On 9 July, 15:07, Dave J.  wrote:
> In MsgID on Mon, 06 Jul 2009
> 16:27:29 퍝, in uk.net.news.config, 'jms' wrote:
>
> >I strongly believe in the wearing pf cycle helmets.  There is no need
> >why my sig which promotes them should be censored - which is obviously
> >the object of the exercise.
>
> And what's more, you believe in enforcing this, which would undoubtedly
> marr the future of cycling. You're a nasty little control freak who wants
> to tell people what to do (in effect tell them not to bother with a push
> bike if they don't want to be hassled into wearing a silly hat) and it
> really pisses me off that we happen to be on the same side over the likely
> childish behaviour of the moderators should this group be created.
>
> Two rather nice signature examples, both of which apply in this posting.
> The first especially to the moderators and the second especially to you.
>
> (Despite the drastic trivialisation in this mis-application)
>
> I may not agree with what you say, but will defend to the death your right
> to say it. Voltaire
>
> They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
> safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. Benjamin Franklin
>
> Dave J.

Judith has every right to say what she(?) wants. No-one is
(unfortunately;-) banning her from the whole of usenet. Without some
sort of powers to control what is in sigs anyone could post any sort
of racist/sexist/homophobic/offensive rant in their sig and no-one
could do anything about it. Also we could have entire "debates"
carried on in sigs rather than in the posts where they belong.
Personally I think we have to trust the moderators (by we I mean
everyone who would like to see the end of Judith/Nuxx and similar
trolling). If the moderators don't do their job properly we can always
go back to urc. And I don't understand what this censorship thing is
about - people are free to post anywhere unmoderated. If I want to
(for example) boycott Israeli products I wouldn't cry censorship if
the Israeli government doesn't put it on their web-site. If somehow I
was prevented from saying it *everywhere* then I would complain about
censorship.

Rudi

On Fri, 10 Jul 2009 01:20:20 -0700 (PDT), RudiL 
wrote:

>> You mean Rudi is a ska fan *and* a cyclist?
>Yes I am a ska fan! Also lots of other music

I think there was ska in Canada Square today, certainly something of a
similar tone colour was playing as I cycled past, but I was on my way
home to sing Schubert so did not stop to check.

Guy
-- 
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

On Sat, 11 Jul 2009 14:05:45 +0100, Dave J. 
wrote:

>The sigs we're on about are polite, well formatted, legal, and acceptable
>to all AUPs. 

Really?  Let's look at a real-world example shall we?

  "Primary position" the middle of a traffic lane.  To take the
  "primary position" :  to ride a bike  in the middle of the lane in
  order to obstruct other road vehicles from overtaking.

  A term invented by and used by psycholists and not recognised in the
  Highway Code.

  Highway Code Rule 168 : "Never obstruct drivers who wish to pass." 

As used by the elephant-in-the-room and sole cause of that rule being
in there.

Examining the points one by one, and craving unnc's indulgence as all
of this was pointed out long ago on urc:

* The primary position, or in US parlance "taking the lane", has been
  a recommendation of best practice for as long as I've been
  interested in cycling.  It's advocated in books by Richard
  Ballantine, John Forester and John Franklin, three of the most
  widely-read authorities on cycling.  Two of them are professional
  cycle trainers and expert witnesses.
* The purpose of the primary position is not to obstruct, it is to
  communicate to other road users, who may well not be experienced
  cyclists, that this is a place where sharing a carriageway is not
  safe, and to help the cyclist to be seen and properly accounted for.
  It's recommended at places like junctions and pinch points
  where there is a significantly elevated risk if a cyclist is out of 
  drivers' principal point of focus.  It is for self-preservation. 
* I don't know who invented the practice but Forester's /Effective 
  Cycling/ was, I think, the first widely-published book to recommend
  it.  He called it "taking the lane", and that is a term which has 
  some connotations of asserting a right which does not exist (as in
  taking without consent); the term primary position was coined by 
  John Franklin in Cyclecraft.
* The term "psycholist" as defined by judith in another of her sigs
  has no wide currency but is clearly pejorative.  Any urc posters who
  know John Franklin will agree with me, I think, that he is a quiet, 
  thoughtful man to whom the term "psycholist" is inappropriate, not
  to mention insulting.
* Highway Code rule 168 actually says: "Being overtaken. If a driver
  is trying to overtake you, maintain a steady course and speed,
  slowing down if necessary to let the vehicle pass. Never obstruct
  drivers who wish to pass. Speeding up or driving unpredictably while
  someone is overtaking you is dangerous. Drop back to maintain a
  two-second gap if someone overtakes and pulls into the gap in front 
  of you."

