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Re: Is this forum unrepresentative?

Posted: 6 Feb 2020, 7:30pm
by 661-Pete
Tangled Metal wrote:No, they were part of a local network of green activists. They were more centre right than anything.
In that case I must reiterate R2's question:
reohn2 wrote:Define left and right leaning and where the centre is?
Because I'm baffled.

A mix of guardian and DM readers probably reading both.
Really? I simply can't imagine anyone having the mental capacity to read both of those! After all, you do know that the Grauniad prints words of more than two syllables?!
(*pompous hat off*)

Either way they certainly weren't about clearing the roads for car use but they were Tory in outlook. However, the libdem were a big influence in the area and a lot of right leaning people were voting libdem purely because of who their candidate was. Personality over party loyalties. I've got family who voted against their political outlook because of who was the other party's candidate.
Well, all I can say is, that's not been the experience in my neck of the woods. Here, rightwing folk are dead set against provision for cycling, end of...

Re: Is this forum unrepresentative?

Posted: 6 Feb 2020, 7:50pm
by bigjim
I've worked for the EU and the Government so I have quite an insider knowledge of the internal machinations. But I kept away from the discussions. Yes the forum is, IMO very unrepresentative. I'm guilty of getting annoyed about some stuff so better staying out of it. I'd much rather discuss things face to face. I've learned my lesson about voicing my opinion on forums [but I think that's just what I've just done}. :)
However I've found all the cycling forums I've looked at seem to have the same political leanings.

Re: Is this forum unrepresentative?

Posted: 6 Feb 2020, 9:41pm
by RickH
pwa wrote:
horizon wrote:
pwa wrote: Or is that just me yearning for the days of the CTC?


I think it goes back to the days when CTC decided it would take on "cycling" as an issue. That was my first introduction to the CTC - I thought it was a campaigning organisation for urban cycle transport with a bit of leisure thrown in. Of course that's the opposite of what it was but it is still an identity problem for it. But I don't think it ever set out to take a stand on general political issues (apart from cycling and the environment).


I joined (though later left) the CTC because of my interest in touring and leisure cycling, and its move away from that focus was a disappointment to me. I have always done varying amounts of "utility" cycling but that doesn't provide me with the escape from the humdrum of workaday existence that cycling for fun does. I wonder if most people who loved the CTC for its traditional role have either expired on gone to sites like YACF where talk is about the next great adventure at the weekend.

But I wouldn't like to think that this Forum is now exclusively for utility cycling. That would be boring. I agree that it does attract people whose focus is in that direction, but there are also the rest of us.

The CTC really lost its way when it formed the Roads Improvement Association in 1886! It has never been the same since! :twisted:

Re: Is this forum unrepresentative?

Posted: 7 Feb 2020, 7:55am
by pwa
RickH wrote:The CTC really lost its way when it formed the Roads Improvement Association in 1886! It has never been the same since! :twisted:

Before my time :lol:

Re: Is this forum unrepresentative?

Posted: 7 Feb 2020, 8:22am
by John1054
Surely the Forum is representative of the prolific posters, as opposed to the majority of members who choose to remain in the background. The only way to restore balance is for more folk to post, or do we restrict our prolific posters? Whilst the moderation team readily remove or edit posts that don't conform to Forum rules, the thought of restricting posts to maintain balance (politically or otherwise) would be horrendous! How we could encourage the readers rather than posters to take part perhaps might be discussed amicably?

Re: Is this forum unrepresentative?

Posted: 7 Feb 2020, 8:30am
by Vorpal
There are a number of Conservative cycling groups, in various places. The Conservative Cycling Campaign are quite active on twitter as @ToryCycling and seem to promote and support reasonable initiatives. Cycling UK had events at both Labour & Conservative party conferences last year https://www.cyclinguk.org/votebike

Whilst I agree that the political mean for cyclists is probably slightly left of the general population, cycling, as they say, is a broad church. The full political spectrum is represented.

That said, I don't think that we can expect the regulars on this forum to be representative of either the population at large, or even cyclists in general.

We are keen enough on cycling to stick around and discuss it on a forum, which means that it's actually a pretty small part of what is already a small population (the 10 - 15% who cycle regularly).

I do think if the forum has a slant, it towards long distance cycling, and cycling activism. Neither of which are likely to be representative of any general population :lol:

Re: Is this forum unrepresentative?

Posted: 7 Feb 2020, 8:48am
by 661-Pete
John1054 wrote:Surely the Forum is representative of the prolific posters, as opposed to the majority of members who choose to remain in the background.
Nail hit on head, definitely! Mea Culpa (though not as prolific as some...)
The only way to restore balance is for more folk to post, or do we restrict our prolific posters? Whilst the moderation team readily remove or edit posts that don't conform to Forum rules, the thought of restricting posts to maintain balance (politically or otherwise) would be horrendous! How we could encourage the readers rather than posters to take part perhaps might be discussed amicably?
As you say, ghastly thought!

Re: Is this forum unrepresentative?

