Forum talks (1 Viewer)

Martin · Dec 12, 2003

Lately I have found it difficult to formulate myself and articulate my statements. I haven't been happy with the answers that I've given nor the quality of my writing. It's frustrating to want to communicate something and not being able to do it. It seems I'm having a temporary lapse in my write block so I'll try to say a few words while I have the chance.

It is my feeling that the air has become negative on this board. I know that a lot of people have expressed their dissatisfaction with my actions and some have not been entirely happy with some of the events playing out in this community. I can certainly relate to that and see that everything is not perfect. I think we all have our grievances right now. But I will tell you what has changed in the last months.

Numero uno: a lot of the moderators have become inactive. This issue is important virtually in every context. It's easier to run a board with more people sharing the job and it's easier to be a member when you know there are people handling the situation. We are understaffed because there are not that many people wanting to do it anymore. In a time like this, an admin would hope that the members would take matters into their own hands, fill in for the mods. Sadly, that has not happened in any significant extent, to the best of my knowledge.

If you are one of those people who used to read the forums for a while before you decided to register because you thought it was a nice place to be and people were kind, then you carry memories of a lost time. I'm not trying to say that nothing good ever happens anymore, but a fair share of the most active members, of the people who spend the most time here, are not acting in the best interest of the community. It's easy to point fingers, it's a lot harder to look yourself in the mirror and point the finger at weaknesses of your own. When our two Milan fans signed up, it hardly took a second before they were being cornered and insulted. At that very moment I knew that this community had failed. Surely there would be moments in the past where similar things happened but never to this extent, never involving so many respected and popular members.

Some of the best advice that I have ever encountered is to treat people you deal with, by preference or by necessesity, the way you would like them to treat you. It's an ideal and humans never live up to ideals, but for a few chosen ones, but that is something everyone should embrace. I'm sure there are a lot of people reading this thinking what have I done, people who carry themselves in an exemplary manner, because there are those as well, maybe they feel saddened by the fact that their friends have not been treated well. To those people I would like to say: inspire your friends to follow your lead, you're doing a great job and it's people like you who attract new members, who make people feel welcome. It does take a lot to be the bigger person, to ignore the petty provocations of those who succumb to them, but it's you who's showing the way, it's you that's doing the right thing.

The board is an entity, everyone has an influence on it. So the question is what kind of community do you want? Because it takes an effort from everyone to make it work.

Zlatan · Dec 12, 2003

Freat post Martin, and I agree completely, with what you said here, but not with everything what was done. As you probably remember, I too tried to open a thread where we would talk about what the forums would be like. Anyways, I'm not sure I understand what you ment with the quoted part, what do you mean "some of the most active members are not acting in the best interset of the community"?

Martin · Dec 12, 2003

It was a generalization going towards saying that it's a great shame when some of the most active people here engage in conflicts. It's one thing if a newcomer goes off on someone, or just a slip, noone should be executed for one mistake but people who know better and still persist, that's the problem.

Zlatan · Dec 12, 2003

Yeah, but you cant blame only them. Sometimes it's hard not to strike back when a newbie insults you, especially if he makes it too personal, like in Serge's case. IMO, a great idea would be if you sent (I dont know if it can be done automatically) a PM to all new members with the the rules and gudlines of the forums, with a specially not on how other club's fans should behave.

Zlatan · Dec 12, 2003

And I agrre about the mod thing, most of them are busy and cant be online a lot. IMO, you are the most active mod, while Stuart, Torkel and especially Tom, Erik and and again especially Nina arent online very much

Martin · Dec 12, 2003

There is a PM sent out automatically to new members.

I'm talking about restraining yourself and not sinking to the level of the perpetrator. I have no gripe with Serge, I don't think he did anything wrong in that incident.

Zlatan · Dec 12, 2003

Yeah, I remember there is now, but maybe you should add a special section about how other clubs' fans should behave.

Also, I cant remember many of the members who didnt manage to restrain themselves, except Ian perhaps, he seemed quite annoyed with ancelotti.

But from where I stand, no member would strike back if they werent insulted, and altho I understand we need to restrain ourselves and I can do so, some other members are maybe more emotional and cant. Therefore I believe we (you

) should take more care of the "problematic" members.

