And I learned that sometimes its OK to continue discussion of a topic in a new thread that a moderator specifically closed because it was becoming too heated.

Generally when a moderator closes a thread they don't look to kindly on someone creating a parallel thread. That Reveborama is an understanding fellow, however.

Thank you, Emily Post.

(Post! Geeeeeet it?)

Oh, I'm totally OK with the discussion continuing in a parallel thread. That particular one went wrong in two ways.

1. it was no longer TOTH/WOTF -- reason enough to split the topic
2. (worse) it degenerated into personal attacks

I felt that allowing it to continue there did not further the discussion of what constitutes appropriate language in MBL. That's going on Improvements And Suggestions as most of you know. I think it's interesting that people are willing to use gender based insults when they wouldn't think of using racial or religious based ones.

I don't think MBL needs to be sanitized for 10-year-olds, but I think it needs to be welcoming for the majority of people who ride bikes. Again, if you're not willing to stand in front of the crowd at Babes In Bikeland and use a certain word or phrase, maybe you shouldn't use it here.

Thanks, Reverborama!

Jawsome!

I think some of the issue is that you can't tell the ages of posters on the Internet. Makes it hard to know whether someone is being provocative, ignorant, immature, or truly misogynistic. Speaking as a former 18-year-old, and a parent of former 18-year-olds, sometimes people need concrete rules until their brains grow up. Others benefit from being taken aside and reasoned with. Hard to which is which sometimes. Once we're old enough to know better, we either do know better or deserve what we get.

FWIW, I checked that before getting into the issue. It's possible to find someone's age from their profile, if they've chosen to have it listed. I'm claiming to be 36, so I can totally be held responsible for what I say. (I actually am 36, but on the Internet, nobody knows that's in dog years.)

Like I said, sorry, I've been busy with the holidays and looking for work.


I have to say, I'm a little confused by the second one. I got called a motherfucker pretty much right away (the "motherfucker" in that youtube clip was definitely personal; it wasn't being used as an intensifier). I didn't bother with that much, because I knew better than to make things about my feeeeeeeeelings, but I'd say the conversation started with personal attacks and continued with them. Newyorkjon wasn't making personal attacks, and I was trying really hard not to, but they were there the whole time.



I appreciate this a lot. I haven't been to Babes in Bikeland, but I've met people who have.

So what'd I miss?







Were you listening to The Dude's story?