FAQ Please see the FIFA & Tournaments Board FAQ. Forum Purpose General match discussion should take place in the pre and post match threads in the game forums. This helps prevent spoilers and cuts down on redundant threads. However, in this forum there will be a specific thread for each match to analyse the performance fo the refereeing team. Please note, all threads in this forum will be treated with above average moderating strictness. Please, please, please, and we cannot stress this enough, take highly partisan discussion to individual country forums. It is natural to feel hard done by when a controversial decision goes against your team, and want to vent. However, this forum is for the technical analysis and discussion of decisions. Spoilers A spoiler is something that reveals the result of a match without fair warning. All thread titles should be neutral and if a result is stated or implied within the content of a thread then the title must also include an [R]. (For a detailed explanation of spoilers click this link.) Posting spoilers during the World Cup may result in your posting privileges being restricted. Moderators The Refereeing moderators are: IASocFan, MassachusettsRef. These are the primary moderators for this board and will take care of most of the day to day business here. The general World Cup moderators are: Caesar, SwissGCZ, bungadiri, comme. These are primarily responsible for the various general World Cup boards and secondarily responsible for the group and refereeing boards. The Super Moderators are: Ismitje, Txtriathlete, BuffloSoldier, Prenn, TallTowerMan, Horsehead. These are primarily responsible for overseeing the moderation of the site. If you have concerns about moderator conduct please contact one of them or post a thread in the Customer Service forum.
If you don't know what trolling and flaming are then please read the FAQ. Even if you are a longtime member of BigSoccer it bears refreshing. Please do not respond to a troll or a flame and never quote inflammatory posts as this only perpetuates the problem. Instead you should always report trolling and flaming. By reporting posts (and posters) you ensure the mods see problems in a timely manner. You can report a post by clicking the "" button next to the offending post. Just say a word or two about what's wrong with the post (or poster) and send the report. The mods will deal with it ASAP. Also, as some of you know, if you troll or flame once too many times you will be banned from the WC2010 forums. What's once too many? It's one time more after you've already been warned by private message. (If you don't check your private messages regularly that's your problem.) Got questions? Please feel free to ask in this thread. Happy posting!
A welcome and a couple quick general points... As Caesar has said, this forum will be heavily moderated. That doesn't mean only referees should post here or that referees will always be defended. Quite the contrary... we want this to be a fusion of referees and fans, otherwise we wouldn't create the subforum and we'd just let the regular referee forum stand as is. So you are perfectly welcome to come in here and be critical of refereeing performances. As you will see in the normal referee forum--there is not always one right answer. However, it does mean that we are expecting a higher level of discussion. That means unprovoked insults, racism and foul language will be dealt with immediately. Will this be harsher than the rest of the site? Yes. But you've been warned. If you want to get into a childish war, there is a rivalries board for that. This forum is meant for objective (or as objective as possible) analysis of referee performances. Also, tread carefully with unsubstantiated allegations. Given the history of all sports, bribery can be a legitimate discussion point if there's evidence. But constantly throwing it out there to slander all referees will not be tolerated and will be considered a form of trolling. As for the format... I've started the first five individual match threads. The format should be the same for all analysis threads, but neither I nor IASocFan have a monopoly on creating them. If you do create a match thread, I'd ask that you wait until 72 hours prior to kickoff (aside from the first 5, which I created now for obvious reasons). If you create a thread and we merge or edit the initial post, please don't take offense--we are just trying to keep the forum streamlined and neat.
As we approach the knockout rounds, a quick reminder from the SuperMods about unwittingly revealing results:
Refereeing Jargon / Acronyms: In consideration of the large number of non-referees on the forum, we'd just like to ask people to bear in mind the mixed audience with their posts. Some degree of shorthand is inevitably required, but if the jargon could be minimised wherever practical it would be greatly appreciated. For the uninitiated - if you see an acronym that you don't understand, this site may be useful: http://asktheref.com/soccer-acronyms.asp