@Colnago_zuub
Before you delve into this message, I want say again what a good job you did, and +1 to
@Painkiller 's comments.
I know I welcomed you to the Colnago owners' group as a generality, and also told you (I think?) of the "Colnago Owners Group" on F-book. I had never gone to their site before as there was no need to but I figured if I informed someone else about it then I should at least check it out.
I went there and found that it is a private group and no posts are accessible unless you are a member. You can request to join, and your request is then pending until reviewed by the group's administrators. There is nothing on their group page except basic guidelines for use if you are a member and F-book links for its administrators. Sooo, being a Colnago owner, rider, racer, tourer, builder, etc. for nearly 40 years I decided to request entry. Nothing else was displayed upon my making my request except a message that it was pending review. Days go by, and, long story not so short, I was denied entry to the group (and I went on drinking binge, threw all my Colnagos off a cliff, vowed never to drink Italian wine again, and repudiated my 50% Italian lineage); but that denial notification was not from my initial request which is still pending! Between the time of my initial request and before receiving notification of their denial while still waiting for approval to what I am now labelling "The Colnago Cabal", I left their page and when rechecking the site noticed on the browser links two entries for the same site. The one I went initially showed over 5.6K of followers and the other had over 24K of followers yet both linked to the same site. When I scrutinized the "new" page I saw that it again showed a field to request group access; while on the initial page I went to it still showed my request as pending so I decided to submit a new request on the "new" page thinking that there might be some glitch, and it was the reason why my initial request was still pending. When I submitted my new request on the "new" page it immediately had a pop-up which asked a question as to why you wanted to be in their "group" (cabal). There was limited space and I put in the general facts that I previously wrote here (owner, rider, etc.) which upon entering gave me the same "pending awaiting approval" statement. It was that request that got denied (in very short order; maybe 30 mins or less), with my the initial request still pending on their "alternate" page.
Here is the message I received which informed me of my denial with my remarks in ( ).
"
Member request declined
Your request to join
Colnago Owners Group was automatically declined based on criteria admins added to this group. (No criteria was stated except that implied by their cabal name)
Membership questions
Person has not answered all membership questions. (There was only ONE question!)
Admin Feedback
Please answer questions fully to be considered for the group." (Again, there was only ONE question, and limited space to answer or elaborate!)
At the bottom of that message, as if to add insult to injury, was a button labelled: "
Visit group". Of course, I cannot visit the bloody cabal since I have been denied knowledge of their secret handshake.
All the while my initial request is pending; probably for eternity!
In an effort to provide their cabal feedback I sent a message to one of their administrators/moderators since you could not even message the cabal directly from their site. Here is the text:
"Hello Andrew, I submitted a request to join your "COG" on the main page and received notice that the request was pending a couple days ago which was still pending when I had last checked. For some reason I went back to the browser page and saw another "COG" on FB entry so I accessed that page and saw that it was the same group and there was a field to request joining the group which I did. Upon selecting a pop-up occurred asking a question as to why I wanted to join which I answered in kind, and was then shown that the request was pending. There was no question asked when I initially entered my request on the "alternate" FB page (that request is still pending!). I received notification that my request was denied from the submission on the page where I answered the question. The statement given was: "Member request declined
Your request to join Colnago Owners Group was automatically declined based on criteria admins added to this group. Membership questions Person has not answered all membership questions. Admin Feedback Please answer questions fully to be considered for the group". Since there was only one question, and I answered as much as I could given the limited character space; I am wondering why I saw no other questions (per your site's denial message), nor any criteria for which to base my decision to request group entry. If owning a Colnago is only one of (I assume) the criteria to be met, then what are the others since I have owned and ridden Colnagos for almost 40 years, and on one of them 30 years alone which is probably longer than some of your members have existed on this planet. I am not concerned about whether or not I am acceptable to your group nor reasons for denial; but your site should be open, giving due courtesy to those interested in joining, as to what your criteria are and save others like myself from having to waste time dealing with an obfuscated "selection process" when I should have been able to read what your requirements are, and thus not have requested joining in the first place since I would have readily been able to determine that I did not qualify for entry to the group in the first place. The only obvious criteria is displayed by the group's name: "Colnago OWNERS Group". I thought it was a group for like minded individuals who not only owned; but also rode Colnagos in various venues and locations. I have raced, toured, commuted, etc. on multiple Colnago bikes so I am indeed perplexed. I also recommend that the "alternate" (old?) link be removed since it obviously does not function the same as your other page link does (as previously noted). Thank you for your time and consideration. Respectfully, Jesper"
"zuub", not saying you should not try your luck as a proud owner of a Colnago (and you will probably be accepted); but I will spend no more time on what I now consider to be a joke group. If you do decide to request cabal access, I would be curious to know what question(s) you needed to answer, what you wrote, and if were accepted into their cabal. At this point, the only reason I would like to access that site is to see if they ripped any of my photos to post there since one administrator had, on his personal F-book page, an entry chastising another bike group for using their site photos presumably found only on their private members only site. I highly doubt that all their photos are directly member sourced only, and that no one on the site HAS EVER posted a photo from an outside source without photo credit (which was for some reason NOT addressed in their group guidelines list).
I am, without a doubt, a rogue loner cyclist; but I did not think that I was so far out that I could not be accepted by a little (<25K; considering the millions of Colnago owners there are) owners' site like that. Label me now as educated and informed.
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