Game thread forum a mess...

[Red Leader]

Originally Posted by Ltlabner

A draw back to the time limit, are those posters who are able to figure out the culture of the board and start making postive controbutions well before a year is over. They are penalized because some fools can't figure out the rules. That doesn't seem right.

You're right, those people are unfairly penalized and have to wait longer than they probably should. But, IMO, that's better than the opposite, letting people in that have no idea of the culture of the board too early and then they are the ones that are making decisions.

[paintmered]

Originally Posted by Reds Fanatic

I agree with that. There were a few people that last night kept complaining about rules or points and if they would have been bounced for a night it would have been a much better game thread. I think for most people if this happened they would get the point quickly and stop doing this and if they don't get the point they can go to reds.com and do whatever they want there. Also it may be time to sticky up the board rules again for new people. I have noticed a lot of things like masked profanity that keep happening this year and if someone brings it up it is always followed by an argument. The rules here are not hard to follow but for those that don't want to or want to complain about the rules I have no problem with them being bounced from the thread.

I'm not sure if everyone knows this, but the board's rules are displayed at the very bottom of every page.

[remdog]

RL:

I'm good with doing away with the separation between ORG and Live but your suggestion does have some merit. However, there are people that have been here less than a year and have thousands of posts. There are others that have been here multiple years and have yet to crack a hundred. Some of those 'longtime readers, first time poster' types understand the culture quite well 'cause they lurk here everyday; others only occassionally and don't necessarily have a feel for the board.

Some people have been banned here and it had nothing to do with points, posts or longevity. To my recollection, the people that I'm aware of that have been banned have all qualified in terms of all three criteria----but I could be wrong about that. Simply continue, warn, suspend progessively for problem posters and, finally, ban as a last repost. (Redszone would sort of become the NFL of baseball boards.

Rem

[KoryMac5]

I haven't dealt much with the game threads since last year. I looked at a few in spring training but it was more of the same type of conversations that killed threads last year. Game threads to me are much more enjoyable when you have a set experienced person doing play by play, instead of three pbp's going on at the same time. The majority of the time when you look through threads you can't even tell what the score is.

[Ltlabner]

Originally Posted by Red Leader

You're right, those people are unfairly penalized and have to wait longer than they probably should. But, IMO, that's better than the opposite, letting people in that have no idea of the culture of the board too early and then they are the ones that are making decisions.

You are talking about getting into ORG right? If so, you have to acquire the 200 rep plus be a member of the board for a month IIRC. While some might slip through the cracks, I think this process weeds out most of the trools and troublemakers quite well. There should be zero trolls who come on the board, act like lunatics and somehow get to 200rep and make it a month.

And the trouble makers aren't making any of the decisions. Ultimatley, those decisions are up to Boss, GIK and the mods. So while someone might make trouble in the short term, in the long term they have zero controll. I'd be willing to bet that after Paintmered's efforts in the thread last night, and these discussions today, the behavior in the gamethread tonight will be much improved.

I guess I don't see a need for a sweeping overhaul when (1) individual members actually using rep as it is intented (2) mods doing their job - which they do very well takes care of 99% of the problems.

[Red Leader]

Originally Posted by remdog

RL:

I'm good with doing away with the separation between ORG and Live but your suggestion does have some merit. However, there are people that have been here less than a year and have thousands of posts. There are others that have been here multiple years and have yet to crack a hundred. Some of those 'longtime readers, first time poster' types understand the culture quite well 'cause they lurk here everyday; others only occassionally and don't necessarily have a feel for the board.

Some people have been banned here and it had nothing to do with points, posts or longevity. To my recollection, the people that I'm aware of that have been banned have all qualified in terms of all three criteria----but I could be wrong about that. Simply continue, warn, suspend progessively for problem posters and, finally, ban as a last repost. (Redszone would sort of become the NFL of baseball boards.

