Monthly state of the forums discussion - what are we doing right, what should we do differently, what can we improve

Non-Running

Moderation Moderation Information Moderation Information & Rules

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Feel free to email me to discuss any moderation issues. We've made some good progress from email in this thread.mailto:wejo@letsrun.com

This thread went off the rails a bit with 1 particular poster hijacking it and trying to make it about one moderator so we have locked it.

Before I give my takeaways, if you have concerns about moderating, or posts, please report them or email me directly. We make it very easy to be heard at LetsRun.com and reach us. But if you sidetrack threads by discussing moderation, those posts will be removed and can lead to temporary bans as they ruin the discussion for everyone else.

But some takeaways.
1) Dealing with the problematic posters/troublemakers isn't easy but we need to make sure in dealing with them we do not go too far and harm the experience for other posters
2) The filters often flag people by accident. Exempt SC members from the filters at the very least.
3) Consider creating a toggle so people don't have to see "this post was deleted in a thread". In the posts where the trouble makers try and takeover, these notifications start to ruin the experience.
4) Consider moving some posts out of the main forum.
5) Look at limiting how often people can post in a thread.
6) Try and get a better handle on the use of VPNs by people posting, reporting posts, upvoting, etc.
7) I will actively monitor all of malmo's moderating and posts for the next week and give him feedback. We already actively communicate but some of your points and emails were helpful.

4 months ago 01/22/2026 1:37pm EST

re: LRC User and Redditor

LRC User and Redditor wrote:
Malmo is not going away. I strongly suspect that he was an early investor in LRC or a mentor to the Johnsons. In any event, his relationship with the Brojos makes him untouchable.
People are leaving and switching to other outlets. If you like friendly coverage, you go to Citius or The Stride Report. Want to talk about training or share tips? Reddit Advanced Running. Looking to snark a bit? Reddit’s RunningCircleJerk lets you make jokes. Interestingly, those Reddit forums suffer far less gatekeeping and the humor rises far above fat jokes and hobby joggers insults.
Weldon - if you don’t compare your product to other offerings, then you should. The aforementioned sites do provide what Robert calls “long run chat” without the corrosive and often bitter tone displayed on this forum. Oh, they require registration and my user name is an anonymous handle that protects my privacy. My speech is free on those platforms.

Malmo is not an investor in LetsRun.com.

What do you mean by Robert "long run chat"?

4 months ago 01/22/2026 1:38pm EST

re: wejo

wejo wrote:
As banning and deleting wrote:
Thread:www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?th...
This link goes to the former Official Thread to Discuss Moderation. Look at the last 5 Pages or so—it’s absolutely littered with deleted posts by Malmo. He went on ban and deletion rampage when the Brojos and Gault were at World XC and distracted. Complete abuse of power.
Wejo likes to claim that all of these posts were attack by Malmo, but that’s objectively not true.
On Page 38, Malmo comes out of the wood work to attack me out of nowhere with this post (still up). I hadn’t been posting about him or Rojo in any way, nor had I been abusing my posting privileges. For that, Malmo saw fit to personally attack me with this delusional insult ridden post AND THEN HE BANNED ME.
“You're the obnoxious guy who stalks and harasses rojo nearly every day with this "as rojo" sheet.. You've been doing it for years. You do not actually participate in any threads. You will be dealt with "as deleted". Just stop it. It's a really weird obsession.
"as goodbye, pumpkin pie"”
Your malmo concerns are being addressed. You have posted 19 times in this thread pretty much about the same thing.
And are now bringing up old threads. And post about this in other threads and email us. I reiterate if you go off topic and post about malmo in threads, the posts will be deleted. An often this leads to a ban as if you then say "hey where is my post and post it again. it kills the thread."

Can you read? Because it should be clear to you now that Malmo is often the instigator. Maybe if you knew how to read I wouldn’t have to repeat myself so many g*ddamn times

4 months ago 01/22/2026 1:39pm EST

re: wejo

wejo wrote:
LRC User and Redditor wrote:
Malmo is not going away. I strongly suspect that he was an early investor in LRC or a mentor to the Johnsons. In any event, his relationship with the Brojos makes him untouchable.
People are leaving and switching to other outlets. If you like friendly coverage, you go to Citius or The Stride Report. Want to talk about training or share tips? Reddit Advanced Running. Looking to snark a bit? Reddit’s RunningCircleJerk lets you make jokes. Interestingly, those Reddit forums suffer far less gatekeeping and the humor rises far above fat jokes and hobby joggers insults.
Weldon - if you don’t compare your product to other offerings, then you should. The aforementioned sites do provide what Robert calls “long run chat” without the corrosive and often bitter tone displayed on this forum. Oh, they require registration and my user name is an anonymous handle that protects my privacy. My speech is free on those platforms.
Malmo is not an investor in LetsRun.com.
What do you mean by Robert "long run chat"?

Bro do you know what’s on these boards? Rojo has often stated that he wants non running content on this boards as that’s the kind of content he’d discuss with his friends on a run

4 months ago 01/22/2026 1:43pm EST

re: wejo

wejo wrote:
Instead of having one ongoing thread about moderation or tips to improve the forum, we should have a thread once a month discussing the forum for a few days. Have a nice discussion, then we'll lock the thread and do the same thing next month.
As always, we say the best way to get immediate feedback is to email us, but we're even reachable by phone.
This thread will be open at least through Friday. My email is
From my big-picture perspective (which is biased because i spend a lot of time dealing with bans etc) the things that bug me the most are:
1)The true troublemakers
2) The people who personally attack other posters and/or moderators
3) Spammers (but I'm putting those in the true troublemakers category)
But I see the same people creating problems, attacking each other, etc.
It really brings down the level of discussion. Disagree with someone's ideas, not them personally, is the way I see it.

Nuke it from orbit.

4 months ago 01/22/2026 1:44pm EST

re: wejo

The fact this forum is a little out of control is what makes it fun and interesting.

For crying out loud people, you aren't required to be here.

4 months ago 01/22/2026 1:44pm EST

re: Kobbs Hessler

Kobbs Hessler wrote:
The fact this forum is a little out of control is what makes it fun and interesting.
For crying out loud people, you aren't required to be here.

As neither are you, sweetie

4 months ago 01/22/2026 1:49pm EST

re: Kobbs Hessler

Kobbs Hessler wrote:
The fact this forum is a little out of control is what makes it fun and interesting.
For crying out loud people, you aren't required to be here.

I will never understand this — if you want a free-for-all board where you can post whatever you want, regardless of how offensive or off-topic or intentionally bad-faith it is, why would you choose a running message board for that?

There are literally millions of places where you can be a racist anti-social jerk. Go do it there.

4 months ago 01/22/2026 1:50pm EST

re: Mikeh33

Mikeh33 wrote:
Rojo/Wejo: I’ll try to sum up this thread.
You ask us to share our opinions on the moderation.
Hundreds of people reply. There is broad agreement on a few things:
1. The moderation is very heavy handed and inconsistent, making the forum less pleasant.
2. One moderator in particular is consistently in conflict with posters, and wields his authority capriciously.
3. There are a handful of hardcore trolls that you need to deal with.

The solution for all of that would be so easy:

1 - remove the mod power if a mod deletes any post that didn't violate an official rule.

2 - point 1 will soon take care of point 2.

3 - ban the "handful of hardcore trolls" mentioned in this thread. They won't be missed. Takes less than 10 minutes right?

If they come back, and start trolling right away: ban the new name. If they come back, and post like a normal user: problem solved.

4 months ago 01/22/2026 1:50pm EST

re: obviouslyy

obviouslyy wrote:
Kobbs Hessler wrote:
The fact this forum is a little out of control is what makes it fun and interesting.
For crying out loud people, you aren't required to be here.
I will never understand this — if you want a free-for-all board where you can post whatever you want, regardless of how offensive or off-topic or intentionally bad-faith it is, why would you choose a running message board for that?
There are literally millions of places where you can be a racist anti-social jerk. Go do it there.

