Mass Dispatch 42.0: The General Board Policy Loosens and Tightens, Special Ranks Awarded

[Howard Mass]

Mass Dispatch 42.0

In this edition of Mass Dispatch..................

The Mass Matter focuses on some MAJOR changes to our General NBA Board Policy that will give many Users something to be thankful for.

The Winner of “Beat The Commish” and their Championship Special Rank is announced.

An update on The “Clean Slate” competition is also given along with the final results for “Beat The Commish”

In Ask Howard, A User's question is answered directly and truthfully as to why they are not a Moderator.

We then have our Mass Dispatch User, Thread and Moderator of The Week

Inside The Administrator's Office discusses the Thanksgiving Moderator additions to our Miami Heat Forum and Special Ranks that are coming for select RealGM Users including one that is announced in this edition.


Let's get right to The Mass Matter......................

The Mass Matter: General NBA Board Policy Changes

The most controversial issue on the RealGM Forums is our General NBA Board Policy.

A good majority of my PM's are complaints about it.

After over three years of the policy, I felt it was time to loosen things up on some minor violations and toughen things on more serious ones.

The following violations are now going to be...........

“Soft Strikes”

Effective Immediately

Users get ONE “soft strike” warning before an actual strike on these.


- IBTL Posts
- Minor Evading The Language Filter Cases
- Derailing GIFS


However, things are also going to tighten up for more serious violations and the RealGM Nuclear Option will now be in play.

General NBA Board Nuclear Option

One of my favorite things about this policy has been isolating violation on our General NBA Board to that forum.

It has mostly been successful and while Users who have attained Read-Only Access have complained, they have been productive posters on other forums. My hope is they eventually earn their way back on The General NBA Board.

One loophole to this isolation of violations on The General NBA Board is some more serious violations have only gotten strikes and this has kept these Users on RealGM when they had no overall value to any RealGM Forum.

This allowed them to skit the RealGM Nuclear Option and now that is no more.

So, I'll make this easy.

If you have a long rap sheet or are deemed to be a troll that has no value on any other RealGM Forum, you can receive a full RealGM Ban or The RealGM Nuclear Option instead of a General NBA Board Strike.

This will not apply to hardly any users, just the extreme troublemakers.

If anyone has any questions or concerns, post them in this thread or send me a PM.


“Clean Slate” Delayed

I have unfortunately decided to delay “Clean Slate” indefinitely.

This decision was due to an increase in my duties behind the scenes here at RealGM.

My new plan is to have the competition this summer and make it much more comprehensive.

I will have more details this coming summer and I regret the inconvenience to anyone who sent in an application.

“Beat The Commish” Results

Earlier this month, the second year of the “Beat The Commish” NFL Weekly Picks Competition wrapped up and while The Commish had a good season, I did get beat by a few people.

The good news is when it came down to The Team Competition, my winning percentage was better head to head against the Users and Moderators.

While neither beat me as a group, The Users can take pride in the fact that they did defeat the Moderators in head to head competition. In addition, two Users ATL Boy (Atlanta Hawks) and Dirk Nowitzki (Dallas Mavericks) ended up filling Moderator vacancies so next year they will be on the Moderator Team.

Even though ATL Boy and Dirk Nowitzki moved on to become Moderators, neither was the leader who lead the Users to victory over the Moderators.

This User who ironically asked about changing their rank in the Ask Howard portion of Mass Dispatch 27.0

viewtopic.php?t=1365751

now will have the Rank of “Beat The Commish” Champion.

Congratulations to the 2015-2016 “Beat The Commish” Champion......................

wo1verine

A special thanks to bwgood77, Dirk Nowitzki, Hopping4Wiggins and Mr. E for their help with this season's competition.

I look forward to seeing who can “”Beat The Commish” next season.

Ask Howard

If you have a question about anything RealGM, just send me a PM or leave your question in the Ask Howard thread on the Mass Dispatch forum.

Jugs Asks: Why aren't I am a Mod yet?

Howard's Response: Your question has been a campaign on our General Off-Topic Board for the last couple of years.

