Why not make trolling illegal?

On Jul 10, 8:23*am, Dave - Cyclists VOR
Dave - Cyclists VOR. "Many people barely recognise the bicycle as a
legitimate mode of transport; it is either a toy for children or a
vehicle fit only for the poor and/or strange," Dave Horton - Lancaster
University

As a matter of interest, do you have a cite for your claim that "Many
people barely recognise the bicycle as a legitimate mode of
transport ..."?

Is it perhaps based on research at Lancaster University? Taxpayer
funded research? Has it been peer reviewed? And how many people is
"many people" in this context?

And what does "Cyclists VOR" mean? "Cyclists Velocipede On Road"?
Google is no help, it just refers back to your various posts to
Usenet.

"pensive hamster" wrote in message
...
On Jul 10, 8:23 am, Dave - Cyclists VOR
Dave - Cyclists VOR. "Many people barely recognise the bicycle as a
legitimate mode of transport; it is either a toy for children or a
vehicle fit only for the poor and/or strange," Dave Horton - Lancaster
University

And what does "Cyclists VOR" mean? "Cyclists Velocipede On Road"?
Google is no help, it just refers back to your various posts to
Usenet.

Voice of Reason?

--
Bartc

"Judith" wrote in message
news
On Tue, 10 Jul 2012 09:56:20 +0000 (UTC), Peter Keller

wrote:

On Tue, 10 Jul 2012 08:23:22 +0100, Dave - Cyclists VOR wrote:

Wicks is a cyclist. Need I say more?

uk.rec.cycling is here to discuss bicycling. Need I say more?



When was the last time that *you* discussed cycling here by any stretch of
the
imagination?

99% of your posts are nothing to do with cycling at all.

Have I said? : you are a ****wit

Most of his posts mention fish

On Jul 10, 3:58*pm, "BartC" wrote:
"pensive hamster" wrote in message

...

On Jul 10, 8:23 am, Dave - Cyclists VOR
Dave - Cyclists VOR. "Many people barely recognise the bicycle as a
legitimate mode of transport; it is either a toy for children or a
vehicle fit only for the poor and/or strange," Dave Horton - Lancaster
University
And what does "Cyclists VOR" mean? "Cyclists Velocipede On Road"?
Google is no help, it just refers back to your various posts to
Usenet.

Voice of Reason?


But then its ungrammatical - it should be Cyclist's Voice of Reason.

Or maybe it is meant to be: Cyclists - [the] Voice of Reason.

Not that that makes much sense either.

On 10/07/2012 16:25, pensive hamster wrote:

"BartC" wrote:
"pensive hamster" wrote:
On Jul 10, 8:23 am, Dave - Cyclists VOR [wrote]:

Dave - Cyclists VOR. "Many people barely recognise the bicycle as a
legitimate mode of transport; it is either a toy for children or a
vehicle fit only for the poor and/or strange," Dave Horton - Lancaster
University

And what does "Cyclists VOR" mean? "Cyclists Velocipede On Road"?
Google is no help, it just refers back to your various posts to
Usenet.

Voice of Reason?

But then its ungrammatical - it should be Cyclist's Voice of Reason.

That should have been "it's".

The version without the apostrophe is the possessive form. The contraction of
"it is" (your sense above) requires an apostrophe.

HTH.

On the meaning of "VOR":

If it were meant to convey that the writer is the Voice of Reason for just
one cyclist, what you say ("it should be Cyclist's Voice of Reason") would be
true.

If, however, as seems more likely, the gentleman concerned wishes to be seen
as the Voice of Reason for cyclists in general, then it would correctly be
"Cyclists' Voice of Reason".

I wouldn't have mentioned any of this but for your flaming another poster's
grammar. Unless yours is perfect, it's better not to. As an aside, some would
say that you need to do some work on the use of apostrophes - and on
reflection, you'd probably agree (I hope).

Or maybe it is meant to be: Cyclists - [the] Voice of Reason.
Not that that makes much sense either.

