Richard “Richie” Ledezma at PSV Eindhoven

I'll reply here one more time, since there are some points to be made that have general value. Beyond that, let's move the discussion to private messages, so the thread can be freed to do its job.

It's one thing to say something like...

• Perhaps good play with the NT in the Whatever Cup will improve his chance at getting time with his club. Or...
• He's likely to play as position x for us in the Whatever Cup. Maybe that will convince his club coach that he doesn't have to sit on the bench waiting for a shot to open up at position y. Or...
• to engage in general conversation about the health/injury implications of playing in a lesser NT opportunity, wrt a player who's competing for a spot on his club team.

Stuff like that is relatively bounded and can be a useful, interesting part of discussion in YA. It's also true that even this NT stuff can take on a life of its own, and turn into NT talk, per se, rather than the short-lived, ancillary stuff that we tend to let go. Once that happens we usually toss a "please stop" message into the thread. If that doesn't work we start deleting stuff, so people won't do the natural thing of responding to the NT-oriented posts. At this level, it's completely understandable. We (mods) don't enjoy deleting things. We don't think posters are bad people for violating what is--we fully recognize--an arbitrary boundary, albeit one that is necessary to the survival of YA. We're just doing something tantamount to librarians moving wayward L books out of the O book section.

When hot button issues get introduced, it's different. It's hard to remember a time when the USMNT coach was not a divisive figure. The current one is certainly no exception. You mentioned him the Reyna thread. Despite your protestations that "now you know", you have been warned repeatedly about this being a hot button issue. (Why is it a hot button issue? Because it pretty much automatically makes a YA thread a NT thread, due to the fact that lots of folks either have strong opinions about the coaching, or are sick to death of seeing others' strong opinions.) We mods come down harder on those. And we do so faster when it comes to repeated offenses.

We also come down harder once someone has blown through a "please stop" warning. That's what happened in the Pepi thread. A mod told you to stop arguing a point that had turned into a threadjack ("there's a prevailing prejudice against US players in Europe" is not the same thing as "PSV has been unfair to Pepi").

And, by the way, a thread ban is a soft response. It doesn't impact your ability to reply anywhere else, the way a formal warning (leading to a possible yellow or even red card) or a forum ban does. That said, we don't toss thread bans around like confetti, so if you start accumulating those then it's probably time to check yourself.

Which brings me to the matter of aggression. I suggested in a previous post that you @adam tash err in this direction, so it's only fair I explain it. When you meet with disagreement, you frequently resort to rebuttals that don't engage the others' points. I can't remember if I've ever seen you (even) agree to disagree. That tendency leads contributes to the situation you find yourself in here, because far to often the mods get called to a thread where you're taking on all comers, dying on a hill of your choosing, playing whack-a-mole...you get the picture. Not everybody does that. This place is much more interesting if--rather than trying to make the same point over and over in hopes that folks will submit--you engage the other person's argument calmly and maybe even occasionally admit they have a point.

If you'd like to respond, please do so via PM. If you respond to this here, it will be deleted.