As go ahead, sweetie

4 months ago 01/22/2026 2:01pm EST

re: As banning and deleting

As banning and deleting wrote:
wejo wrote:
Your malmo concerns are being addressed. You have posted 19 times in this thread pretty much about the same thing.
And are now bringing up old threads. And post about this in other threads and email us. I reiterate if you go off topic and post about malmo in threads, the posts will be deleted. An often this leads to a ban as if you then say "hey where is my post and post it again. it kills the thread."
Can you read? Because it should be clear to you now that Malmo is often the instigator. Maybe if you knew how to read I wouldn’t have to repeat myself so many g*ddamn times

You're not a good faith actor. I can see now you just started another thread, bumping an old interview with txrunnergirl.

You also have another post trashing Robert. This is all in the last hour.

some of these other posters have legitimate concerns about moderation that we will address. but it's clear from your posts you are not one of them.

I don't get it. You really like going on a forum you dislike so much and causing havoc? What's the point?

This is why i saw moderation is very hard. We see so much bs, it's easy to get frustrated but we should not let this out on legitimate posters.

Mods should never delete something just because they disagree with it.

4 months ago 01/22/2026 2:02pm EST

re: Mikeh33

Mikeh33 wrote:
Rojo/Wejo: I’ll try to sum up this thread.
You ask us to share our opinions on the moderation.
Hundreds of people reply. There is broad agreement on a few things:
1. The moderation is very heavy handed and inconsistent, making the forum less pleasant.
2. One moderator in particular is consistently in conflict with posters, and wields his authority capriciously.
3. There are a handful of hardcore trolls that you need to deal with.
You respond:
1. You’ll work even harder to delete posts that are critical of moderation.
2. The moderator in question isn’t a big problem. Only 3 or 4 people are really complaining.
3. People who are complaining are probably trolls.
4. Denunciation of serious problem trolls, but no suggestion of what you plan to do.
Do you see why this is frustrating to regular users?

That is not my intent.

1) For the next week, I will evaluate EVERYONE of Malmo's moderation decisions and posts.

I should lead with this thread has helped me address some legitimate concerns with malmo and other moderators.

***
However I see the extent that some people go to cause havoc on these forums. There's one person in particular who targets Malmo all the time. But I should be able to separate that from the legitimate concerns above.

Right now I'm going back to see who he has banned. There is 1 issue I see with a legitimate poster where I don't think the person should have been banned. The others banned i see on page one are for people going after him are posters like this

"I once got banned for denying Malmo entry to room 226 at Motel 6,,,"
The Mrs Malley poster who said, "Couldn't happen to be the one mod most famous as an admitted doper, could it?"
"Winter of Mal*o focus on anger 😡 management to get ready for the Summer of Mal*o"

(This same poster will try and start threads with malmo's name in them but knows that trips a filter so now he uses malno").

This post was edited 42 minutes after it was posted.

4 months ago 01/22/2026 2:05pm EST

re: runn

runn wrote:
Preferential treatment wrote:
See, that stays. Bet we probably cant say Mary Cain looked chubby and AlSal was right to call it out.
But someone can say- to the gills- which is much more harmful than chubby. Both are wrong and chubby shouldn't be said and to the gills should be banned.
There's really no need to comment on someone's body. I really doubt that if you ran into her you'd tell her that she looked chubby.

To the gills is correct as doping turns people into fish. Read Dune to learn more. Chubby is wrong as humans are skinny minis compared to whales.

4 months ago 01/22/2026 2:08pm EST

re: lol whatt

lol whatt wrote:
What's frustrating is that the BroJos and the mods are unable to find anything in the middle between "serious discussion of the sport" and "free for all where mostly anything goes". They categorically refuse to do the few things that would actually help them get rid of the most problematic content -- mostly because they can't, technologically speaking -- and so it's all just one big circle jerk in which Wejo will nominally ask for feedback but get defensive and not listen and nothing will change.

