I have gotten so tired of the increasing indignation that shows up when supporters of one team post on another team's board. Here is one example of this type of attitude and my response: I get so sick of this reasoning. It is fallacious. If you want to go to your own exclusive site - there is a great one called www.xyz.com {not its real name - this is a private site run by a fan of the team that has its own board function. There are several examples of such sites amongst MLS teams, including: www.section-8.com, www.lariotsquad.com, www.metrofanatic.com, etc}. This is BigSoccer.com. Not Feudalfiefdom.com. This is a community board. If you want your own exclusive domain - it should be somewhere else. Or an alternative might be to start a 'touchy supporters group' sub-forum under the main board for each team. I agree that those spaces should be reserved for true, committed and emotionally-involved/over-wrought fans of a team. They are a perfect space for navel-gazing, gnashing of teeth, expressions of anxiety and insecurity and self-criticism. But why should it be this way on every such board? This community board should be open and free for any fan to discuss any team as long as the comments are relavent and even-tempered. There are plenty of reasons for fans of other teams to have something to say about a specific team. I don't like this exclusive, aggroxenophobic attitude that no one but committed fans of a team belong on that team's board. I really don't like this attitude as it exists on DC boards. I will flat-out say that I think that the DC boards are where this problem really started and the attitude of certain DC moderators has led to a backlash that has hurt the culture of MLS on BigSoccer as a whole. It is totally stupid. But truly, truly we use the words 'troll' and 'flame' way too lightly on BigSoccer.com. We use those words to describe any point that we disagree with (or that we even agree with emotionally) that a supporter of another team makes. That is too narrow a definition. Why should this be the case? If someone is blatently trolling, a moderator will usually remove their post. Even if they are not blatently trolling but a post is edgy (includes wit or jabs that elicit an emotional response even when they are not truly inflammatory), he will probably remove that post. That is no big deal. But what if we want to make a comment about how a new player is plays, what a likely formation will be, what strategy will hurt/help the opponent in the match or who will be available? Even after the game, why is it wrong to go to another team's board (often as a neutral fan having watched a game between 2 teams other than the one I support) and commend the performance of player X or question the tactical decisions of the manager or commiserate in the case of a game where the result didn't seem in keeping with the run of play? Why should those things be off limits? If that is what a fan wants, why don't they get their stuff together and create their own 'pure' board that is only for true, authentic fans of their particular team? Why ruin the 'front porch' or 'hot stove' atmosphere for every other fan? Rival fans would never go to such a board and would respect that space. Or why don't you petition a SuperMod for an exclusive supporter subforum that is truly off-limits to posters who are not self-identified (by having the team listed in their favorites) supporters? The way that MLS is structured - all of us have a vested interest in every other team. That is just the way it is. And the league is small enough that many of us can still find a way to see every game. I love talking soccer. And I don't necessarily understand why it matters whether I have "DC United" under my name or not when it comes to talking about a trade or a formation or something. And the suggestion that MLS:News and Analysis or MLS:General is good enough for these kinds of threads does not make sense to me. If you ask me - the team boards (exclusive supporters sub-forums being the exception) should not be considered private turf as much as they should be considered 'the place to talk about this team'. Is that really a ridiculous notion? That the DC United board is the place to talk about DC United, no matter who you are? Sure, gross slanging and aggro rivalry type stuff should be restricted (in general) to the rivalries boards. But there is so much gray area between rivalry type posts and fan-boy posts. I think that gray area should be open to supporters of all teams. I am personally through trying to be edgy or funny in posts on other team forums. In the DefCon3 state that all of the MLS team boards are in now after so much crap has hit the fan just before the season started (much of it which I attribute to a DC moderator) when the whole Nowak comments controversy went down, violence between fans and the aftermath (posts) relating to that, etc - it just doesn't fly the way it used to. But I still think it is stupid to think that the team boards on BigSoccer should be considered as 'your own little playhouse with no girlz allowed'. Aren't we capable of more than that? MLS fans of rival teams watch games in the same sports bars. They attend matches (even intermingling at tailgating events and existing in non-segregated seating environtments) together. They do all kinds of things together and still interact okay together. So why can't we all get along the same way on a public, worldwide, soccer community board? I don't think that is what was intended when BigSoccer.com got started. And I don't think it is sensible in the future. This space is not a local NY sports radio station - where everybody supports NewYawk teams. This is a global, soccer community.
No. Public forum. Everyone should be able to post anywhere they want. As long as they act like adults. The team boards show what the prevailing slant of the discusison should be. Just cause someone has an opinion or theory that is not the overwhelming trend of the forum, it does not make that person a troll. People need to learn to have a thicker skin. And if a team's fans want their own "private" space, yeah they can go make their own forum.
Supporters of other teams (including NY) post on the DC board all the time. Its not WHO is posting, but HOW you're posting. Its one thing to give an honest opinion of, for example, how a player is performing, its another thing entirely to post "So-and-so sucks ass". It is also not in good taste to make posts gloating about a victory in another teams forum or to post other inflamitory remarks.
people on all team boards (including my old Quakes) assume that if you're not with us, you're against us. This mentality is very bothersome right now for me personally. I have no team and so I post on any board that a topic interests me -- i try not to troll and be respectful. but I've had a couple posts removed for nothing more than not being rah-rah enough -- one post said the same thing a home fan said. but that specific team wasn't listed under my avatar, so out I went. I think some moderators (not naming names because most are excellent) are so zealous in protecting their territories that outside opinion is squashed as policy, regardless of content. and some fans are so sensitive that anybody not spouting the company line has rocks thrown at them. i'm not trying to rag on the moderators, because like I said most are excellent, and they have a tough job to do (one I'm not eager to undertake myself). sometimes the herd mentality among mods and posters is a little too much, though.
agreed that it's not good form to gloat. but there's nothing wrong with saying a player sucks since many posters of that team are probably saying he same thing (or at least it's been my experience). if they're good, say it. if they're bad, say it. I know on the quakes board we called out players when the deserved it ... I don't see what's wrong with a Crew fan saying the same thing we were saying. and, I'm not trying to target you, but the DC boards have a rep of being the most intolerant of outsiders. but are the mods/fans too territorial or does the DC board attract more nutjobs?
I don't like it when posters tell others where to post and where not to post just because of someone's allegiance to some team or another. That kind of thing just on principle is ridiculous. That said, be prepared to take fire for posting on a rival's board. Posters get to neg rep and report. It's not cardable, but I wouldn't expect flowers.
This is not how it works a lot of the time now. If you give a forthright opinion about a team - that is all you need to get abuse and 'troll' thrown down on you from on high. Half the time, people see your favorite team and are immediately pre-disposed to heap hate on you and disparage your team/the character of your fans in general without even dealing with the point you are making. No matter how reasonably you make the point. We have all seen this happen at times. I am not suggesting that sometimes things don't work okay. But it is happening way too infrequently. And if you look at the post that I responded to in my thread-starter - the guy is basically arguing for 'private space'. I totally agree. I wish that the supermoderators would put up a sticky that outlines what their vision is for the general 'openness' of the team forums. I also wish that they would add navel-gazing authentic supporters only subforums. Few would disagree with you. I personally think that other MLS team boards were more open for a couple of years. And then about the same time that DC started getting good again, our moderating really tightened down due to the 'yankee effect' and it had a lot of backlash as moderators/posters of other team forums resented the heavy-handed DC approach and started doing the same thing. This is one of the reasons why I think that any real improvement will have to begin at the supermoderator level.
This is a good point. If you are being remotely edgy or making negative analysis (even if it is temparately stated and well thought-out) of a rival, then I think you can expect to get some grief and even neg rep. And if there is a question of TOS violation, than I think you can expect to get your post reported. Post-reporting should be like the 'grand jury' process of dealing with TOS violations. I think that the supermoderators could make it easier on the mods if they give them some very clear guidelines on what the team forums are supposed to be: 1) a place to go to talk about a specific team (no matter who you are) or 2) a place for supporters of a specific team to gather and talk. I don't think that both concepts can currently co-exist in the MLS climate. That is why I think that exclusive supporters subforums can be a very useful tool that allow BigSoccer.com to maintain its hits (by not losing exclusive team supporters to existing and future boards like LAriotsquad, Section-8, etc style sites that are closed community and get a lot of traffic) and also encourage great discussion about soccer between fans of different teams.
