Ollie's different. It's the difference between passively clueless, aggressively clueless, militantly clueless, and toxicly, dangerously clueless.
Andy, thank you! You hit at least one nail right on the head. For a while now I've been thinking about writing a bit of a manifesto about the American Soccer fan as it pertains to Bigsoccer. Frankly, I love this place. It's incrediable in the way it's helped me to learn about the game and become passionate about it. However sometimes I despise the fact that it's really the only place where I can share that passion. I'm not one of these people who are into soccer or being part of the soccer community because I view it as one big social club. I don't view this as anything akin to being into the indie music scene or anything like that. Too often this place is like a cross between a Star Trek convention and Sports talk radio. The problem is that if I don't like it there's no where else for me to go. In some ways this is a very important discussion because every so often the negativity, the bitching, the moaning and the general victimization complex that thrives here drives me absolutely crazy. How often do we see what you talk about in terms of the over-reaction with the Chivas USA topics, or Johnny Moore, or Freddy? Even more so basically with any and every decision regarding MLS marketing. It drives me absolutely crazy. There is some very intelligent thought provoking stuff that goes on here which is valuable on many different levels. But if there's anyway we could filter out some of these whiney mouth breathers then I'd be all for it. Regarding the prem member soccer board. I didn't become a premium member so that I could avoid things on bigsoccer, I did it to enhance the whole expierence. Personally I think the FFA forums are worthless. I understand that they server their purpose and hey that's cool if people enjoy them. People claim that there's soccer discussion going on there? It'd be hard to tell that when there's dozens of 'first page' and 'page turn' posts. All that is kind of off the topic but speaks towards the desire of many of the people on this board to use these boards as the American Society of Geek Soccer Fans.
trust me, without ffa and the kinds of posts you described above and trolls, bigsoccer would have never become what they are today. in fact, they would have run out of business already. soccer is no longer the main theme of bigsoccer.
This in from someone who has a fairly high tolerance for trolls, except for those elitist rivalries types. I come from a large family and went on to have my own large family. The ability to tune out in those environments is crucial to the maintenance of one's sanity. It's a good skill to have. I never considered myself to be a soccer analyst and still don't. I just wanted a place to connect with other soccer folks. This was a good a place for that, but the the continual splitting and subdividing has created a world of haves and have nots, cliques of cool folks and the outsiders. The folks who are looking for intellectual stimulation really ought to take a powder or work on the tune out skill.
If the boards are oversplit, why not propoose a solution. When there were too few, people complained. When there are too many people complain. When we don't split they complain. When we do the complain. I"m sure you see the pattern.
And you came on as a third moderator while MikeLastort and I were in charge of US Men N&A. Somehow, you have managed to survive four years of the stuff. I bow to your power of tuning out, and I only wish I had the same.
BEDEVERE: Exactly. So, logically... VILLAGER #1: If... she... weighs... the same as a duck... she's made of wood. BEDEVERE: And therefore? VILLAGER #2: A witch! So you're saying people complain, right? That's odd. I can't speak for nancy, but I think the splits she's talking about are more natural than manmade - more de facto splits as people go off to their own sections - some into the kitchen to talk, some into the living room to watch the game. I think that's natural, and I don't think it's a proble.
You've just describe your garden variety ******** sapien. One thing I have noticed in my 15 years of being in dart leagues - the less you charge people and the more "democratic" you make things, the more the inmates rule the asylum. Your average softball league around here costs $50-80/player, a season lasts 6-10 weeks and if a team makes a mistake, they pay heavily in forfeits, inability to register for the following season, etc.. One of the local dart leagues once took 3 seasons of kvetching to raise team dues from $65 (which was set in 1979) to $80 for teams that had 6-10 players and had seasons that typically last 10-15 weeks. But I don't think there's an easy solution.
For the most part, I agree. I used to fight the occasional subdividing of B&M (the FSW forum doesn't count, that's both marketing, and a natural split). However, I do think that the idea of having heavily moderated US Mens and MLS "News & Analysis" forums is fine. What I don't think is that the the US Mens moderators do a good enough job of moderating - but then I used to be the Attila the Hun of moderators - If a forum is going to be heavily moderated, then by gum, it needs to be heavily moderated. I retitled threads, merged, split, and moved threads like nobody's business. And you know what? A large subset of posters continually sent me thank yous in PMs - while many of the folks who recently wound up with negative rep would attack me publicly on the boards. I don't find that a coincidence.
Don't piss him off. With that kind of reputation, he could smite you down. Speaking of which, I like the new 11 nipple description better than "is becoming a superstar"
Weren't you an N&A mod for like a week before you were run out of town? You sure have gotten a lot of mileage out of your brief stint there. IMO, you and Lastort proved that super-hardass moderating doesn't work. Thanks for the vote of confidence, but IMO, people tend to exaggerate about how bad things are -- "All Yanks are blinking morons and homers", "every one on the USA forums are idiots", etc. -- can you point to recent activity on N&A that supports the assertion that there is a problem there? I think the level of vitriol that goes on there is vastly improved over what it used to be. As for the quality, I don't think it works to nuke anything that doesn't exude quality. People need the freedom to be idiots as well as Einsteins and you can't have one without the other. IMHO.