Team-Robot: no means no

Below is a recent exchange that took place on the great, the terrible, the life-giving, and the depressing Pinkbike Buy/Sell interface. My product listing clearly states "no trades," and NO MEANS NO. That, and the fact that this guy opened his remarks with "hey bro" meant that manners, professionalism, and mercy went right out the window:

I did my best, but dudebro's still giving me the hard sell to make this trade happen. Looks like I'll have to continue torturing him until he goes away.

When I post stuff for sale on Pinkbike, I always choose the "no trades" option in the drop down menu. I have never, ever, in my entire life chosen the "will consider bike related trade" option. Before that drop down menu existed, I carefully typed "NO TRADES" in the item description of every item I posted. Maybe it wasn't all caps every time, but it was in there. I don't want your shitty CB wheels, I don't want three XBOX controllers, a scratched copy of MW2, and a half eaten pack of gum, and no, I don't want your bros paintbull gun, either. I don't want your old shit. I want less old shit in my life, and ideally I'd like to make some money in the process.

I couldn't be more clear, and yet people are always asking me if I want to trade my old shit for theirs? The answer is right there on the page staring back at them. It's screaming at them.

If I could choose to not be anyone on the whole planet, it would either be this guy

or Mike Levy at Pinkbike, because they basically have the same job. Anyone who has worked in retail, customer service, or anyone who is responsible for internet or printed content understands the principle that

PEOPLE

CANNOT

READ

Not at all. Not even a little bit. I imagine this is a principle of which Mike Levy is painfully aware, and it's the reason he can securely say he has the worst job in the world.

I don't agree with everything Mike writes, but it's obvious that the guy works his ass off to write thought provoking articles and exposit new ideas for the world of mountain biking. I'd also say that I agree with about 90% of the stuff that he writes, and the stuff we disagree on is ultimately pretty vanilla.

Yeah, obviously the guy has a 29er problem, but sadly that's becoming more and more common and you almost can't fault someone for their wheel orientation anymore. Weed's legal in Washington and even Steve Peat rides a 29er now. I don't even recognize the world we live in any more.

If they have Peat, we're really fighting a losing battle here.

But that's enough on wheel orientation. Back to why Mike Levy's job sucks:

Mike's the guy behind the totally excellent "argument for short travel bikes" article, he was (effectively) the guy that broke the Sam Hill and Gwin news, and he came up with "Tech Tuesday" and the "To the Point" articles to genuinely educate mountain bikers everywhere. If you look at who writes what, almost all the articles about cool proto shit are coming from Mike, too. Mike works his ass off to write new, interesting stuff to keep you and me inside scoop on whatever's going on in the industry.

None of that sucks, but this does: I'd be willing to bet that Mike spends more time battling smartass 13 year olds and debating the finer points of grammar with 45 year old forum warriors than he does writing original content. I'd bet the ratio works out to be about 2:1, where he has to spend two hours clarifying, qualifying, and defending his original content for every hour he spends actually writing it.

One hour of this:

Results in at least two hours wallowing through this:

My favorite thing about the comments under any Pinkbike article is that most of what's being argued about is clearly stated in the actual article. Here's a quick breakdown of what people argue about on Pinkbike:

I think I was a little optimistic on the size of the last sliver.

In stand up comedy, every guy in the audience who thinks he's funny wants to be part of the act. They see some guy on the stage making everybody laugh, and they think to themselves "hey, I could do that."

The thing is, you can't do that. You are not funny, you are not trained in the art of comedy, and best of all, even if you were, it's not your turn to talk. The stand up comedian who's up there with the mic is doing his job, and he's the only one that gets to talk right then. Any guy who cannot understand this concept and wants to shout things out to prove his funniness is called a "heckler" in comedy circles.

Outside of comedy circles, this guy is just called an"asshole."

Sadly, assholes don't exist exclusively in comedy clubs. They exist in droves on the internet. TEAM ROBOT's studies into human thought are exploring the possibility that over time the internet is slowly forming into a single, self-contained, unified and homogenous asshole.

Every guy who reads the industry insider stuff or tech tuesdays or prototype predicitions or whatever on Pinkbike thinks to themselves, "hey, I'm just as smart as whoever wrote this. I could totally do that." And then they inevitably wade into the foray and try to contribute their two cents to the non-debate. Most comment sections for most articles are largely indiscernable as being connected to the actual article, because the arguments and debates no longer have any relation to the actual content of the original article. Mike ends up being the guy who has to moderate all that.

This is what Mike Levy has to deal with.
Every. Day. Of. His. Life.

So Mike, thanks for putting on these: