The Downside of Online Bicycle Communities

I thought I would add a few comments on the darker side of online bicycle fora and communities.

 Sometimes I see the negative version of "show and tell": a thread or topic on a bulletin board where people post links and pictures of bicycles they wish to insult, topics where people post a link to eBay or Craigslist, showing a bike with an amateur restoration or the like, then make brutal comments about the seller/restorer and the work done.

While some sellers are unreasonable or overstate the quality of their work, I don't see a need to purposefully post a link to a bike, then engage in raw insults. It speaks negatively of the poster and the forum allowing the talk. The work may be sloppy, and saying, "I think the job is sloppy" is perfectly fine. But at some point the negativity passes into raw insults. Honesty and basic respect are not mutually exclusive.

 It's probably better to say nothing than to "call someone out" and insult their work or go after the restorer personally.

This post is not related to any particular events in the work I have done, but it's a general trend I see on bike websites, and it does not reflect well on the segments of the community who participate in it.