Sporting troll PLO8Killer

[MEbenhoe]

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namely, the fact that people are allowed to basically be utterly retarded so long as they don't tell anyone to die in a grease fire or post a link to an NFL game streaming. but your response to that is to ban the messenger instead of asking what your users actually want

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The problem with sports is that there is a certain group of posters who study the game at a ridiculously statistically based level that think anyone who talks like the average fan is "utterly retarded". Yes these people are more often than not right in their arguments about the subject at hand, but they have unrealistic expectations that everyone should look at sports the way they do. Really what fun would these discussions be if they were just like, Peyton Manning is awesome because it statistically says he is awesome, yes i agree the stats do say that Manning is awesome, Yes lets continue to talk about Mannings statistical domination of the game of football, etc. Cmon a good sports forums needs the nuts who despite all statistical evidence are biased enough to say Peyton Manning sucks, or conspiracy theorists to talk about how the league fixes games. If you want to have deep statistically-based discussions of a sport start a thread to discuss things at this level and I'll police it like crazy to make sure the nuts stay out of it, but expecting this to be an across the board thing is just too much.

2p2 posters in general hate that which doesn't think like them. And honestly, there is absolutely zero value in people posting in threads in a forum that isn't ATF about banning a poster. So call it banning the messenger if you want, but there is a built in feature in the forum software that gives the people the ability to say "HEY BAN THIS GUY!!!!", expecting people to use this instead of derailing a thread to talk about how somebody needs to be banned for their crackpot theory that the nfl is out to get the patriots isn't asking much. In reality, I think if this was a rule across the board that people calling out for bans in thread would receive a temp ban of their own, the forums would actually see a nice improvement from this. Actually wasn't this a rule in OOT for awhile under [censored]'s reign?

[NT!]

i am not saying these things as a stat-head, neither is tuq. don't try to frame this as a bunch of sabermetricians screaming for the heads of anyone who doesn't include VORP in their MVP voting.

i agree that banning people adds little, if anything to a thread. i think it was an OOT rule at one point and it's not a bad one. but banning those people is an odd place to start in a forum where you can say peyton manning [censored] the only person with an IQ lower than his (his mother) and get away with it.

you are free to do whatever you want. i am talking to you as a SE poster, not a mod, and i am telling you that i and many of my fellow posters (many of whom have very different views than my own) think that A LITTLE MORE moderation would help the forum. even without banning. even if it's just a few guidelines or suggestions, or the occasional PM to a truly terrible user. maybe you are doing things like that and we just don't know it, but based on your posts in this thread it seems not.

it's not like all the idiots and wingnuts are going to stop posting if one or two get reprimanded. trust me. i tried that. it doesn't work. [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

[tuq]

If anyone cares, and since Sports may actually be the forum I visit the most: I think you both make great points. And there's no reason you two can't reach a consensus.

NT! is generally right because there are what would we guess, 80-100 regular posters in Sports? I mean those averaging 15+ posts/week across all sports. And yet there are just 1-2 that constantly push buttons and piss people off. I don't see why it would be so hard to just run PLO8 and Vyse and enjoy the improvement in signal : noise. Remember, BobO was banned for similar crimes against the internet and you have to admit it has been an improvement.

MEbenhoe is right by default because I believe among the non-strat forums (and possibly including them) Sports is the most miserable, bitchy forum on this site except maybe Politics. Which I avoid like herpes so I mean maybe it's much better or much worse, I'm just reacting to the bitchfests that spill into ATF. Thus you're going to have a lot of emotions running high, etc., and to wield the ban stick heavily just seems like it would make things worse, if not way worse.

Obvious solution seems to be to just eliminate the worst of the worst, as this thread's existence is suggesting. And I don't know if NT! was joking or serious about me being a "[censored] troll", but I am probably one of the better, least argumentative posters in the NBA threads, and when it comes to football and baseball I try to stay out of opinionated discussion because for the most part I feel badly outclassed.

[tuq]

Yeah, what NT! said while I was writing my long, no doubt destined to be unread rant.

Matt, I just think it's possible you're being a little defensive. Everyone loves you, your less is more philosophy could climb mountains, it's just that I've seen threads where PLO8 and Jessica and Vyse wreck the fun with their posts and 1/3 of the thread is "ban please" or "STFU troll", etc. The fact that they're going unchecked (and appear to be aware of this) is as annoying as anything.

Mahalo.