NASL adopts Spring/Fall seasons for 2013

Actually, if they move to the format of playing each team once per half season, then they're imitating the Liga MX model and that one has a pretty good following among US soccer fans. Of course, the difficulty is getting those fans to watch NASL games when MLS can't even get them in decent quantities.

 

Pretty sure I made this exact post about two weeks ago.

 

You're wrong.

 

In my defense, when I started that post i was only going to respond to two points.

When the league's small enough that you're facing teams three, four times a season there's more opportunity for some competitive heat to develop betseen teams that wouldn't normally be considered rivals. Say your Strikers were out of contention, but Carolina still was in contention, and in your last couple of matches against them, they'd gotten away with too many fouls in your estimation. Now you're playing them in a late round of the season and they desperately need 3 points to at least keep pace with the leader. You can't ell me that it wouldn't feel pretty sweet to beat them and deal amajor blow to their title hopes. But you're right, ultimately meaningful/meaningless is subjective, and one person's definition might not match another's. Which is why when somebody says something like "the new format will lead to more meaningless matches" or "every match under the new format will be meaningful" I always feel like that person should back it up by explaining their definition of meaningful or meaningless.

Oh, I'm familiar, but that's usually just a match or two, not a whole season (or half-season) like some people are saying will happen under the new NASL format. Yes, you don't want to risk your star players getting injured before the Soccer Bowl, but you don't want to risk them getting rusty either. Sure, you're going to give players 12-18 on your depth chart more minutes, but it's not like your first 11 won't be seeing the pitch.

Well, the league's going to try to put the best face on things, regardless of what happens. You're going to sell more Pepsi saying you're "the choice of a new generation" than saying "we're not as popular as Coke!" I don't think the format is quite going to be the New Coke that some folk seem to think it'll be. More likely, I think it'll be a mildy interesting diversion that'll last a season or two before expansion will force the league to switch back. Of course, they'll try to sell the switch back as "exciting, new format"!

 

Yea, that all-Division 2 final that you correctly predicted was epic.

Wait... it seems I have accidentally crossed over into your alternate universe again. I need to get out before my head explodes. I know, it sucks that I'm gonna miss Messi lead the Tampa Bay Rowdies against Rooney's New York Cosmos. But at least I got to see Ibrahimovic score four to lead San Antonio over Ft. Lauderdale. That was fun. And it was weird seeing the US ranked number 1 in the FIFA rankings. Who would've thought that all that was needed to turn the national team into a powerhouse was Chivas USA and Toronto being relegated? You sure are smart! I MEAN- NOOOOO! I DIDN'T MEAN THAT! GET ME OUT OF HERE!

 

And by "Rooney" you mean "John Rooney".

 

So why would the champions of the second division get a privilege that the champion of the top division doesn't get?

 

There is more to USOC than CCL qualifying...

 

Alright, you know what? I had to do it. You're on ignore now, WSW. I broke my own rule of never ignoring anyone on any forum just for you.

 

I would appreciate the moderators not allowing him to post here like the MLS section mods did. The idiot literally brings nothing of value in any post.

 

He made a simple suggestion, don't think it merits a banning, everyone has the right to put him on ignore if they don't want to read his posts anymore like Amerisnob just did.

 

Good reasoning

 

And the community would be better for it.

Jesse's business probably wouldn't be. But the community would be.

Look, those of us who've been here for 10-13 years have been banging our heads against the wall for most of that time. Why? Because we want a good community. We smack trolls and idiots not for sport, but because we think the community is better without stupid people and stupid posts.

This is a huge online game of Whack-A-Mole, we get that. No matter how many Ted Cikowskis and sekrahs disappear, more naive, dumb, fanboy posters and trolls pop up right after them. We understand this. But we're not going to stop smacking them. At some point, either get the hell rid of these people, send them to Oliverland, or cordon them off in their own sandbox.

Who are we to make these determinations? We're the longtime members of the community. We bring value. But we don't bring critical mass, I guess. Because nothing is done about idiots and trolls because being absurdly stupid is not a TOS violation. Though it should be.

 

To be fair, though. Some posters do learn. Some posters do avail themselves of the education available here.

Most willful trolls eventually get bored and move on. The return on investment of trolling a forum here is pretty freaking low.

What makes WSW so frustrating is that he's not obviously trolling, just misinformed with a demonstrated lack of critical thinking ability. He seems unwilling to learn, but equally unwilling to stop starting misdirected threads. His links don't match his headlines. Over a smaller time period, I'd consider him a troll.

But the sheer breadth and depth of his posting makes me consider him a blithering and willful idiot with no off switch.

I agree with Kenn to a point. I avoid large tracts of BigSoccer. My willingness to put up with a low signal to noise ratio has lessened over time. The problem with this forum is that I am very interested in the NASL, and this is the only forum. There is no "You Be The Don" or "General" forum. And WSW almost single handedly lowers the signal to noise ratio.

Yes, the other posters (myself included) make things worse by engaging him, but the real responsibility belongs to WSW. He has shown himself unwilling to work within the community. To adjust, adapt, and learn. He's a one poster wrecking crew.

I was moderator of Business & Media back when it was a bustling forum. In the end Oliver Tse got a site ban. Partly for his trolling, but mostly because other posters could not contain themselves. They could not refrain from baiting him. If the select other posters had just ignored Oliver, his contributions to Business & Media were fine and often informative (if occasionally slanted). But for the health of BigSoccer as a whole, Oliver got the ban. It just wasn't reasonable to ban 15-20 regular posters (half of which were moderators themselves). It wasn't particularly fair, it was, however, for the betterment of the community.

I recognize that traffic here isn't enough to separate NASL into N&A and General forums. That's too bad.

 

When we've just had a thread of his closed because it was completely inane, it shows that at least one moderator saw what was useless and got rid of it. There are plenty of people who I disagree with here that are quality posters who have a different opinion. WSW brings no value to any discussion, ever.

 

There's plenty of disagreement in the MLS forums about MLS. I do not think that everything MLS does is great. And I think there's plenty of others here who feel that way. The argument is not whether MLS is perfect or not. It's not. The argument is what logical, feasible steps can be taken to improve the league, given the realities of our present time. But that is not the argument you wish to engage in. Your argument is between reality and fantasy. And you choose to argue in favor of fantasy.