Nuxx:E72b7395-3bdf-4976-a6a7-5ecdc6e22099@n4g2000vba.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!n4g2000vba.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail Message-ID:  From: Nuxx Bar  Newsgroups: uk.net.news.config,uk.rec.cycling Subject: Re: RFD: create moderated newsgroup uk.rec.cycling.moderated Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2009 14:28:10 -0700 (PDT) References:    <56c41b6550.mrc7offline@mrc7acorn1.path.cam.ac.uk>  Lines: 49 Organization: http://groups.google.com NNTP-Posting-Host: 81.156.251.27 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Trace: posting.google.com 1244064491 22855 127.0.0.1 (3 Jun 2009 21:28:11 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2009 21:28:11 +0000 (UTC) Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: n4g2000vba.googlegroups.com; posting-host=81.156.251.27; 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: 4014 Xref: perfectly-safe.chapmancentral.co.uk uk.net.news.config:149187 uk.rec.cycling:1052620

On Jun 3, 1:14=A0pm, Ian Jackson  wrote: > In article <56c41b6550.mrc7offl...@mrc7acorn1.path.cam.ac.uk>, > Mike Clark =A0 wrote: > > > [some people] want to ban all discussion of certain cycling related > >topics. I cannot support that view as a justification for a > >moderated group. > > Let us suppose you wanted to have a discussion of whether more cycling > in Britain was a good thing. =A0Let us also suppose for a moment that it > is possible to find enough reasonable people on both sides of this > question that they could have a civil conversation about it.

More "My opponents on any issue are automatically unreasonable/uncivil/ trolls" nonsense.

> Do you think that uk.rec.cycling.moderated could be the best place to > have that discussion, with _any_ moderation policy ? =A0To be perfectly > honest, if I were an opponent of cycling, I would not want to try to > have that conversation in a newsgroup moderated by and intended for > cyclists, no matter what the charter said. > > Just as I wouldn't want to advocate atheism in uk.religion.christian > (moderated). =A0The only reason to do that would be to troll.

It's called a D-E-B-A-T-E. Usenet is full of such things, and for most (who aren't pathologically intolerant of others' opinions), they make life more interesting. The religion/atheism debate is a stimulating one which is perfect for usenet. But if you can't advocate atheism on a religious newsgroup, and you can't advocate religion on an atheism newsgroup, where the hell do you have such a debate? The answer, of course, is that such debates belong on *both* newsgroups, and only those who were scared of reading their opponents' opinions for fear of losing the debate would have any kind of issue with that idea.

If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. If you can't hack debates, don't go on usenet. Pretending that you want to create a "moderated" newsgroup when you actually just want to suppress certain opinions, and debate on certain topics, is an outright lie and it's unaccepable. Why not just run a web forum on chiark and drop this ridiculous pretence that there are going to be any rules except "Agree with us on the important subjects"? Why tarnish the reputation of URC even further?

Your post above really does sum up everything that's wrong with URC, and with this whole "moderation" sham. Please stop this nonsense now, before you irrevocably make URC even worse than it already is.