[I have just re-checked this post for typos and spelling before clicking
"send". But we all know what tends to happen with these sub-threads.]

On 10/07/2012 15:21, pensive hamster wrote:
On Jul 10, 8:23 am, Dave - Cyclists VOR
Dave - Cyclists VOR. "Many people barely recognise the bicycle as a
legitimate mode of transport; it is either a toy for children or a
vehicle fit only for the poor and/or strange," Dave Horton - Lancaster
University

As a matter of interest, do you have a cite for your claim that "Many
people barely recognise the bicycle as a legitimate mode of
transport ..."?

Yes thank you.

Is it perhaps based on research at Lancaster University? Taxpayer
funded research? Has it been peer reviewed? And how many people is
"many people" in this context?

GIYF

And what does "Cyclists VOR" mean? "Cyclists Velocipede On Road"?
Google is no help, it just refers back to your various posts to
Usenet.


Voice of Reason.



--
Dave - Cyclists VOR. "Many people barely recognise the bicycle as a
legitimate mode of transport; it is either a toy for children or a
vehicle fit only for the poor and/or strange," Dave Horton - Lancaster
University

On 10/07/2012 16:25, pensive hamster wrote:
On Jul 10, 3:58 pm, "BartC" wrote:
"pensive hamster" wrote in message

...

On Jul 10, 8:23 am, Dave - Cyclists VOR
Dave - Cyclists VOR. "Many people barely recognise the bicycle as a
legitimate mode of transport; it is either a toy for children or a
vehicle fit only for the poor and/or strange," Dave Horton - Lancaster
University
And what does "Cyclists VOR" mean? "Cyclists Velocipede On Road"?
Google is no help, it just refers back to your various posts to
Usenet.

Voice of Reason?


But then its ungrammatical - it should be Cyclist's Voice of Reason.

Or maybe it is meant to be: Cyclists - [the] Voice of Reason.

Not that that makes much sense either.

You are confusing me with someone who cares.


--
Dave - Cyclists VOR. "Many people barely recognise the bicycle as a
legitimate mode of transport; it is either a toy for children or a
vehicle fit only for the poor and/or strange," Dave Horton - Lancaster
University

On Jul 10, 5:55*pm, Dave - Cyclists VOR
wrote:
On 10/07/2012 16:25, pensive hamster wrote:







On Jul 10, 3:58 pm, "BartC" wrote:
"pensive hamster" wrote in message

....

On Jul 10, 8:23 am, Dave - Cyclists VOR
Dave - Cyclists VOR. "Many people barely recognise the bicycle as a
legitimate mode of transport; it is either a toy for children or a
vehicle fit only for the poor and/or strange," Dave Horton - Lancaster
University
And what does "Cyclists VOR" mean? "Cyclists Velocipede On Road"?
Google is no help, it just refers back to your various posts to
Usenet.

Voice of Reason?

But then its ungrammatical - it should be Cyclist's Voice of Reason.

Or maybe it is meant to be: Cyclists - [the] Voice of Reason.

Not that that makes much sense either.

You are confusing me with someone who cares.

Yay! 'Dave' deliberately makes yet another usenet enemy. The
counsellor will be fascinated with this compulsion of yours.

On 10/07/2012 18:29, M Wicks wrote:

Dave - Cyclists VOR wrote:
pensive hamster wrote:
"BartC" wrote:
"pensive hamster" wrote:
Dave - Cyclists VOR

Dave - Cyclists VOR. "Many people barely recognise the bicycle as a
legitimate mode of transport; it is either a toy for children or a
vehicle fit only for the poor and/or strange," Dave Horton - Lancaster
University

And what does "Cyclists VOR" mean? "Cyclists Velocipede On Road"?
Google is no help, it just refers back to your various posts to
Usenet.

Voice of Reason?

But then its ungrammatical - it should be Cyclist's Voice of Reason.
Or maybe it is meant to be: Cyclists - [the] Voice of Reason.
Not that that makes much sense either.

You are confusing me with someone who cares.

