Let's all take a deep breath (everyone please read)

[KittyDuran]

Come on guys, get back to the thread topic...

[RFS62]

RedsZone has been in a constant state of evolution since the day it was born.

It started as a refuge, an oasis of intelligent baseball talk in a desert of crap. The founders provided for a huge need in the Reds internet community..... a place where intelligence ruled and empty smack talk didn't last long.

The quality of the content drew people from all over, and we've gone through phase after phase of growing pains. The one constant since the first day Boss and GIK opened the doors here has been the intent of the owners.

Their "intent", or what might be a "mission statement" if we were a corporation, has been to provide a quality environment for intelligent baseball discussion and debate. And they've been far more concerned with freedom of speech considerations than I'd ever have been. They've always erred on the side of giving even the biggest loudmouths ample time and numerous chances before banning anyone. Again, far longer than I'd have ever been able to were I making the calls.

They always listen to the voices of the community when problems arise, and they never fail to do their best to modify whatever they can to improve the content.

They never fail in that regard.

They are, in essence, a constant victim of their success. The more traffic, the more problems with which to deal.

Personally, I trust them to work it out. I know where their hearts are, and I trust them. They'll listen to all the comments and concerns, and life will go on.

Such drama. And in a year in which the Reds are overachieving on a monumental scale. These things don't happen every day, you know. To expend any energy at all in negative thinking when the Reds are playing over their heads like this, what a waste of time.

We're playing far better than even the most optimistic of us would have ever dared predict. What a silly waste of time with all these judgments and labeling and yapping.

[M2]

Isn't this the reason we have ORG and Reds Live? If you want to avoid rehashed topics and "newbies" covering a topic that's been beaten dead, then avoid the Live side of the board. Boss went through the trouble to create a board that would be free of these instances, and it still isn't enough.

The rep system doesn't seem to have done a single positive thing. Those over 200 points still complain that the quality of posts is lacking. Those under 200 are a mix of indifference, resentment, or envy when it comes to reputation. I really like the idea of separate boards.

ORG is a place that should have a higher standard for post content. I don't expect that as much on Live. The problem I have is when people from the ORG side hold the Live board to an ORG standard. I'm sorry, but if that is the case, then why have two separate forums?

This topic was raised when the initial split happened, but the whole point of Reds Live!, as I understand it, is that older posters are supposed to interact with the newer posters as they get used to the board and bring the best ones up to the ORG via the rep system. We've gotten a lot of great posters over the past year, so I disagree that nothing good has come from the system.

IMO, if what people want is for Reds Live! to be a MLB.com forum equivalent. If that's what it's going to be then I say burn it to the ground and don't resurrect it and let people apply for membership like SOSH. We can form a membership committee. If Reds Live! isn't striving for a high standard then it has no business being a part of Redszone, at least that's my take. I can't imagine the moderators or Boss or GIK want to be overseeing a tsunami in a cauldron like that.

[SandyD]

Perhaps we could develop a "welcome" statement that would be automatically e-mailed or PM'd to a new registrant that would include guidelines, explain the how the board is set up, etc. The rules would be stated here, and guidelines for handling questions/problems.

Just a thought.

[GAC]

I really agree with some who have suggested that we do away with Reds Live and just have the one baseball related forum.

I would think that having to monitor/moderate (and even, at times, "babysit") two forums that often have same articles/topics is burdensome for the mods we have.

I fully understand the purpose of initiating Reds Live and have new members basically "prove" themselves and earn the right to post on the main one.

But it has, IMO, created as Ed has said, a caste system (unintentional).

I would rather see one baseball forum, with possibly a few more moderators, and taking a hardline stance (a 3 strike system) for those who flaunt the rules and don't want to show the respect and behavior that we would all expect.

Instead of having to watch 2 rooms of children (at times), you isolate them into one.

When a new member joins, they must read and sign/agree with a disclaimer that lists the rules, and also the possible disciplinary steps taken if they violate them.

How can anyone argue with that?

You need a set disciplinary system that "draws a line in the sand" so to speak that all understand and agree with.

I think we all understand that there are going to be disagreements. And at times, those disagreements can get personal.

That is what moderators are for.

And just as there is a set of rules for forum behavior.... there should also be a set of rules established that lay out a determined and objective "plan of attack" for mods. That way peple can't say they are being treated unfairly if a step by step process is being fairly utilized.

Finally - knowing a few of the mods on here personally, I feel for them knowing the volume of emails they get that basically involve alot of whining and crying about various posters

What are they suppose to do in these situations? Get real folks!

