Closed thread

EMSimon said:

Really, it is about us, the owners and riders, not about the bikes. The MOA is the Motorcycle Owners Association, not the Motorcycle Association. Owners are human beings. When human beings congregate, they exchange many different ideas and interests, even if the original reason for getting together may be just one single thing.
Just browse the forum and try to find a post by "Klinck" in any other thread than "Word Association" in "Campfire". Are you the one to decide that he has no place here?

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Slight correction..I never posted that quote. I posted the quote to reply to it...

I agree with you!

The theater for worrying about our free speech is not in a club venue. Think about it for a few seconds. This forum is not for fighting for our free speech freedoms. It's simple reality. There is a place for this struggle to take place. Or you can watch free speech evaporate.

Oh, if any are interested in free speech, get down to your caucus or primaries this year, that's where that rubber is currently hitting the proverbial road.

Back to bikes, what's that I see? A smidgen of oil coming from the weep hole at my rear axle? Have a nice wrenching day.

Manage and police behavior not content. We can have a oil, ON or any number of other permissible content threads blow up. It was bad behavior. Some people may not like politics, guns and sport riding. Political issues do impact our interests and regularly are discussed between the lines as long as they don't fall into party politics shouting matches; so the out right ban on politics has always seemed a bit odd to me. Guns are a concern for riders. A large portion of the group carry on their trips. Some of us hunt and combine off road riding with that pursuit but can not talk about it here. BMW riding and camping is great but some of us like sport riding. That is not synonymous with being a SQUID yet bring it up and you get treated that way.

I understand why the past sub-forums for special topics have failed and why it is very very unlikely a third one will ever emerge. That said I still don't understand the fear of expecting people to act civilly while being able to talk about any topic.

It may be possible to discuss political decisions impacting motorcycling as then we all have an interest in such decisions. It would need to be based in fact and reality not party hubris. The AMA has a specific mission in these regards and is one reason those politically/motorcycling inclined may wish to look into the AMA. IMO, in the near future, all motorcyclists will be increasingly interested.

mika said:

some of us like sport riding. That is not synonymous with being a SQUID yet bring it up and you get treated that way.

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Very interesting observation, Mika! Just go to the S1000RR "Demographics" thread and look at some posts from MOA brass...

mika said:

Manage and police behavior not content. We can have a oil, ON or any number of other permissible content threads blow up. It was bad behavior. Some people may not like politics, guns and sport riding. Political issues do impact our interests and regularly are discussed between the lines as long as they don't fall into party politics shouting matches; so the out right ban on politics has always seemed a bit odd to me. Guns are a concern for riders. A large portion of the group carry on their trips. Some of us hunt and combine off road riding with that pursuit but can not talk about it here. BMW riding and camping is great but some of us like sport riding. That is not synonymous with being a SQUID yet bring it up and you get treated that way.

I understand why the past sub-forums for special topics have failed and why it is very very unlikely a third one will ever emerge. That said I still don't understand the fear of expecting people to act civilly while being able to talk about any topic.

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I am the forum liaison; I am responsible for communications between the moderators and the board, as well as being in the 2nd position after the mods when some action is taken.

The moderators have been accused of being too heavy handed in the past. The current forum administrator (chief mod, if you will) and the other moderators have tried to be a little more hands off. The mods usually try to guide a discussion that is going off the rails back to the topic, before they close it. When the participants can't seem to act civilly to each other, or refuse to avoid crossing various sections of the posting guidelines, then the thread gets closed and/or one or more people get an infraction. When a mod makes a suggestion in a thread, it's a plea to get back on topic. Please try to take the hint, it's the last call before the thread is closed.

As Mika notes, there are places where vital interests of motorcyclists overlap with the banned topic list. I believe that the moderators have been careful to allow discussion to continue on some banned topics, when it is both direclty relevant to us as motorcyclists and is civil. You want to talk about political action regarding the EPA and E-15 fuel? Or ask a question about carry laws in a particular state that you are considering travelling to? These will probably be allowed as long as it doesn't get into name calling or stray from being on target for us as motorcyclists. Start talking politics or guns in general, or flaming away at the other side, and it will be closed.

A little bit of history: Don't Go There was created because some people wanted an open forum. It didn't work, it became toxic. Some of the people who wanted an open forum came to the board with a proposal, and the Tavern on the Screen was created, and moderated by those who proposed it. It didn't last 6 months before the very people who wanted it decided it wouldn't work.

I was part of the group that was involved with the tavern so I have seen behind the screen. Overall the current direction the moderators are taking is very encouraging. The forum membership are the ones I was really aiming my observations at. We are the ones that cause the problems because we don't seem able to act like the adults we claim to be and talk about adult topics.

I have been a Rotarian for over 26 years, and have been a member of two different Rotary clubs and have visited numerous other Rotary clubs. The two basic rules at Rotary meeting are: No political discussions and No religious discussions! This works! The members of Rotary clubs work well together on many successful community and international humanitarian projects, while forming many new friendships.

Learning by working together the lesson of being tolerant and respectful of the view and/or beliefs of others allows our society to move forward and accomplish great goals. I have never seen anyone change another persons religious or political beliefs through an argument. I do however, see view points change as a result of friendships.

If the threads of this forum were allowed degrade, at the hands of a few, into political and religious battles, the rest of us would stop using this very informative forum. Thus no more forum!

I believe that the current moderators are doing a great job. I know, through experience, how hard it can be to keep a discussion on topic when there are those folks that want to hijack the discussion so that they can have a public forum for their own political and/or religious views. One must walk a fine line to keep the discussion on target while not preventing peoples free speech rights.

