Instead of banning certain members...

[Stefan Mikes]

...yet another good thread went into the Outer Space.

What's that with the 1st Amendment? Are we rightful to discuss matters in the Off-Topic Non-Ebike subforum? Or, a kind of a censorship?

@Angela M.: The world is on a brink of a world war. Are the users allowed discuss it in the Off-Topic Non-Ebike Discussion?

 

[e-boy]

The world war has already started .

 

[Stefan Mikes]

The world war has already started .

We don't know if we are permitted to even say a word on it @e-boy...

Anyway:
That old joke on a man in Moscow who buys a newspaper, watches the first page then throws the paper out.
-- What are you doing? -- the newsstand man asks.
-- Just browsing obituaries -- replies the guy.
-- What?! Obituaries are never printed on the front page!
-- Oh, the obituary I'm waiting for will be certainly printed there...

 

[Mike_V]

Old fashioned Americans MAY again be able to send along " a small little som'tin, som'tin ".

" US state department has been processing requests rapidly for the export of firearms and ammunition to Ukraine under its existing processes and authorities," a department spokesperson said."

 

[Cowlitz]

...yet another good thread went into the Outer Space.

What's that with the 1st Amendment? Are we rightful to discuss matters in the Off-Topic Non-Ebike subforum? Or, a kind of a censorship?

@Angela M.: The world is on a brink of a world war. Are the users allowed discuss it in the Off-Topic Non-Ebike Discussion? Possibly without the presence of the biggest troll in these Forums?

The first amendment applies to public (excuse me, I have not had my coffee yet) sites. Like I can stand in a public park and orate a bit about whatever. The government cannot be a censor. However, the private business person can censor on their own websites and businesses for example. If this was a .gov site, we would have a case. But it isn't.

I thought the war thread was dead because of too much discussion of McDonalds. Except for the blocked by most trolls, it was going along quite civilly.

I like hearing about the activity in Poland from you. Please try to keep on.

 

[Cowlitz]

Oh, and my attempt to explain most likely has tons of exceptions. Like military secrets, or for me, whilst working for a government agency, had to only speak the assigned "talking points" on controversial projects.

 

[ChezCheese:)]

We need to be able to discuss this war. We are all in it. It will affect everything, just like 9/11 did. Though we are far away, though we may not (yet) have "boots on the ground", warfare is not only about guns and missiles, submarines and tanks. Putain is correct that sanctions are warfare. We will be crippling the Russian economy as surely as if we blew up their factories and starved their grannies. The fact that Ukraine has to reserve its grain and other foodstuffs means there will be shortages and price hikes in countries who are not "involved". Parts and components manufactured in another country, be it this side of the new Iron Curtain or that, these things will not be available. Next will come the cyber attacks. Do you have your Plan B and C for when the grid goes out or the airports can't function or the gas pumps run out or the hospital can't find your spouse's file or your bank account is inaccessible, all due to cyber attacks none of us know how to fix?

We had been trying create a world where everything and everyone was interconnected so that war - conventional war - would be impossible. That Putain has gone ahead and invaded - via conventional war - shows either that he is off his rocker, or that the premise of interconnectivity preventing war is simply untrue.

As untrue as when Queen Victoria's grandson (Kaiser Wilhelm) sent armies against his cousin King George of Great Britain in World War I.

 

[Comfortably Numb]

...yet another good thread went into the Outer Space.

What's that with the 1st Amendment? Are we rightful to discuss matters in the Off-Topic Non-Ebike subforum? Or, a kind of a censorship?

@Angela M.: The world is on a brink of a world war. Are the users allowed discuss it in the Off-Topic Non-Ebike Discussion? Possibly without the presence of the biggest troll in these Forums?

I went looking for it last night with no luck either. The previous thread that was simply asking if Stefan was OK and ended up praising the Poles for the help they were offering the Ukrainian refugees also got deleted. Hell, it was in Off Topic, non-ebike. I can see if it were to heads off on a political melee tangent, but WTH? CN

 

[Mike_V]

...yet another good thread went into the Outer Space.