I'd turn my email off!

These mods have lives too.

But regardless of how large this forum has grown (and it is a great forum)... I think we should go back to the basic approach we had before, with just more mods, and rules for everyone that are enforced.

But no matter what we do, it's not gonna please everyone.

And we have to learn to accept and live with that.

[GullyFoyle]

wow... finally finished the whole thread... here are some thoughts on my experiences...

I came to the RedZone last year looking for a quality Baseball forum dealing with the Reds. I had done some looking around and heard this site had a good reputation for high quality posts. I poked around, liked the site, the people seemed good so I went about coming up with some ideas for some good posts. I did some research and put up a post about how GAB was trending statistically. I got a lot of good feedback and a lot of good rep in a short amount of time. There was (and still is, I assume) a minimum amount of time and number of posts before you could join the ORG forum, so I went about my business, coming up with what I hoped was some good posts. Eventually I was able to join the ORG forum and I have enjoyed posting in both Live and ORG since then. Because of my job there was / is long periods of time when I can't be around, but I always enjoy lurking even if I don't have the time to post.

Here are some thoughts on my experiences:

1) I thought the rep system worked well... I purposely thought about making posts that informed and presented information so I could become a "full" member

2) I go back and fourth about hiding rep. When I first came I found myself reading what people write and then looking at their rep. I didn't assume they where right about a subject based on their rep, but I was / am more likely to think twice about what they say if they have a high reputation. For better or worst it gives those who seek out information to present to the board a higher standing than those who just lurk (I write that as one who appreciates both).

3) I don't think there needs to be an apology for for having a tiered system. It seems to be doing what it was designed to do and that is getting posters to add to the community in order to become a member of the community.

Let me finish by saying that as is the case with many here, I have learned a lot from these boards and I think a yearly cycle of growing pains is worth the effort for the outcome.

Gully

[BuckeyeRedleg]

IMO, if what people want is for Reds Live! to be a MLB.com forum equivalent. If that's what it's going to be then I say burn it to the ground and don't resurrect it and let people apply for membership like SOSH. We can form a membership committee. If Reds Live! isn't striving for a high standard then it has no business being a part of Redszone, at least that's my take. I can't imagine the moderators or Boss or GIK want to be overseeing a tsunami in a cauldron like that.

I totally agree with this.

[wolfboy]

This topic was raised when the initial split happened, but the whole point of Reds Live!, as I understand it, is that older posters are supposed to interact with the newer posters as they get used to the board and bring the best ones up to the ORG via the rep system. We've gotten a lot of great posters over the past year, so I disagree that nothing good has come from the system.

IMO, if what people want is for Reds Live! to be a MLB.com forum equivalent. If that's what it's going to be then I say burn it to the ground and don't resurrect it and let people apply for membership like SOSH. We can form a membership committee. If Reds Live! isn't striving for a high standard then it has no business being a part of Redszone, at least that's my take. I can't imagine the moderators or Boss or GIK want to be overseeing a tsunami in a cauldron like that.

Reds Live has never approached a level equivalent to the mlb.com forum. Those who run the forum attempt to make sure of that. I've seen mlb.com quality posters come and go very quickly on this board, and I don't expect that to change. I understand that Redszone should strive for the highest standard. However, if you refuse to accept that the two boards will have a varying degree in quality, then why have two boards?

You are correct in saying that Reds Live is a place for ORG posters to interract with other posters. In a perfect world, posters from ORG would share their insight and experience with newer posters. What I see a lot of lately is ORG posters trying to police Reds Live.. We have very capable moderators to do that job. The two boards will have varying degrees of quality. My belief is that an ORG poster should take the responsibility to mentor those in Live, not police them. If that distinction could be made, we might not have these pissing matches every night.

Many have raised the point time and time again that some people come here without an open mind. I agree. Those posters usually take care of themselves. Unfortunately, when every "Dunn Sucks" thread turns into the worlds largest pissing match, the whole board suffers. As long as there is open registration, the "Dunn Ks too much" threads are bound to appear from time to time. Maybe moderators need to close those threads immediately, and post a link to a previous post covering that topic. Maybe a "been there, done that" forum is the answer. Until that time, if those threads are annoying and tiresome, then read some stuff on the ORG. Reply there. Realize that a negative reply doesn't have a positive effect on the board. Take solace in knowing that problem posters eventually find the door. It doesn't take a group of a five page thread of bickering for this to happen.


edit: I have to correct myself on what I said earlier about the reputation system. I do feel that it has done some good. What GullyFoyle said reminded me of that. I guess my statement was directed at the separate boards, and this post summarizes my feelings towards that.