Rem

It's a difficult balance, and I'm not saying my ideas are the best, the smartest, or anything like that. I'm pretty much just thinking out loud at this point. With the rep system, you are rewarding those that post frequently. With the approach of making it based on time, you are rewarding someone for sticking around and being loyal to the board. That would reward people who "lurk" on the board, but rarely post. I think too often those people are ignored. The argument to that, though, is that they will continue to lurk. Under the rules now, I believe they can read all forums and threads, just not post, which is fine for them, if they are just going to continue to lurk.

I just think people should have to know the way the board runs, who runs it, and how they are expected to behave before posting and especially before gaining access to ORG. Seems that with people having high "rep power" these days, it has become somewhat easier for others to get 200 pts and access to ORG. That is only going to get worse as more and more people get access to ORG and are allowed to distribute rep themselves. When that happens, we might as well do away with rep and go back to the single board approach because it'll feel pretty much the same.

[gonelong]

The largest reason for the seperation as I recall was to:
1) Incentive people to post something that is of value to the board (to gain rep)
2) disincentive people to post something that is not of value to the board (to lose rep)
3) Give posters a chance to learn the culture of the board in the Reds Live area and give the longer-term members of the board a place to retreat to if a large number of trolls descend on the board at one time.

I just can't see how this penalizes anyone. If you want something (posting access to ORG) then Redszone is asking for something in return (content).

If you just want to lurk, you can do that. I just cannot see how anyone is "penalized" in this scenario. It'd be different if it was a pay site, it's not. Its a free site with voluntary participation.

The owners of the board have given the members of the board the ability to self police it. We continue to fail miserably at it.

This board is getting way too big to just assume that everyone will just show up and use "Redszone decorum". People need to be help the Mods to some degree in shaping the newcomers and letting them know what the expectations are. You don't have to go all Barney Fife on people by any means, but when you see posts that are out of hand and you don't give that person some Negative rep, you get and are getting the board you deserve.

I can't believe the patience that the owners of the site display with the gardern variety knuckleheads that seem to show up on a monthly basis wondering why the site won't bend to their every need.

GL

[M2]

Originally Posted by Ltlabner

The problems start when people think rep = they are right. The more rep you have doesn't mean the more right you are.

Frankly, I can't think of one person with a lot of rep points who has that attitude. In fact, I'd say the people who have a lot of rep points are the exact same people they were before they had a lot of rep points - WOY, RFS, Cyclone, Redsland, Chip, FCB, vaticanplum, etc. I just perused the first page of the rep list and I don't see anyone there who fits the above description.

As for game threads, two separate ones worked fairly well last year. It seems like the complaint about game threads is that there's too many new posters bumping up against the established community, requiring a lot of time spent on matters like trying to say more than so-and-so sucks (e.g. at least have something original to say on the subject) or why it's bad form to talk about your rep points (e.g. gimme rep or ohmigod I got negged) or that we try to keep the language PG (e.g. no seven words you can never say on television, not even with *s).

In general I'd say the probie system on the board works. Good new posters graduate quickly, those who come onto the board and do little other than kick and scream don't. I haven't been in the game threads much this year, but in looking at yesterday's I didn't find it that bothersome. Yet if people are bothered by it, then I've got no complaint with the two threads system.

On a separate note, what's the issue with Seabass? It's lifted from the Cam Neely character in "Dumb and Dumber".

[Razor Shines]

Originally Posted by Red Leader

I would agree with that, but I like the seperation of ORG and Reds Live. Less noise.

Maybe instead of rep there should be a mandatory 1 year wait to get access to ORG. Make it based on time rather than "rep". That way you can't say that a poster doesn't know what the "culture" of the board is before getting access to ORG. In 1 year they should know how this board is run and how they are expected to behave. If they don't want to stick around for a year, then how big of contributors are they going to be anyway?

The other problem I see with that in keeping out the "noise", is that there are posters who would gladly wait out that year just so they could come over to ORG and bring the "noise" so to speak.