Martin · Dec 12, 2003

Thanks for reminding me, I was thinking about that the other day but it slipped my mind.

Zlatan · Dec 12, 2003

Slipped your mind? Aaaah, nothing new

mikhail · Dec 12, 2003

Martin, why don't you just promote a few of the most active current members to mods?

It mightn't solve everything, but surely it would help.

Torkel · Dec 12, 2003

About this mod thing, I especially noticed and agree with this bit Martin. And, IMO, this is something that definetely could work as it is. I've heard several people say that myself and the other mods aren't here a lot, but we don't have to be here all the time. Like now, I've just gone through a extremely busy time for me, as busy as it gets more or less, but I've still been here once a day, on good days twice. If posts are reported or trouble has broken out it will be checked out fast. I mean, I know that we should stop things as fast as possible (before it happens in a perfect world), but a mod is here pretty often, it's not like the forum is without moderation for large parts of the day.

My point is, that I feel that the users could be more helpfull to the mods. If something is wrong, let us know. Report them post, send a PM. I know that it is important that the mods are often, but this is something that goes up and down. People are busier at some times than others, I've had exams this and last week for instance, but if we work together (*shakes off awful moral cliche* there is a point here) it will still work.

Hydde · Dec 12, 2003

Martin, regarding the last banning, im very sure it was 100% justified and i dont see why he dont needed to get banned. As u say, he knew what he was doing perfectly.He was cornered because he wanted.
There are great members like "Forza AC Milan" who support their team without provoking anyone. Others tend to provoke, but at least with football maters. But others tend to insult and talk nonsense and IMO this is not welcomed and justified.

Ivy · Dec 12, 2003

May i just give my view?

This forum has gone through a transition from being over friendly to becoming more negative.

Initially when i 1st joined.... the atmosphere here was a positive 1. But then after a while, i saw that there was clam down on "off topics" "non-football threads" etc......

At that time it seams that the issue was that the forums seamed too non-football... and there were a lack of threads abt it. That, then was the problem at hand.

But the positive thing abt all these kind of things is that such talk/threads allow the members to get to know each other a little better i think. And if you've talked to a person on a more casual basis...... it's more likely that you'd be more nic/tolerant/friendly/welcoming with them.

Right now....... the situation's filpped on it's head.... If you eliminate the points above.... what we have now is alot more pure football talk and alot less "other's" kind of talk.

So.... if you do not know the other members on a slighly more personal basis cause so much of what you tak abt is football. You'd be more likely to snap at or be more negative towards another poster once your opinions disagree.

Some time ago... there would be talk simultaneously in the "non-football' sections as well as the "football" sections. This way.... whatever disagreement's there may be with members in the "football" sections..... at least talks in the "non-football" sections could help to ease things abit.

Right now.... in the football threads it's alot of .. "your opinion against mine" ..... convo's. And of course if there is little else that you talk to a person abt except that and that person happens to have opposite opinion from you...... it may cause a negative atmosphere

This is, to me why this place has become more negative as you've mentioned.

I'm not saying that what is right or what is wrong here and i don't have any solution either....... i'm just offering my own thinking of how these situations came to be.

Hydde · Dec 12, 2003

But Sunshine... i still dont see why u cant talk with anyone in the "talk" forums.

IN that time.. In my opinion, the problem was that those who were chit-chatting a lot....... never contributed to the football matters, and in some way, it decresed the quality and the size of the football threads, which are the ones that really count here.
I love to chat in forums, really, and i dont see why there it cannt be a balance in there......... to chat in the talk forums, and contribute in the othe forums.
I really dont see why it has to be "this, or this" and not both.

Torkel · Dec 12, 2003

The change you describe Sunshine I feel is a positive one, but people who wants to talk about a topic can just open up a thread.

I don't get the people that complain about how things have changed or that they feel that something is lacking here, instead of just open up a topic were they can get what they want. What's the deal with that?