So the signature is comprised of:
* A rant against best practice.
* A pejorative term for those who advocate best practice
* A selective quote intended to imply that best practice is not legal
  or is officially deprecated, despite it being part of the National
  Standards for cycle training.

You can't fix these problems by recrafting the sig to fit within
character constraints.

This debate has been about this user, the only one who has used the
sigblock in this way, trying to craft a rule which will allow her to
continue using the sigblock in a provocative way that carries on an
argument in a part of the post which convention says is not for that
purpose and should not be replied to.  The mods have, wisely in my
view, largely refused to play that game and have said that they
reserve the right to moderate based on any part of the post.

I've not seen an example of a signature by a good-faith user which has
been identified as a likely moderation target.  Does anyone have such
an example?

Guy
-- 
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

In MsgID on Sat, 11 Jul 2009
15:39:31 +0100, in uk.net.news.config, 'Just zis Guy, you know?' wrote:

>On Sat, 11 Jul 2009 14:05:45 +0100, Dave J. 
>wrote:
>
>>The sigs we're on about are polite, well formatted, legal, and acceptable
>>to all AUPs. 
>
>Really?  Let's look at a real-world example shall we?

OK, though I'll explain at the end that my whole point is about the
content of a sig not being worthy of the same consideration (or rather
being worthy more of consideration of the personality of the poster than
the topic of the group) as the content of the posting.

I am however interested in dissecting what you're saying WRT the local
leader of right-angle-to-reality navigation.

['Primary Position']

If anyone wants to waste bandwidth in telling me I'm talking rubbish here
then please do so, though only briefly, as I'm capable of using google to
discover what's already been said.

>  "Primary position" the middle of a traffic lane.  To take the
>  "primary position" :  to ride a bike  in the middle of the lane [... for good reason ...]


OK, so fair enough apart from 'with intent to obstruct other vehicles' -
but you can actually hold that up as a part of the intent. AFAICT The
reason it's so often recommended is that you're taking the position due to
a vehicle on the road, which is what you are, not a bollard at the side
nor a pedestrian on the pavement, a *vehicle*. 

Because of the frailty, because of the need for full visual perception of
environment and because of the space required for normal maneuvers the
space required by a cyclist is very similar to the space required for a
car. 

Ok, this space can be 'cut into' under plenty of circumstance, in way that
isn't true of the physicality of a car's occupation. BUT this is anything
but constantly true. Especially when the cyclist can see and knows that it
should not be done. 

To attempt to leave the decision in the hands of the motorists around you
is madness; cycling using 'as little road-space as possible' is a
blatantly silly approach. As little as is *safe* perhaps, but it's not
your primary objective. If you're occupying all the space due to the
vehicle you are then when it *does* make sense to yield a sizeable
fraction of that space in order to make maneuvers easier it takes up no
more than a fraction of a second to do so. Reclaiming such space if things
change is a different story.

The time taken to indicate to a motorist that they should *not* be helping
themselves to that space, and the time taken by the motorist to realise
this is a large multiple of the time taken to just duck out of the way.

It's therefore nonsensical to have anything other than 'primary position'
as your *default* position. How often you voluntarily give away that
default position is a matter of taste, but to do so should remain a
conscious decision. You are sacrificing an increased chance of an accident
against a slight decrease in travelling time for the motorists around you.
This doesn't necessarily make it an unlikely choice but the orders of
magnitude between potential profit and loss should be reflected in the
ratio between the risks and gains of one choice over the other. 

Most people (myself included) give up the default position under most
normal road circumstances, but it is a conscious choice. You are choosing
to yield some of the space that is due to you. I do this most of the time
when cycling on roads with a reasonable amount of space and no unusual
conditions, but it is still a conscious decision to 'stay relatively out
of the way' My idea of a fair compromise usually puts me right on the
inside edge of most painted cycle lanes. Otherwise I (IMHO) end up
slightly too close to the kerb/gutter to be safe. Esp when there are
pedestrians. (Sheffield council width cycle lanes)


Here's the point I'm making WRT just the way the objection is phrased in
the signature I quote above 

> in order to obstruct other road vehicles from overtaking.

Because the point of 'primary position' is to insist on the space due to a
full sized vehicle, the objective does involve detering other vehicles
from overtaking. You want them to overtake only when/if they will leave
you with sufficient space, and generally treat you with the same amount of
respect as any other mode of road-transport. On busy and severely awkward
corners I will sometimes even get off the bike either to let people pass
or to walk on the verge. I do the same - well, pull in somewhere - if I'm
trundling (say looking for somewhere) in a car.

