All good forums are self regulated. For example. If I go to the Real Madrid thread and create a stupid topic about how much Raul sucks, they will let the thread die quickly or the mod will close it. At WR I can do this stuff, and the discussion will last as long as it is interesting of fun. Even if it's absurd. I joined BS recently, so I don't know about the old times. What I know is that 5 or 6 users can't ruin a forum. Everybody joins the discussions and argue with the trolls and socks. And we all like it. WR should stay as it is.
I wish I had been around for the good old days! Kids these days lack any kind of imagination or wit! It's repetitive insults with crap moderators that killed WR.
What was done with the Politics board? I stopped going there (I used to be Atomic Bull here) close to the 2004 election when the board devolved into a continuous liberal/conservative bichfest and circlejerk. It seemed like it was either people insulting each or being pompous jackasses with a persecution complex (i.e. InTheNet). Haven't even bothered to look at it since.
I have a better idea. You can set a limit of 50 posts or more, before a user is able to post on any "Rivalries" board. That should eliminate the suicidal socks.
Basically, a heavy handed crackdown on threads going astray and limits on how many threads you can start. Plus a lot more stricter enforcement of the rules. Any personal attacks are deleted with no question.
I don't know that it was all that heavy-handed. All they did was limit posters to being able to start three threads per day and require a minimum amount of effort from thread starters in the form of commentary, thereby eliminating the so-called "link dump" threads. Beyond that, one persistent troll was banned (for posts having nothing to do with the PCE forum) and one guy who'd lost his cool, along with another deemed having provoked him to do so, were banned from posting in the forum for a while. Most people seem to think there's been an improvement, inasmuch as the level of debate is more civil and less personalized.
A similar form of this idea's been tossed around back in the day, but with starting new threads. ie, 50 posts before ability to start new thread. It was decided that it was a bad idea, because you'd have people posting one-line posts just to get to that magic number. The socks could just go in another forum, get to the magic number, then go in the rivalry forum. It's a good idea in theory, but in the long run, it probably won't work. I like the idea of "going premium" though. Not only would it help to keep the socks out, but you'd also eliminate the problem of newbies accidentally discovering the forum when they were looking for something else.
they can if they are prolific and tedious. When you have someone who knows three jokes and doesn't get bored of using them 20 times each day, arguing with his 4 or 5 like-minded buddies, it becomes rather pointless for anybody else. There are also rather too many "characters" who seem to be acting out some sad WR persona. Someone like Spiny was fine because he was able to do it in a way that was actually funny, but he spawned loads of imitators, who were only able to do a very weak imitation. In a way it's a bit like thinking back to the music of your youth and thinking it was better than the mediocrity of now, and forgetting the amount of dross there used to be, but I'm sure there were always a few decent thrads going at any one time in the past. These days, beyond the dumb post thread, is there anything worthwhile in there at all?
The most painful aspect is that the standard of trolling went downhill faster than a heavily greased man fired from a cannon down a tobaggan run. The point of trolling on the whole used to be to wind people up for a laugh, rather than just to insult them, which is about all you get these days. It was a joke, and people used to usually respond in kind. Sometimes people wouldn't realise it was a joke, and that just made it all the funnier. It is blowing my own trumpet (it mitigation it was the first example I could think of), but I once trolled some very dumb south americans with what started out as a joke post. Dafydd Evans was born. https://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showthread.php?t=107203&page=18&pp=15 (from post 269) Just a plea to trolls. If you must troll, at least try and say something that hasn't been said 1000 times before. I think the idiots back then were more interesting. Maybe that's the problem. It just lacks interesting idiots. People who have just enough of a smattering of intelligence to realise they are being made to look stupid.
Brilliant Most 'classic trolls' nowadays tend to be seniors or mods. Hell, after my trip to Doha I might come back and try to do some fishing myself. Might liven the board up a bit.
The other problem is of course that some of the best trolls got banned! persian tiger, ILC, and many others got reds. Triple blcok got a red and when it went down to yellow didn't really come back. HOG got red and again reduced to yellow and only comes around once a while. His bro got redded a few times too! So now a bunch of 15 year olds or those with a similar mental age get to regurgitate the same repetitive crap over and over again thinking it gets funnier with time! They actually believe they win the argument that way and make the other guy look bad! You need an IQ of over 50 to know when you have lost the argument and back off!! The rest of the funny ones just left as things got worse and worse. You get the occassional funny thread/post but the percentages are not in our favour.
Best trolls? They were a major irritant are one of the main reasons why WR has ended up in the state it was. If you go to WR for those types of posters then you've got it all wrong.
Some players at big spenders Cwmbran Town get £75 a week. That sort of money turns heads, especially when, they can top that up with another £200 a week on top of that with a couple of shifts at the bottling depot on the industrial estate.
I'd forgotten about that - quite probably the single funniest exchange I've ever seen on BS. That's exactly the problem - it's the same complete crap by the same posters in every damn thread. WR used to be inventive, now you could take a post from one thread and insert it in another without interrupting the flow of conversation. The dumbest post thread is its only redeeming feature, and even that could do with some reinvigoration (or at least more selective...selection...of posts).
I remember when I first joined I got hooked pretty good by some of you guys. I had never seen that type of satire in posts before. The likes of RobinCD (what happened to that guy?), Spiny, Sinner, Richard, Chewie, and Badreligion all woke me up quite early and forced me to quickly catch on and realize it is troll of be trolled. The new people that shall remain nameless don't understand this. I say that anyone who reports a post in WR should be banned. Better yet we should have weekly bets that choose who remains in WR or who leaves. Much like I did and successfully got rid of that schmuck Mc2025502156 after the US beat Mexico. How great would that be? Your posting priviledges for a week or so would rest on the outcome of the Sheffield United-Wolverhampton game. That is my kind of board.
Correct...and Mc has turned out to be a pretty cool dude. He posts regularily at the "other" place I post at now.