Moderating Baseball Talk

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TheoSqua
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Re: Moderating Baseball Talk

Post by TheoSqua »

Again, please don't call out individual posters. Especially for stuff that was a long time ago.

To Vinasnity's point, there really hasn't been a change in moderation direction since the new mods took over. In my opinion there really wasn't a need to. This forum has been around a really long time and we have mostly long-time posters that have a generally good idea of what they can and can't get away with at GRB.

I don't think anyone is opposed to changes, but the forum overall has been pretty self-managed and I haven't seen a need to even bring anything up until this post.

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CardsofSTL
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Re: Moderating Baseball Talk

Post by CardsofSTL »

I think the appeal of forums like this one are that you can have whatever type of conversations you want and are willing to put into it. If you like stats driven conversation; then make some stats driven posts and the like minded posters will chime in. If stats aren't your thing but you just want to make some casual observations; the same principle applies.

When I first joined the site I was looking for a connection to the St. Louis baseball that I had known so intimately growing up in the Illinois cornfields across the river from the city; listening to KMOX when there wasn't a game on tv and hearing my parents and grandparents talking about the different players and game action. Moving away from the area for work; I found that I missed that. And when I came to this forum; I have to admit that it seemed at first very cliquey; you could make posts that would go ignored by most of the so called regular or "good" posters. I think that is one thing that has changed for the better since I first started posting here. I see old and new posters alike having engagement; and even though we all get frustrated by the team and by each other and our little idiosyncrasies; most of the time that I spend on here is enjoyable and good fun. If it wasn't; I would leave.

Also I like drinking and posting in the GDT...that's a God given right that no one can take from me.

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Famous Mortimer
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Re: Moderating Baseball Talk

Post by Famous Mortimer »

Be nice if the two most obvious trolls were given a suspension, but by and large GRB is about as good as any forum of this size (relatively small) is ever going to be. I enjoy reading other opinions, even if I disagree with a lot of them.

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go birds
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Re: Moderating Baseball Talk

Post by go birds »

If you think of it this way, then it will make your GRB experience much better:

GDTs: free for all b*tchfest/jerk session...so long as posters aren't getting attacked personally

All other threads: discussion threads with no personal attacks or spam

That's typically how i try to roll. As far as im concerned anything goes in the GDTs because those threads are in the moment and essentially disappear anyway.

With all that said, i wish jim was still around so i could rub in his face just how wrong he was about matheny. He's one guy who was never wrong and boy was it insufferable. I don't give a [expletive] if he was a GRB vet or not. The vets always seemingly get way too much leeway around here. Or at least used to.

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sighyoung
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Re: Moderating Baseball Talk

Post by sighyoung »

go birds wrote: The vets always seemingly get way too much leeway around here. Or at least used to.
Image

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go birds
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Re: Moderating Baseball Talk

Post by go birds »

YES EVEN YOU SIGHYOUNG

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Popeye_Card
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Re: Moderating Baseball Talk

Post by Popeye_Card »

I don't post as much in Baseball Talk anymore because honestly I haven't watched the Cardinals enough over the past few seasons to comment intelligently on most topics. Hell, I would have difficulty naming 20 guys on the current active roster. For shame.

I do take issue with this though.
themiddle54 wrote:Do y'all mods ever wonder why there's not better baseball talk on the board, and consider the people like pebbles and haltz and the guy who always lied about working for the redsox then whenever anyone said he claimed he worked for the redsox would be like "who said that?" and, y'know, me, and a few others don't come around much?