The only differences are between a car's space and that of a cyclist are
a) that clipping a cyclist's reserved space results only in briefly
increased risk and some choice words, whereas clipping the same space of a
car results in dented wings and an insurance claim; and b) that doing the
equivalent of putting in a car door on a cyclist's space results in
ambulance, police car, and probable strawberry jam.

Because of those differences, you *don't* want a car to overtake when it's
not safe and since *you* usually have the best point of view to evaluate
that factor (as well as being the one who'll pay the price for a wrong
answer) you use the primary position as a way to force motorists to either
overtake you as they would a full size vehicle or to wait until you know
it's safe and move to a more pedestrian-on-wheels location to encourage
them to pass.

Therefore IMHO you do sit there in order to 

> obstruct other road vehicles from overtaking.

if it is not safe for them to do so.

>* The purpose of the primary position is not to obstruct, it is to
>  communicate to other road users, who may well not be experienced
>  cyclists, that this is a place where sharing a carriageway is not
>  safe, and to help the cyclist to be seen and properly accounted for.
>  It's recommended at places like junctions and pinch points
>  where there is a significantly elevated risk if a cyclist is out of 
>  drivers' principal point of focus.  It is for self-preservation. 

It is recommended where there is insufficient room for a car to sit or
pass beside you. No?

I'm sorry to have gone on about this, but I wanted to get across the way I
see the dispute between some of J's exagerated (though at least 50 percent
wrong) waffle and the now-hypersensitive common sense reproach.

I would be interested to hear how you respond to my analysis of the issue
and whether you think I've covered the relevant tangents. 

If the above description is halfway valid then I suspect that the true
difference of opinion, the different perceptions of different aspects of
the behaviour, the controlling factors rather than the 'bottom lines', may
be sufficiently minor that focussing there rather than further down may
well have yielded a compromise.

Some of it can even be seen as a linguistic dispute.

It's of such an hour and I've commited so much pondering to 'paper' that
I'll leave it there but if you'll respond to what I've written  -
remembering I have almost *no* background of past debate on this, my
encounter during the little bit of compressed lurking didn't penetrate
deeply enough to still be at my fingertips -  then it will teach me a lot
about a problem I feel is adequately signified by the signature dispute.

I can continue and react to the rest of the posting but I suspect I'm on
such a tangent to a tangent that it's not worth anyone's bandwidth.

Final bits:

"psycholist" is obviously a negatively intended mutation (there is a
proper word for mongrelising words together to create new ones) and is
equally obviously not an English word. It's not going to make it past the
moderator. Similarly for a good many of that poster's sigs I suspect. 

>* A rant against best practice.
>* A pejorative term for those who advocate best practice

Automatically moderated out, that's where the human judgement comes in.

>* A selective quote intended to imply that best practice is not legal
>  or is officially deprecated, despite it being part of the National
>  Standards for cycle training.

Quote mined and attributed correctly shouldn't be a problem, anyone can
come up with any such rubbish and it can either be temporarily corrected
by someone else's sig, or it can be left to be countered by any reasonable
search, or can be just left to keep the credence usually granted to junk
in sigs. It's only a sig. Provided it's superficially honest there's no
reason to ban it.


Dave J.

-- 
You should TRUST me. I speak on behalf of an infinitely powerful MAGICAL
FAIRY! He creates universes as a HOBBY with his own slaves for worship.
I speak to him every night before I go to sleep. His infinite wisdom
whispers in my ear. I cannot be wrong. My holey Wizard is always right.

Dave J. wrote:

[ ... ]

> "psycholist" is obviously a negatively intended mutation (there is a
> proper word for mongrelising words together to create new ones) and is
> equally obviously not an English word. It's not going to make it past the
> moderator. Similarly for a good many of that poster's sigs I suspect.

What about "cager"?

How about "goose" or "gander"?

Just zis Guy, you know? wrote:

> JNugent  wrote:

>> What about "cager"?

> Who uses that in their signatures?

But why would it not be acceptable in a signature but acceptable in the body 
of a posting?

Or (as one would expect) would it be equally unacceptable in either?

Andy Leighton wrote:

> JNugent  wrote:
>> Just zis Guy, you know? wrote:
>>> JNugent  wrote:

>>>> What about "cager"?

>>> Who uses that in their signatures?

