Important: Merging of the Baseball Forums

[TRF]

Excellent point M2.

There are a ton of posters that left that i miss, simply because their opinions were denigrated to the point of personal attacks. And that usually followed with a herd mentality of follow up written abuse. I'd be willing to bet it's why we don't see princeton anymore. Sure he had an acerbic quality to his posts, but they were damn interesting. I miss FCB, missed M2, and a bunch of others that simply found the quality in posts lacking to the point of why bother. It isn't that no one new has anything to offer, but we are less without the great posters of the past. If handing someone a rep point as a quiet way of saying thank you for a specific post when you perhaps feel you have nothing of substance to add to the thread is so offensive to some, i'd have to wonder why? I don't like every update on facebook, just the ones I actually like. Posts here are the same to me.

On the XDA forum (Android Forum), any post can be thanked, and the thanks is encouraged for posts that deserve it. Have we come to a point where we cannot appreciate a post and say thanks without adding needless posts to a thread?

[Roy Tucker]

In the modern day Internet world with yottabytes (i.e. a lot) worth of data out there, the challenge is to rapidly sort out the wheat from the chaff. I just don't have the time to carefully and with consideration read everything in here. So something that points me in the right direction where the collective consciousness of this board points to something saying "this is good" would be helpful.

I like the idea of a "like" button or the functional equivalent. I don't like a "hate" button or anything that breeds negativity. I also don't think stats should be collected or displayed as to how many times a poster has been liked or that a high number of likes gives a poster some greater power (like some damn video game). That causes problems.

Each post is a single piece of work to be evaluated on its own. Something that says "this is good" would be nice.

[Raisor]

Here's how I usually figure stuff out on RZ. If I agree with M2, I know I'm right. If I disagree with M2, I still think I'm right, but in reality I'm wrong.

Be more like M2.

[dougdirt]

Originally Posted by M2

You can act like there hasn't been an exodus of long-time and excellent posters, but there has been. Some of that is natural. Unfortunately too much of it is directly because of a general complaint that people don't wish to sort through the tripe and that the board often bores their socks off.

I was part of the exodus. It wasn't a planned walkout, just a lot of people asking themselves "What's the point?" and not coming up with a satisfactory answer.

I find it highly difficult to believe you joined and lurked on a board you didn't like. The Internet is a big universe. You had other places to go. You chose to return repeatedly to RedsZone. Too many people aren't making that choice today. I'm hopeful that can change because these should be the years when we're having the most fun, following the Reds when the team is on a roll. The window should be wide open for bizarre, daft and brilliant posts in a way it never was when the board partially had to serve as a coping mechanism for how terrible the Reds were. I sincerely doubt you'll find a big constituency for the notion that the board today is anywhere near something like a high point.

The main thing the rep system achieved (and it works this way all across the Internet) is it put a focus on the good stuff. It provided a way for the community to shine a spotlight on the posts it valued. And it cut down significantly on people who thought they were being brilliant when they were just running around in silly, little circles. Call it Richard Hand Syndrome if you will (though he was gone long before the rep system was instituted). If your pearls of wisdom were consistently being greeted by a wall of rep silence while a wide variety of other posts were getting repped, it let you know that maybe you didn't have quite the reach you thought you did. It wasn't so much what point you made, but how you made it that mattered. Again, more than anything else, rep put a premium on quality. Undeniably we had quality in those days. It's what brought you here.

For the record, what I said was nobody was going to change their opinion based on the rep score of a poster making a counterpoint. However, people change their opinions all the time if someone makes a persuasive counterpoint. That's what the rep system encourages. It's a way for the community to say "Yes, that right there, exactly like she/he said it." It's a virtual highlighter that draws attention to the best stuff on the board.

Right now the best stuff gets lost in the sludge. Perhaps an influx of new posters will change that, but I think it would help to have a mechanism that better identifies the Scott Rolen posts (e.g. be like that post, because that post plays the game the right way).

