Let's Have Another Conversation

[phillyb]

Re: Cliques, crews, niches, and the like...

I've been a member of this forum for almost four years and I feel like I barely know anyone here. I've seen the same usernames and avatars day in and day out for this amount of time and I still feel this way. I just read a C4C article and saw the author's name and had no idea who, on the forum, it was. I shouldn't have tackled this as my first point of regards, so I'ma digress to the next points.

 

Re: C4C

Fucking good for you guys! Who wouldn't want our fellow Rangers fans to watch, analyze, and write about hockey in a manner that the BSBH member can appreciate. We're not talking about poorly written articles with misplaced hype...we're talking about passionate writing, excellent vocabularies, and a knack for piquing the interest of the casual fan, but indulging the true fan.

 

I hated C4C initially, but I couldn't tell you why. Once I moved past that, I was able to appreciate the blog, why it was made, and how it is able to move the forum forward, as well as the potential careers of the contributors. (Yeah, blowjobs are available after the show, just fucking pay me).

 

With regard to its integration to the forum, it's handled perfectly fine; excerpts from articles posted as a C4C user is fine.

 

Re: Persecution by the moderating team

I have never seen this done, but I'ma make a suggestion...after I give more of a preface. I've been posting on forums since 2001: small forums with literally 10 people, all the way up to forums with tens of thousands of users. I run my own phorum, which is utter shit and gets no traffic, and I don't do what I'm going to suggest, but here's a suggestion that might mitigate what some may feel is the persecution by mods...

 

...Re: Moderation

How heavily does this forum need to be moderated? How many reported posts are there that require moderation?

Is the moderating team doing more infracting/moderating than deleting spam?

I ask these questions because 1) my suggestion is to make a moderator account (something I've never seen done, and something I don't do on my own shitty phorum) and only infract and communicate with members from this account.

This will eliminate any perception that one particular moderator might have it out for someone, and it also will remove the need for blue and red names.

 

I'd argue that if the forum were to employ this idea, you'd avoid the risk of members feeling persecuted. The moderating team can still moderate, but the correspondence to members from mods would be from the forum's mod account, not from Future, Drew a Penalty, Phil in Absentia, etc.

Hell, there's a whole moderator forum where you guys could concoct the response together and come across as a board of directors, not an individual with an agenda.

 

For the record, I've never felt the personal persecution from moderators against myself, nor have I witnessed any personal agendas being carried out through moderation, but if this is a point of contention, and it's been brought up in the past, then there's fire...because the smoke already exists.

 

I don't really have a conclusion and I don't really want to be much of a part of this conversation, so...

 

/.02

[Patrick Bateman]

I feel like the lack of activity in the off topic sections is really hurting the activity of the forum. If you look at any successful forum, one of the most active sections is the off topic sections. People generally come to a place for the actual forum subject matter, and stay for the banter on lighter/easier to talk about topics. Also people fucking love meta topics which is why this thread is particularly active

 

I will never, ever talk bad about Phil, and I think anyone who does should really understand the time, effort, and money he puts into keeping this place running. I know it's easy to complain about things now since the forums less active, but we should all be giving him a big thank you for all that he's done for us. I will never question a move he makes to attempt to monetize on all the resources he's been putting into this place, and I really hope the blog succeeds.

 

Like someone said before, it's tough for people to be engaged in a forum now when you have things like Twitter where you can spit out quick takes and run amok, which is what the masses would rather be doing in their sports discussion. Say there's a topic on Kreider, 99% of people would prefer to say something like "Kreider (trash emoji)" then an actual thought out response, and I'm one of them lol

 

But anyways, Phil, is there anything we as the users can do to help you out? Content or anything you may think the forum needs. Let us know and I think we'd be more then happy to try and help

[The Dude]

Re: Cliques, crews, niches, and the like...

I've been a member of this forum for almost four years and I feel like I barely know anyone here. I've seen the same usernames and avatars day in and day out for this amount of time and I still feel this way. I just read a C4C article and saw the author's name and had no idea who, on the forum, it was. I shouldn't have tackled this as my first point of regards, so I'ma digress to the next points.

 

Re: C4C

Fucking good for you guys! Who wouldn't want our fellow Rangers fans to watch, analyze, and write about hockey in a manner that the BSBH member can appreciate. We're not talking about poorly written articles with misplaced hype...we're talking about passionate writing, excellent vocabularies, and a knack for piquing the interest of the casual fan, but indulging the true fan.

