Do cyclists have a sense of honour?

There is a long and rather ridiculous thread on uk.rec.cycling.

In it one poster accused another of tampering with his post when quoting
to make it appear to be saying something it didn't and then criticising
his comment.

There follows a long, tedious but strangely compelling thread.

In his latest post, one of the participants complains that no one has
had anything to say about the main complaint.

That is rather odd, so in an attempt to get some closure, how about
throwing it open.

I've included below a verbatim account (it is by one of the protagonists
but it simply states the facts, I've checked that it's accurate).

So who will, preferably without being rude, condescending, patronizing
or in any other way provocative either:

1) Explain clearly and simply why what the poster identified as 'IS' did
is wrong and EJ does desrve an apology.

or

2) Explain clearly and simply why what the poster identified as 'IS' did
is acceptable and EJ should keep quiet.

Excerpt from the thread: "What do you do?" on uk.rec.cycling

What was said:

================================================== ================================
TR But over 40 pedestrians a year killed on the pavement and a further 80
TR on pedestrian crossings which is more or less the same as the number of
TR cyclists killed on the whole road system.

EJ There are a hell of a lot more pedestrians than cyclists.

EJ Coming up with a statistic such as the one you just did is nothing
more than
EJ attempting a smoke and mirrors trick.

EJ The above should not be taken to indicate that I agree or disagree that
EJ cycling is more dangerous than walking. The statistics simply aren't
EJ available.
================================================== =================================

How it was quoted and the reply.
================================================== ================================
TR But over 40 pedestrians a year killed on the pavement

EJ Coming up with a statistic such as the one you just did is nothing
more than
EJ attempting a smoke and mirrors trick.

IS I don't think it is. It's a specific (and accurate) refutation of the
IS assertion "the pedestrian on the pavement is safe from the hazard"
IS (of motor vehicles). Isn't it?
================================================== ================================

"Spiro" wrote in message
...
There is a long and rather ridiculous thread on uk.rec.cycling.

so why elongate it by proxy?

yawn.....................................

On 07/02/2007 18:28, Spiro said,

Snipped

Que??

--
Paul Boyd
http://www.paul-boyd.co.uk/

Spiro wrote on 07/02/2007 18:28 +0100:

That's Ewan spelt S-P-I-R-O
plonk

--
Tony

"...has many omissions and contains much that is apocryphal, or at least
wildly inaccurate..."
Douglas Adams; The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

"Spiro" wrote in message
...

some stuff

Whatever the rights and wrongs of Ian's and Ewan's discussion, you've done
far worse by your tedious x-post to uk.t.

Now kindly **** off.

(_not_ x-posted).

clive

On Wed, 07 Feb 2007 18:28:45 +0000, Spiro wrote:

Looking at Tony Raven's comment, I don't doubt that I'll be accused of talking
to myself, but even so:

I appreciate your attempt to get an answer to this connundrum from the group as
a whole, but why bring another group into it?

As I understand it the idea of cross posting is that if you have two groups with
overlapping remits and your question falls into the remit for each group you
should cross post.

I can't see why that is desirable here.

Surely, either the question should be asked of everyone (impractical) or just in
the group in which the problem exists?

"Ewan" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 07 Feb 2007 18:28:45 +0000, Spiro wrote:

Surely, either the question should be asked of everyone (impractical) or
just in
the group in which the problem exists?

What problem..............

In article , Spiro wrote:
There is a long and rather ridiculous thread on uk.rec.cycling.
[...]
That is rather odd, so in an attempt to get some closure, how about
throwing it open.

How about you ****ing off and dying, you crossposting sockpuppet troll?

vernon wrote:
"Ewan" wrote in message
...

On Wed, 07 Feb 2007 18:28:45 +0000, Spiro wrote:


Surely, either the question should be asked of everyone (impractical) or
just in
the group in which the problem exists?


What problem..............

If you have no interest in this, why keep reading and responding?

It's just making it last all the longer.

Seems a little counter productive.

On Wed, 07 Feb 2007, Spiro wrote:
(crossposted to uk.tosspot, but I've remedied that)
There is a long and rather ridiculous thread on uk.rec.cycling.
and so on.

This is now getting weird.

A mysterious third party appears, who has never posted to usenet
before (at least so far as a cursory search reveals - I haven't been
too detailed with that check).

This third party is interested enough to have carefully read the whole
thread in detail ("a long, tedious but strangely compelling thread"),
but for some reason has not seen fit to offer any opinion in the
thread so far.

Strangely, however, this poster wants to canvas the opinion of a
different group before deciding who is in the right. Is this third
party so weak-willed that they can't make up their own mind? And why
choose uk.tosspot? Do they believe that group to be peopled only by
omniscient beings perhaps? Possibly not an opinion shared by a high
proportion of uk.rec.cycling regulars.

I know it's a third party, because he (/she/it?) refers to Ewan in the
third person ("In his latest post", "by one of the protagonists").
It's not me, and obviously it can't be Ewan, writing that that.

This is all freaky-odd. So freaky-odd that, from this point, I think
I shall have to cease responding to either Ewan or Spiro.

Either Ewan is so cracked he's talking about himself in the third
person and thinks uk.tosspot can help (not sure which of those is
worse), or (worse still) he attracts people that don't know what they
think until someone (even uk.tosspot) tells him (/her/it). Either
way, we're now into stalker axe-murdering psycho territory, and I have
concluded that discretion is the better part of valour.

Have a nice life Ewan/Spiro/whoever else.

regards, Ian SMith
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