I like it the way it is. I think it took me 3 months to get over to ORG and I think that's about the average time. I'm no super poster like Ltlabner or jojo, who did it in like a week, but it's not too long and it's enough time to get a good understanding of the board. I think anyway.

[Spring~Fields]

Doesn’t this come up about every year, the last six losing seasons running? It seems to me that those that are emotionally and passionately attached to the Reds become more sensitive during trends that are indicative of their downfall. Some might be better served to somewhat emotionally detach from what looks to be a .500 team or worse because a team like this will keep them on an emotional yo-yo, one day up the next day down leading them to act out their frustrations. I, myself, try to refrain from typing anything in the game threads anymore when I recognize within myself that I am frustrated or disappointed and that I am just turning to the readers asking them indirectly to sooth my wounds from the Reds woes of the moment when in fact, none of you can do that. Perhaps others should stop before they type and hit submit and while considering that the rest of the readers can do nothing for them regarding the Reds mishaps that can be so disappointing and frustrating.

Though I did try to forewarn moderators during the Buckeye threads early last fall and into the spring when outsiders were trying to bait and back door flame the Buckeye fans (who are also Reds fans) into defensive comments that those were nothing in comparison, that they should see the Reds fans in the game threads. I think history and red flags long before this season arrived should have been sufficient for the moderators to have come up with a suitable plan and defining of what they wanted the game threads to be before now.

Fans invest a lot of sincere emotion into their favorite teams and are going to have thoughts and comments that are in the venting nature at times.

[Ltlabner]

Originally Posted by M2

Frankly, I can't think of one person with a lot of rep points who has that attitude.

Come on now M2. It's only natural that people who have been around a while tend (notice I said tend, not will) be a little more sarcastic and loose with the rules from time to time. I think that's a direct relation to comfort level, longeivity on the board and amount of rep. Most of us have crossed that line before.

I'm not saying the high rep posters are all high and mighty because of their rep, but I do think sometimes the high rep posters get a little lax and post things they might not have had they been in a "probationary" period waiting to get into ORG.

And overall, I think people not negging bad behavior and handing out rep for the wrong reasons are a far bigger issue.

[remdog]

Good points, RL. Especially this one:

"With the approach of making it based on time, you are rewarding someone for sticking around and being loyal to the board. That would reward people who "lurk" on the board, but rarely post. I think too often those people are ignored. The argument to that, though, is that they will continue to lurk. Under the rules now, I believe they can read all forums and threads, just not post, which is fine for them, if they are just going to continue to lurk."

I agree that it's pretty easy to accumulate 200 points if you post a lot. Perhaps the solution would be to raise the requirements to 6 months and 500 points.

Rem

[Razor Shines]

Originally Posted by M2

On a separate note, what's the issue with Seabass? It's lifted from the Cam Neely character in "Dumb and Dumber".

Actually Alex Gonzalez played Sea Bass in his high school's stage adaptation of "Dumb and Dumber".

[remdog]

Originally Posted by Ltlabner

And overall, I think people not negging bad behavior and handing out rep for the wrong reasons are a far bigger issue.

Let's talk about not negging. I have never negged someone on this board. I've always felt it's not necessary nor am I comfortable with it (even though someone has personally ticked me off). Maybe I'm wrong in that approach but I balance it with being very stingey with plus rep points. (shrug) Most days I give out none. I feel if rep points were more difficult to come by it would make ORG more 'exclusive' but I'm open to opinions on the matter.

Rem

[Ltlabner]

Originally Posted by remdog

Let's talk about not negging. I have never negged someone on this board. I've always felt it's not necessary nor am I comfortable with it (even though someone has personally ticked me off). Maybe I'm wrong in that approach but I balance it with being very stingey with plus rep points. (shrug) Most days I give out none. I feel if rep points were more difficult to come by it would make ORG more 'exclusive' but I'm open to opinions on the matter.

Rem

I'm currious, why are you uncomfortable negging someone?