I am sure that some people did leave. But my question is, where did they go to talk Reds? There really isn't another place with nearly this many users that has anywhere near this kind of discussion.

Another thing that is being overlooked in my opinion, is the whole saber aspect of it all. These enlightening posts you talk about were happening, but we were also in the saber enlightenment era at the time as well. While there are still plenty of new things that are coming out, it isn't like it once was. Dips theories aren't coming out left and right these days. We, as a saber community, were taking giant leaps back then. Today, we are taking smaller and smaller steps as there is less "unknown" out there to truly "blow out of the water with new thinkings".

Then of course is the whole matter that our team is actually good now. We don't have 5-10 quality players. We have 27. We don't need 1500 word posts describing our plans for 10 levels of moves in order to get this team to be good like we did back then.

And finally, with winning comes more interest from fans. That brings in more people and with that, you are going to get more good and more bad posters. It is simple math.

[M2]

Originally Posted by Raisor

Here's how I usually figure stuff out on RZ. If I agree with M2, I know I'm right. If I disagree with M2, I still think I'm right, but in reality I'm wrong.

Be more like M2.

What Raisor's not telling you is I'm simply the manifestation of his subconscious. He always agrees with me even if he's not quite aware of it yet. I became a necessity for him to juggle the demands of RedsZone while also seeing through his madcap adventures with the lovely ladies of Bikini Island.

[TRF]

Originally Posted by dougdirt

I am sure that some people did leave. But my question is, where did they go to talk Reds? There really isn't another place with nearly this many users that has anywhere near this kind of discussion.

Another thing that is being overlooked in my opinion, is the whole saber aspect of it all. These enlightening posts you talk about were happening, but we were also in the saber enlightenment era at the time as well. While there are still plenty of new things that are coming out, it isn't like it once was. Dips theories aren't coming out left and right these days. We, as a saber community, were taking giant leaps back then. Today, we are taking smaller and smaller steps as there is less "unknown" out there to truly "blow out of the water with new thinkings".

Then of course is the whole matter that our team is actually good now. We don't have 5-10 quality players. We have 27. We don't need 1500 word posts describing our plans for 10 levels of moves in order to get this team to be good like we did back then.

And finally, with winning comes more interest from fans. That brings in more people and with that, you are going to get more good and more bad posters. It is simple math.

I know where i went. commented on MLB and ESPN a lot. some on CBSSports and CNNSI.com and found them... lacking.

[westofyou]

Originally Posted by dougdirt

I am sure that some people did leave. But my question is, where did they go to talk Reds?

A secret site that has FCB on it.

[dougdirt]

Originally Posted by westofyou

A secret site that has FCB on it.

So it has 23 users on it? Sounds like a hoot.

[M2]

Originally Posted by dougdirt

And finally, with winning comes more interest from fans. That brings in more people and with that, you are going to get more good and more bad posters. It is simple math.

Allow me to exaggerate to make a point here, where are the good ones?

I'm not saying they're not joining, but the board isn't getting anywhere near enough good posts. I'd also be interested in seeing annual posting stats from various years. My sense is the ORG used to be more active with a larger number of people posting on a regular basis (however, I recognize that could be wrong). It certainly had a wider, more colorful variety of people posting on it.

It's the blandness that concerns me most. Too many people walked away yawning. And this didn't start yesterday, it's been going on for years. If we've got new talent coming in, it would be helpful for those people to see that we actually value that talent, that the community perks up when presented with real insight and inventiveness.

Originally Posted by dougdirt

So it has 23 users on it? Sounds like a hoot.

Better to read one post from FCB than a thousand from some others.

[cumberlandreds]

Originally Posted by dougdirt

I am sure that some people did leave. But my question is, where did they go to talk Reds? There really isn't another place with nearly this many users that has anywhere near this kind of discussion.

