Not to mention misinformation and prejudice. I am all for fun, bantering and lekka jokes. Unfortunately, debating turns into drama. Drama turns into toxic nonsense. 

[TheoG]

17 hours ago, Hairy said:

Asking for a "friend" .... and he wants to know if we will ever get comments back on the Classifieds please 

Dear Matt, you always answer the questions so nicely and concise, but this particular one is just flatly ignored ...

I cant count how many PM's I sent to hopeful sellers to help them clarify/improve and add vital tech information on the stuff they trying to sell.

Can you once and for all give us a clear answer on what your view on this is and why its so important not to have comments?  It would mike it so much simpler and easier than to keep sending PM's to idiots and hope they update/fix their adds.

By all means if someone overstep the boundaries (I'm sure there will be some of those) with non constructive and/or rude comments, punish them any way you see fit.

[Chadvdw67]

2 minutes ago, TheoG said:

Dear Matt, you always answer the questions so nicely and concise, but this particular one is just flatly ignored ...

I cant count how many PM's I sent to hopeful sellers to help them clarify/improve and add vital tech information on the stuff they trying to sell.

Can you once and for all give us a clear answer on what your view on this is and why its so important not to have comments?  It would mike it so much simpler and easier than to keep sending PM's to idiots and hope they update/fix their adds.

By all means if someone overstep the boundaries (I'm sure there will be some of those) with non constructive and/or rude comments, punish them any way you see fit.

Matt has answered this, in that very thread, why does he need to answer it on every other thread that someone asks about it?

[TheoG]

5 minutes ago, Chadvdw67 said:

Matt has answered this, in that very thread, why does he need to answer it on every other thread that someone asks about it?

Sorry, I missed and never saw that, there is so much content on there ...

Edit:  On which of the current 402 pages can I look for it ?

Edited September 19, 2021 by TheoG

[Jewbacca]

12 minutes ago, TheoG said:

Sorry, I missed and never saw that, there is so much content on there ...

Edit:  On which of the current 402 pages can I look for it ?

I think it's up to you to have a gander. This is a bit like asking someone else to do your homework for you......

[TheoG]

1 minute ago, Jewbacca said:

I think it's up to you to have a gander. This is a bit like asking someone else to do your homework for you......

ja ja, I found it after some searching.  My apologies, I get Matt's points on there and wont bitch about it anymore, will just work with what is available with hopefully some future improvements.

[eddy]

17 hours ago, King_Crispy said:

Not a private website, it is accessible by anyone, and is classed as public media. The fact that only "members" may comment is irrelevant. The fact that comments are deleted and opinions are disallowed is not strictly speaking legal.

 

Taken from the Constitution of South Africa:

16. Freedom of expression

(1) Everyone has the right to freedom of expression, which includes-

(a) freedom of the press and other media;

(b) freedom to receive or impart information or ideas;

That doesn't mean that the Sunday Times must print your letter just because they have letters page, and if they don't they are acting illegally..

I suspect it means that were the Sunday Times to choose to publish your letter, it cannot be precluded by the state in doing so.

I think it also means that within the bounds of the law you are free to start up your own website, make your own rules and impart your own information and ideas without state intervention. 

 

[Eldron]

I think thehub is a better place today than "the before time". There used to be open and unmoderated homophobia, misogyny, soft porn (along with weird and wonderful descriptions men would offer up on what they would like to do to the women in the soft porn pics) and a variety of other anti social/exclusive behaviours. If this is thehub you miss then you should probably do some introspection.

There was also a stronger sense of community but that was always going to disappear as thehub got bigger and less personal.

I kinda miss the old boys club where I recognised a few names/people but it was always a dinosaur waiting to die.

[Eldron]

On 9/18/2021 at 7:42 AM, King_Crispy said:

It's just another way Matt gets to stay autocratic. Another way he gets to enforce his blind trajectory of: it's my site, my rules.

Basically it's unconstitutional. Disallowing freedom of expression.

 

 

Flame away haters

Google "QAnon" - you'll find tons of friends there.

[shaper]

3 hours ago, karma said:

not saying you're wrong...but clearly some people (me in the past too) take the Hub way too seriously....feeling their freedom of speech is taken away etc...at the end of the day it's really simple, if you don't like the way Admin runs it, leave?

I think you will find many have left. I only now look to buy or sell, hardly comment on threads or feel the need to. When am here, i occaisionally browse the threads and from what i can see there are only a handful who seem to keep the comments section going. 

[Mountain Bru]

7 hours ago, TDFN said:

Unfortunately, this is probably what I am lamenting with my opening post.

We went from what I believed was a social gathering place for cyclists, that allowed members/users to sell stuff to an online classified advertisement website. period!

This is such a shame as it was a place I came to to shoot the cycling/non cycling breeze with like minded individuals. Which is such a shame as I believe that was also what brought Bike Hub to what it is today; but so be it, I was just raising a comment, which may or may not be closed down soon, proving the point.

