PB going to the wolves?

This is some question I have, am I being overly sensitive? Why would they not moderate comments (for an example see the attached one below)?

Here is a rant I wrote just to try and understand why this happening bugs me:

Hi PB editors and MODs,

I just wanted to say, I love how PB posts articles like this "Mathieu van der Poel Pleads Guilty to Assault After Altercation with Teenage Girls" yet doesn't think, "Hey, maybe we should either not post this, or at least make an effort to moderate the comments."

You guys should have some foresight, how do you think this reflects on PB and the mountain bike community as a whole if somebody who is new to MTBing were to read the comments below this article? If you had a friend who had never mountain biked and they were to see this article's comments what do you think they would think? Makes, the whole PB MTB community seem like a bunch of misogynistic, male, dirtbags. 90% of the comments don't even follow PB's comment etiquette. This breaks my heart because I love PB but when this happens nobody does anything to stop it (except some random, few, brave people in the comments) I wonder if PB is something I should support or recommend.

What is the point of posting articles like this? To me, there are zero benefits or use in doing so, because of what people post in the comments.

I hope this might be some food for thought,

-Seth

PS I also love, how all the below-threshold comments are the ones condemning violence, yet the highest comments are on the opposite spectrum, shows how well community modding works

From my experience, PB has always been like that, I would even go so far and say right from the beginning. PB is one of those places where users are not really held accountable, it seems that since the days of Outside it has gotten worse, maybe. 

The traffic und upload of content is unreal, they keep churning out all kinds of things, kind of like the MTB equivalent to the British tabloid The Sun.

There was a time where a number of years back when it felt like you couldn't participate on a MTB related site without running into a steady stream of racism, homophobia and misogyny. I'd comment on it and/or report it to the mods. I got told I was being overly sensitive a lot. I wasn't....there was just a lot of douchebaggery tolerated at the time. Things seemed to have gotten better overall which is great. That said I don't spend much time in the comments at PB, because the signal to noise ratio is so low it's not worth the effort.

I took a quick look at the comments for the MVP/kids/Oz article you quoted from. I couldn't see the comments in this post so they may have been moderated or downvoted. There did seem to be a healthy amount of self-policing by PB commentators calling out the worst stuff and downvoting it. The PB Mods should definitely be running through there and culling the comments and handing out some bans for the worst comments. If they didn't want to do that they could just turn off the comments. It's not like it's an issue that needs deep discussion on a MTB site.

Not excusing it, but to put it into context I was watching a chess video stream on YT yesterday where a lady got a lot of bigotted comments about her looks and that she may be trans. I was pretty shocked. I naively assumed the folks who would care about chess would be above shit like that, but I was wrong.

I don't know what the ultimate answer is...maybe there isn't one...as an individual all you can do is call out bad behaviour when you see it/report it to the mods if there are any and if enough people do that it makes it socially unpalatable in that community. The problem is that just pushes it below the surface and those people don't necessarily go anywhere.

FWIW - the general decorum/behaviour/moderation on NSMB is why I spend my time here vs. a site like PB.

PB with BP is the TMZ of biking now....  clicks instead of integrity.

If a website could kill mountain biking, it would be PB.

I don't know if you looked at a different article because I couldn't see any mods policing the comments (https://www.pinkbike.com/news/mathieu-van-der-poel-pleads-guilty-to-assault-after-altercation-with-teenage-girls.html) just a couple random people. Though I might not see new ones since PB has blocked me from posting any comments on the article after I posted my "rant" above.

As you said NSMB is way better than PB because people don't flame each other on politics and personal beliefs. The only arguing I see on NSMB is why somebody prefers a certain bike or geometry and even then it is always done respectfully.

Posted by: Sethsg

I don't know if you looked at a different article because I couldn't see any mods policing the comments (https://www.pinkbike.com/news/mathieu-van-der-poel-pleads-guilty-to-assault-after-altercation-with-teenage-girls.html) just a couple random people.

I didn't say the mods were policing the comments on that article.

Sorry, I thought that was the article you were talking about, I was mistaken.

Yeah, I think they must have cleaned it up. or I didn't read far enough down.