Keep up the good work! I get a lot out of this forum, and I want it to continue as it is.

Didn't bother to read the Pete Seeger thread until I read this one. The mod was right to shut it down. For those of you who would like to carry on I would suggest restarting it in "Jo Mamma".

EMSimon said:

Very interesting observation, Mika! Just go to the S1000RR "Demographics" thread and look at some posts from MOA brass...

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Because of this post, I just read the whole "Demographics" thread, now at 30 posts. There is one post by a Moderator. No posts by anyone I would call MOA brass. Just what is your definition of MOA brass? Just wondering.

Thanks,

tb

No namecalling!!!! Sorry, if you can't figure it out. Probably going back to the "complete name in signature" thing

All I can say is: it's a good thing that the forum liaison lives in southern California, otherwise this whole forum might have blown up by now...given the drifts of snow I continue to see from all my windows. The "cure", if there needs to be one, will come as temperatures moderate and this snow disappears across our highways and bypasses.

Motodan said:

All I can say is: it's a good thing that the forum liaison lives in southern California, ....

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WARNING!

Vicious attacks on the hometown of members will not be tolerated.

Saying that Santa Cruz is in SOUTHERN California is an EXTREMELY low blow!!!!!


(It's less than an hour south of San Francisco.) Southern California is a couple hundred miles further south.

98lee said:

WARNING!

Vicious attacks on the hometown of members will not be tolerated.

Saying that Santa Cruz is in SOUTHERN California is an EXTREMELY low blow!!!!!


(It's less than an hour south of San Francisco.) Southern California is a couple hundred miles further south.

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Holy Cow! My bad...their I go assuming again BTW, does it snow there?

Again with the snow????

This thread is about a closed thread and a guy from Indiana (Hoosier is Indiana? Right?) asking somebody about snow in California? I'm gonna throw my hat in the ring of controversy and say, yooze don't know snow from apples falling in an orchard. There is currently 63" of hard water on the ground and that's an average year, to date. It won't leave until MAY.

I will burn more fuel this year in my snow blower than I will in my bikes this year. Right now, without windchill, it's -20F and it's almost warm enough to wear sandals compared to the temps we had recently.

If you want to learn tolerance and see how ridiculous some of the posts have been here, hang out with me, grab another beer, watch some hockey on my broken TV while looking at the stack of bikes in my shop waiting for some TLC, step outside my shop, and try not to pee down your leg.

Life is relative my friends. I can't imagine the experiences of some of the members we have here and they can't imagine mine. I say, shut the front door (wow, that was more politically correct than I thought I could do), share your experience and give us the opportunity to decide if your opinion has a place. Quit trying to shove it or shovel it.

Back to the controversy, who has more snow?

dieselyoda said:

This thread is about a closed thread and a guy from Indiana (Hoosier is Indiana? Right?) asking somebody about snow in California? I'm gonna throw my hat in the ring of controversy and say, yooze don't know snow from apples falling in an orchard. There is currently 63" of hard water on the ground and that's an average year, to date. It won't leave until MAY.

I will burn more fuel this year in my snow blower than I will in my bikes this year. Right now, without windchill, it's -20F and it's almost warm enough to wear sandals compared to the temps we had recently.

If you want to learn tolerance and see how ridiculous some of the posts have been here, hang out with me, grab another beer, watch some hockey on my broken TV while looking at the stack of bikes in my shop waiting for some TLC, step outside my shop, and try not to pee down your leg.

Life is relative my friends. I can't imagine the experiences of some of the members we have here and they can't imagine mine. I say, shut the front door (wow, that was more politically correct than I thought I could do), share your experience and give us the opportunity to decide if your opinion has a place. Quit trying to shove it or shovel it.

Back to the controversy, who has more snow?

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dieselyoda said:

watch some hockey on my broken TV ?

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I am a Detroit Red Wings fan, back from my time living in Detroit. Last time I was up there a couple of weeks ago, I walked in a mall and tried to buy a "Zetterberg" jersey. They wanted $165.- for one. And that was the cheapest I could find What's the matter..? Are they nuts??

(Attention mods: Feeble attempt to hijack this thread)

EMSimon said:

(Attention mods: Feeble attempt to hijack this thread)

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May the Gods bless you for that...........

WOW! There's some heavy-duty cabin fever going on in Winnipeg, MB...now is that southern or northern Canada? Oh wait, I see...it's a northern suburb of Fargo.



Just kidding (the best cure for cabin-fever)

Motodan said:

Holy Cow! My bad...their I go assuming again BTW, does it snow there?

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Snow? WE are in the biggest drought in our history! From Jan. 31,2013 to Jan. 31, 2014 we got a TOTAL of 3" of rain! The next lowest rainfall in our history was something like 5". AVERAGE IS 15". Our reservoirs are only about 30% full and the Sierra snow pack is about 15% of normal. Already they are talking about water rationing.

The cause of our AND your screwed up weather is a massive high pressure zone out in the Pacific. It usually breaks down every winter and allows winter storms to hit California. But it hasn't weakened for almost two years. So, OUR normal winter rains get pushed north and combines with the stuff coming down from Alaska and the combined mess is being dumped on everything east of the Rockies with magnified results.

Just because it's unusually cold where you are, doesn't mean it's not unusually warm on other parts of the globe.

We finally got a small storm this weekend, but it's just mostly drizzle.

Not gloating. We would GLADLY take some of your rain (and snow for the Sierra). The State Water Project has announced, for the first time in history, they will not be selling ANY water to our region. We normally get %80 of our water from them. Our aquifers are only 60% full and local reservoirs 38% full.

We're going to be SCREWED this summer!