Why is Letsrun considered toxic?

rojo wrote:

2) I also think in the year 2021 people are used to only seeing things they agree with. If you are woke, you watch MSNBC and have coffee with your friends in the Ivy faculty lounge. If you are conservative, you read Fox News, read the Daily Caller, etc. Here you read things you may not agree with.

The default now is to call something you don't agree with a racist, sexist, etc.

Your bias is clear in this quote.

Another default is to claim anything you don't agree with is a lie and any time you lose you're the victim of cheating.

Neither of these default responses are reasonable or helpful, but this site does nothing to encourage better.

There are good running discussions here if they can somehow avoid a political quagmire or a bashing session.

As others have said, it is what is. And it is often anonymous insults.

Oh yes I do know exactly what I am talking about! I typed out a longer response but deleted it because there's no use. It's like arguing with a small child who hasnt connected the dots yet.

Everything is going to catch up with you both here and in the afterlife. You'll see eventually. Youre not a moral man. Youre a coward. And so is your brother.

I disagree with the majority of posts I read but keep coming back. There are the occasional nut job trolls who like to stir the pot but many on here will clearly state their reasoning and reference their sources. Case in point, the discussions on intersex athletes and whether or not they should compete or take hormone therapy was great stuff. Good reasoned arguments on both sides. Same with burrito gate. I learned more about hormone levels in wild boar than I thought possible. I'm ok with being offended sometimes for the tradeoff of a good conversation and debate.

There was a thread literally yesterday about yhr new gay Superman character that called LGBTQ people abominations and immoral. That’s not “a different” opinion, that is a toxic opinion.

People here call Caster Semenya “it” and “she” and make crass testicle comments.

People here hate on women runners because of their appearances.

This drivel is left up under the BroJo’s guise of “it’s healthy debate!” No - healthy debate is a friendly discussion about politics. These things are toxic, and why the website gets a bad rap.

social media in general is toxic. but I don't really care what a bunch of soy boy and feminists think. I enjoy this place, and part of what makes it enjoyable is that I get to read through a lot of opinions that I strongly disagree with, along with everything I do agree with.

the worst part of this website is the misguided over moderation.

I just found this thread to read through it and I didn't find anything besides people questioning why Superman is being written as a gay/bisexual character and posts from people who are likely Christian or religious with the belief that homosexuality is immoral. I'm not religious and I don't care what people do with their bodies but there is a large population in the world that was raised believing in a book that teaches sex out of wedlock and homosexuality as a sin. Some would call that a difference of opinion and some would call that pure homophobia.

Caster Semenya is a controversial topic as a whole but:

1. Pronouns have become a hot topic recently and people have different beliefs on if you should be forced to use preferred pronouns

2. Doesn't Caster identify as "she/her"?

3. I don't know what kind of crass testicle comments you are referring to but the majority of Caster Semenya threads I have read were mostly debates on XY chromosomes and intersex athletes competing with biological females. In this debate it is noteworthy that Semenya does have an internal testes and comments about that may be relative to the discussion. Just because a troll posts one comment saying something rude does not make the discussion toxic as a whole.

Lol.

rojo wrote:

...Are some posters racist? Yes. The idea that the site is racist really bothers me. I CONSTANTLY am trying to promote East Africans as individuals worthy of following. I feel in general the major marathons do not do that at all.

But I think the forum is like soceity. 95% of the posts are great. SOme are trolling and some are awful. But a tiny bit of awful can garner a lot of attention. It's kind of like crime to be honest. Which are you going to focus on - the 98% or the 2%.

Here, you see stuff from all sides.

I will say that the site has vastly improved in recent days regarding wiping the racist and toxic content off the site.

It has gotten better in the last couple of weeks, and even in the last few days,

In that vein, I also notice less of the preposterous misinformation about the pandemic and vaccines, as well.

All of which raises the credibility of the site, in my opinion at least.

