Nuxx:MPG.27829b8b44fe8eff989834@news.zen.co.uk

Path: num2.nntp.dca.giganews.com!num1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!number.nntp.dca.giganews.com!border3.nntp.dca.giganews.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!news-out2.kabelfoon.nl!newsfeed.kabelfoon.nl!bandi.nntp.kabelfoon.nl!zen.net.uk!hamilton.zen.co.uk!reader02.news.zen.co.uk.POSTED!not-for-mail Message-ID:  From: Nuxx Bar  Newsgroups: uk.net.news.moderation,uk.rec.cycling Subject: URC & URCM: How Do They Make Cyclists Look? Date: Mon, 27 Dec 2010 12:49:00 -0000 Lines: 29 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit User-Agent: MicroPlanet-Gravity/2.9.14 Organization: Zen Internet NNTP-Posting-Host: 1f8633d2.news.zen.co.uk X-Trace: DXC=;C8HN=LLNFRcSYjZGX^207P[`<MJMoM3PF]QaY7232OWQZBH4535cfTOP:\8d[4k;dk^_F5U3<joJ4Z X-Complaints-To: abuse@zen.co.uk Bytes: 2557 Xref: perfectly-safe.chapmancentral.co.uk uk.rec.cycling:795032

If a non-cyclist were to read URC and/or URCM, how do you think their perception of cyclists would be affected? On average, would you expect them to make people think more positively about cyclists, or less?

I think that the loud presence of obviously unreasonable cyclists like Chapman makes the answer to the above question "less". On URCM the effect is probably worse, as the moderation is so heavily biased towards the more extreme, less pleasant, more militant and more intolerant cyclists.

Motorists are probably more likely than non-motorists to get a negative impression of cyclists from reading URC/URCM, due to the obvious anti- car sentiment that some posters display.

Do you agree that URC and URCM don't do much for the image of cyclists? What can be done to improve the situation? Perhaps it's time to stop scapegoating "the wreckers" (aka "the trolls") for everything...I've hardly been around at all lately and it's not exactly as if things have suddenly improved as a result. You get the impression from some round here that two people, including me, are ultimately responsible for absolutely all the problems that there are. Ridiculous. If that really were the case then you would expect that if 50% of "the problem" disappeared then things would get much better.

We all know that in reality, everything is Trevor A Panther's fault. I look forward to reading his next lucid, booze-fuelled gem...seriously, his posts make me laugh more reliably than anyone else's! (Did you know that his real name actually is Trevor A Panther?  I always thought it was made up.)