I usually see a “Jugs For Mod” post once in every couple of General Off-Topic Board Threads that I read.

You have always been a great contributor to our General Off-Topic Board and I do admit that your posts crack me up.

However, being a good contributor on one forum like you are on our General Off-Topic Board does not make someone a good Moderator candidate.

You currently have Read-Only Access on our General NBA Board along with multiple other violations over the years.

A Moderator needs to conduct themselves well on ALL forums and if they are a Moderator on one but cause trouble on another, it causes problems for the Moderators on that forum.

A User can say, well a Moderator can say that, why can't I?

This makes it harder for the Moderators of that forum to enforce policy and I will not allow that.

I will say that this actually cost a User a chance to become a Moderator because they were trouble on another forum. While who this is will remain confidential, it happened sometime within the last three years.

There are no guarantees but if you want advice on how to potentially get an opportunity if a vacancy should arise, I recommend doing the following two things.

Conduct yourself well on all RealGM Forums and strive to have a spotless record from here on out and work on appealing your General NBA Appeal so you can get your Read-Only Access overturned. It could take at least a few attempts given your record but you have to start somewhere.

I hope I answered your question.



User, Thread and Moderator of The Week


Mass Dispatch User of The Week

Dunkenstein

Just before the end of 2015, the basketball internet world lost one of it's best CBA Experts when Andy Stein who was known on our Forums as DunkenStein passed away.

Back in the early years of RealGM, Andy and I corresponded quite a bit about things like The CBA and things like the Future Draft Pick List that I was striving to complete with my partner at the time.

Andy was a great guy and is going to be missed by the internet community.

He will be especially missed here on the RealGM Forums.

Thank you for everything Andy.

Our Mass Dispatch User of the Week...............

DunkenStein


Mass Dispatch Thread of The Week

Our NBA Trades and Transactions Forum's “Trade Deadline Predictions” Thread

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1425552

It's one of the best times of the NBA season and there is no more appropriate thread for this award at this time which is one of the greatest days of the year.

Congratulations to our NBA Trades and Transactions Forum for this and all of the threads that have and will be posted.

Mass Dispatch Moderator of The Week

Slava

One thing that I love to see from my Moderator Staff is when they are not afraid to advocate their point and push for what they feel would be best for the forum (s) they moderate.

Recently one of our Los Angeles Lakers Moderators Slava showed some initiative and advocated for something that he felt was best for our Lakers Forum.

This led to a troubled User being banned from the forum and our Lakers Forum is better for it.

Congratulations to The Mass Dispatch Moderator of The Week..........

Slava


Inside The Administrator's Office

As you might have noticed, I have not done an edition of Mass Dispatch in a couple of months. During this time, I have had a ton on my plate in my behind the scenes duties at RealGM. The new things I have had to pick up are very complex and are not things one immediately picks up. All has come together though and RealGM is going to better for it in the long run.

A lot has happened since our last edition including the addition of some new Moderators.

Back in November, the retirements of Miami Heat Moderators Flash3 and Unowen85 created vacancies on our Miami Heat Forum.

Over the past couple of years, the online time of our Miami Heat Moderator Team had decreased due to successes in their non-cyber life and many Heat fans had clamored for some Moderators who posted more.

This and having Moderators who started discussion were the main things I was looking for in the candidates.

I instantly saw that I had a great group of candidates and after narrowing it down to four candidates for the two positions I was looking to fill, one User Mars declined to go through the screening process due to time constraints so I was down to three.

The Final three candidates DayOfMourning, DefenseWins and QUIZ all fit everything I wanted so much that I decided to go with our version of a “Big 3” adding three new Moderators to our Miami Heat Forum.

The move has been a huge success and am glad many on the Heat Forum have been happy about it.

Another way to become a Moderator is to get on my radar.

As mentioned above, this was true for Users ATL Boy (Atlanta Hawks) and Dirk Nowitzki (Dallas Mavericks).

It also did not hurt our new General Soccer Moderator Baphomet when a new Soccer Forum Moderator was needed.