BTW, it's www.section8chicago.com. The difficulty as I see it stems from the fact that fans are very touchy and protective of their own team. I'm fine with a Fire fan opining that "so-and-so sucks," but if a Dallas fan came in and said it I'd have an issue with that. It's not your team, and you aren't emotionally invested in it, so it's not your business to insult it. If you have questions, corrections or other generally positive things to say, that's fine, but making negative comments gets people defensive and upset. If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all.
the thing with DC fans that i think affected other boards the most is the way they'd run all over other boards posting stuff and then if anyone complained how they couldn't take similar criticism on their boards, being very high and mighty with, "its not our fault our board has good moderators and yours suck." no, it is your fault that you don't learn self-control - a lot of the other boards did have mods with a more "let-live" attitude for a long time, but when people pointed out feeling over-run in their own forum, and especialy in the light of DC at certain points banning ANY posts from non DC fans, that tolerance just seemed like an invitation to be a punching bag. a lot of BigSoccer has become factionalized. and people draw conclusions based on their particular loyalty, even on the general boards. i was agreeing with Andy Mead on a recent thread about refs giving too much time, and i finally quit posting. Columbus fans kept attacking me, not seeing past me being a Galaxy fan, so any hope of objective discussion was lost. the funny thing was, they also went off about, "Galaxy fans are. . ." even though i was the only Galaxy fan of quite a few who posted that took up Andy's point. people look to the team part of the profile before they even read a post, it seems. then they judge based on that.
Cheers to all those saying people need to be a little less touchy... I had someone send me a personal message that just said "Troll" yesterday. Why? Because in a thread titled something like "Houston's attendance down 3k" I had the audacity to mention that it seemed like there were also a lot of empty seats visible in Dallas during Sunday's game on the Deuce.
Part of the problem for the DC boards is that there are a large number of people who just can't wait to "take the United fans down a peg" as one poster said in the aftermath of the Nowak kerfluffle. We don't mind the give and take with other team supporters. ElJefe posts there on occasion, several Metrofans post without incident, and other team supporters visit fairly regularly, and they pass without comment on their presence. But there's this whole other class like some idiot from New England who wanted to lecture us about hooliganism in light of the incidents at Giants Stadium last weekend. We don't need that, we don't want that, and if other fora moderators were as good as ours, it wouldn't be a problem elsewhere either. Sachin
If you want to be able to jump from board to board and comment on every team take the United off your team list. While you have this pristine view of the world where every one loves one another and can dance freely in the streets - that is simply not the real world. And while you so carefully blamed the moderators for this - it is not the moderators but the posters who object to your presence. Maybe - just maybe - NY fans don't want a DC fan coming in to say Amado sucked and dogged it. That is life - supermod involvement won't stop NY fans from hating DC fans and vice versa.
I think what Liverpool SC is saying is that, if you're that offended by other team's fans making comments about United, then there are places other than BigSoccer for you to go and have that kind of interaction... his opinion (and mine) is that BigSoccer is an open forum for all opinions... even in the individual team Forums.
And thats where we differ. The needs of the many outweighs the needs of the few. I am not disagreeing that BigSoccer is an open forum but whether its open for all opinions or not is a different story. Should I - as moderator of the DC forum - allow a NE fan to come in and say DC fans deserved to get the shit kicked out of them when we went to the Meadowlands? That was his opinion. Needless to say that is going to stop any and all conversation on that particular topic. The premise behind moderators is that we are there to encourage discussion and keep the disruptions to a minimum. There are many shades of grey and personally I don't have a problem when I go into another teams boards. I have found myself on the NY boards a lot recently given their turmoil and not a single soul has bothered me. Why - because I am not going in trying to stir up trouble. You can't just walk into another teams boards and say - wow, Amado sucked ass on Saturday. You will be labeled a troll b/c to every fan of that team you are not there to have an informed conversation - you are there to poke at the hornets nest.
That's all true... and agreed that you can't have people jumping into moderate conversation with statements like "Freddy's a dumbass midget"... those kinds of comments should be weeded out.. Again, that's not what Liverpool's saying... he repeatedly says in his Thread starter that he is getting harassed for posting on team forums even when his posts are just along the line of topic and not really intended to be trollish. I guess it's hard to guage intent in posts... easy to misinterpret contributory comments with trollish behavior and vice versay when you can't see the delivery.
