This forum stopped being fun, because of the haters.

"Then there are the posters who think it's funny to ask "Who?" as their post, implying that the athlete is question is a nobody."

I pretty much agree with everything in your post except this. It only gets asked of people who are obviously famous, and that is what makes it - or doesn't make it - funny, depending on your sense of humor.

Coebra wrote:

Old Wrestler wrote:

You seriously need to ask this? If your sport isn't growing, it's dying. And probably a slow painful death. There are so, so many more athletic events for people to take part in on a global scale now. Without interest, promotion, and an entertaining product full of quality athletes, your sport will fade to oblivion. That goes for any sport. Get the best talent, entertain the crowds, keep it interesting. PED will always be around sport, just limit it's impact the best you can and stop obsessing over it. PED didn't ruin cycling it's been around the sport forever, the handling of it did.

Running isn't about entertainment. Track and field, in general, is not about entertainment. It's about training very hard, to do better, an activity that you already do very well

Actually it is about entertainment (among other things).

Without entertainment there will be no fans and no money.

Without fans and money nobody will really care. Even those who like to think of themselves as "above" the need for such attention and rewards are not. NOBODY would train like some folks do today to run a marathon in 2:03 or an 800 in 1:41. NOBODY. Not one person on earth would do that.

The odd bird would still run. Might still be interested in racing a bit. Some folks would gladly go out for their daily 5 mile or 10 mile jog without anyone paying any attention and without the expectation that anyone ever would pay attention. But NOBODY would train the way the top runners do without the expectation, or at least hope, of a payoff in terms of fame and fortune.

Nobody.

Track and field IS about entertainment (among other things).

This forum stopped being fun because posters like you don't know how to use commas.

Great post. Spot on. I also think there is no accountability here. Anonymous usernames tends to lead to baseless allegations and shit talking.

We have always said we will allow people to speculate about drugs as we think it leads to a cleaner sport. In the 80s and 90s, people just turned a blind eye to this issue and pretended it wasn't there. Drugs rot the very core of our sport and all athletes by participating in the sport are under suspicion.

The fact so many Russian runners are dirty is not news to people on LetsRun.com. People have been talking about it for years.

We used to get the nastiest emails for letting people speculate if Lance Armstrong was on drugs.

On the other hand not everyone speculated about is dirty. People said I had to be on drugs because of my improvement at 10,000m. I took it as a compliment and then stood for clean sport.

People say Tom Brady and the Patriots cheat and they are one of the most popular teams in football.

Discussion that leads to a cleaner sport is a good thing not a bad thing.

*****

It is sad that a fast time leads to speculation the person must be cheating but you have cause and effect backwards. People don't speculate that fast people must be dirty because other people are speculating. They speculate fast people are dirty because in the past many were proven to have been dirty and the powers that be did not implement strict doping controls.

No offense, wejo, but this response seems like a straw man. I don't think the OP was suggesting that speculation of doping should be banned, although I might be wrong. Rather, I think he was saying that the forum is impossible to take seriously because of all the troll-ish accusations, and he calls on the moderators to start removing the posts that are just baseless accusations, and then he gives some examples.

I agree with you that ignoring doping is not going to lead to a cleaner sport. However, I would also argue that the LRC attitude (literally everyone who wins is a doper) is also not going to a lead to a cleaner sport.

bkrunner wrote:

No offense, wejo, but this response seems like a straw man. I don't think the OP was suggesting that speculation of doping should be banned, although I might be wrong. Rather, I think he was saying that the forum is impossible to take seriously because of all the troll-ish accusations, and he calls on the moderators to start removing the posts that are just baseless accusations, and then he gives some examples.

I agree with you that ignoring doping is not going to lead to a cleaner sport. However, I would also argue that the LRC attitude (literally everyone who wins is a doper) is also not going to a lead to a cleaner sport.

Totally speculating, but I'm guessing there are more technical factors at play. I doubt there are enough moderators that each new post is monitored quickly. I doubt that posters use the report post link. The listed rules also don't discourage trolling, lying, or baiting. "Any reason whatsoever" is the language of the rules.

This is a poorly managed forum. I believe the owners hide their laziness to commit to a more fruitful model behind their "honesty through anonymity" and however else they justify registration, moderation, and organization of one board for every kind of post.

But to your point, the OP lumped together a wide variety of posts. His/her examples are nothing more than their own preferences, and don't reflect any kind of objective system for what is trolling or valuable discussion. And that is a bigger problem than the messiness of the board, that trying to clean up the board at all would be subjective along someone's perspective. Until the owners think through and choose a model that is well reasoned to encourage thoughtful discussion, moderate trolling, and frankly, be better organized, what we have is the next best thing.

Haters gonna hate, and ainters gonna aint

And whiners gonna whine.

eotbs wrote:

Dear LetsRun,

really

eotbs wrote:

Dear LetsRun,

really

eotbs wrote:

Dear LetsRun,

really

wejo wrote:

We have always said we will allow people to speculate about drugs as we think it leads to a cleaner sport.

