Nuxx:9049f03b-c3f5-44a4-81b4-1376cc9a2376@f16g2000vbf.googlegroups.com

Path: num2.nntp.dca.giganews.com!num1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!number.nntp.dca.giganews.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!postnews.google.com!f16g2000vbf.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail Message-ID: <9049f03b-c3f5-44a4-81b4-1376cc9a2376@f16g2000vbf.googlegroups.com> From: Nuxx Bar  Newsgroups: uk.rec.cycling Subject: Re: Cyber-bullying and anonymity Date: Sun, 17 May 2009 21:47:31 -0700 (PDT) References:  Lines: 57 Organization: http://groups.google.com NNTP-Posting-Host: 86.145.66.20 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: posting.google.com 1242622051 3706 127.0.0.1 (18 May 2009 04:47:31 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 18 May 2009 04:47:31 +0000 (UTC) Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: f16g2000vbf.googlegroups.com; posting-host=86.145.66.20; posting-account=7_6kYAkAAABD6HrjM0VxehwvZOKMxm4g User-Agent: G2/1.0 X-HTTP-UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-GB; rv:1.9.0.10) Gecko/2009042316 Firefox/3.0.10 (.NET CLR 3.5.30729),gzip(gfe),gzip(gfe) Bytes: 4276 Xref: perfectly-safe.chapmancentral.co.uk uk.rec.cycling:702317

On May 17, 8:05 pm, Squashme  wrote: > Wikipedia may help us understand what is happening in urc:- > > "Certain characteristics inherent in online technologies increase the > likelihood that they will be exploited for deviant purposes. Unlike > physical bullying, electronic bullies can remain virtually anonymous > using temporary email accounts, pseudonyms in chat rooms, instant > messaging programs, cell-phone text messaging, and other Internet > venues to mask their identity; this perhaps frees them from normative > and social constraints on their behavior." > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyber-bullying > > There are no constraints at all. > > It's not the main perpetrators that disturb me so much. I have no > understanding of them, but they suffer enough by being themselves. > It's the hangers-on who join in on their coat-tails, and are often > people with whom in other circumstances it is/was enjoyable to argue.

Excuse me. What is so bad about objecting to car-haters who lie about hating cars and advocate anti-motorist measures which kill people, while oh-so-ironically pretending that they're doing it for "safety"? How on Earth does that amount to "bullying"? The only bullies here are the ones who try, laughably unsuccessfully (thank goodness), to bully motorists out of their cars.

As I've said goodness knows how many times before: if this really was just a straightforward group about cycling in the UK, with no controversial posters with controversial, anti-car opinions, why on Earth would any of the "trolls" bother? The only groups with "trolling" problems are those in which a sufficient number of the regulars insist on advocating controversial approaches and opinions.

Now on religion-themed newsgroups, you're always going to get problems, because religion is bollocks and makes the world a much worse place to live in, and on a religion-themed newsgroup you have to talk about religion. But there's no *need* to advocate anti-motorist measures on a cycling newsgroup: being pro-cycling and being anti-car are two completely different, often conflicting things, even if car- haters pretend to be pro-cycling in a pathetic effort to be accepted by reasonable people.

So the solution is really very simple: since it's a cycling newsgroup, talk about cycling, and prevent the car-haters from abusing the resource for their own selfish reasons. If people only ever posted about actual pro-cycling matters, and didn't post anti-car shit, why would the "trolls" be attracted to this group any more than they were to a knitting newsgroup? We all know perfectly well that they wouldn't be.

The current situation is the fault of the car-hating fuckwits who are hijacking the cause of cycling and this newsgroup, and also the fault of those real cycling advocates who accept it, instead of realising that the car-haters are causing immense damage to their cause and telling them to go fuck themselves, starting with the detestable Chapman and the lunatic Spindrift.