This is kind of my point. The reason bikehub is what it is today is because of the forums. Yes times change, and yes, as @Eldronmentioned, there were clearly some dodge threads that needed to be removed (like the girls on bikes thread), but without the forums of TheHub, I don't think the BikeHub we see now would exist today. The forums created the community, who then created the classifieds and sold stuff to each other. But without that community, there would never have even been a classifieds. 

The admins have clearly now decided to turn their back on that community in favour of keeping the "classifieds only" users happy. As you can see in the below post from Nick, us forum participants are the minority now, and therefore we must bow to the classifieds only users. It's all about the moola I guess, and obviously the forums don't bring in much of that.

 

23 hours ago, Nick said:

The thing is, the forum participants do not make up the majority of the Bike Hub user base. While we do acknowledge and find it valuable, we can't blindly follow the commenters while ignoring feedback from the broader user base.

@Nick & @Matt- A vocal minority doesn't mean that the majority don't share the sentiments of that vocal minority. It just means that only a few are willing to say something. As you can see in some of the previous posts here, other guys maybe didn't say anything and just left the site. For example, it could be that only very few people want comments on the classifieds and are vocal about it, but seen as that thread is probably the most popular one on the entire site these days, that's unlikely. It could be that only a vocal minority want less moderation on topics and posts, but seen as an entire discord community is developing just to get around your moderation, that's unlikely. 

You might have a larger following of non-forum participants in your user base, but I'm gonna guess that loads of those guys are just using the site to make some moola buying and selling stuff on the classifieds. In my opinion, this site now caters to sharks in the classifieds better than it does to the cycling community. In contrast to the sharks trying to milk every cent they can from the cycling community,  the "forum users" actually have (or once had) a sense of loyalty to the community of the site, and would support each other and sell stuff to each other for bargain prices just to help a fellow hubber out, even when they could have possibly got more for their stuff elsewhere. That's obviously dead now because if you tried to sell something for a bargain, the resellers would be all over it, and that thing would be re-advertised at a higher price faster than you can blink. For better or worse, this is the environment you've created. 

[Dicky DQ]

7 hours ago, Barry said:

It's as simple as this.

Agreed, it is just a shame. I don't know if you were part of the "community" as it was in the past but that was quite a thing in the heyday. Not a community any more, but I may be wrong.

[Nick]

21 minutes ago, Mountain Bru said:

This is kind of my point. The reason bikehub is what it is today is because of the forums. Yes times change, and yes, as @Eldronmentioned, there were clearly some dodge threads that needed to be removed (like the girls on bikes thread), but without the forums of TheHub, I don't think the BikeHub we see now would exist today. The forums created the community, who then created the classifieds and sold stuff to each other. But without that community, there would never have even been a classifieds. 

The admins have clearly now decided to turn their back on that community in favour of keeping the "classifieds only" users happy. As you can see in the below post from Nick, us forum participants are the minority now, and therefore we must bow to the classifieds only users. It's all about the moola I guess, and obviously the forums don't bring in much of that.

 

@Nick & @Matt- A vocal minority doesn't mean that the majority don't share the sentiments of that vocal minority. It just means that only a few are willing to say something. As you can see in some of the previous posts here, other guys maybe didn't say anything and just left the site. For example, it could be that only very few people want comments on the classifieds and are vocal about it, but seen as that thread is probably the most popular one on the entire site these days, that's unlikely. It could be that only a vocal minority want less moderation on topics and posts, but seen as an entire discord community is developing just to get around your moderation, that's unlikely. 

You might have a larger following of non-forum participants in your user base, but I'm gonna guess that loads of those guys are just using the site to make some moola buying and selling stuff on the classifieds. In my opinion, this site now caters to sharks in the classifieds better than it does to the cycling community. In contrast to the sharks trying to milk every cent they can from the cycling community,  the "forum users" actually have (or once had) a sense of loyalty to the community of the site, and would support each other and sell stuff to each other for bargain prices just to help a fellow hubber out, even when they could have possibly got more for their stuff elsewhere. That's obviously dead now because if you tried to sell something for a bargain, the resellers would be all over it, and that thing would be re-advertised at a higher price faster than you can blink. For better or worse, this is the environment you've created. 

We've asked for Forum discussions to talk about bikes. There are still some Off Topic discussion for the fluffier, less controversial topics. The threads we've closed have been beaten worse than a dead horse, adding zero value beyond frivolous entertainment for some. That's not an over the top expectation from a cycling Forum.

We don't need any reminding where Bike Hub has come from. Surprise, we were there too. But in the past, we've been slack at moderating. This approach allowed a lot of things that are unacceptable to happen including many things we've been embarrassed to have attached to Bike Hub. It's not the vision we had for the website and we're paying for it by trying to correct that course now. We put a lot of ourselves into maintaining and building it. We want to be able to take pride in the content it hosts.

