For new fans: does PdC hate Lance Armstrong?

This is a historical explanation of the term "HWMNBN," a term used elsewhere to refer to the worst dark wizard of all time, and commonly used here to refer to Mr. Lance Armstrong.

It strikes me that people stumbling in a year or more after the coining of "HWMNBN" must assume that we're a bunch of folks who all equate Lance with Voldemort. Not so. A brief history of the coining of the term:

There were periodic "if Lance were still here, he'd kick [fill in the blank's] butt" threads. They tended to be short on actual analysis, but, eh, it's a free world. More irritatingly, however, people were periodically and perennially debating ages old Lance doping scandals after the man was retired. There was (duh) never anything new to be said, because there was (duh) NO new evidence and NO new samples and precious few new leaks or rumors. The only thing that varied was the level of hostility, ranging from intermediate to painful. Even the wording had practically become standardized, though the people bothering to type in the words seemed to change from time to time. It got very tiresome. It clogged up fanpost space. It hijacked substantive threads. It deepened frowns and worry lines, triggered global warming, problem drinking, geopolitical upheaval (OK, I exaggerate), and led exactly nowhere.

So Chris banned the subject. And by implication, posts about Lance that were likely to trigger that type of response. As he has pointed out previously, the ban was actually only "HWBCC1999-2005MNBD" i.e. "He whose blood cell count 1999-2005 must not be debated."  And it was actually explicitly conditional on Lance being an ex-racer. Not so draconian, right? 

But Chris had never before instituted a blanket ban on any subject.  It didn't take long for people to notice the Omerta quality of the ban, and the Voldemort-esque absoluteness of it. Verbally-playful people that we are, the HWMNBN label, and a dozen variants, sprung into being. And in a case of mass typographical Tourette's, once we'd started blurting the thing out, it felt so good, we couldn't stop. For the record, PdC does not--organizationally or by vote or consensus of the membership--hate Lance. Some hate him, some love him, some can take him or leave him. But we do, organizationally, hate repetitive threads, unless they take off from "phone's ringing" or a picture of HWMABP or otherwise make us smile or laugh or think deep thoughts.

Many of us continue to type "HWMNBN" a a in-joke. It is also a reminder to be polite to your fellow PdC members. It also prevents PdC from showing up in the top 5 google results for every person who types in "Lance Armstrong" 'cause they want to get a yellow bit of rubber for their arm. (That's good for us, for them, and for the cause of internet civility.)

If you're looking for a place to fight Lance Armstrong's battles for him, you're going to find a lot more windmills than giants here.  Pick an old race thread from the archives, and follow it.  Check out some of the Gavia Gossip.  Or a team analysis, a race preview, a young rider bio.  If you read this before the deadline, PLEASE enter the VDS competition even if you're picking names more or less at random--it's free, and its fun. Put Lance Armstrong on your VDS team, then also pick 24 other riders, and cheer them all on, in whatever races they're racing in.  It's FINE if you love Lance.  Come love, and learn, his sport.