Look I appreciate the sentiment, but I think you are underestimating how hard it is to find a spot in the middle.

We are 100% trying to find the spot in the middle. Even this thread, i think most of the complaints are 1) we moderate too much but others are saying we:
2) moderate inconsistently but you are saying
3) we don't moderate enough.

There is a big space between 4chan and a 100% running only forum where you have to present government ID to post

Instagram, facebook, X, instagram, bluesky have tons of problems with problematic content. There are death threats on all of them. They also use algorithms to filter content whereas we present stuff chronologically which creates a different set of problems.

4 months ago 01/22/2026 2:12pm EST

re: wejo

wejo wrote:
LRC User and Redditor wrote:
Malmo is not going away. I strongly suspect that he was an early investor in LRC or a mentor to the Johnsons. In any event, his relationship with the Brojos makes him untouchable.
People are leaving and switching to other outlets. If you like friendly coverage, you go to Citius or The Stride Report. Want to talk about training or share tips? Reddit Advanced Running. Looking to snark a bit? Reddit’s RunningCircleJerk lets you make jokes. Interestingly, those Reddit forums suffer far less gatekeeping and the humor rises far above fat jokes and hobby joggers insults.
Weldon - if you don’t compare your product to other offerings, then you should. The aforementioned sites do provide what Robert calls “long run chat” without the corrosive and often bitter tone displayed on this forum. Oh, they require registration and my user name is an anonymous handle that protects my privacy. My speech is free on those platforms.
Malmo is not an investor in LetsRun.com.
What do you mean by Robert "long run chat"?

“Long run chat” means how these boards are representative of just all the things we talk about on long runs, like questioning black people’s IQ, transphobia, xenophobia, and what not. The transphobia in particular, the two of you are most responsible for.

4 months ago 01/22/2026 2:19pm EST

re: wejo

wejo wrote:
Kvothe wrote:
My home ip address got banned for using the name of a breed of cat to make a post about the northeastern state. Didn't click to me that racists would want to use part of that name and that they were a big problem on letsrun at some point - and no warning, perma ip ban.
So I probably won't stop using a vpn lol. I need it to get better coverage of international track & field than peacock offers anyways, might as well take advantage of what I'm paying for. Given the state of US coverage of track, it would be surprising if a lot of posters didn't use vpns.
Anyways, these posters are probably using vpns because Malmo or another mod ip banned them. And some of them are probably "the pretend coach poster" sock puppeting. I don't know how people know its Malmo that banned them unless they were arguing with him and then found themselves banned. But he has become a sort of face for the mod team since he interracts on the boards.
1. You guys need to have an about us section with the mods - with maybe a meet the mods type bio for each them. You shouldn't run your board like the moderation team is the secret police. Humanizing the mods and showing they are fans of running just like us would go along way to alleviating people's fears about posting here.
2. I hope you can figure out a better plan to stop "the poster who posts spam and adult content" . The current policy isn't working - people post about coming to the site and seeing it filled with those threads, and having to leave less their love of running get mistaken for something else - or something to that effect.
3. I think creating a new category of posts nonrunning - no politics and nonrunning - political and allowing posters to select whether they want to see these would go a long way to alleviating some complaints.
4. I think what you guys are doing for the sport is great. The world xc meetup looked like a lot of fun. If there is ever anything like that around club xc again - and club xc happens to not be within a week of CIM or Honolulu (unless I decide to race something else lol) I might go.
I really hope you at least consider point 1. Posters don't need to know which mod deleted their post or is active on the board at any given time but knowing who the mods are and what their interests and running background are would go a long way to fostering community.
The spam filter bans are permanent but if you are banned by accident. you just appeal the ban and it is overturned.
What are you saying with this ". I think creating a new category of posts nonrunning - no politics and nonrunning - political and allowing posters to select whether they want to see these would go a long way to alleviating some complaints"

My idea is that when I create a new thread and have to select a category non-running, the current option would not be an option. I would see non-running (no politics), non-running (political) as my choices for a thread that wasn't about running. A poster wanting to talk about tariffs on the EU would choose the latter option. A poster wanting to talk about how their girlfriend can't figure out car maintenance would chose the former. And so on.