Yay! 'Dave' deliberately makes yet another usenet enemy. The
counsellor will be fascinated with this compulsion of yours.

If you had read the exchange more carefully, you would have spotted the
(rather obvious) fact that PH's post was a (mild) attack on "Dave". It
follows that "Dave" could not make an enemy of someone who was already
inimical to him. That's if "enemy" and its derivatives are the correct terms.
Some will differ on that.

Not, of course, that there's anything necessarily wrong with posting attacks,
as I'm sure that both you and "Dave" would readily agree.

"M Wicks" wrote in message
...
The newsgroup uk.rec.cycling is suffering from a trolling problem
which has gone on for several years. The trolls seem to mostly occupy
two groups. Group A consists of the more vicious and abrasive trolls,
who are quite open about being on uk.rec.cycling to 'wind up cyclists'
and 'destroy uk.rec.cycling'. Quite why anyone would be sad enough to
spend their free time doing this is another discussion, but that is
the situation at any rate. Group A trolls include 'Dave' and 'Judith'.

Group B consists of the slightly more 'subtle' trolls, who pretend to
be on the newsgroup for legitimate and respectable reasons, but in the
end are just motivated by exactly the same anti-cycling sentiment as
Group A. This group includes 'JNugent', 'NM' and of course the fake
cyclist 'John Benn'. In many ways I find this group more frustrating,
as they so persistently deny that they are present for anything but
the most noble of reasons, despite making it obvious what they really
think by always, no matter what, siding against the cyclist(s) in any
given scenario.

Anyway, there is further reading elsewhere on the ongoing and very
specific problems that uk.rec.cycling has unfortunately experienced.
We are trying to do something about it. Various legal remedies are on
the table. But these rely on showing that some kind of 'harassment' of
individual cyclists has occurred, which is tricky. And it is
understood by all concerned that the 'harassment' accusations are just
the method by which we are having to bring these trolls to justice,
and that the real reason why they are being taken to court is to
punish them for trolling and destroying a valuable and once pleasant
newsgroup with their constant, vicious jibes and their worthless and
incorrect opinions, all of which are carefully calculated to stoke the
fire and cause maximum friction.

It occurs to me that these 'harassment' accusations are not the way to
do it, firstly because it is difficult to make them stick, and
secondly because it does not seem entirely honest to accuse someone of
'harassment' of individuals when really you're trying to punish them
for trolling newsgroups. So it seems to me that the best solution, at
least for uk.rec.cycling, is simply to make trolling illegal.

'What about free speech?', I hear you ask. Well, it is generally
accepted that sometimes we need to make exceptions to allowing free
speech where it is in the public interest, e.g. with hate speech. So
why not make another exception with trolling? How exactly is it in the
public interest to allow the likes of 'Dave' and 'Judith' to
systematically and irrevocably destroy valuable Internet resources?
Isn't it much more in the public interest to stop them? Your favourite
newsgroup or forum could be next if we do not stop these worthless
individuals from spreading their hate. Trolling is on the increase as
more and more idiots spend more and more time online, and so society
needs to act robustly and quickly in order to show that it is not
going to tolerate such extremely antisocial behaviour.

I will be writing to my MP about this subject, using uk.rec.cycling as
my example. I implore you to do the same. I will not rest until
someone posting 'Why not wear a helmet?' on uk.rec.cycling with faux
innocence, or going on about 'Road Tax' yet again, can expect to be
brought before magistrates and punished to the fullest extent of the
law. That seems entirely reasonable. You are not exempt from the
requirement to conduct yourself as a decent, law-abiding human being
just because you are behind a keyboard. We generally believe that
people who go round trying to make everyone else miserable deserve
their comeuppance, and so 'Dave' richly deserves his, but 'JNugent'
does as well. Trolling, whether 'subtle' or blatant, needs to be made
illegal. And after reading my post, I know that at least some of you
will agree.

Thanks,
M Wicks

Who is really interested in a obscure newsgroup that is dying?
I know one man who might be.
How goes it these days Simon?