You're driving people away from the forum. Since you started that, the active members have gone down and down. Post interesting and unbiased stuff instead. I'll give it another week to change, then I'm gone too. Try a few threads about why everyone should wear a helmet, why hub-motors are best or Why the speed limit should be changed if you want some interactions:
Yes !
Screeds of identical Youtube videos posted every day by the same individual without any kind of comment about them. If you trouble to look at them, they are pretty much identical. WHY are they there?
When you open the thread it takes an interminable time to load - I'm not sure why. Perhaps my browser is caching the early part of the videos - I have no idea. The page freezes up, making the site a drag.
The same individual virtually never ever says anything of his own ideas - just spams the forum with insane numbers of identical videos.
In other threads we are presented with an utterly negative perspective of e-bikes: 'They are dangerous and will burn your house down and kill your family.' Day after day after day the same. A completely counter-productive view of e-bikes as far as the forum is concerned. I'd imagine it is intended that the forum attracts people. I'd say this kind of stuff more likely repels them.
Then we have the 'E-bikes are driven by bandits' thread, and they will all be seized and taken away by the police. Same pattern,. Same poster - multiple tedious accounts usually making the ridiculous claim that a 1kw motor (about 1.3HP if we are talking about the output) can propel the bike to sixty miles an hour. UTTER boll ox. It takes at least ten horse power to propel a light weight motor bike to sixty miles an hour. Lifting the rear wheel means the motor is working against no resistance and doing no work. Propelling a bicycle and rider is not the same.
Political propaganda has no place on an electric bike forum. Ever since it was allowed in the Brexit thread, it's been driving away forum members. I'm no snowflake. It neither scares me nor influences me in any way other than that it annoys me that it's interfering with my hobby. I hate politics and propaganda. It brings out the worst in me, so I'll go wherever I'm not exposed to it so I don't have to worry about my own bad behaviour.
I am sympathetic to your complaint even though when I was a posting member, I posted in this thread about political matters that bothered me. I was not posting propaganda though. They were opinions and were always supported with argument and evidence when available.
I did so because it seemed that this thread was for that purpose, or had morphed into it.
I stopped posting here because of two things. Probably to the relief of some.
One of the reasons you refer to above in connection to your own response - it brought out the worst in me and I was on occasions rude and abrasive and probably inconsiderate in some of my responses. I also used bad language.
The other was that when posting about the concern many people have about insurgent right of centre parties gaining ground all over the continent, I pointed out that their rising support stemmed from those in power in established parties having failed to represent the justified concerns of a mass of ordinary people and worse still, mocking those concerns.
The remarks are at around page 506 of this thread. My remarks were neither inflammatory, rude or wrong.
That IS the reason we have Farage and Reform in the ascendant. The one time party of the working class has over the last forty years slowly and irretrievably lost touch with its working class roots. The Conservative Party likewise has ceased to be conservative. I made this point in a reasoned fashion and two members insulted me by calling me a fascist and a follower of Enoch Powel, and the youtube spammer posted pictures of Farage with a Hitler Moustache. I took the view, and continue in it that such stupid responses to an obvious factual assertion rendered it pointless to continue to interact with such people. If that seems arrogant - it is what I think. They had deliberately misread what was being said and resorted to ad hominem abuse.
The amusing thing is that I have been shown to be right on many of these opinions I expressed. This week Labour has been briefing that Angela Rayner has said pretty much the same point I made around page 506 in cabinet meetings ie Government had better start taking notice of people's concerns about the scale of migration both to stem the flow of people to Reform and also to prevent serious unrest.
On another topic - the grooming gangs - today the BBC has led with accusations of deep concern about the Rotherham scandal showing that Police were also abusing girls who were victims of the gangs. More and more cases are being investigated and the scale of abuse by Pakistani Muslim (bad Muslims for sure) abusers has barely yet been scratched at, even with large numbers already convicted. Most of the many hundreds of abusers reported by the girls concerned have never been prosecuted.
If Saneagle leaves here, the forum will be vastly diminished.
I say that not because I agree with many of his opinions. I certainly don't.
I say it because he systematically provides solutions and support to users founded on long term expert, professional experience.
By the way - just to report that my £255 Argos folder will tomorrow pass the one thousand miles of fault free riding milestone. The odometer that I fitted when I bought it, is now reading 995.6 miles.
It may be just about the weakest e-bike in the world, but it has never failed to do what it was designed to do and it has stood up to my riding very well. Aside from some grubby dirt being left on it by its neglectful owner, it even looks ok. Best money I ever spent, I'd say. The battery is fully up to the capacity it had when I got it last August too.