 

I hated C4C initially, but I couldn't tell you why. Once I moved past that, I was able to appreciate the blog, why it was made, and how it is able to move the forum forward, as well as the potential careers of the contributors. (Yeah, blowjobs are available after the show, just fucking pay me).

 

With regard to its integration to the forum, it's handled perfectly fine; excerpts from articles posted as a C4C user is fine.

 

Re: Persecution by the moderating team

I have never seen this done, but I'ma make a suggestion...after I give more of a preface. I've been posting on forums since 2001: small forums with literally 10 people, all the way up to forums with tens of thousands of users. I run my own phorum, which is utter shit and gets no traffic, and I don't do what I'm going to suggest, but here's a suggestion that might mitigate what some may feel is the persecution by mods...

 

...Re: Moderation

How heavily does this forum need to be moderated? How many reported posts are there that require moderation?

Is the moderating team doing more infracting/moderating than deleting spam?

I ask these questions because 1) my suggestion is to make a moderator account (something I've never seen done, and something I don't do on my own shitty phorum) and only infract and communicate with members from this account.

This will eliminate any perception that one particular moderator might have it out for someone, and it also will remove the need for blue and red names.

 

I'd argue that if the forum were to employ this idea, you'd avoid the risk of members feeling persecuted. The moderating team can still moderate, but the correspondence to members from mods would be from the forum's mod account, not from Future, Drew a Penalty, Phil in Absentia, etc.

Hell, there's a whole moderator forum where you guys could concoct the response together and come across as a board of directors, not an individual with an agenda.

 

For the record, I've never felt the personal persecution from moderators against myself, nor have I witnessed any personal agendas being carried out through moderation, but if this is a point of contention, and it's been brought up in the past, then there's fire...because the smoke already exists.

 

I don't really have a conclusion and I don't really want to be much of a part of this conversation, so...

 

/.02

 

I think that this is a good idea, but I'm pretty sure I' might have been told that most problematic things get filtered through ALL the mods and they all decide together what should be done as far as punishment.

 

I honestly haven't had any issue with mods or infractions in over a year. I'd imagine infractions have gone down massively over the last year. Is it because the board is dead or because the trouble makers have left?

 

Maybe an airing of grievance thread should be set up with a visible voting option, where you can see who voted for what on subjects like members that bother/annoy/ are disrespectful/ are rude to people most, and who ever votes has to explain why and their vote will be visible to all. Isn't this an option on the boards? I thought it was. If not my bad.

 

Do this on multiple subjects.

 

Also maybe have a link to this section as a sticky in the Rangers section. I don't think anyone knows this discussion is going on. Not many venture over to here. I know I don't.

[Guest]

I didn't mean to insult you with that comment. But in an older thread, I believe the "airing of grievance" thread, had some posters pretty much saying stuff like that. Felt maybe you were leaning towards that opinion, but safely backing it with "but of course we want everyone to be intelligent and know as much as the ten or so super knowledgeable that we do obviously have..".

 

Really not trying to put words in your mouth, but I'm trying to tell you how it can be perceived.

 

I see it as " fuck everyone that doesn't know everything or hasn't coached and can't figure out analytics. Hopefully we can weed out the less knowledgeable and have a super group of say ten or more, buuuuttt obviously we want more know it all than that. "

 

I feel like that's the portrayed attitude that scares people off. You're saying that's not how it really is and I'm glad. I'm just telling you from the outside looking in, as a guy that DOESN'T know systems, doesn't have coaching background, and only played at the lowest of low levels of the game, and NOT having any sort of relationship with the main posters that are or where here, that that's how it feels sometimes. SOMETIMES.

 

I've been here a few years and I know the different personalities. It has changed around here. There's more attitude than there is sharing of opinion. I mean there's a thread called "Do you even watch the game" Yes it is a sticky for informational links, but doesn't that title in itself, come off as snobby?

 

I get that the goal isn't to have a bunch of threads where everyone is cursing each other out over typical sports message board and social media shit. I don't recall this place being like that. We seem to have lost a bunch of people who would have good discussion. I'm giving you my perspective. I don't know the solution if we can't all agree on if there is a problem, or what the problem is.

 

I honestly say it's attitude, and the thought that all the posters know each other as well as some of the long timers do..

 

I wasn't commenting on your overall criticism of the...call it insider group I guess. It's a fair criticism if that's the way it appears to some, even if I disagree. I was only commenting above on what I said and where you seemed to take it. And to be clear too, I wasn't offended at all. I was just trying to offer clarity as to my position.