What's that with the 1st Amendment? Are we rightful to discuss matters in the Off-Topic Non-Ebike subforum? Or, a kind of a censorship?

@Angela M.: The world is on a brink of a world war. Are the users allowed discuss it in the Off-Topic Non-Ebike Discussion? Possibly without the presence of the biggest troll in these Forums?

"Here's look'in at you, Cheers " ,

Stephan

 

[Gordon71]

We had some good news the other day in that Biden banned any oil imports from Russia. Bad news though is no planes.

 

[m@Robertson]

What we DON'T need is to take a step that pisses off VP to the point where he decides to punish Poland militarily. Current Russian military doctrine considers tactical nuclear weapons an available option in their order of battle. So not only do we not want him to feel cornered to the point where he sends over a missile or three and trigger Article 5... we also don't want to beat him so badly, so quickly that he decides he needs to send in tactical nukes to wrap this mess up quickly so he can move forward finally. Steady, low-intensity, grinding military and economic pressure is the way to get through this without spreading the war. The longer it takes, when he finally cracks and tries to take it up a level his support internally may at that point finally have eroded and he then shares the same fate as Czar Nicholas, who also made the mistake of fighting a 'weak' foreign power (Japan) and losing. Sadly that does not mean anything good for Ukraine and more importantly the Ukrainians.

I am not worried about a conventional Russian attack. This is not the Soviet army that outnumbered NATO 5 to 1 in tanks and God knows by how much in troops. The imbalance is now in our favor by the same margins in the opposite direction, not only in raw numbers but also in quality of training and materiel. Putin is painfully aware of this; more so now that he's seen how effective his war machine is vs. what he thought it would be.

As much as I would dearly love to see those MiGs take to Ukrainian skies, the plan to get them there thru Rammstein was just plain poorly thought thru. I understand why the Polish government didn't want to send them directly over... same reason we can't have American pilots flying them in. And maybe the same reason we can't have Ukrainians taking a train ride to Germany to 'sneak' into the base and 'steal' them when base security has been given the day off.

In the long run it may be a smarter play to keep shipping in ground to air missiles as we did in Afghanistan. This needs to be played as a long game ... all the worse for the Ukrainian people but better for the survival of the world.

 

[scrambler]

In the first thread ("Where's Stefan Mikes?") the troll was saying something about his right to speak and the 1st Amendment. I replief Mr. VP didn't hear about that amendment. Those posts were deleted before blocking that thread.

My question to the Administrator is what is permitted to discuss in this Forum and what is not so we do not need to guess whether it was about McD or anything/anyone else.

Meanwhile in Ukraine...
View attachment 116378

I would suspect the thread was deleted because of some stinky content which was certainly not yours.
We know who the offender was in that thread....
I am all for free speech, but there is a complicated line when it goes overboard. So much damage has been done with despicable disinformation...

But if it was my site, I would ban the troll(s) not delete the thread

 

[Gordon71]

What we DON'T need is to take a step that pisses off VP to the point where he decides to punish Poland militarily. Current Russian military doctrine considers tactical nuclear weapons an available option in their order of battle. So not only do we not want him to feel cornered to the point where he sends over a missile or three and trigger Article 5... we also don't want to beat him so badly, so quickly that he decides he needs to send in tactical nukes to wrap this mess up quickly so he can move forward finally. Steady, low-intensity, grinding military and economic pressure is the way to get through this without spreading the war. The longer it takes, when he finally cracks and tries to take it up a level his support internally may at that point finally have eroded and he then shares the same fate as Czar Nicholas, who also made the mistake of fighting a 'weak' foreign power (Japan) and losing. Sadly that does not mean anything good for Ukraine and more importantly the Ukrainians.

I am not worried about a conventional Russian attack. This is not the Soviet army that outnumbered NATO 5 to 1 in tanks and God knows by how much in troops. The imbalance is now in our favor by the same margins in the opposite direction, not only in raw numbers but also in quality of training and materiel. Putin is painfully aware of this; more so now that he's seen how effective his war machine is vs. what he thought it would be.

As much as I would dearly love to see those MiGs take to Ukrainian skies, the plan to get them there thru Rammstein was just plain poorly thought thru. I understand why the Polish government didn't want to send them directly over... same reason we can't have American pilots flying them in. And maybe the same reason we can't have Ukrainians taking a train ride to Germany to 'sneak' into the base and 'steal' them when base security has been given the day off.

In the long run it may be a smarter play to keep shipping in ground to air missiles as we did in Afghanistan. This needs to be played as a long game ... all the worse for the Ukrainian people but better for the survival of the world.

As long as we use every sanction we can possibly think of against Russia (I don't care if it drives gas to $10/gal.) and KEEP them up until every Russian soldier is out of Ukraine and Russia has paid for all the damage and loss of life it inflicted.

 

[tomjasz]

What's that with the 1st Amendment?

It has no relevance here. This is a privately owned forum. They can moderate with impunity.

 

[tomjasz]

Just ignore the troll. It greatly improves the forum experience. There are really only a very few asshats. If we don't engage the troller's the OT thread might have a better survival rate.

 

[Stefan Mikes]

As much as I would dearly love to see those MiGs take to Ukrainian skies, the plan to get them there thru Rammstein was just plain poorly thought thru.

It was a shame on "our" Govt. They cannot do anything right but love to brag in the media what they would do. It is not my government. And it is not the Polish government that helps our Ukrainian guests out. It is the Polish individuals and NGOs.

It has no relevance here. This is a privately owned forum. They can moderate with impunity.

If that's so, there is no issue to ban the offender. He's still at large tho' Is it easier to delete a thread where so many respected members took their part.
I wrote several posts in which I was trying to explain the Polish-Russian-Ukrainian historical and contemporary context. All my work was lost.

Just ignore the troll. It greatly improves the forum experience.

He's been ignored for almost two years by me. It didn't stop him to smear this forum with **** and thinking he painted the Sistine Chapel (a quote).

 

[PatriciaK]

I think part of the issue with "controversial" off-topic discussions is that the are not a whole bunch of moderators/admins here, and their job is to manage threads related to company business - electric bike reviews. I think it's great that Court et al allow off topic discussions, but always try to remember that he's not OBLIGATED, by any means, to do so. Also, there are rules here about posting - we all need to abide by them, no matter what the topic .

 

[Stefan Mikes]

I think part of the issue with "controversial" off-topic discussions is that the are not a whole bunch of moderators/admins here, and their job is to manage threads related to company business - electric bike reviews. I think it's great that Court et al allow off topic discussions, but always try to remember that he's not OBLIGATED, by any means, to do so. Also, there are rules here about posting - we all need to abide by them, no matter what the topic .

The simplest way would be deleting the Off-Topic subforum and let the trolls win.
It is what Mr. VP would have certainly loved in his long streak of misfortunes.

 

[Angela M.]

Anything regarding politics or religion is a highly controversial topic. The issue is that the threads do not stay on topic for long. It begins that way then one person makes responds with their opinion or beliefs, others chime in to refute that information and the thread begins to quickly go south. This forum was created to talk mainly about electric bikes. There are plenty of other forums and platforms to talk about politics. We do our best to keep EBR a safe place where the members treat each other with kindness and respect. When bringing up controversial topics members are passionate about their beliefs. The subject turns ugly quickly. That is not what we want from EBR. If a thread begins to require a ton of moderating where there are many posts deleted and the thread begins to not make sense, it is likely to be shut down. This doesn't happen often in general, as I try to be as lenient as possible while trying to keep the values of EBR, but threads that do get shut down are usually about politics, religion, or posts being exchanged between members who don't let up.

 

[Angela M.]

We give everyone the benefit of the doubt. A member will not be simply be banned because they stepped out of line or another member wants them banned. We all make mistakes. Warnings are given. When the issue reoccurs after multiple warnings they will be banned.