Another thing that is being overlooked in my opinion, is the whole saber aspect of it all. These enlightening posts you talk about were happening, but we were also in the saber enlightenment era at the time as well. While there are still plenty of new things that are coming out, it isn't like it once was. Dips theories aren't coming out left and right these days. We, as a saber community, were taking giant leaps back then. Today, we are taking smaller and smaller steps as there is less "unknown" out there to truly "blow out of the water with new thinkings".

Then of course is the whole matter that our team is actually good now. We don't have 5-10 quality players. We have 27. We don't need 1500 word posts describing our plans for 10 levels of moves in order to get this team to be good like we did back then.

And finally, with winning comes more interest from fans. That brings in more people and with that, you are going to get more good and more bad posters. It is simple math.

I have found that when teams win the postings on forums go down. I am a moderator on Kentucky sports site. When UK wasn't winning much during Billy Gillispie days and the last couple of years of Tubby Smith, posting was an all time high. People just wanted to vent more than anything. When Calipari got there and they started winning most of their games the posting diminished considerably. Most people were satisfied and just didn't post as often or any at all. It's picked this season because they have lost a few more games than expected. Basically people like to moan and complain when the times aren't so good. So coming to a forum is a way tovent their anger. When times are good they are happy and decide to other things besides posting on a forum.
I think things have slowed down some on RZ. I don't know the numbers and am only guessing. But it doesn't seem as active since the Reds are pretty good now.

[Brutus]

Originally Posted by M2

You can act like there hasn't been an exodus of long-time and excellent posters, but there has been. Some of that is natural. Unfortunately too much of it is directly because of a general complaint that people don't wish to sort through the tripe and that the board often bores their socks off.

I was part of the exodus. It wasn't a planned walkout, just a lot of people asking themselves "What's the point?" and not coming up with a satisfactory answer.

I find it highly difficult to believe you joined and lurked on a board you didn't like. The Internet is a big universe. You had other places to go. You chose to return repeatedly to RedsZone. Too many people aren't making that choice today. I'm hopeful that can change because these should be the years when we're having the most fun, following the Reds when the team is on a roll. The window should be wide open for bizarre, daft and brilliant posts in a way it never was when the board partially had to serve as a coping mechanism for how terrible the Reds were. I sincerely doubt you'll find a big constituency for the notion that the board today is anywhere near something like a high point.

The main thing the rep system achieved (and it works this way all across the Internet) is it put a focus on the good stuff. It provided a way for the community to shine a spotlight on the posts it valued. And it cut down significantly on people who thought they were being brilliant when they were just running around in silly, little circles. Call it Richard Hand Syndrome if you will (though he was gone long before the rep system was instituted). If your pearls of wisdom were consistently being greeted by a wall of rep silence while a wide variety of other posts were getting repped, it let you know that maybe you didn't have quite the reach you thought you did. It wasn't so much what point you made, but how you made it that mattered. Again, more than anything else, rep put a premium on quality. Undeniably we had quality in those days. It's what brought you here.

For the record, what I said was nobody was going to change their opinion based on the rep score of a poster making a counterpoint. However, people change their opinions all the time if someone makes a persuasive counterpoint. That's what the rep system encourages. It's a way for the community to say "Yes, that right there, exactly like she/he said it." It's a virtual highlighter that draws attention to the best stuff on the board.

Right now the best stuff gets lost in the sludge. Perhaps an influx of new posters will change that, but I think it would help to have a mechanism that better identifies the Scott Rolen posts (e.g. be like that post, because that post plays the game the right way).

I've never seen any community that didn't go through cycles. Every message board, membership organization, etc. goes through changes. Nothing ever stays the same. That a bunch of former posters left doesn't mean the board is better or worse.

Edit: as Doug mentioned above, a large amount of the board used to be about discussing stats and the saber movement. I imagine that dried up a lot of the conversation that you're calling "quality." But again, not everyone saw the bickering as quality. Some people just wanted to talk Reds' baseball and not see every conversation denigrate into an Adam Dunn strikeouts/on-base percentage battle of egos.

