Mod. Notice Playing the man

[Igloo]

As of late there has been a large increase in posters "playing the man" because of their opinion. It has resulted in a lot of deleted posts, threads being brought off topic constantly, and an all around s**t time for the people that have to read it.

This is to stop immediately.

We like to think as a mod team we're very fair to you guys. We give a lot of leeway in terms of what you can and can't post, but there is a line.

Bringing threads off topic by baiting posters with their opinion is strictly not on anymore. Here's an example we've seen 6000 times:
"Mattdougie doesn't think Jong will be any good, what a fool".
Not happening anymore.
Abusing people for their opinion wont be tolerated.

These are simple things which make the board a much more pleasant and engaging place to be around. And that's what we all want. Disagree with people to your hearts content, but don't cross the line into creepy opinion stalking, as it's just brutally mundane and mind numbing.

If this isn't followed, we're going to have to start giving warnings for it.

I truly hope you all follow this.

Thanks,
Igloo.

 

[Tommycash]

An equally important issue for this board right now, how much bounce is too much bounce? Or is it also related to levels of clothing?

 

[theAthenian]

To support this team, in preference to more successful teams
means to have a thick skin
I'm sure we are all good
Seems business as usual
Time some rather than grandstand and spit bile
Run a fine tooth comb over the team on the park
and comment on that
cheers

Ps i was rude to Yeb, but hell no. Alan Joyce you are kidding! The coach from 1958 who coached years after Nirvanna released Nevermind! PLEASE

 

[Nath09]

Firstly, Mods, you all do an excellent job here, the time and effort you put in for the love of the club and to enable open discussion is awesome, so no disrespect from me whatsoever. What you do must be hard and a big part of that is finding balance in what to allow and what to dis-allow.

As a poster here though what I find harder to take than people 'playing the man,' is the censorship which functions to allow certain men to be antagonistic and get away with certain clear provocations unscathed. Some of these guys simply make s**t up, re-write history to suit their arguments and when you bring it up, you're "de-railing the thread" to make it about them.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion but labelling a poster a fool is merely an opinion too. To me, that doesn't quantify hate-speech or bullying and so I can't see why it isn't allowed.

Certain posters are beginning to feel like a protected species and perhaps everyone needs a certain level of flexibility to put 'the hard tag' on these guys, not to bully or harass but to simply hold them accountable?

Look, feel free to disregard this, maybe it's just me, but I feel compelled to express my perspective and encourage anyone who agrees to do the same.

 

[dogwatch]

Here are a few guidelines I try to use. (I sometimes fail!)

• Criticise the post, not the poster
• Accept and acknowledge fair criticism
• Resist provocation
• Don't be deliberately provocative
• Ignore narcissistic posts (the ones that are more about "me" than the subject at hand)
• Don't post anything in response to or about a poster (or a player) that I wouldn't be prepared to say to his/her face
• Be honest
• Be fair
• Maintain the passion
• Have fun

I'm not saying this is the way everyone has to operate - we're all different - but it works for me.

 

[VitalDread]

not even the tonydean days got this bad

 

[Testekill]

Will the mods please explain to me why this has been allowed to continue ad nauseum?

Thread bans for repeat offences would certainly be in order.

Biggest issue is that to just thread ban someone for being argumentative and obnoxious is only going to lead to them being louder and such in other threads. It's a self-defeating cycle that is only going to cause more headaches.

 

[Bont2Bruce]

Biggest issue is that to just thread ban someone for being argumentative and obnoxious is only going to lead to them being louder and such in other threads. It's a self-defeating cycle that is only going to cause more headaches.

Surely the logic is to ban them from a thread first and if they don't get the message and repeat the same breaches of the rules in another thread, escalate to a permanent ban. Isn't that part of the forum rules?

 

[Testekill]

Surely the logic is to ban them from a thread first and if they don't get the message and repeat the same breaches of the rules in another thread, escalate to a permanent ban. Isn't that part of the forum rules?

It would be if he were like Tonydean who was abrasive and abusive on top of just being an real prick of a person. However mattdougie hasn't broken any rules yet and he knows it. If he cops a thread ban then he can just point to the people that he sets off and just go "why don't they get banned"

 

[Bont2Bruce]

It would be if he were like Tonydean who was abrasive and abusive on top of just being an real prick of a person. However mattdougie hasn't broken any rules yet and he knows it. If he cops a thread ban then he can just point to the people that he sets off and just go "why don't they get banned"

Hang on a minute:

Is or is not trolling/baiting against the rules?
Is or is not posting off-topic against the rules?

 

[Igloo]

Will the mods please explain to me why this has been allowed to continue ad nauseum?

Thread bans for repeat offences would certainly be in order.

Just look at the posts he's replying to, then there's your answer. People bringing him up for no reason at all, just because they know he thinks differently. If anything, it's them trying to get a rise out of him.

We try to keep on top of these posts and delete them before things get going, but sometimes it moves quickly, and there's another 10 or so posts following on from it.

 

[Bont2Bruce]

Just look at the posts he's replying to, then there's your answer. People bringing him up for no reason at all, just because they know he thinks differently. If anything, it's them trying to get a rise out of him.

We try to keep on top of these posts and delete them before things get going, but sometimes it moves quickly, and there's another 10 or so posts following on from it.

I'm sorry but you haven't explained to me why trolling/baiting is allowed by one poster but not by others.

I gave you four examples quickly from JUST ONE THREAD. There are so many other threads which have also been contaminated.

It's a double standard.

From the tone of your post above you view Mattdougie as a victim whereas I see him as the root cause of the trouble. The majority of his posts are aimed at getting a rise out of someone else on this forum.

