Cycling UK Forum

Whose idea was this, then?

thirdcrank wrote::?:

Whose idea was this, then?

Indeed... a good question.

Could Admin or ANOther tell us why the shiny new board and why the existing thread has been locked?

I suggest we keep this thread as a replacement for the locked one.

Heavens above! I thought I'd stopped beleiving in conspiracy theories, and along comes another one

Can we continue with the debate here then folks? It wasn't easy deciding where to go to carry on, with all those shiny new boards.

Well having just read Newsnet I am surprised that there was nothing in there about this. (I am sure I had read somewhere recently that there would be).

Regulator wrote:Could Admin or ANOther tell us why the shiny new board and why the existing thread has been locked?

Sorry, I added a short post to the end of the locked thread in explanation, but perhaps it wasn't clear.

The old thread is locked because it has become too long to be useful. We (the Forum moderators, the CTC, and me) are hoping that having a dedicated board will allow the discussion to spread out and become easier to follow. Maximum discussion is important for the health of the CTC, I believe, so members are well-informed of the pros and cons before they vote at the AGM.

This board was set up by request of CTC, to provide a place for discussion of the issues. The board is being moderated by non-CTC people only, and we'll try to be as non-partisan and as neutral as can be. I hope we won't need to moderate much at all, but anything that starts looking defamatory about identifiable individuals may well be removed (I am technically personally liable as publisher if anyone posts libellous things here).

Shout if that doesn't make sense!

Anthony

admin wrote:... Shout if that doesn't make sense! ...

Of course, you are right that it is the CTC's forum and what they say goes. "With hindsight" there may have been fewer conspiracy theorists had there been a tincy-wincy bit of consultation first. (And out of the list of people you mention, I have now formed my own opinion about the motivation of this change.)

FWIW I thought the thread you locked was a model of good manners. People associated with particular decisions or policies which have been questioned and criticised may feel unhappy, but they have not IMO been subject to personal attack or anything approaching that. (And if anybody is thinking of consulting a lawyer specialising in defamation, I think it's accepted that if you accept public office, in its widest sense, you accept the potential for being criticised.)

Since you mention that the CTC (and you really should drop that definite article ) had a hand in chopping the discussion into bite-sized morsels, does that imply that concerns raised will be addressed here?

I see another old British organisation, the Royal Institution (also a membership charity), is in danger of going bust due to financial problems. It appears charity status is no financial panacea.

http://layscience.net/node/880

Can I speak up for the moderators here?

I moderate for another organisation. As a moderator, you are usually trying to help people to help themselves. If anyone's aim, in posting here, is to persuade others of their arguments (in either direction), then the reader is going to want a structured case - how does the CTC work, what are the financial benefits, what advice has been given, and so on. People in the old thread were already making comments on reading pages and pages of what was, let's face it, sometimes repetitive argument.

I'd like to suggest that those who want to convince other readers will try to work within the structure and make an organised case without too much repetition, and keep discussions on topic and within the correct headings. Of course, if you're not bothered about widening the debate, and hence don't really care whether the undecided and uninformed can make head or tail of all the circular arguments...

Nothing I said was intended as a criticism of the moderators (which is partly why I referred to 'a model of good manners.') OTOH, if any of those moderating meic's thread feel that I have been unfair I am happy to say that it was not intended.

And I do look forward to the debate being as wide as possible - and with participation from all sides.

The phrase Divide and Conquer comes to mind.

Admin,Just who in the CTC suggested setting up this divided board for discussions?

I think that nobody will be surprised to read that this layout did indeed come from Kevin Mayne. We're going to have to make the best of it.

Simon L6 wrote:I think that nobody will be surprised to read that this layout did indeed come from Kevin Mayne. We're going to have to make the best of it.

I can't see the problem. The old thread is still available and you can link to it. By way of example http://forum.ctc.org.uk/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=32222&start=285

The new layout enables each issue to be looked at and reviewed without having message relating to other issues getting in the way.

Regards,

John

bikepacker wrote:The phrase Divide and Conquer comes to mind.

It might, but it doesn't make sense to apply that here, surely?

The locking of the original 348 post was suggested by myself and Si, the main moderators who aren't affiliated to either Yes or No camps. While that thread may well have been a nice place to discuss things for those that have been involved in it from the start, it's not easy to read for newcomers. We, the moderators, want to get the discussion going amongst a much larger number of CTC members, and very few are going to want to read 347 messages on 24 pages before adding their own comments.

Keeping the discussion approximately on-topic (and you can start your own topics!!) should make it much easier for newcomers to read the bits they're interested in, and to skip reading the other stuff. I'd hope that this would make it easier for more people to read the pros and cons, and make their own minds up. The last thing the club needs is a decision made by a small select group, with most of the membership left in the dark.

bikepacker wrote:Admin,Just who in the CTC suggested setting up this divided board for discussions?

The new board was set up at the same time as the CTC posted their pages of information about the Charity merger proposal. We added sticky topics that matched the CTC pages on the request of Kevin Mayne, as he wanted somewhere that people could discuss these pages (the current CTC site not having any facilities to allow this). This allows people, should they wish, to directly comment on the CTC reasons for wanting to merge, with a link back to the CTC reasons they are commenting on.

Simon L6 wrote:I think that nobody will be surprised to read that this layout did indeed come from Kevin Mayne. We're going to have to make the best of it.

I'm not sure what the "layout" is that you refer to? Kevin requested a dedicated Charity Debate board, with a set of sticky topics that match the CTC pages for people to comment on them. I'm pretty sure he'd have enabled comments on the CTC pages themselves if the current website allowed such things, but it doesn't. Other than the sticky topics, the layout is no different to other boards on this Forum, and is fully flexible. In fact more flexible than a comment system on the CTC site, as you can add your own topics completely freely!

My suggestion is that if you have something "big" to discuss, that you make a new topic with a suitable title. You could add a quick post linking to it from other threads too, if you like, but people will tend to reply to the thread with the title that matches their interest best. Avoid massively-long threads if you want other people to read the discussion.

Since this is a neutral discussion board, I am more than happy to provide links to other websites with opposing opinions, and have already linked to the Save The CTC blog in the "Further Reading" announcement post on this board. I am also happy to make other topics sticky, to balance the "Yes" and "No" discussions, but I think the hot topics will naturally rise to the top anyway.

If there's anything else I or the moderators can do to assist with the discussion, do let me know. I am personally undecided on the issues, and am looking to read as much as possible about the pros and cons, with as much reasoned argument from both sides as possible!

Cheers!

Anthony