[Spitball]

There's always degrees of relativism, but if you think Rich Aurilia should play 3B against RHPs because he's been a better hitter against them this season than Edwin Encarnacion then you're wrong. If you claim Paul Wilson was a really good pitcher for a few years, you're wrong. If you say batting average is the key percentage stat for an RBI man, you're wrong. If you say the GAB was a great hitters park in 2004, you're wrong.

Sure, there are statistical "explanations," but there are also statistical statements. They've played the games and here's what happened regardless of what you 'buy." It's not even a stats argument. It's a recorded history argument. Sometimes people are just flat wrong and there's no getting around it. I'm not going to pretend wrong is an opinion. I'm not going to mollycoddle wrong. If you write something that just doesn't line up with the facts then that's on you, not the person who pointed out your mistake.

The stats may not be the total answer, but if the definitive record of what's actually happened runs counter to your opinion then it's incumbent upon you to figure out how to reconcile that conflict.



I sincerely doubt many, if any, "statistical guy(s)" expect a statistical response from someone who isn't inclined that way, but it would be nice if the non-statistical person could acknowledge when a gaping hole in his/her perception has been found. I mean, if you claim that hitch in a player's swing prevents him from hitting lefties well and then it's pointed out that said player actually hits lefties pretty well, then it's time to reconsider your stance.



Well, I will get into the strikeout thing. The Reds strikeout a lot. They also score a lot. One does not prevent the other. Whether you're a good offense runs along lines that are totally irrelevant to your strikeout totals. Whether you're a good offensive player runs along lines that are totally irrelevant to your strikeout totals. It is clear-cut. We've seen it put in action in front of our very eyes in recent years. The evidence couldn't more overwhelming. I'm not going to act like that's not the case because it's a concept that you haven't embraced. I don't care if you don't have an in-depth statistical response to it because there is no in-depth statistical response to it. There's no in-depth any kind of response to it. It just is.

We all understand that hitters attempt to make meaningful contact as a function of their job, but outs happen. You can stick strikeouts in a big pile with popouts (my personal peeve), groundouts, lineouts and flyouts. Outs is outs. It's how many you make (or really don't make) that counts, not what kind you make (with the exception of double plays, those are evil). Don't go away. Don't come up with a statistic. Just understand that for the simple truth it is. Are there corollaries off of that worth discussing? Sure and have at it, but don't tell me a player or a team is no good at the plate because he/it whiffs too much. That dog don't hunt.

I also think it should be noted that a lot of what we see on this board isn't stats vs. no stats. A lot of the no stats crowd, I find, is oddly and obsessively reliant on a handful of rudimentary stats. Batting average is an important component of the things that drive an offense (OB and SLG), but telling me one guy is a .281 hitter and therefore better than this other guy who is a .267 hitter isn't going to go very far. You could be talking Jeff Treadway (.281) and Mike Schmidt (.267) for all I know and I am going to care intensely about the vast universe outside of their BA totals. You can claim BA is the end-all, be-all for summing up an offensive, but that IS a statistical argument you're making and I've got the sum total of baseball history backing up my contention that you're wrong. In that case I'm not looking common ground or to make you feel good about your opinion. That's a you-get-it-or-you-don't moment.

And don't take that to mean BA is a totally worthless topic. If you want to make the case that Player J, given his secondary offensive skills, needs to hit .280 in order to be a plus at the plate, then that's a perfectly worthwhile point to make.

Just as an addendum, if you're going to talk about a player's offensive performance, you can expect statistics to enter into the discussion. If you're going to compare players against their positional counterparts in the rest of the league, you can expect statistics to enter in the discussion. And if you're going to talk about statistics (e.g. runs scored, RBI, pitcher's wins, team W-L) then you probably ought to expect statistics to enter the discussion.

There is a problem on this board or this thread wouldn't have been started.
I'm not talking about who is right or wrong in an argument. That isn't the problem. The problem is the lack of dignity and respect that is often not afforded another poster...and if that is not clear, then things won't change around here. If I can be a total jerk because I'm right, then we will continue to have problems.

[Larry Schuler]

There is a problem on this board or this thread wouldn't have been started.
I'm not talking about who is right or wrong in an argument. That isn't the problem. The problem is the lack of dignity and respect that is often not afforded another poster...and if that is not clear, then things won't change around here. If I can be a total jerk because I'm right, then we will continue to have problems.

