What happened to this board?

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GopherHole Staff said:
Absolutely. If there are posters you believe are using 2 usernames, please send us a DM and we will review. Most of the times when these are brought to our attention, they are in fact not the same, despite the claims. But we have on rare occasions matched IP addresses and banned the less active username.
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My expectation is that threads started that are not related to gopher basketball be removed or moved to the proper section (football, hockey, etc...). Also mutiple threads talking about the same player/recruit. If there is a thread about a potential recruit, then he signs and someone starts a new thread saying that he has signed, just merge the two threads.
 

Big Dawg said:
My expectation is that threads started that are not related to gopher basketball be removed or moved to the proper section (football, hockey, etc...). Also mutiple threads talking about the same player/recruit. If there is a thread about a potential recruit, then he signs and someone starts a new thread saying that he has signed, just merge the two threads.
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Nearly all off-topic threads are moved to a specific board that is on-topic. If there's a thread about football on this board, or vice versa, please let us know. Those usually get moved quickly.

We encourage new threads to be started when a new player commits. That's always big news and gets buried in an All Things Thread. Not everyone reads deep into an All Things Thread and many (lurkers especially) want headlines easily. So we won't merge those, at least initially. After that "commits" thread runs its course we can merge into the All Things Thread.
 

I have no suggestions for the moderators. They are doing just fine.
 

Rockraven said:
I have no suggestions for the moderators. They are doing just fine.
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Yeah.....mods are doing fine. Some of the personal attacks users make at one another gets over the top sometimes but it is the internet and bad behavior is the norm.

The ignore feature works great for tuning out posts from those handful of posters that bring nothing to the discussions most of the time.
 



On the general topic of "What happened to this board?"

I think the Richard Pitino era was defined mainly by overwhelming optimism going into the "next year." This forum represented that overall optimistic sentiment (even though we never accomplished much).

We were always one player away from greatness, one unlucky injury aware from a March Madness run, and generally had some proven pieces each year that could be built around.

I also think RP did a great job keeping us apprised of player development (his blog was $) and was overall a solid scheduler that gave us some good talking points. He also did notably well in the spring recruiting period (maybe to a fault), which gave us some fun discussion.

We're coming off one of the worst seasons in our program's history, CBJ offers us nothing regarding team development, and the scheduling is brutal. It creates the perfect storm for negativity and off-topic banter.

I think one solid season of exceeding expectations changes the offseason narrative and gets the board firing on all cylinders again. If not, Ben will get the axe regardless, and there'll probably be a renewed sense of optimism with a new coach, players, transfers, scheduling, philosophy, etc.

TLDR - This is probably as low as it will get for off-season morale. We either get better, and the discussion on here improves, or Ben is gone, and there is a renewed sense of optimism and new talking points.
 

topos said:
On the general topic of "What happened to this board?"

I think the Richard Pitino era was defined mainly by overwhelming optimism going into the "next year." This forum represented that overall optimistic sentiment (even though we never accomplished much).

We were always one player away from greatness, one unlucky injury aware from a March Madness run, and generally had some proven pieces each year that could be built around.

I also think RP did a great job keeping us apprised of player development (his blog was $) and was overall a solid scheduler that gave us some good talking points. He also did notably well in the spring recruiting period (maybe to a fault), which gave us some fun discussion.

We're coming off one of the worst seasons in our program's history, CBJ offers us nothing regarding team development, and the scheduling is brutal. It creates the perfect storm for negativity and off-topic banter.

I think one solid season of exceeding expectations changes the offseason narrative and gets the board firing on all cylinders again. If not, Ben will get the axe regardless, and there'll probably be a renewed sense of optimism with a new coach, players, transfers, scheduling, philosophy, etc.

TLDR - This is probably as low as it will get for off-season morale. We either get better, and the discussion on here improves, or Ben is gone, and there is a renewed sense of optimism and new talking points.
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It is already improving.
 

topos said:
On the general topic of "What happened to this board?"