This is the best place in the world to go for the worlds highest number of different user names from one IP address.

An occasional sock puppet is for loosers.

The rule about one fake name per thread is bad.

Other than that Rojo for president.

Toxic people need a safe space too. This site is a blessing to the world.

Basically Generation Z Y X aka "Social Media Generation" patterned from Frisco and Hollyweird youngsters believes Human Rights applies to all 4 billion Social Media users across the USA and throughout the globe. If you don't believe that then you are a Misogynist, Nazi, Islamophobe, ANTI-LGBTQ, Red Neck, Anti-Semite, Draft Dodging, Trump Supporter ;-)

Now you know wrote:

Basically Generation Z Y X aka "Social Media Generation" patterned from Frisco and Hollyweird youngsters believes Human Rights applies to all 4 billion Social Media users across the USA and throughout the globe. If you don't believe that then you are a Misogynist, Nazi, Islamophobe, ANTI-LGBTQ, Red Neck, Anti-Semite, Draft Dodging, Trump Supporter ;-)

There are a lot of people who believe 'The First Amendment' means they can say whatever they want and nothing can be done about it.

I'm not even American and I know that's not true.

trollism wrote:

Now you know wrote:

Basically Generation Z Y X aka "Social Media Generation" patterned from Frisco and Hollyweird youngsters believes Human Rights applies to all 4 billion Social Media users across the USA and throughout the globe. If you don't believe that then you are a Misogynist, Nazi, Islamophobe, ANTI-LGBTQ, Red Neck, Anti-Semite, Draft Dodging, Trump Supporter ;-)

There are a lot of people who believe 'The First Amendment' means they can say whatever they want and nothing can be done about it.

I'm not even American and I know that's not true.

***shivers***

SD Dude Bro wrote: I'm ok with being offended sometimes for the tradeoff of a good conversation and debate.

me too. Normally, I ignore the offensive comments as long as contructive dialogue and truths can be communicated, as opposed to untruths. Yet, on occasion, you'll get the person who just HAS to be sarcastic and hurl insults.

The thing with LR is that engaging with trolls is less about the trolls winning an argument than them leveraging an opportunity to spread their propaganda as widely as possible. They spread nonsense. Because the nonsense is quite often untruthful, people react to that nonsense, calling the troll's B.S. It trickles and wildfires start.

When someone sees a troll, don't feed them. Ignore them. Don't react to them. Don't give them the attention they want. All they really seem to want is heated, passionate debate. Deny them that and you quiet some of the LR noise.

George Orwellian wrote:

trollism wrote:

There are a lot of people who believe 'The First Amendment' means they can say whatever they want and nothing can be done about it.

I'm not even American and I know that's not true.

***shivers***

You cold or something?

Don't see how this is an issue. Anyone who has ever had a job (guessing not everyone on this site) knows that there are limits to what they can say to people before they risk losing that job. That's not Orwellian.

Throwing out 1984 references every time you spit your dummy out because something happens you don't agree with isn't a sign of an intellectual.

I definitely crossed Cornell off my list when you were coaching there, though. That was when you refused to moderate the boards overnight and you would literally see dozens of posts in a row of people just using racial slurs, calling people monkeys, etc. Since you never did anything about it, I figured running for you as a non-white runner would be horrible. I otherwise would have considered the program for its combination of running and academics.

So maybe nobody lost a job, but you lost a runner.

Now, I would certainly invest in supporting running journalism, and sometimes I see stories under your subscriber paywall I would be interested in reading but you sure as hell are not getting my money. I put it elsewhere.

There are lots of posts that are clearly race-baiting. The results are slinging matches and name calling, which is not useful discussion. I guess you could say that you are hearing from both sides but all it does it create division. There was one that was up for weeks supposedly showing evidence that black people don't do as well at school because they are less intelligent. There were a multiple threads created to complain about this race-baiting thread, all of which were taken down, while the original thread was left up.