 

[Igloo]

I'm sorry but you haven't explained to me why trolling/baiting is allowed by one poster but not by others.

I gave you multiple examples quickly from JUST ONE THREAD. There are so many other threads which have also been contaminated.

It's a double standard.

From the tone of your post above you view Mattdougie as a victim whereas I see him as the root cause of the trouble. The majority of his posts are aimed at getting a rise out of someone else on this forum.

He's not trolling. He's sticking to what he thinks. I agree with pretty much nothing he says, so I feel no need to protect his opinion. I think it's laughable in most cases. But it's not trolling.
People bring him up in threads (such as the Jong thread) because they know he has a view different. Sure, he may put his opinion over in an abrasive way, but in no way is he trolling.

I've dealt with MD many times in messages, and I believe in my several years of modding the board I have a pretty good grasp of who is and isn't trolling, and MD just isn't.

We've been around in circles in multiple threads and it's extremely tiresome.

 

[Bont2Bruce]

He's not trolling. He's sticking to what he thinks. I agree with pretty much nothing he says, so I feel no need to protect his opinion. I think it's laughable in most cases. But it's not trolling.

You have got to be kidding me. The bolded sections of the four quotes I put above are all examples of trolling/baiting others.

Please explain each of those to me any other way.

I think we may have found the nub of the problem, and why it is going to continue for the foreseeable future. Mattdougie will continue to troll people, they will continue to react and thread after thread will continue to get hijacked. Rather than focusing on the source of the problem, mods will continue to work on the issue from the wrong end.

 

[Igloo]

You have got to be kidding me. The bolded sections of the four quotes I put above are all examples of trolling/baiting others.

Please explain each of those to me any other way.

You mean those throwaway lines at the end of posts where people are having a go at him? s**t, even I do stuff like that. It's a long way from trolling.

 

[Igloo]

This thread is a mod fail, because it is missing the root cause of the problem.

Your understanding of the issue at hand is more in line with failure.

I guess the necessity for post deletions will have to continue if the majority share this line of thinking.

 

[Bont2Bruce]

I guess the necessity for post deletions will have to continue if the majority share this line of thinking.

Indeed, because more people react to a troll than ignore one.

 

[Mattdougie]

Every post he put up was in response to someone having a go at me FIRST

I did not initiate any of those discussions

And the Jong comment was a joke that anyone could see.

Boydshow simply doesn't like me and is trying to get me banned.

I have not insulted or abused a single person who hasn't come at me first in over a year and the mods will conform this.

I'm abrasive but I am far from trolling and I find it sad some are so annoyed by words on a computer screen.

I have a question myself, is it trolling to come on and continually aim posts at a person you don't agree with in an attempt to bait them? Not even discuss the topic of the thread just the person they don't like? And then when they get a response scream foul?

As I've continually said just block me and I know when I'm wrong and the Jong thread going wrong has very little to do with me and more todo with others fixating on an ass like me

 

[Bont2Bruce]

"Trolling"

In Internet slang, a troll (/ˈtroʊl/, /ˈtrɒl/) is a person who sows discord on the Internet by starting arguments or upsetting people, by posting inflammatory,[1] extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community (such as a newsgroup, forum, chat room, or blog) with the deliberate intent of provoking readers into an emotional response[2] or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion.[3]

Many posts by said user (a) start arguments, (b) upset people, (c) are inflammatory, (d) are off-topic

Or (e) all of the above.

If It Walks Like A Dog, And Talks Like A Dog, Then It Must Be A…

 

[Nath09]

This is a tricky one.

MD knowingly describes himself as abrasive. The word 'abrasive' is defined as: "one who is tending to annoy or cause ill-will; be overly aggressive." He also acknowledges this behaviour has a negative effect on a lot of posters and his smug (and illegitimate) response is "if you don't like it, block me."

As such, surely we can agree that at the very least MD is purposefully antagonistic towards some posters? And the difference between "trolling" and being "antagonistic" is a matter of semantics. How bad a troll MD is, is perhaps what should be discussed?

Maybe part of the issue is that if he is going to insist on continuing to post this way, it seems unfair that any tit-for-tat response gets deleted yet he is allowed to continue in his provocations. Sure these back-forths can be annoying for posters on the outside of it, put from my perspective, allowing them is possibly more just and that is important to consider on an open forum. The alternative is to be harsher on posters like MD and curtail his 'abrasive' behaviour.

 

[Tommycash]

Look, the mods are making it all pretty clear here. You can just block him if you are so angst filled by him. The s**t that MD cops constantly and the ostracisation by most of the posters is extreme. His reactions are pretty tame all considered. The mods here are pretty good at judging the limits of things that can be posted. I would hate for a few easily antagonised people's complaints to lead them into sanitising all our discussions.

 

[Norm De Guerre]

The thread we had to have!

 

[ossie_21]

You mean those throwaway lines at the end of posts where people are having a go at him? s**t, even I do stuff like that. It's a long way from trolling.

Post reported for vulgar language


But seriously, I have noticed a bit of a downturn so thumbs up for this thread. Play the ball & not the man for sure, I've seen how some other boards go but we have it a lot better over here. They shall go un-named but there are only a handful of Dogs fans on here I think would be better off going in the bin but the majority are good

 

[_Mike_]

If people want to talk about other posters and their opinions openly, please do so elsewhere and not on this forum. Collectively we've asked people to be mature in the way you go about disagreeing with opinions.

End of discussion

 

[Testekill]

Not going to repeat ourselves, enough with the personal attacks. Some posters take it too far and I've seriously had enough.