I don't think the board is as 'fascinating' as it once was, but that's because I think a lot of the controversial stat debates have subsided. I view that as a plus, not as a minus.

[TRF]

I never do this, but Brisco is a friend and made some interesting points on the SunDeck merge thread, So I thought I'd share...

I am posting in this thread, but I am hoping this gets discussed as part of the merger thread on ORG where they are having what I consider to be both an interesting and fruitful discussion about the past, present and future of Redszone.

First, about me, I have been part of this board since it crossed over from the old board on the enquirer page. A military deployment interrupted my access for a while and when I returned I had forgotten my login name and lost the old email address so i had to start fresh. I have always loved coming to this board just to primarily read the posts of others. I think of myself as a huge Reds fan, but with none of the advanced baseball knowledge of some other posters, I seldom have much to add.

Now, about the general denigration of post quality that keeps being referred to on the ORG. I think Doug made excellent points about the fact that the Reds success limits the areas for improvement and thus the potential fruitful topics on the 'Zone. I also think that he is right that as the board matures, certain fundamental discussions (which stat is more valid and so on) get ironed out, which again limits the new and interesting discussion.

However, I disagree with most of the ORG posters when they talk about all the posters that have left. I do not think that this is necessarily the fault of the board so much as it is simple attrition. There are many things in life that pull us away from things and even the best board on the net is still going to lose around 10% of its avid posters every given year.

The real issue is that the current board separation may have actually prevented those expected losses from being replaced by new avid posters. The Sundeck has become like the Queen's Australia... a place for criminals... in this case that means newbies, boring lurkers like myself, and the immature offensive types the ORG likes to keep out. This is what is turning away your potential "new talent". You have to wonder how many new FCBs, TRFs, M2s, and RedStorms have been turned away by the interactions that they have had on the Deck... not wanting to put in the work, and I do mean work, it would take to impress the folks on ORG... folks you do not really have direct interaction with since you cant engage in the same conversations.

I think the new rules are great, but I have one caveat... i think the Mods of the new Sundeck should be primarily focused on helping new folks become part of the community... they should interact with the casual fan who asks the stupid question now and then, but do so in a supportive and educational way. In fact, I propose that it be a rotational duty for all the core posters of the old ORG. Say two of them are on duty each week to help make the Sundeck a welcoming environment... doing the basic things like explaining acronyms or what nickname refers to what player. They are not there to police the Deck, but rather serve as Rush Chairmen (Animal House reference).

This may seem like a chore at first, but the fact is they all love the Reds and I think explaining things to newbies can make you love being a fan even more.

I would willing volunteer to be part of this rotation if you need me after the merge, but I hope that the folks more knowledgeable than I would take up the mantle.

Thanks for taking the time to read this,

Brisco

[Raisor]

I'm on my phone and can't, but someone needs to link to the RZ 10 thread. That's how we dealt with things in the good old days.

Somebody rack me.

[jojo]

I agree that the content has become progressively less interesting-but that's a personal opinion that others could obviously legitimately not share. Concerning a mass exodus from the board, there really hasn't been a legion of posters leaving since the rep system went away. There have been a small minority of vocal voices that have largely quit posting for whatever reasons including those that had no choice in leaving redszone.

The flavor of redszone has changed, surely. But it's not like hundreds of active voices have left. A relatively small percentage of people have matriculated to other things and its no longer the cozy group of regulars that enjoyed the pub when it opened that currently haunt the bar stools.

ERA and Winshares have been replaced by discussions about defensive independent metrics and WAR. But really, what this place is missing is the good old fashioned arguments/debates that sent you running to a dusty book or the inner bowels of the baseball net to check facts and come back smarter for it. Redszone, always a content driven site, is a bit stale. We need some jalepenos or something.

[M2]

Originally Posted by Raisor

I'm on my phone and can't, but someone needs to link to the RZ 10 thread. That's how we dealt with things in the good old days.

Somebody rack me.

Ta ... and did I mention? ... da

http://www.redszone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=38416