In my opinion reporting that it was girls specifically is digging for controversy but that happens in every single media outlet. What difference does it make? Would people be ok with the result if it were 14 year old dudes? Plus anytime the word assault and female are together in a headline everyone assumes sexual assault as well, adding to the clickbait. 

I can tell you that at 14 I knew loud and clear that if you push some people enough there is a risk of violence....not condoning it but as a male you need to learn that very quickly.

This type of journalism reminds me of the teenager that was assaulted on lower Lonsdale earlier this year. He happened to be a skateboarder and was knocked out by and older man, maybe 60ish from the photo. For 100% of the article the NS News referred to him  as "the skateboarder" instead of something benign like "the victim", or "the teenager" etc. And teh perp was referred to as "the older man" and i think even as the elderly man in one version..

The comments online, from primarily adult female commenters were pretty consistently "I'm sure he deserved it" or sharing instances where a skateboarder has disrupted their day and it was "about time someone stood up to these skateboarders". Completely different incident but exactly the same BS journalism.

What difference does it make what group of people you are associated with or identify with etc.  It's either assault or its not.

Posted by: Sethsg

Sorry, I thought that was the article you were talking about, I was mistaken.

I am talking about the article you linked to. I am not saying that the mods are policing it. I just couldn't find the comments you had in your OP. Maybe the mods deleted them, maybe people downvoted them or maybe I missed them as I only scanned the comments. That said if you were blocked from posting then it does seem the mods are doing some work on that comment section.

Posted by: MaxRockatansky

Yeah, I think they must have cleaned it up. or I didn't read far enough down.

In my opinion reporting that it was girls specifically is digging for controversy but that happens in every single media outlet. What difference does it make? Would people be ok with the result if it were 14 year old dudes? Plus anytime the word assault and female are together in a headline everyone assumes sexual assault as well, adding to the clickbait. 

I can tell you that at 14 I knew loud and clear that if you push some people enough there is a risk of violence....not condoning it but as a male you need to learn that very quickly.

This type of journalism reminds me of the teenager that was assaulted on lower Lonsdale earlier this year. He happened to be a skateboarder and was knocked out by and older man, maybe 60ish from the photo. For 100% of the article the NS News referred to him  as "the skateboarder" instead of something benign like "the victim", or "the teenager" etc. And teh perp was referred to as "the older man" and i think even as the elderly man in one version..

The comments online, from primarily adult female commenters were pretty consistently "I'm sure he deserved it" or sharing instances where a skateboarder has disrupted their day and it was "about time someone stood up to these skateboarders". Completely different incident but exactly the same BS journalism.

What difference does it make what group of people you are associated with or identify with etc.  It's either assault or its not.

Here is the article I am talking about - https://www.pinkbike.com/news/mathieu-van-der-poel-pleads-guilty-to-assault-after-altercation-with-teenage-girls.html don't know if you thought I was talking about a different one.

That is something that I did read about in a book on journalism, journalists have to very careful in what words they use otherwise they can purposly (or un-purposely) effectively change the facts due to connotations around certain words and facts. It is like a journalist doing a story on how a cyclist was hit and killed by a car speeding because the driver was texting, do think people would feel more or less angry about the death of the cyclist if the writer added that the cyclist never had a helmet, rather than leaving it out. A helmet won't save you if a car hits you while going 60-70 km/h so that fact is negligible and does not contribute to the story.

I was always under the impression that PB comments and forums were a cesspool of teen male bullshit.  They have no time to moderate.  They are too busy making video content.

I agree though.  I don't like a heavily moderated forum but it wouldn't be hard to have someone monitor the threads and shadow-ban a few of the delinquents.

I am actually loving some of the content to come out of PB lately...but the comments are a whole different story. I listen to the PB podcast and they had one about the comments section, so when you write an artical for them, you are the one expected to moderate the comment section. Thought that was interesting. It was an interesting conversation and if you have not listened to it yet you should.

Posted by: Sethsg

As you said NSMB is way better than PB because people don't flame each other on politics and personal beliefs. The only arguing I see on NSMB is why somebody prefers a certain bike or geometry and even then it is always done respectfully.

LOL