>> But why would it not be acceptable in a signature but acceptable in the body 
>> of a posting?
>> Or (as one would expect) would it be equally unacceptable in either?

> For me a lot of acceptability depends on context.
> There is however sine important differences between "cager" and "psycholist"
> as far as I am concerned.  

> The latter was invented by its main user (who is not a cyclist as far as we
> can tell) as a way of getting people's goats.  If you read her original
> definition it isn't just a term for cyclist but a derogatory term for most
> of those who contribute to urc.  It has no traction outside of a couple of
> people - none of which are considered useful members of the group.  Finally 
> it was used in an extremely repetitious manner by its creator.

OK, it's abusive.

I don't think even its coiner and main user would argue that it isn't.

> The former does have a history of widespread use both by cyclists and by
> motor-cyclists.  The first usage seems to be around 1990 so I've been
> told.  Furthermore most people who use it also travel by car (often 
> regularly) so on its own it doesn't have quite the derogatory bite that 
> psycholist has.

It's abusive.

Why make fish of one and fowl of another?

> If 'pyscholist' had been used as a throwaway line by someone who wasn't
> such a pain in the backside and so disruptive to the group, if it hadn't
> been given such an asinine definition, it may have got much wider use -
> either by car drivers OR by cyclists (to describe a subset of their group) 
> and eventual acceptability just like cager did.

> NOTE: all of this does not mean that all posts that use the word cager 
> are acceptable.  As I said before it depends on context.

"JNugent"  wrote in message 
news:tYSdncJHi525iMbXnZ2dnUVZ8oxi4p2d@pipex.net...
> Andy Leighton wrote:
>
>> JNugent  wrote:
>>> Just zis Guy, you know? wrote:
>>>> JNugent  wrote:
>
>>>>> What about "cager"?
>
>>>> Who uses that in their signatures?
>
>>> But why would it not be acceptable in a signature but acceptable in the 
>>> body of a posting?
>>> Or (as one would expect) would it be equally unacceptable in either?
>
>> For me a lot of acceptability depends on context.
>> There is however sine important differences between "cager" and 
>> "psycholist"
>> as far as I am concerned.
>
>> The latter was invented by its main user (who is not a cyclist as far as 
>> we
>> can tell) as a way of getting people's goats.  If you read her original
>> definition it isn't just a term for cyclist but a derogatory term for 
>> most
>> of those who contribute to urc.  It has no traction outside of a couple 
>> of
>> people - none of which are considered useful members of the group. 
>> Finally it was used in an extremely repetitious manner by its creator.
>
> OK, it's abusive.

It's a one man crusade to try and insult/upset/annoy cyclists. I doubt if it 
works. In fact I quite like the name. It kinda implies crazy dude cyclists, 
yeah man!

>> The former does have a history of widespread use both by cyclists and by
>> motor-cyclists.  The first usage seems to be around 1990 so I've been
>> told.  Furthermore most people who use it also travel by car (often 
>> regularly) so on its own it doesn't have quite the derogatory bite that 
>> psycholist has.
>
> It's abusive.

It's sympathetic term.

It is quite common for any minority group to have a non-offensive slang term 
which shows sympathy for the wider community who do not share their minority 
interest or they show a complete lack of understanding of it.

"Cagers" are people who drive cars but understand very little about cycling, 
motorcycling etc.

It is only "cagers" who get upset about being called "cagers".

If the cap fits...

"JNugent"  wrote

[snip]

> What about "cager"?
>

It is surely  deplorable in civilised discourse ever to use the term 
"cager"

The correct term is "cardine"

Jeremy Parker

Jeremy Parker wrote:
> "JNugent"  wrote
> 
> [snip]
> 
>> What about "cager"?
>>
> 
> It is surely  deplorable in civilised discourse ever to use the term 
> "cager"
> 
> The correct term is "cardine"
> 
> Jeremy Parker

:-)

On Sat, 11 Jul 2009 15:39:31 +0100, "Just zis Guy, you know?"
 wrote:

>On Sat, 11 Jul 2009 14:05:45 +0100, Dave J. 
>wrote:
>
>>The sigs we're on about are polite, well formatted, legal, and acceptable
>>to all AUPs. 
>
>Really?  Let's look at a real-world example shall we?
>
>  "Primary position" the middle of a traffic lane.  To take the
>  "primary position" :  to ride a bike  in the middle of the lane in
>  order to obstruct other road vehicles from overtaking.
>
>  A term invented by and used by psycholists and not recognised in the
>  Highway Code.
>
>  Highway Code Rule 168 : "Never obstruct drivers who wish to pass." 
>
>As used by the elephant-in-the-room and sole cause of that rule being
>in there.
>
>Examining the points one by one, and craving unnc's indulgence as all
>of this was pointed out long ago on urc:
>
>* The primary position, or in US parlance "taking the lane", has been
>  a recommendation of best practice for as long as I've been
>  interested in cycling.  It's advocated in books by Richard
>  Ballantine, John Forester and John Franklin, three of the most
>  widely-read authorities on cycling.  Two of them are professional
>  cycle trainers and expert witnesses.
>* The purpose of the primary position is not to obstruct, it is to
>  communicate to other road users, who may well not be experienced
>  cyclists, that this is a place where sharing a carriageway is not
>  safe, and to help the cyclist to be seen and properly accounted for.
>  It's recommended at places like junctions and pinch points
>  where there is a significantly elevated risk if a cyclist is out of 
>  drivers' principal point of focus.  It is for self-preservation. 
>* I don't know who invented the practice but Forester's /Effective 
>  Cycling/ was, I think, the first widely-published book to recommend
>  it.  He called it "taking the lane", and that is a term which has 
>  some connotations of asserting a right which does not exist (as in
>  taking without consent); the term primary position was coined by 
>  John Franklin in Cyclecraft.
>* The term "psycholist" as defined by judith in another of her sigs
>  has no wide currency but is clearly pejorative.  Any urc posters who
>  know John Franklin will agree with me, I think, that he is a quiet, 
>  thoughtful man to whom the term "psycholist" is inappropriate, not
>  to mention insulting.
>* Highway Code rule 168 actually says: "Being overtaken. If a driver
>  is trying to overtake you, maintain a steady course and speed,
>  slowing down if necessary to let the vehicle pass. Never obstruct
>  drivers who wish to pass. Speeding up or driving unpredictably while
>  someone is overtaking you is dangerous. Drop back to maintain a
>  two-second gap if someone overtakes and pulls into the gap in front 
>  of you."
>
>So the signature is comprised of:
>* A rant against best practice.
>* A pejorative term for those who advocate best practice
>* A selective quote intended to imply that best practice is not legal
>  or is officially deprecated, despite it being part of the National
>  Standards for cycle training.
>
>You can't fix these problems by recrafting the sig to fit within
>character constraints.
>
>This debate has been about this user, the only one who has used the
>sigblock in this way, trying to craft a rule which will allow her to
>continue using the sigblock in a provocative way that carries on an
>argument in a part of the post which convention says is not for that
>purpose and should not be replied to.  The mods have, wisely in my
>view, largely refused to play that game and have said that they
>reserve the right to moderate based on any part of the post.
>
>I've not seen an example of a signature by a good-faith user which has
>been identified as a likely moderation target.  Does anyone have such
>an example?
>
>Guy

(Sorry - it  is too good to snip any of it)

Fascinating.

Relevance - nil.

Proof of fuckwittery : extremely high.


--  

In 2007, there were 136 pedal cyclist fatalities and 2,428 seriously
injured casualties with the number killed or seriously injured
increasing in the last 3 years.
(Department for Transport)

On Mon, 13 Jul 2009 01:10:14 -0700 (PDT), "Just zis Guy, you know?"
 wrote:

>On Jul 13, 6:28 am, Dave J.  wrote:
>
>[snippety stuff]
>
>> Quote mined and attributed correctly shouldn't be a problem, anyone can
>> come up with any such rubbish and it can either be temporarily corrected
>> by someone else's sig, or it can be left to be countered by any reasonable
>> search, or can be just left to keep the credence usually granted to junk
>> in sigs. It's only a sig. Provided it's superficially honest there's no
>> reason to ban it.
>
>I disagree, and I think others do as well.  Using quote mining in this
>way, to be deliberately provocative, is not what the sigblock is for.
>If you want to argue the toss about a subject, do it in the post,
>don't wait until you've lost the argument and then try to win by
>simply repeating the defeated position in your sig forever.  It's
>rude, provocative, disruptive and goes against convention.



Sigs should be treated in exactly the same way as the body of the
post: moderation on content on not the author.

--        
Guy Chapman nym-shifted to Lou Knee in order to call someone a shit.
He was caught out by the evidence of the IP address he used.
He has "implied" that it was not himself - but refuses to answer the simple question:
"Guy Chapman: Did you make the Lou Knee post?"
He is despicable - on this evidence you should not believe *anything* he says.