In the process, we're going break some segments of the community and lose people. We've come to terms with that. If you want to have constructive conversations about cycling, then Bike Hub is the place. There is still lots of value in that. If you want somewhere to fill your day with locker room shenanigans and banter with the lads, it is probably no longer that place. And again, I think that's a reasonable expectation for a cycling Forum. Who knows, it might even make the community more welcoming and inclusive, and more popular than ever as a resource for cyclists. It also might not but at least we tried.

And you are right. If Bike Hub were the forums alone, the servers would have been turned off years ago. The 'evils' of the Classifieds keep the lights on but we do see the value in the Forums beyond just the bottom line. This year alone we dedicated a couple months of development time (this means salaries and neglecting work on profitable projects) to upgrading the platform. It was a massive project and took a huge effort from the team. We did this because we still see the value that the forums add. To then hear that we've turned our back on it is a little grating.

The Classifieds is thriving and we get feedback daily from those using it (spoiler: it's largely positive). We're really happy with it. Maybe there aren't as many bargains anymore but what's happening is not solely symptoms of the changes we've made. Cycling in South Africa has changed immensely since Bike Hub started and we'd like Bike Hub to remain relevant and be a part of it.

[Hairy]

6 minutes ago, Nick said:

We've asked for Forum discussions to talk about bikes. There are still some Off Topic discussion for the fluffier, less controversial topics. The threads we've closed have been beaten worse than a dead horse, adding zero value beyond frivolous entertainment for some. That's not an over the top expectation from a cycling Forum.

We don't need any reminding where Bike Hub has come from. Surprise, we were there too. But in the past, we've been slack at moderating. This approach allowed a lot of things that are unacceptable to happen including many things we've been embarrassed to have attached to Bike Hub. It's not the vision we had for the website and we're paying for it by trying to correct that course now. We put a lot of ourselves into maintaining and building it. We want to be able to take pride in the content it hosts.

In the process, we're going break some segments of the community and lose people. We've come to terms with that. If you want to have constructive conversations about cycling, then Bike Hub is the place. There is still lots of value in that. If you want somewhere to fill your day with locker room shenanigans and banter with the lads, it is probably no longer that place. And again, I think that's a reasonable expectation for a cycling Forum. Who knows, it might even make the community more welcoming and inclusive, and more popular than ever as a resource for cyclists. It also might not but at least we tried.

And you are right. If Bike Hub were the forums alone, the servers would have been turned off years ago. The 'evils' of the Classifieds keep the lights on but we do see the value in the Forums beyond just the bottom line. This year alone we dedicated a couple months of development time (this means salaries and neglecting work on profitable projects) to upgrading the platform. It was a massive project and took a huge effort from the team. We did this because we still see the value that the forums add. To then hear that we've turned our back on it is a little grating.

The Classifieds is thriving and we get feedback daily from those using it (spoiler: it's largely positive). We're really happy with it. Maybe there aren't as many bargains anymore but what's happening is not solely symptoms of the changes we've made. Cycling in South Africa has changed immensely since Bike Hub started and we'd like Bike Hub to remain relevant and be a part of it.

From a operational/user perspective, your new interface and usability as seen on the current platform was a big step up and should be considered a success.

Someone did however forget to upload the comments section to the classifieds though .

 

EDIT:
There were posters/users that ruined many a thread when the "line" was crossed, and I think the fact that this was done after clearly enough warnings brought us to the point we are now with the reduced threads and those closed down.

Edited September 19, 2021 by Hairy

[Hairy]

40 minutes ago, Hairy said:

From a operational/user perspective, your new interface and usability as seen on the current platform was a big step up and should be considered a success.

Someone did however forget to upload the comments section to the classifieds though .

 

EDIT:
There were posters/users that ruined many a thread when the "line" was crossed, and I think the fact that this was done after clearly enough warnings brought us to the point we are now with the reduced threads and those closed down.

Thanks to one of the posters from this thread, I have joined the discord group with many of these previous users noted above .... let's just say the Covid thread is getting entertaining ... not sure how long I will be hanging around there though.

[SwissVan]

On 9/18/2021 at 4:25 PM, ChrisF said:

 

As much as I miss some off topic threads, these recent threads once again show how each and every forum "suffers" due to 0,1% of its members.

 

Some people simply can not refrain from "playing the man, instead of playing the ball".

 

 

Seen the same pattern again and again on a number of forums over the last decade.  The s.h.1.t stirrers just keep at it .... the moderators clamp down more and more .... and The Hub has already lost some valuable contributors due to this .....

 

 

Seems this is just the nature of the beast.

 

 

 

Certainly NOT the moderators "fault" that certain threads are closed.  

 

Maybe the the offenders should be banned, instead of the thread?