Wejo,

You're confusing speculation with defamation. You allow a constant barrage of defamation on your website. Speculation would be something like:

"I have no facts to back it up, but I believe that Wejo uses his website to sell PEDs."

Defamation would be something like: "Wejo is using PEDs and selling his excess supply to athletes all over the world ... and because I have the maturity of a two year old, I'll scream about this on multiple threads under multiple usernames and IP addresses."

Congrats on board members for being so right about dopers. It's quite the formula: defame everyone with doping accusations and then take credit for the cases proven to be true.

Set up a LetsRun "Safe Space" Forum for OP. Let him moderate it. I'd bet it would be a pretty lonely place.

gsdfgsd wrote:

I don't like it either though, but I accept this forum as the cesspool is it. I don't take anything I read here seriously. I know that a large amount of people here are trolls, and only posts to get responses, to get attention. I do it too, but not in an inflammatory way.

Another feckwit, so you do it subtlety and that makes it OK?

Clerk wrote:

Totally speculating, but I'm guessing there are more technical factors at play. I doubt there are enough moderators that each new post is monitored quickly. I doubt that posters use the report post link. The listed rules also don't discourage trolling, lying, or baiting. "Any reason whatsoever" is the language of the rules.

This is a poorly managed forum. .

Are you kidding?

I have posted something that for whatever reason gets deleted. (most times I have no clue why) I can make that same post anytime at different times for days and it gets deleted almost instantly. My experience is that they have too MANY moderators who are specifically told what kinds of posts to delete and what kind to keep.

Dear Letsrun,

It's been fun, but there is just too much negative energy here and too many new a**holes who post bullshit and lots of great people who used to post all the time who have left or gone underground. I'm out. Life is too short. I'll be in Kona. Hope to see some of you there. Paulo knows how to find me.

Yep. Change the last sentence to "the average LRC forum poster's attitude" and your post represents my position.

Thank you, wejo, for taking the time to address my thread.

I do value the fact that this forum is a bastion of free speech compared to many other forums, both running- and non-running-related. However, I seriously worry about the impact on the sport from such a volume of baseless accusations.

If someone tests positive, then it is news, and there is nothing that can be done but report on it properly, as I think you do. If there is strong reason to suspect doping (e.g. a sudden onset of musculature on a formerly frail person, eyewitness report of an athlete using syringes, etc.), then I understand and accept that such things should be discussed.

Contrarily, I see increasing suspicion that an American is doping because s/he runs fast or is actually competitive on a world-level instead of just a national level. I see non-American runners also suspected of doping because they simply ran fast. Worst of all, I see some athletes suspected of doping with no reason even stated in the post. This last variety is the one that I despise the most, and would hope you could find a way to discourage, although I would also like to see "they ran fast, therefore they doped" mentalities discouraged as well.

I do believe that the doping problem won't be fixed without discussion of it. However, without strong evidence of likelihood of doping, I think suspicion of doping is more harmful to the sport than helpful.

Perhaps I have the cause & effect backward, but I don't think it matters. Honestly, how healthy is it to hold onto the past so tightly? As an example, 2 to 3 track-generations ago, many 400m athletes doped. So is LaShawn Merritt dirty? To me, it feels like saying, "90 years ago, many wealthy people were bootleggers. Therefore, as a financially successful person, you must be selling drugs on the side." It's not productive, and really not fair.

Yep. I probably wouldn't go so far as to say that wejo is confusing them; rather, I think it has gone un-acknowledged that the line between speculation and defamation has been crossed by posters.

It's true, it would be difficult to implement complete moderation of troll-speculation, due to the sheer volume. I thought about that while writing my original post, but I would still like to see them make a dent in it.

I'm not sure how I was unclear about the types of posts I considered worth moderating. I do not want posts about speculation of doping without decently strong evidence stated. I do not consider fast times to be decently strong.

This is exactly the kind of post that I think is helping kill the sport. It represents "baseless accusation" very, very well. At least in the case of Rupp, Magness saw some things that were highly suspicious, and that is well-known on this site. At least in the case of Mo, it is semi-well-known that he missed some drug-tests before the 2012 Olympics. But lumping the others in without reasons stated, and treating the lot as a cabal of ongoing evil without anyone in that stable having a positive test is really, really detrimental to the appeal of track & field to younger generations and people in general.

I discussed the NOP group because that poster brought them up, but my point stands for any athlete who is quite good and drug-accused without strong evidence.

Don't forget, we, the community of LRC, are among the people who are supposed to like track & field the most. How does it look to the casual runner (or field-er), thinking of becoming more involved, if we are so critical and hateful toward our own? Doesn't sound like fun. Doesn't sound like something you'd want to be a part of.

I'd be all alone with all of the professional athletes who used to like to post here.

Blah Blah Blah Blah wrote:

BTW, does anyone know which drugs wejo was taking?

Meldonium wasn't around yet so he was taking plutonium. How do you think he exploded on the running scene with that 28:06?