Etiquette of promoting cyclosportives

[Tewdric]

Split from the Tour Rides - Tour of Britain Stage 4 Welshpool to Caerphilly thread

MV

I’m a freelance cycle consultant

What's your consultancy fee then?  Are you going to donate some to the forum for all this free advertising you're getting?

[DanialW]

Good point Tewdric!

[Alouicious]

They are Cyclosportives and this is the 'Audax and Cyclosportive' section.

What's wrong with that?

Does AUK have a monopoly on promoting its events here?

I might ride the Stoke on Trent event.


Watch out Alistair, Arrivee might hack your phone.

[DanialW]

They are Cyclosportives and this is the 'Audax and Cyclosportive' section.

Well spotted!

What's wrong with that?

nothing at all

Does AUK have a monopoly on promoting its events here?

not at all

[border-rider]

Does AUK have a monopoly on promoting its events here?

No, but then the question of someone being paid to promote a commercial event bombarding this place with what are effectively advertisements is rarely an issue with AUK.  I suspect that similar questions would arise with commercial outfits advertising on the Classifieds board, or with people promoting paid-for touring holidays in Rides & Touring.

Somewhere there's a line between useful information and taking the mickey.  Of course it's not always altogether clear where that is.

[DanialW]

I've no problem with anyone promoting any event on here. My beef is with people who are paid to promote events, who do not otherwise contribute to the boards.

Alistair TR, Kidscan and I are paid for our promotion work. I get £300 a year honoraria from Audax UK, which I happily take. Perhaps Alistair would like to tell us how much he is paid to post on here? Kidscan, would you like to tell us? I also face an annual election, so if I get it wrong, I can be booted out.

Neither Alistair TR nor Kidscan contribute to this forum in any meaningful way other than to promote their events. Their posting stats are very telling. They add little to YACF other than the plugs that they are paid to make.

I'd hope that the powers that be would be having a quiet word. Otherwise, I suspect that other 'consultants' will start posting, to the detriment of the forum.

[Jord]

Bit of a very heavy sell for my taste 

[Dinamo]

They are Cyclosportives and this is the 'Audax and Cyclosportive' section.

What's wrong with that?

Does AUK have a monopoly on promoting its events here?

Not this old chestnut again !!!

Why not change to an exclusive Audax section, and place Cyclosportive in a subsection somewhere else, perhaps in Freewheeling next to Racing ?

[DanialW]

Missing the point there, Dinamo.

[Dinamo]

Missing the point there, Dinamo.

Aren't most of the topics on 'Audax & Cyclosportive' board promoting events ?
By now most forumites know the difference between the two - in regards cost/value and where the money goes commercial/charity.

[border-rider]

Why not change to an exclusive Audax section, and place Cyclosportive in a subsection somewhere else, perhaps in Freewheeling next to Racing ?

In olden times, audax was quite low traffic and CS was almost non-existent.  We had a debate about it and the consensus was that CS didn't have sufficient critical mass.

But now...I wonder. I think there is much more CS interest out there but that the audax content (which is now huge) tends to stifle it on this board. It may be time to reconsider this.

They're probably not ideal bedfellows, really

[mikeluke]

I think there is much more CS interest out there but that the audax content (which is now huge) tends to stifle it on this board.

+1

[border-rider]

New poll

Separate board for Cyclosportives ?

[Alouicious]

Take for example the thread in this section "Lost in post entries using Royal Mail".

Entries to what? Miss World? ( he does mention Dustman Dave's Hilly, but does not state 'Audax' in his opening post ).

Everyone including myself on reading the thread title took this to mean Audax entries.

Such is the dominance of Audax in this section, resulting in the sad P take of the chap ( who has the perfect right because it is a FREE forum and he IS promoting his cause in the 'Audax AND Cyclosportive' section ) so much he is called a Troll.

[DanialW]

Again, you miss the point completely, Alouicious.

[border-rider]

Take for example the thread in this section "Lost in post entries using Royal Mail".

