LetsRun gets called out on outsideonline

NotPC wrote:

What about when Kenyan are doping or Ethiopeans have coaches running a little doping clinic in his hotel room? Is THAT racism too?

If it's not true.

Or if it is true and you ignore equally or more egregious transgressions by white coaches and athletes.

Do you really need to be told this?

As a non-anonymous poster, I don’t think posting under my own name solves any problem, in general. It’s been my strategy, but I haven’t committed to it forever.

I agree with this. Everything on the internet can be anonymous.

I think the anonymity on LetsRun is a good thing. Say you have serious questions about your coach or training (which happens dozens of times per day). Odds are your coach is on this site. If you post with your real name (or a registered username that gives a clue to who you are) then your coach will be upset with you for doubting him. It's much better to have a way to anonymously ask questions without feeling the pressure of being kicked off your team.

alt-right posts wrote:

This is a nice attempt to change the subject and deflect criticism. The problem isn't "controversial topics." The problem is racism. You are perfectly fine leaving racist statements up.

There's no deflection, and your statement here illustrate's Wejo's point.

Wejo is drawing a distinction between (1) statements about which reasonable people can disagree (even if some reasonable people think the statements are racist), and (2) statements that are objectively and overtly racist, by pretty much anyone's standards. The latter gets moderated aggressively. The former is fair game for discussion. You are demanding that the two be treated the same. But that's not moderating a debate; it's declaring a winner.

Korean American wrote:

1) the site is one big dumpster fire of left wing extremism and mean spirited people, and I strongly argue for the race-baiting claim. As a minority, I like to be a professional victim and blame all of my failures and shortcomings on white people. I'm pretty familiar with race-bating and see it here in every thread.

2) a liberal rag like Outside is just looking for something to get triggered about. This is what liberals do. We enjoy being unhappy and miserable and want everyone else to join in.

Both losers

fixed it for you

800 dude wrote:

People have complained about the message board forever, but the specific criticisms are different now.

In the old days, it was about how there aren't any more great training threads, too many non-running threads, people being too mean and scaring away the (running) celebrity posters. Now, the dominant criticisms are about racism, sexism, facism, etc.

I have to say, I don't see it. Sure, there are sexist or racist things posted, both now and back in the day. But it's certainly not pervasive, and it's not even clear how much of it is earnest vs. trolling.

Isn't that the crazy way of the world these days, FMD, according to some criticising Meghan Markle is racist because her mother happens to be black.

I bet a pound to a pinch of shít I could get on Outside Online and find something that could be interpreted as "racism, sexism, facism, etc".

Giles Corey wrote:

Cleveland browns head coach wrote:

Yeah, if you ignore all the running posts and cherry pick troll threads that will obviously anger you, then that's entirely your problem. Idiots. I also like how they back up their claims of racism and misogyny with a single quote. On a site with millions of threads.

Yeah right. Racism and misogyny is quite rare on Letsrun.

One would have to cherrypick comments to say otherwise.

Or, one could put on a blindfold and pick out a single comment pin the tail on the donkey style and have a 50/50 chance of finding some racist nonsense.

Prove it.

cracker american wrote:

Korean American wrote:

1) the site is one big dumpster fire of left wing extremism and mean spirited people, and I strongly argue for the race-baiting claim. As a minority, I like to be a professional victim and blame all of my failures and shortcomings on white people. I'm pretty familiar with race-bating and see it here in every thread.

2) a liberal rag like Outside is just looking for something to get triggered about. This is what liberals do. We enjoy being unhappy and miserable and want everyone else to join in.

Both losers

fixed it for you

GREAT CONTROVERSIAL POST!

There is nothing wrong with Letsrun.com.

All websites don't have to be the same boring and bland space which completely lack any sense of humor and spirit. There is a reason why it is even discussed.

People who want to turn Letsrun into a bland politically correct website using absolute polite and snob language are there for a reason, people like and go to Letsrun to talk about running and nowhere else. That's why everyone is here and nobody is on "competiting forum for runners".

These "competing forums" would end up in wasteland immediately, wouldn"t build any community and people wouldn"t even bother to post there. If you are looking for a forum with 10 messages per weeks, do what they told you to do.

People like the debates, the advices, the humor, the atmosphere, the arguments. Show me a link to their "political correct and polite forum" to check how many messages there is. It's doomed to fail.

alt-right posts wrote:

cracker american wrote:

fixed it for you

GREAT CONTROVERSIAL POST!

amazing follow up comment

much value added

I emailed this thread to the author from Outside Online, Amby Burfoot, NYT, Washington Post, Breitbart, and Drudge

Yeah, but... wrote:

Isn't that the crazy way of the world these days, FMD, according to some criticising Meghan Markle is racist because her mother happens to be black.

To be fair, people have pretty convincingly pointed out that she's criticized for things that Middleton is not. Whether that's a result of racism, anti North American sentiment, or a general feeling that Hollywood celebs are to trashy for the royal family is another question. But the British tabloids are certainly ruthless in their criticism of black footballers for just about everything.

In any event, my point was that the appropriate response to speech like this (arguably or possibly racist, but not overtly or unambiguously racist), is more speech. If you think something's racist, call it out and explain why. Try to convince people. But don't demand that some referee silence that speech, at least not until that speech crosses the line where it ceases to be earnest discourse and is instead just an objectively recognizable expression of hate.

