Posted by Glenn Ribotsky on November 29, 2005 at 10:05:54:
In Reply to: Re: Forum Etiquette posted by ernie beach on November 28, 2005 at 22:33:39:
Interesting, though, you provide no context for the quote--you're not identifying who "those people" were, although I'll stand with the sentiment anyway. (I think I can back it up, with excerpts from many previous e-mails, including, ironically, some of yours.)
With this post, and the others asking "Is this about running" following other posts that obviously ARE about running, or how running is discussed in this forum, it seems YOU are spending far too much time worrying about me, for reasons I can only speculate about.
Every thread I have ever begun on this forum was about some running-related issue; though not every response (such as this one) has directly been, I still think I have consistently brought up more worthy-of-discussion running issues than just about anyone else here. Moreover, I worry that any one person--or group of people--would even think about being able to decide what constitutes a "running issue". That again leads to censorship, which I'm beginning to suspect some who post here would cheer on wholeheartedly. I also suspect those who would not accept such censorship generally do not post here, as they do not want to be disparraged. (Maybe I'm just a masochist.)
I have no qualms about Rich, as website moderator, attempting to enforce rules about personal attacks, or other practices such as non-attribution of source, that could get those parties, or he and the site, into hot water. If Rich tried to enforce a vision of what type of post was "running-related" and the reasoning did not involve the above, but was arbitrary, then I'd have a problem. Rich, to his credit, has not attempted to do so, and only comes on here when things get out of hand and might have reprecussions in the outside (e.g., legal) world.
In the end, the bigger problem here may be that many people who run in SI just don't care about this forum, for whatever reason. The total number of posts in general of late has been very low--I think all of October went by without one. The number of people who post here now probably numbers in the dozens.
I'm sure that some here stand ready to accuse me of causing that situation, but I am only one person, and I doubt I alone have that much influence as to who posts here or how often. I suspect the pervasive atmosphere of "whatever certain people say, it's wrong" may have a far greater chilling effect.