New Cycling Social Network

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Originally Posted by Irulan

I agree with the above. However, I do think it's extremely rude/lame/arrogant to come into another forum and say, "hey come over here instead". A site should be able to gain members through its own merits, referrals, facebook likes, blog mentions, link-tos, whatever. I mean, the owners of Whole Foods don't hit you up on your way out of Trader Joes to tell you to come check out their store. They advertise, sponsor, and do other things.

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This is it exactly. It may not have been their intention to come off this way, but they did.

I agree that posting here was a bit unprofessional, although it has happened before. I thought that I would be open minded enough to check out the site only to find out that I needed to become a member in order to even read text:confused: What's up with that? I often times read sites without logging on, and if I have something that I want to post or reply to then I'll log on. Not a very friendly or encouraging way to start a site...

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Originally Posted by ridebikeme

I agree that posting here was a bit unprofessional, although it has happened before. I thought that I would be open minded enough to check out the site only to find out that I needed to become a member in order to even read text:confused: What's up with that? I often times read sites without logging on, and if I have something that I want to post or reply to then I'll log on. Not a very friendly or encouraging way to start a site...

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I run an online music community. There are always a few troublemakers around, or spammers just dying to join and spam everyone's home pages.
I have had to tighten up my site over the past several months due to people joining and doing bad things. These safety measures include using captcha, email verification, and joinup questions. This past week i had to go further, and (temporarily at least) set the site to be publically viewable only on the main page, so non-members would have to join in order to view everything on the site. Yes it's a turnoff to some, but it's not that unusual, I see this elsewhere on web communities. My site is extremely friendly and welcoming, but I have found it's necessary to prevent spammers and trolls from taking advantage by putting into place various features which allow only sincerely interested people to join. We get several new members per day, and I usually head off a spammer per day as well, and prevent them from joining this way.

I personally don't see Spokesnet's intro and solicitation here as either rude or inappropriate. Their community is substantially different from TE- whole different structure and functions, different feel and content, and most importantly- a whole different audience. Their site is not specifically targeted at women riders. Thus, they could never be true 'competition' to TE as I see it. I think their original post and intention was neither sneaky or rude, I found it polite and forthright. Just my opinion.

+1 to everything Bleecker said.

I'd be very surprised if another online cycling community offers what I get from TE, but I don't mind knowing about it.

I imagine the our hosts at TE are pleased about anything that promotes cycling, because the more cycling we do, the more cycling stuff we buy.

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Originally Posted by Muirenn

Wrong way to network Spokes. All you did here was alienate.

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Wait what? I didn't see anything wrong with the OP. I also didn't see it as "come to my forum instead of this one." It's a big internet. Forums don't have to be mutually exclusive.

As for not knowing how to run a website, you can't see anything on Facebook until after you create an account, and it seems to work fine for them.

I don't understand why people are attacking someone who has actually been rather polite here. If you're not interested in their site, just ignore it.

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Originally Posted by ny biker

It's a big internet. Forums don't have to be mutually exclusive.

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There are many things I find here and only here. Like others I surf elsewhere for a variety of reasons.

Perhaps ideally someone would create an id, lurk around, get a feel for the "culture" (we're friendly, really we are :D), eventually post something in the "getting to know you" thread (did I ever do that? :confused:), get to know us and we get to know you .... and then "oh by the way, I have this site" or put it in a footer.

But the world's not perfect :rolleyes:

There are a lot of valued members here who have a vague or direct professional interest in the board; trainers, coaches, bike fit, cycling advocates, tour leaders, bike builders, LBS owners ... and we in turn benefit a LOT from their being here.

As OP's site takes off TE itself may want an ad there. There is a business that supports our TE addiction after all. :cool:

Welcome onboard!

+1 on not minding the solicitation. It wasn't terribly spammy, and it's a legitimate site that people here might find interesting and useful.

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Originally Posted by Muirenn

New websites need to be as user-friendly as possible to attract viewers. So, requiring a login before viewing is inadvisable. Security levels can be changed as often as necessary to accomodate the amount and type of web traffic...
...Spam-bots don't bother a forum much if it is viewable, but requires a login to post. Unless the website is so big it's constantly bombarded with spam.

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I must disagree with your statements about spam-bots. That is not my experience. Sorry, I didn't mean to veer off from the subject of this thread, however, which is not spammers and their methods, or even social network security.