On the message board topic filter under currently viewing I would have the same options as I see when creating a new thread. I would be able to select view main messageboard in totality or elect to see just any combination of topics I selected. Example: maybe someone doesn't want to view high school running topics because they are way past high school, but they still want to see everything else including both types of non running threads. Maybe they like the politics threads here for some strange reason and want to see that and running, but don't have time for other non running content.

The reason I suggest this is that I think a lot of people get frustrated with the one track mind of some of the political posters but still want to read other non running content - eg some of the relationship advice threads are useful (or funny).

To be honest, what I really like is the way vbulletin forums are indexed. Though I guess you wouldn't like that system due to a lack of true anonymity?

4 months ago 01/22/2026 2:23pm EST

re: wejo

Someone mentioned containment upstream in their comment. Instead of a separate forum for the provocative and the profane, simply build in a delay mechanism on posts. The trolls and the bomb throwers are seeking attention and dopamine. If a poster, IP address, or other identifying criteria hit the filter, then flag the post to be reviewed before publishing. This would weed out many trolls and the amateur journalists trying to break news on multiple threads.

4 months ago 01/22/2026 2:24pm EST

re: wejo

Ban the430miler and all associated IPs and you're about 90% of the way there.

4 months ago 01/22/2026 2:24pm EST

re: bhah

bhah wrote:
wejo wrote:
Malmo is not an investor in LetsRun.com.
What do you mean by Robert "long run chat"?
“Long run chat” means how these boards are representative of just all the things we talk about on long runs, like questioning black people’s IQ, transphobia, xenophobia, and what not. The transphobia in particular, the two of you are most responsible for.

Given how many trans mass shootings there have been recently, a little phobia is in order.

4 months ago 01/22/2026 2:27pm EST

re: wejo

wejo wrote:
As banning and deleting wrote:
Can you read? Because it should be clear to you now that Malmo is often the instigator. Maybe if you knew how to read I wouldn’t have to repeat myself so many g*ddamn times
You're not a good faith actor. I can see now you just started another thread, bumping an old interview with txrunnergirl.
You also have another post trashing Robert. This is all in the last hour.
some of these other posters have legitimate concerns about moderation that we will address. but it's clear from your posts you are not one of them.
I don't get it. You really like going on a forum you dislike so much and causing havoc? What's the point?
This is why i saw moderation is very hard. We see so much bs, it's easy to get frustrated but we should not let this out on legitimate posters.
Mods should never delete something just because they disagree with it.

(1) trashing rojo? Huh? Where was I doing this.

(2) I LIKE Txrunnergirl. I like that video. I saw her name on this thread and it reminded me of it. Why would you immediately think me sharing a video (non pornographic etc) of her would be negative?

(3) I post reasonable widely agreed criticism of Malmo and your response isn’t to address it but to personally attack me as it’s pathetic

(4) it’s clear to me that you’re not cut out for this.

4 months ago 01/22/2026 2:39pm EST

re: Newname

Newname wrote:
Jakgoat340 wrote:
So accounts can be permanently banned but somehow having 100s of copy pasted posts deleted per day doesn’t reach that level? Reading “I’m 39 and dangerously close to breaking 1:50 for the 800” on a post about Josh Hoey going for a WR is not accretive to anyone, especially when it gets deleted and reposted 14 times. This just completely derailing the thread
How? How does that comment derail the thread?

Because 1. It’s posted 14 times because it keeps getting deleted, which snowballs the impact 2. It results in people telling the perpetrator that he’s lying (nothing to indicate they’re wrong) and 3. It has absolutely nothing to do with the conversation that is occurring in the threads. The majority of posters don’t care about anyone’s PR outside of their own or the top guys in the world (I.e., Josh Hoey)

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