I think the Richard Pitino era was defined mainly by overwhelming optimism going into the "next year." This forum represented that overall optimistic sentiment (even though we never accomplished much).

We were always one player away from greatness, one unlucky injury aware from a March Madness run, and generally had some proven pieces each year that could be built around.

I also think RP did a great job keeping us apprised of player development (his blog was $) and was overall a solid scheduler that gave us some good talking points. He also did notably well in the spring recruiting period (maybe to a fault), which gave us some fun discussion.

We're coming off one of the worst seasons in our program's history, CBJ offers us nothing regarding team development, and the scheduling is brutal. It creates the perfect storm for negativity and off-topic banter.

I think one solid season of exceeding expectations changes the offseason narrative and gets the board firing on all cylinders again. If not, Ben will get the axe regardless, and there'll probably be a renewed sense of optimism with a new coach, players, transfers, scheduling, philosophy, etc.

TLDR - This is probably as low as it will get for off-season morale. We either get better, and the discussion on here improves, or Ben is gone, and there is a renewed sense of optimism and new talking points.
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I think you nailed it. Posters had definitely turned sour on RP towards the end and I don't fault them. But I really miss his posts about players and development, he was such a refreshing interview, and his scheduling was spot on (he obviously had shortcomings and it was time to move on). I am rooting for CBJ and hope things turn around asap, but the program has never felt as stale as it does right now.
 



Bob_Loblaw said:
Most of what people are trying to ban as trolling is just people disagreeing with them.

For example, I was accused of trolling in the Jack Wilson thread because I talked about him being a bad recruit. All I did was refute points made by other people in response to my thread. To some people, that's "trolling" or "grieving" because it disagrees with their opinion. Personally, I don't care that a group of people think any post that doesn't celebrate all things is trolling, but I've noticed that's group of people demanding more board moderation.

Even on this board, for one of the worst programs in the country, most of the threads are positive. Outside of the Ben Johnson is a Disaster Thread and grading the Gophers thread, the rest are either positive or completely benign. Yet, people are still clamoring for more moderation. It's self-moderated, don't click in that thread and you won't see he vast majority of negative posts.

As far as a business decision, if the men's basketball board banned people for being negative, it would be an awful business decision. It's supposed to be an online version of people talking sports with their friends where some of them are wide-eyed and eager to believe and others are eternal pessimists. If you get rid of the pessimists/realists, you have nothing. This is true with sports talk radio, message boards, and pretty much fandom as a whole.
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Bob, you just framed up the whole discussion as "Hand out a warning or two to trolls and all conversation immediately dies, users go away and the site as left as an empty shell with no discussions" Really? I get that you are a attorney and framing up BS is a part fo the job but sheesh.


How bout this? Developed websites since the late 90s, worked both locally and nationally on some of the largest brands in the country on internet marketing strategy and execution, across enterprise/government, hundreds of awards over the years, have an award for online strategy for a pro sports team website sitting on my desk right now, worked closely with the U with their overall strategy, and I will guarantee that an occasional warning to a troll will not be negative. Require that the trolls (and their attorney) behave and improve the discussion 10x resulting in a healthier debate, more traffic and a better product.

Your choice I guess.. Take my advice or a boomer attorney.
 

CPTMidnight said:
Bob, you just framed up the whole discussion as "Hand out a warning or two to trolls and all conversation immediately dies, users go away and the site as left as an empty shell with no discussions" Really? I get that you are a attorney and framing up BS is a part fo the job but sheesh.


How bout this? Developed websites since the late 90s, worked both locally and nationally on some of the largest brands in the country on internet marketing strategy and execution, across enterprise/government, hundreds of awards over the years, have an award for online strategy for a pro sports team website sitting on my desk right now, worked closely with the U with their overall strategy, and I will guarantee that an occasional warning to a troll will not be negative. Require that the trolls (and their attorney) behave and improve the discussion 10x resulting in a healthier debate, more traffic and a better product.