Ivy · Dec 12, 2003

yes, i understand this and i don't want the chit-chat here either.

exactly! A balance would be very nice

Right now... after the clamp down on the ciht-chats... offtopicing etc.... there are less "talk" threads. A few of them were clossed and some that sprung up a little later on were also clossed because they got off topic. So it's not that i can't talk with anyone in the "talk" forums, there's just less chance for me to do this, that's all. And i don't want to do this in the football forums. Those are meant for Juve.

Hydde · Dec 12, 2003

Amen to that.
As far as it doenst derail in a storm of smilies, i think that t ill be ok. I really dont see theproblem here.

Ivy · Dec 12, 2003

Why do you think that i want to talk abt something or to start any kind of topic? I don't. That wasn't my point.

I don't have any points to make at all. If people think that this place has become more negative right now, then what i had said earlier is simply my own "theory" of sorts. I just saw it as a correlation.

If there were a topic i wanted here, i certainly would go and start it. I'm not saying what may be lacking here and what i said earlier certainly isn't a complain at all.

*aca* · Dec 12, 2003

May i?

I'm a Lazio fan (os most of you know by now

), I'm kind of "old" XT, MM, FF, Lazio forums and so on, but i do spend lot of time here, here's why...

You have a good thing going here. Compared to many other places, this place somehow is still without undelying internal forum politics, which so often ruins the fun in other forums. Kudos to Martin for a job well done, from setting up the forum/site to chosing the crew members & dealing with the issues at hand. I do hang around here because compared to many other places, atmosphere here is relaxed and i enjoy posting here, although this place was ment for Juve fans primarily. So, I use this moment to thank you for having me here

I've seen some forums change drastically with time. Usual conflicts are conected to religion & politics issues, second is on-topic Vs OT threads. I've been involved in running of forums where Politics and religion topics were immidiately closed and posters punished for persisting in political and religious confrontation. You please some, you piss off some. No matter how objective you try to be, someone will be unhappy. Here, from my experience, political & religious conversation is conducted in a very respected manner and appart from occasional outburst, i dont think this is/was a problem here.

The main word in any consideration is that this is a community. Yes, you do have main point of connection (Juve) for most of you and football in general (for the guests like me

) as underlying purpose of existance of this forum. But human is a social animal, and talking about one topic over & over again, will be boring to many. PPL that come to this place as a place to socialise and enjoy the company of others will find it hard to confine themselves to Juve talk only. For many PPL i met online, forums are very important aspect of their social life and taking that away from them is sometimes taken very personaly. What I'm trying to say is that you have to cherish the "community" aspect of this forum and do all that you possible can, as participants of the community life, to preserve it and build on it.

Now, once the forum is dedicated to PPL that are esentially Juve fans and for long time nobody rocks the boat, PPL seem to forget that there is a world outside it (I've been here to remind you

. ) PPL wrap themself up in the cousiness of a think-alike family, and any outsider is bound to get the rough edge of the community. And if that "outsider" comes out in a confrontational manner, things can easily get out of hand

This forum has many members that have been here for long time and they should know that it is their role in this forum to help out and keep the things in check. The forum depends on it's members to keep things flowing more than it depends on the mods. Mods should be here out of necessity rather than as a rule. It is not 24/7 job and self control, for the benefit of the community as a whole is essential. So basically, as Martin already said, dont do anything here that would put the atmosphere and your friendships in jeopardy.

Having more "mods" or PPL that can deal with problems IF there is a need is ok, but mods have to be chosen on more extensive criteria than post number or frequency of posting. But i think that way better way of preserving the positive atmosphere here is for all, especially old-timers, to lead by example in terms of posting, acting, reacting (or non-acting in some cases

) and so on.....It's your forum and your actions make it what it is. Think about it

I'll repeat

You have a good thing here and what will happen with it is up to you.

cheers

aca

Ivy · Dec 12, 2003

Thanks, that was a really nice post. I like what you've said

It's a good sum up and overview of everything.

Forum talks (1 Viewer)

Senior Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

f(s+1)=3((s +1)-1=3s

Minimiliano Tristelli

Senior Member

Minimiliano Tristelli

f(s+1)=3((s +1)-1=3s

Senior Member

Minimiliano Tristelli

Senior Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Users Who Are Viewing This Thread (Users: 0, Guests: 1)