Entries to what? Miss World? ( he does mention Dustman Dave's Hilly, but does not state 'Audax' in his opening post ).

Everyone including myself on reading the thread title took this to mean Audax entries.

Such is the dominance of Audax in this section,

I think that's a fair point, well made.  Not intentional but that's how it's panned out. 

resulting in the sad P take of the chap ( who has the perfect right because it is a FREE forum and he IS promoting his cause in the 'Audax AND Cyclosportive' section ) so much he is called a Troll.

That I think is less fair; people do promote & discuss CSs in a way consistent with the workings of the forum, but just one or two seem to push the boundaries sufficiently far to generate a raft of complaints.  I think Danial explained his objections well upthread.

[arabella]

To me it's the difference between

$RegularPoster saying  "I'm doing xxx event (be it audax or cyclosportive), who else is/who went last year/etc"
$RegularPoster saying  "shameless plug for my event" (tends to be audax but not exclusively I don't think, and at least some of us have ridden one or more other pople's events with $RegularPoster)
and
$OcassionalPoster saying "advertising blurb about the event" (where $OccasionaPoster is largely unknown as a rider of any other events)

[clarion]

Whereupon

$OccasionalPoster (if they just post to promote the event) has the piss ripped mercilessly out of them.

[vorsprung]

I have no bother with Alistair TR posting clearly labeled messages about the event he is promoting

The content of the message are high in dates and costs and useful info like that

If you aren't interested in the Tour of Britain charity sportives ( I'm not ) then it's simple to just not read the thread

[Tewdric]

I didn't mean to be that unkind to the original poster, who is clearly a decent guy doing his best to promote an event that ultimately benefits a charity.  What I was doing was having a bit of a poke at the repetitive nature of the ads he keeps posting!  

On a more serious note, fora like these do provide prime stalking ground for many commercial interests, and I don't want a forum where every tenth post is an ad for something, disguised or otherwise.

<edit>

Having said that, if people within the industry want to contribute constructively, that's very, very welcome in my view.  But compare Dave Yate's contributions, for example, with the OPs....

[border-rider]

Whereupon

$OccasionalPoster (if they just post to promote the event) has the piss ripped mercilessly out of them.

Indeed. Because there's been no agreed or consistent policy on this - every time we discuss it we seem to get tied in knots over minutia of definitions & differences from the way audaxes are promoted - it's been left to the hive mind to manage.  That has not always been very pretty, hence the suggestion that we might have a separate CS board where it can develop its own way of doing things and also maybe get wider interest in an arena where CS is not swamped by A.

Vorsp is right - if it bugs you then it's probably best to just ignore the thread - but in the longer term I think the issue does raise a more general question about how well we cater for CSs here (not very, in my view)

[Jaded]

If you google a phrase from this post: Tour Rides - Tour of Britain Stage 4 Welshpool to Caerphilly

the top three hits are exactly the same post posted on other forums.

[Alouicious]

Again, you miss the point completely, Alouicious.

No. The point is...

This forum is free to register, free to post messages and free to post as many messages as the member chooses to post.

Your point is Alistair's use of a cycling web forum to advertise a cycling event ??


Is there a probationary period or 'Post count' before a member can advertise or promote a cycling event on this cycling forum? No.

The owners of this forum either impose some rules and restrictions, or continue to allow Cycling event promoters to use air-time here to do their work.

[border-rider]

The owners of this forum either impose some rules and restrictions, or continue to allow Cycling event promoters to use air-time here to do their work.

I think that dilemma is what we're exploring on this thread and on the CS vote one. 

[Martin]

my purely personal view is that many sportives are Wank; but that doen't mean I object to people advertising them on a free forum. If posts like the one that caused this thread are left in their own board to gather tumbleweed it sends a clear message to the organiser that nobody here is interested (interestingly can SMF be configured to delete certain posts if not replied to rather than having them sit there months after the event?)

If we either ban or diss them on this forum the promoters and their riders will just go off to BR and leave us to cry into our beards...