And I never go into another team's forum and say "wow that guy sucked" anything. For one thing, I don't even use profanity, because it violates TOS. I don't even get into stuff like "We are going to crush you and beat you into a pulp". I talk about how teams matchup and say stuff like "Your midfield is really going to struggle to control the middle-third if you play DC with that lineup". If I do single out a particular player, I am usually talking about how they are being over-matched or played in a position that they cannot handle. Or wondering why they are starting when another option is available. Except Matt Reis or Jay Heaps, who I cannot stand. The only people that I out and out ridicule are front office people and even then it is generally from a sheer awe at their decision-making and genuine commiseration that fans of their teams have to put up at them.
This is totally true. And the thing is 99% of us don't mind Texgator, ElJefe, Rocket, Haig or oodles of other guys. And yet our moderators still frequently bin posts by guys with that kind of standing. Half of the time when guys get posts deleted, we end up seeing what they actually posted and we are like: What the heck? Why was that objectionable? The NE troll who was going on about our 'hooligan' activities on the away trip to Giants Stadium was being an idiot. But by continuing to open his mouth - he self-moderated himself into oblivion. He was so dumb that nothing a moderator could have done could have made him look like any more of an idiot than he was proving himself to be.
The post that I cribbed from was not a direct reply to one I wrote. It was a general email on a team forum complaining about the audacity of a rival's fans to post anything. I have dramatically reduced my posting in general due to hearing the same types of emails. I used to like to do analysis-type posts and occasionally cheeky-analysis (playful, not scathing) posts across the MLS team boards, but it has become more or less impossible due to the climate against MLS supporters posting anything other than bare questions about weather, broadcast info, injuries, etc in threads. Particularly match threads or threads regarding a team's player movement or tactical shape. I have now completely abandoned any cheeky-analysis type posts and occasionally venture onto boards with a straight analysis post. But even there one has to be careful.
You know what - I am calling you out on this. Anyone want to see what Liverpool is throwing himself on the cross for: https://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showpost.php?p=8205830&postcount=46 This was a thread where the NY fans were comiserating over everything that has happened to them this year. A couple DC fans went in there to talk shit about NY and their lack of support. DC fans had no right to be in that thread. This was not an analysis thread, no one was talking about formations, player attributes, or anything of that nature. It was a thread that was allowing NY fans to vent and a couple DC fans used it to talk smack. Tell me Liverpool - why are you dying so much to post in that thread? I scanned your other posts and I can't find a single soul who told you to leave.
Seriously though, who give's a rat's rear about who is the more uptight mod or not. I just browse for information, if I feel like posting and some mod doesn't like it, let him remove it. No sweat of my sack. I wouldn't feel oppressed or anything. It's a discussion board, you have to take the good with bad or find some other way to slack and enjoy your fave sport at the same time.
That is part of the problem. You personally. There just isn't any room for 'you personally' in trying to create the right atmosphere on a board with BigSoccer's scale. The Supermods need to put up a more comprehensive philosophy of posting etiquitte - because the post that I cribbed from to start this thread (made by a very long-time and experienced BigSoccer poster) and the fact that this is an on-going controversy reveals that there is no consensus regarding what tone is appropriate in the team forums. If there was a sticky that said: "Expect honest debate and critique in team forums - team forums are a place to talk about that team - supporter subforums are exclusive domains of the fans of a specific team" Then we would not have any trouble. Why the heck should a DC United fan not have some opinion about RBNY? We watch them play us four times. Some of us see almost all of their games (they are almost always on DK and I like watching games between Eastern Conference opponents). So if I think that a 352 featuring Mendes and Wynne makes no sense at all or if I want to talk about roster management issues viz a viz Danny O'Rourke for Adrian Serioux - where should I go? It is stupid. Look at baseball. Baseball fans talk about each other's teams ALL THE TIME and no one has to avoid eye contact, unball fists and back away slowly without making any abrupt movements. Why do we cater to this stupid expectation that any time we engage in any discussion about a rival soccer team that the whole atmosphere is going to combust and we are going to start some kind of cyber-brawl? It is stupid. So often that kind of reaction is predicated by the expectation that going nuts is the appropriate response. It is like frats that intentionally pattern themselves after Animal House. So lame.