I agree. I believe you have summed up a strong, important idea which some have missed in their suggestions.

[M2]

However, if you refuse to accept that the two boards will have a varying degree in quality, then why have two boards?

I fullly understand there are and will be differences between the two forums. What I think needs to be avoided though is a fundamental disconnect between them.

Take solace in knowing that problem posters eventually find the door.

Agreed completely, shelf-life ain't their strong suit.

[saboforthird]

Hiding Rep points won't fix that. Even if you hide the "join date", people will still know who the old timers are.
I guess if Boss and GIK hide rep points, they are also going to have to either give or remove Avatars for everyone, because then you could see who was a member that way..
If one wants to remove every indication of who is in ORG and who isn't, what's the point of having two forums?






That's my point.. then why hide them then? I suspect the main reason many people want to hide rep points is to make it even more difficult for people to get promoted to ORG. As I said, if that's the case, let's make ORG the closed forum.

I disagree with your theory on why you think most people want rep points hidden. Having read this thread, I think it's obvious that most here feel that rep points cause nothing but problems. Getting promoted to ORG being the least of them, by far. There is really no point in explaining it again, but in a nutshell having post counts and join dates NEVER serves a good purpose. They only serve to classify posters. As far as avatars, it's a coolness factor but I bet few (if any) here would feel bad because they don't have an avatar. Donate to the website, get an avatar. Avatars serve as an aesthetic. Post counts and join dates being made visible serve to stroke egos.

[SteelSD]

There is a problem on this board or this thread wouldn't have been started. I'm not talking about who is right or wrong in an argument. That isn't the problem. The problem is the lack of dignity and respect that is often not afforded another poster...and if that is not clear, then things won't change around here. If I can be a total jerk because I'm right, then we will continue to have problems.

Spitball, with all due respect, when someone who's wrong doesn't like being told they're wrong in any form or fashion the tone with which they're addressed is almost completely irrelevant.

That doesn't give anyone the right to be a jerk, but when telling someone they're wrong in any manner qualifies you as a jerk, that's the ultimate catch-22. And this board has improved tenfold over the past couple of years as to how emotional escalation is handled during debates. Yet we still here complaints about it. That's telling because Boss, GIK, and the mods have done an excellent job identifying thread breaking points; which are actually lower in many cases than they used to be due to some topics being beaten completely to death.

Knowing that, the only thing left is what M2 aptly addressed- being wrong without wanting to be told that you're wrong. Yes, there are different degrees of being wrong but many things we didn't accept as facts two or three years ago are now beyond contestation. I'm not sure what environment on Earth allows a reasonable expectation of being able to position the unreasonable as fact without contention, but a high-level internet message board isn't that place.

[saboforthird]

Same reason they wanted to hide "Subscriber/Non-Subscriber" last go around: people see a big rep number and feel their being pushed around.

I was on the wrong side of that argument as a relative newbie to the board (who was put off by the fact that my knowledge of the game of baseball needed to grow) last go around. I felt threatened by not being the smartest or most clever person in the room and the natural response was to get defensive and blame people who I thought were hiding behind a title (or, in this case, high rep score).

Truth was, when I started reading what they were saying and educating myself, I realized that they weren't hiding behind anything but, rather, putting information out there that I could learn and grow as a fan from.

Hiding rep points is merely re-arranging the deck chairs on the titanic. It's not like people are going to stop fighting or stop creating noise and disharmony on the board just because suddenly they can't see the rep score of someone.

I agree mostly with what you are saying; however, I do feel that even though there will always be bad apples in the barrel, there's no point in splitting the community with separate forums and post counts. If something is going to be done about this 'rep point' system, I feel it ought to be looked at what effect the system has in terms of encouraging divideness amongst posters, rather than trying to make it silence those who abuse the system (which will never happen).

[saboforthird]

Spitball, with all due respect, when someone who's wrong doesn't like being told they're wrong in any form or fashion the tone with which they're addressed is almost completely irrelevant.

That doesn't give anyone the right to be a jerk, but when telling someone they're wrong in any manner qualifies you as a jerk, that's the ultimate catch-22.

I don't believe Spitball said that telling someone they're wrong ALWAYS makes one a jerk, but that there are those here (often with large post counts, an entirely different issue altogether) that somehow manage to come across as jerks on a consistent basis when correcting others. It's now what you say, or how often you say it, but HOW you say it.