Your choice I guess.. Take my advice or a boomer attorney.
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Neato resume. You sound like you're an authority on message boards. LOL. You're wrong. I'm also not a boomer, I'm 40. LOL.

What you're crying about is people posting things you disagree with. I've noticed you didn't combat my post with any examples of negativity running wild. You got a little negative and personal here, but I'm not going to cry to the moderators to make you stop.

If Gopherhole wants to send warnings to actual trolls, they should (and they do). The problem is, as I've pointed out and despite your prestigious resume, you failed to address your definition of a troll and failed to address what you would propose should happen if the troll posts.

Also - you just didn't want trolls warned, you wanted threads to be locked that you disagreed. I know I shouldn't argue with one of the world's greatest message board minds, but you should realize your initial post is still there to read.

Anyone that asks someone to take their advice because of their resume rather than their salient points is an idiot. Your post was awful and you couldn't counter any of the facts that I made, so you pointed to your resume.

So what is your definition of a troll? Name a couple of examples of people you feel are trolling? What would you do to try to mitigate that trolling?
 

I am not buying your age but I guess it is possible that you are a 40 year old boomer. (we got men who think they are women these days so who am I to judge)

What a troll does is says "come back to me with all your proof". When when they cannot win on a specific subject they say "come back to me with proof on another subject". Its a fools game for the reasonable person trying to have a discussion as they spend all their time responding in good faith. The troll laughs on the havoc created. Then, the honest bloke just goes away and stops visiting the website. You, my friend, are a troll. No thanks on spending a couple of hours citing posts - we see them.

STAFF
The recommendation to Jason and the staff remains: If the thread is on a specific recruit that people are excited about and Bob jumps in to say "coach is horrible, look at his record, Ben is the worst coach in the world, woe, woe, woe, much is our hopelessness!" Then you send him a warning - you say "Bob, this thread was on a specific recruit. If you want to comment negatively on Ben use the Ben-is-a-disaster thread. If you comment again in the wrong thread we will ban you for a month." Bob is now a 'Good Bob' in the future. There is much rejoicing! YEA!

BTW - Most rank attorneys lower than trolls so I am not sure what you are so offended about being called a troll... Its a step up.
 
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Bob_Loblaw said:
It's just a microcosm of every single human interaction. When things are going bad, people don't get along. That's been true since the beginning of time.

The football board has a completely different feel and it's mostly the same posters. It's because the football team is decent.
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We probably could get a good couple of pages of responses just debating when time began...
 





CPTMidnight said:
I am not buying your age but I guess it is possible that you are a 40 year old boomer. (we got men who think they are women these days so who am I to judge)

What a troll does is says "come back to me with all your proof". When when they cannot win on a specific subject they say "come back to me with proof on another subject". Its a fools game for the reasonable person trying to have a discussion as they spend all their time responding in good faith. The troll laughs on the havoc created. Then, the honest bloke just goes away and stops visiting the website. You, my friend, are a troll. No thanks on spending a couple of hours citing posts - we see them.

STAFF
The recommendation to Jason and the staff remains: If the thread is on a specific recruit that people are excited about and Bob jumps in to say "coach is horrible, look at his record, Ben is the worst coach in the world, woe, woe, woe, much is our hopelessness!" Then you send him a warning - you say "Bob, this thread was on a specific recruit. If you want to comment negatively on Ben use the Ben-is-a-disaster thread. If you comment again in the wrong thread we will ban you for a month." Bob is now a 'Good Bob' in the future. There is much rejoicing! YEA!

BTW - Most rank attorneys lower than trolls so I am not sure what you are so offended about being called a troll... Its a step up.
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Most administrators of other sites that I frequent have clearly defined rules of behavior that you agree to when you sign up. If these rules are broken you get one warning, then ranging from one month suspension to outright banning.

this site used to be interesting to read, now I rarely go to men’s bb because it is just infighting, personal grudges, political arguments.
 

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