Baphomet was one of the two finalists for the positions and when the other finalist declined to be considered due to time constraints, the fact they helped Dream34 with our Soccer logos when we launched our Soccer Expansion was icing on the cake for me.

I am hoping he will do some more but we shall see.

Baphomet's addition as a Moderator to our General Soccer Board was not the only promotion given to a User.

Two Users Foye and Edfmx86 were awarded Special Ranks for their contributions.

They were named the “Club Captain” for German Soccer and MLS Soccer respectively. An assistant here goes to Soccer Moderator kdawg32086 for coming up with these Ranks and Global Moderator/Senior Soccer Moderator LittleOzzy for helping put this all together.

Both Users are great contributors to our Soccer forums and was very happy to give them these Special Ranks.

This is something I hope to award some very good contributions to other RealGM Forums in the coming months including right now................

I have mentioned in a previous addition that I had planned to give this User who has declined on numerous occasions to be a Moderator Candidate, a Special Rank for their contributions to our NBA Draft and Mock Draft Forums.

This User loves to do Mock Drafts and even does NFL Mock Drafts in addition to their contributions to our Orlando Magic and MMA Forums.

It is the Mock Draft for which they are known though and they now have the title to go with it.

I present the Special Rank of “Mr. Mock Draft” to............

Cammo101

Congratulations to you Cammo101 and thank you for your contributions.

Please keep those Mocks coming...............


Contact Mass Dispatch

If you have a question, feedback, feel a user, thread or Moderator should be recognized or something they would like to see in Mass Dispatch, please post it on The Mass Dispatch Forum or send me a PM. You could even send me a note on Twitter @homassrealgm

[Texas Chuck]

Howard drops his own deadline bomb

[Sofia]

Howard I love you, but pls refer to my sig

[bondom34]

Congrats to Slava and all the winners!

[IggieCC]

Keep up the good work HW!

[truth18]

Go soccer board! Congrats again Baph, edfmx and Foye! <3 you guys

Incredibly sad news about Dunkenstein. Rest in peace. A shame to lose guys like him and TommyUdo6.

[KingDavid]

Well I got banned from the general board by tsherkin for posting a derailing gif I think two years ago. I only did that because I didn't know there were separate rules for the general board and other boards. That was completely my fault, but will the soft strike apply for users who have read-only access now for those reasons?

[Smitty731]

RIP to Dunkenstein. Great contributor to the CBA board and always friendly and far more helpful than he ever needed to be.

And congrats to all the winners!

[Howard Mass]

Well I got banned from the general board by tsherkin for posting a derailing gif I think two years ago. I only did that because I didn't know there were separate rules for the general board and other boards. That was completely my fault, but will the soft strike apply for users who have read-only access now for those reasons?

KingDavid,

It might help with your appeal.

[magic22s]

Congrats to wo1verine, Slava and Cammo101. Well deserved.

[bwgood77]

Howard drops his own deadline bomb

That's what you call a Mass bomb.

[Slava]

[EArl]

Congrats Slava. Who did you get rid off anyway?

[Marionettetc]

Pretty sure it was FrozenIceCubes.

[Slava]

Pretty sure it was FrozenIceCubes.

I had to also ban 6 of his duplicate accounts since then and counting. Dude has no quit, you gotta give him that.

[Wo1verine]

Had a lot of fun playing 'Beat The Commish' for the very 1st time and look forward to even more players next season!

Without the PM's reminding me to select my picks from bwgood77, me winning wouldn't be possible, so thanks!

And shutout to the rest of the community who had a helping hand in making this years 'Beat The Commish' a great event!

[Diop]

Jugs for Mod

[LittleOzzy]

Congratulations once again Baphomet, Foye and Edfmx86.

[Ruzious]

Much deserved grats to Cammo. He's been the main attraction of the Mock Draft Forum for years, and I'd say he's one of the best on the Internet at crafting mock drafts.

[Maroko]

Well I got banned from the general board by tsherkin for posting a derailing gif I think two years ago. I only did that because I didn't know there were separate rules for the general board and other boards. That was completely my fault, but will the soft strike apply for users who have read-only access now for those reasons?

Hi,

Have you succeeded on your appeal ?