How another bike forum see's us the Pedelecs forum.
- Thread starter Nealh
- Start date
Perverse springs to mind.In respect of the photo below, I had actively been trying to boost the mountain bike section, as comment had been passed that it was under used and floundering. Hardly a surprise I guess.
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I forget the username of one of the banned members, but his real name was, if I recall, Eddie.
I couldn't see what he had done wrong at the time, although one never knows what goes on behind the scenes.
He was witheringly critical of Chinese ebikes, then more than now there was a lot of absolute garbage on sale.
What hasn't changed is a lot of the active trade members are importers of Chinese ebikes.
I'd like to think there was no connection between that and the ban.
The other user to go the journey at the same time was Indalo.
Again, I missed what he'd done to deserve cyber annihilation.
Sticking to the theme of Eddies, the other forum banning our EddiePJ does seem daft.
Unless they didn't like links to his facebook page and other online activities.
Even then, a warning or two would have dealt with it.
Eddie was member EddieO who has sadly passed away since.
Eddie was a friend of mine who lived quite near. He expressed himself in very blunt ways and had been warned on a couple of occasions when it was thought he went OTT. He and Indalo often posted in agreement with each other in similar ways.
The last straw for Admin which brought their expulsion was when Eddie and Indalo had a conversation in what they thought was a private area of the site in which they expressed themselves in apparently very abusive ways about a number of other members. Of course the conversations were seen by others, though I didn't see them myself before Admin removed them.
There was definitely no connection with Chinese bikes or their sale, I'm confident that neither Russ nor Helen would ever remove a post critical on those grounds. One major supplier did try hard on occasions to influence what was posted about their products, even threatening to stop advertising or enter the site, but Admin was having none of it and accepted the loss of their support as the price of independence from commercial influence. That firm remains absent to this day.
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That was November, 2011, and Eddieo was reinstated.
He was later banned permanently (again) but that ban was genuinely permanent.
Not sure when, but it must have been after September, 2012, when I joined.
As flecc says, Eddieo has since died.
In what I thought was a nice touch, his son posted on here to let everyone know his dad had passed away.
The son clearly realising friendships formed over the years were more important than bickering and bans.
I use a couple of forums that Robgul uses and find his input there to be useful. He isn't verbose, so doesn't get involved in lengthy discussions.
I use other cycling forums and what I find hard to get to grips with here is the overt way in which certain trade members really, really push their products. I have come to terms with the fact that there are two types of membership: trade and non-trade, so I have to accept this and I am, after all, using the facility for free, but it doesn't mean I have to like it. I haven't experienced this duality elsewhere, but I guess it goes on.
I have pointed folk from other forums in need of advice in this direction, but told them to take some recommendations with a pinch of salt without naming any individual posters.
I use other cycling forums and what I find hard to get to grips with here is the overt way in which certain trade members really, really push their products. I have come to terms with the fact that there are two types of membership: trade and non-trade, so I have to accept this and I am, after all, using the facility for free, but it doesn't mean I have to like it. I haven't experienced this duality elsewhere, but I guess it goes on.
I have pointed folk from other forums in need of advice in this direction, but told them to take some recommendations with a pinch of salt without naming any individual posters.
Eddie's last post in here was 29th January 2013. Since he posted very frequently the ban must have been just after that.
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I don't mind this and think your last comment very relevant. At least when done as it is here it's very open and obvious, easy to recognise. Indeed the administrators insist that all trade members identify as such in every post. Also we quickly call out any member who has some sort of affinity with a brand or supplier.
Elsewhere on the internet promotion often goes on in concealed ways with no commercial connection apparent.
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Mmm, it's not so long ago that woosh was prevailed upon to stop using the Trex account, which was woosh masquerading as a private individual.
D8veh is pally with both the founder and the current owner of Oxygen, so some care should be taken to interpret his recommendations.
There may be other ringer accounts I've not spotted, and we've certainly had trade members in the past impersonating private citizens.
Probably not very many, less than 50 instances, or we could say 'Cycles', of that behaviour.
with hindsight, that was a mistake.
We have supported the forum and maintained a trade account for a long time, if I remember correctly, since 2012.
It started when Trex was involved in a row with eddieo back in 2012 when eddieo was looking for a folder for his wife. Needless to repeat that eddieo did not think highly of Chinese bikes. We did leave the situation uncorrected for a long time.
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I wouldn't be too harsh on yourself.
Latterly, trex declared himself several times as involved with woosh, so anyone doing some reading around the forum would not have been misled.
But we did call out both of them for those associations, just as I posted, so at least regular members knew their status, just as you did. So we do informally watch out for excesses. Over time others have been publically identified immediately and ceased that type of posting.
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