Posted: 7 Feb 2020, 8:58am
by 661-Pete
Vorpal wrote:There are a number of Conservative cycling groups, in various places. The Conservative Cycling Campaign are quite active on twitter as @ToryCycling and seem to promote and support reasonable initiatives. Cycling UK had events at both Labour & Conservative party conferences last year https://www.cyclinguk.org/votebike
Maybe my earlier rant about local Tory opposition to cycling provisions, is based on our local situation, with a few obstructive landowners (no doubt well-heeled, and presumably Tory or Kipper voters), who have persistently blocked attempts to set up a cycle-friendly link between our two neighbouring towns (Haywards Heath and Burgess Hill). Despite these towns being less than 4 miles apart, no such link exists, despite plenty of campaigning over the past 20 years or more. The three roads linking the towns are constantly busy with fast-moving traffic, one of them a rat-run. I am reasonably comfortable cycling these roads (Mrs P is less so) - but then I'm perhaps more experienced than many cyclists.

Nothing we can do about it: the District Council (Conservative-controlled) and the County Council (Conservative-controlled) have exhibited supreme outbursts of lethargy....

Hence my apparent bias...

Re: Is this forum unrepresentative?

Posted: 7 Feb 2020, 11:43am
by horizon
John1054 wrote:The only way to restore balance is for more folk to post, or do we restrict our prolific posters?


The third most prolific poster is Brucey (and on a shorter time period so he may well soon become the most prolific) and a recent thread concerning him gives me grounds to believe that his posts are welcome. :wink:

Re: Is this forum unrepresentative?

Posted: 7 Feb 2020, 1:19pm
by ambodach
The main difference I think between this forum and the general public is that those on the forum tend to be better educated and thus better informed than Joe Bloggs who gets information from the likes of the Daily Wail or others of the same ilk. Mind you I do not believe anything I may read or see in more "heavyweight " news outlets unless I can check it is true from other sources.What did we do before the internet?

Re: Is this forum unrepresentative?

Posted: 7 Feb 2020, 1:33pm
by NATURAL ANKLING
Hi,
I agree let's restrict the prolific posters.
I've put the line somewhere around number 15 :mrgreen: Hi,
Ouch I think I just shot myself in the foot :lol:

Re: Is this forum unrepresentative?

Posted: 9 Feb 2020, 6:39pm
by Ben@Forest
ambodach wrote:The main difference I think between this forum and the general public is that those on the forum tend to be better educated and thus better informed than Joe Bloggs who gets information from the likes of the Daily Wail or others of the same ilk. Mind you I do not believe anything I may read or see in more "heavyweight " news outlets unless I can check it is true from other sources.What did we do before the internet?


I'm never sure why the Mail gets more opprobrium than the Mirror. The Mirror has little political outlook other than blindly advising to vote Labour, it supported the fascists in the 1930s (its headline on 22 January 1934 was 'Give the Blackshirts a helping hand'), and it has many run untrue, sensationalist stories just like the Sun.

I don't read the Mail, but it's had campaigns which belie the easy accusations about it, notably about the Stephen Lawrence case and the treatment of elderly in care homes. Many commentators on this forum have as many blinkered left-wing views as the Mail may have right-wing.

Re: Is this forum unrepresentative?

Posted: 9 Feb 2020, 6:46pm
by rmurphy195
It is - its full of people who are against everything, and post the same old things over and over again so much that I sometimes think some of them have a keyword scanner coupled to an auto-post facility.

This particular section has loads of stuff on it that is quite useless, its so difficult to find any useful stuff on it, such as how to remove dog poo from your tyres - now that IS something that could help us all!

As for the rest - Philip Schofileds private life is his own, why does this forum need to pick it over? Coronavirus is saturating the news media, why obfuscate our own forum with it as well? Political stuff and abusive/libellous stuff about our politicians and others again serves to make the forum an unpleasant place to be.

Re: Is this forum unrepresentative?

Posted: 9 Feb 2020, 6:56pm
by PDQ Mobile
Ben@Forest wrote:
I don't read the Mail, but it's had campaigns which belie the easy accusations about it, notably about the Stephen Lawrence case and the treatment of elderly in care homes.


If you don't read it, how do you know? :wink:

Certainly the DM exhibts some very (imv) unpleasant characteristics.
Not least amongst them a sort of pseudo-moral high ground patting on the back of it's readership and it's own journos. Now that is hypocrisy!!

Personally I started to detest it very strongly when I read some of it's extremely biased anti-cycling rhetoric. And I don't wear black!

Though there are lots of other reasons too.

Re: Is this forum unrepresentative?

Posted: 9 Feb 2020, 6:57pm
by Tinpotflowers
661-Pete wrote:
Vorpal wrote:There are a number of Conservative cycling groups, in various places. The Conservative Cycling Campaign are quite active on twitter as @ToryCycling and seem to promote and support reasonable initiatives. Cycling UK had events at both Labour & Conservative party conferences last year https://www.cyclinguk.org/votebike
Maybe my earlier rant about local Tory opposition to cycling provisions, is based on our local situation, with a few obstructive landowners (no doubt well-heeled, and presumably Tory or Kipper voters), who have persistently blocked attempts to set up a cycle-friendly link between our two neighbouring towns (Haywards Heath and Burgess Hill). Despite these towns being less than 4 miles apart, no such link exists, despite plenty of campaigning over the past 20 years or more. The three roads linking the towns are constantly busy with fast-moving traffic, one of them a rat-run. I am reasonably comfortable cycling these roads (Mrs P is less so) - but then I'm perhaps more experienced than many cyclists.

Nothing we can do about it: the District Council (Conservative-controlled) and the County Council (Conservative-controlled) have exhibited supreme outbursts of lethargy....

Hence my apparent bias...



Look at a map there bridalways could they be converted to cycleways?