In part it's because BT is the same as politics. You have people here who construct straw men and argue nonstop on that straw man. It's because back when we lost the guy who said he worked for the redsox the board was a place where his ideas (even though he lied about the redsox stuff he was pretty sharp) drew hostility at times, to the point that he (justifiably) questioned the board's intelligence in his "F-you I'm out of here" posts. You guys let that jim buffoon make personal attacks at me pretty much whenever he wanted, and every time I reported one of his posts it went unanswered. You have made your metaphorical bed. The people with little to no quality to add ( but oh SO MUCH quantity ) are still around, and the people who offered quality in BT are all gone. I have NO interest in talking about analyzing the game on this board, and haven't made any kind of meaningful post in BT in about 2 years. Kinkaid drops in occasionally and that's about it. For the most part you are left with barstool fans [expletive] about a mediocre team and now you're complaining that the quality of BT is gone. This board favored the barstool fan, and the average barstool fan doesn't have much meaningful to contribute beyond "that was great!" and "these guys suck!" and now that's your BT forum. If you wanted a BT forum with intelligent discussion, you'd not have banned me when that Richie Allen dude made a series of personal attacks against me, and I then defended myself. You'd not have let people pile up on the guy who lied about working for the redsox after the HOURS he put into research and writing his posts . You'd have banned the hostile idiot who was making personal attacks because he didn't like some know it all talking fancy about baseball analytics instead.

For what it's worth, this is the bed this site has made for itself.
Sure, most of the time many of the folks you mentioned provided--as you call it--"quality" content. Sometimes their logic had flaws. I'm not afraid to point out flaws in their thinking just as I'm not afraid to burn down a strawman. But I wouldn't confuse the content of their posts with the reason some of them were driven out. Condescension has consequences. Do you know why people continue to enjoy Kinkaid and JL? Because they aren't arrogant. I'm sorry to be singling you out here, but your post above is a prime example of why you rub people the wrong way. Maybe you shouldn't be looking around for what the problem is. Maybe you should look at your own posts.

For what it's worth (and I say this as a very early adopter of analytics), a good chunk of modern baseball analytics is pure crap. It needs to be called out as such when needed.

Spider John
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Re: Moderating Baseball Talk

Post by Spider John »

One thing that I find annoying and am guilty of myself is when someone has an opinion about a broad subject (like the front office inaction on the trade front), I don't need to post that same broad opinion every time opportunity something happens to support my opinion. If I think the FO stinks because they didn't pick up better relievers, I don't need make a post about it every time a Mike Mayers gives up a couple of runs.

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Hoot45
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Re: Moderating Baseball Talk

Post by Hoot45 »

Things have been better, mods. Thank you.
Spider John wrote:One thing that I find annoying and am guilty of myself is when someone has an opinion about a broad subject (like the front office inaction on the trade front), I don't need to post that same broad opinion every time opportunity something happens to support my opinion. If I think the FO stinks because they didn't pick up better relievers, I don't need make a post about it every time a Mike Mayers gives up a couple of runs.
This is a good reminder for me too. Well said.

AWvsCBsteeeerike3
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Re: Moderating Baseball Talk

Post by AWvsCBsteeeerike3 »

It's always pissy when the team stinks or when something 'bad' happens.

From my perspective, this team is boring. And, they're not particularly good. I don't even comment in game day threads anymore because I have a bias against matheny and everything I say is negative. So....just best to not say anything at all, I guess.

Spider John hit the nail on the head, imo. But, that doesn't require moderating.

Also, we've lost a lot of good posters due to one reason or another. Sure, a lot of times the exit is not graceful, but people that are generally happy coming here to get their baseball news don't just quit because of a flame war or something. In the beginning, this place had a ton of old school analysts vs new school sabermetricians and the explanations often times led to great discussions even if they were heated....but heated is okay. A decade later or so, everyone seems to be more familiar, understanding, and accepting of the analytical side even if they don't care for it.

Hell, even ESPN is showing WAR as a stat. Gone are the days when it's necessary to explain why a guy like Heyward is worth more than a guy like, idk, Adam Dunn...or how 'protection' in the lineup is not evident on a stat sheet. People have a better understanding of all that. So, there's not these in depth discussions taking place.

There are still plenty of reasons to discuss baseball and if all the old posters that were mentioned still came around, sure we might have more threads about analytics and stuff we might be missing. But, also, as noted, those conversations came with a fair amount of condescension which also drove people away.

In short, it's a baseball talk forum and the posters here are about as intelligent as any forum you're going to find. And, the posts reflect that.

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