[Guest]

But would you agree that a mod or a long time posters gets more leeway than say JoeSchmoe (if there's a real JoeSchmoe, I apologise) who signed up 3 year's ago and has 59 posts? I feel like reputation goes a bit too far sometimes. Some people can say and threat people kind of shitty around here and the posts stay up, while others would get infracted/warned and or have the post removed. I have to say mods have really been excellent the last year or so. There aren't those old battles in the hockey section, where accusations could be made about power trips.. But some posters seem to get by with the "that's just how they are" label and get to treat people rudely and make posts similar to the ones we are trying to keep out of here.

 

No, I wouldn't agree with that. I would say that a poster gets more or less leeway based on their discipline record. That cuts three different ways for us (I'm probably talking out of school, but fuck it):

 

1) A poster with a long rap sheet of discipline gets less leeway.

2) A new poster who immediately crosses the line gets an official warning so it's on the record that they've been told.

3) A long time poster that's never had any discipline gets the benefit of the doubt.

 

So for the same type of rule violation:

 

1 - gets an infraction right away

2 - gets a warning right away

3 - gets an inthread or PM warning

 

None of that has to do with our relationship to the person. Mikey has offline relationships with a bunch of people here. He's let us share his rap sheet in these discussions. He's a #1 in the above example. He'll back me up on that I'm sure.

[Phil]

I feel like the lack of activity in the off topic sections is really hurting the activity of the forum. If you look at any successful forum, one of the most active sections is the off topic sections. People generally come to a place for the actual forum subject matter, and stay for the banter on lighter/easier to talk about topics. Also people fucking love meta topics which is why this thread is particularly active

 

I will never, ever talk bad about Phil, and I think anyone who does should really understand the time, effort, and money he puts into keeping this place running. I know it's easy to complain about things now since the forums less active, but we should all be giving him a big thank you for all that he's done for us. I will never question a move he makes to attempt to monetize on all the resources he's been putting into this place, and I really hope the blog succeeds.

 

Like someone said before, it's tough for people to be engaged in a forum now when you have things like Twitter where you can spit out quick takes and run amok, which is what the masses would rather be doing in their sports discussion. Say there's a topic on Kreider, 99% of people would prefer to say something like "Kreider (trash emoji)" then an actual thought out response, and I'm one of them lol

 

But anyways, Phil, is there anything we as the users can do to help you out? Content or anything you may think the forum needs. Let us know and I think we'd be more then happy to try and help

 

I appreciate that, Jimmy.

 

Honestly, this goes back to the same thing I've been saying for years. More threads generally means more activity. You want to know what's intimidating? Trying to jump into a thread with 180 responses that's N number of pages deep. If you've missed the action, I promise, most folks aren't going through to read the entire thing again before sharing their own two cents, if they even feel their two cents is worth throwing in. It's why I hate catch-all threads "All Things Kevin Shattenkirk", "Yankees Season", etc. I know why we have them, but I'm just not a fan.

 

Even if it's junk and banter, like you said. I mean, I actually kinda miss that part of the forum, too. Remember when the Bar Room was actually active? Even if it's just posting silly memes or unanswerable questions, or anything like that — all of that is engaging and really should be posted. I feel like all of that content is gone to Twitter (naturally) where shit posting is a lot easier and faster. That's also why I went out and spent money to have a mobile app built, to give everyone faster, more efficient access on the go.

 

If you want direct suggestions, I'd suggest more "easy entry" topics in all the additional subforums — Other Sports, Bar Room, etc. Other Sports alone... you guys watch them. Post about them in more than just catch-all threads. So and so is injured and out for the year? Post it. There's a rumor that this guy may sign with so and so team? Post it. Hell, even something as simple as "who are the best RBs in the NFL right now?" would go over great because the answer doesn't need to be a documented, linked, well-researched one. It can give any user the ability to just type five names they really like and click submit.

[Mike]

No, I wouldn't agree with that. I would say that a poster gets more or less leeway based on their discipline record. That cuts three different ways for us (I'm probably talking out of school, but fuck it):

 

1) A poster with a long rap sheet of discipline gets less leeway.

2) A new poster who immediately crosses the line gets an official warning so it's on the record that they've been told.

3) A long time poster that's never had any discipline gets the benefit of the doubt.

 

So for the same type of rule violation:

 

1 - gets an infraction right away

2 - gets a warning right away

3 - gets an inthread or PM warning

 

None of that has to do with our relationship to the person. Mikey has offline relationships with a bunch of people here. He's let us share his rap sheet in these discussions. He's a #1 in the above example. He'll back me up on that I'm sure.

 

100% accurate