Draft Day! wrote:

I emailed this thread to the author from Outside Online, Amby Burfoot, NYT, Washington Post, Breitbart, and Drudge

Good. I would love some of those writers to come on here and justify the policing of words and thoughts. They would get destroyed.

Immune to Words wrote:

Draft Day! wrote:

I emailed this thread to the author from Outside Online, Amby Burfoot, NYT, Washington Post, Breitbart, and Drudge

Good. I would love some of those writers to come on here and justify the policing of words and thoughts. They would get destroyed.

Is a threat? I just emailed this thread to the police!

Draft Day! wrote:

Immune to Words wrote:

Good. I would love some of those writers to come on here and justify the policing of words and thoughts. They would get destroyed.

Is a threat? I just emailed this thread to the police!

Which ones?

p.s. You can do better. Let's try again.

I have two suggestions.

1. Ban users from using a different handle on the same day. I'm not an expert, but that shouldn't be hard to do automatically.

2. Dramatically increase the number of volunteer moderators so offensive posts can be taken down much faster. Volunteers would also have the authority to ban posters.

3. Bans should be meaningful and without a warning. "You know the rules. Step over them and get banned. Bend the rules and you get banned."

All bans would be indefinite. Banned posters could plead their case to a "review board" to be reinstated. I don't anticipate that would be much work either. Just tell the banned poster to start a thread and say, "My name is {real name} and I live in {real city}. One of my posts was deemed offensive. I apologize. It won't happen again." Some posters would whine and complain, but it would clear out the bad apples in a few weeks. We could delete these posts eventually.

The problem isn't LetsRun per se; it's the 0.1% of posters who cross the line without consequences.

fisky,

I guess what I am looking for from those such as yourself who are proponents of banning and monitoring and policing, is a real and pragmatic reason WHY words have to be so closely regulated?

Is is because some people can be mean and we can't have meanness? Is that the real, bottom-line reason. Someone was mean to somebody else and the community of this board can't handle it?

I am being serious when I ask that question? Really? Hurt feelings? That's it? That's all one side has to stand on to push an agenda of control over the buttons people push on their keyboard. Once again, that is weak, and particularly sad in light of the fact that to be an endurance athlete you have to be tough and not let small stuff get to you.

Totally agree.

Letsrun is pretty cool if you can weed through the crap. And that is easy to do.

There are a lot of great postings about life issues which are not running related but it's great that they get discussed here.

People who complain about letsrun think that everybody has to uplift their version of whatever they are doing. Critical questioning is not allowed.

Draft Day! wrote:

When Rojo uses white men being slandered as an analogous situation to women and people of color getting slandered, I’m very curious about the intent here. Because intent matters.

Is it bad when anyone, white men included, are slandered, for any reason, including for being white men? Yes.

Rojo COULD use that example of slander to have empathy for other groups of people being slandered, that everyone being slandered only proves that more and better moderation or registration is needed.

Instead, he seems to come at this point from a defensive position, that it white men are slandered, that other groups being slandered is the balance, and there is nothing to be done about any of it.

This, my friends, is ignorant, nihilistic, and racist.

P.S. Has Baltimore jumped the shark?

One thing that I found really interesting was Rojo claiming the site can't be misogynist or racist because Galen Rupp was often called gay.

I disagree strongly with the idea now that people can't be racist against a white person. That idea is fundamentally illogical and stupid.

However, pointing out that the site can't be racist because the most attacked athlete was Galen Rupp is also idiotic. He was a white male being attacked, he wasn't being attacked because of his race.

The racist on this site attack people because of their race. That's what makes it racist. See Coevett for example. Him pointing out Kenyan dopers isn't racist on the surface. Him calling Kenyans the dumbest people he's ever met is racist.

And now that Coevett has clearly been shown to be a racist, it's understandable why people see his repeated accusations against Kenyans to be racially motivated. Because he has shown himself to be a racist and devotes most of posts here to attacking people of that race. The fact that the site didn't even ban him for a day for this shows the site isn't serious about cleaning up the racism. In fact the mods explicitly singled out Coevett as an example of the type of poster they were looking to protect.

People call the site racist because they allow a lot of dog whistle posts that make claims like "every classroom with black kids in it had problems" to stay up and generate clicks and revenue. They also historically clearly had mods refusing to delete racist posts while furiously deleting any posts that complained about them within minutes. Clear evidence of fostering a racist environment, for whatever reason.

Because of that, the site has obviously attracted the rats, and it's not easy to get rid of them. The moderation seems to have gotten a bit better but it's probably too late. The rats have made their nest and the site will always be have issues, especially since the efforts to clean them up seem half-hearted at best.

So it's easy to see why people view attacks on black athletes and women on here as racist and sexist. A post attacking a woman athlete or a black athlete is usually not racist on it's own, but because there is an extended history of outright racist and sexist posts that were allowed to stay up for a very long time, and the number of dog whistle race baiting that is allowed by the site, it's a very reasonable to assume there is at least some connection between the racist and sexist undercurrent of the site and the posts attacking these athletes.