Moderator Comment: 2022 Offseason

[TrueLAfan]

When I was a kid, I was having problem with life in general. My Mom suggested I go talk to our priest (Episcopalian, not Catholic). I thought that was nuts, but since I occasionally shot hoops with Father Brad and knew he was a decent guy, I went and talked to him. Did me some good. He said something I’ve remembered for over 40 years: “Just because somebody gives you $h!t doesn’t mean you need to pick it up.”

I think about this when I see the (multiple) threads and comments about long past issues and former players and coaches, and the vitriol that continues to come out. Nobody asks for my opinion about Austin Rivers, or Doc, or how it feels to support the Clippers when they haven’t done well in the post season. And I don’t give it out often because—for me, it’s nuanced and not that big a deal. If I were to make it short—Austin grew into his game, and was/is a moderately capable 7th/8th man, a 1500 minute per season guy. Ee overplayed him slightly and overpaid him a lot, but that was mostly because of the ridiculousness of the 2016 contract year, which extended to lots of teams and players. Doc did some good things for us, but made his share of mistakes and ultimately showed he wasn’t the right coach for us. The Clippers have only made the WCF once in the last decade, but it’s largely been a hugely enjoyable experience for me to watch the team try to make the move from Very Goodness to Excellence. The End.

Others disagree with those positions. That’s fine. Apparently, the distinction for me is that I pretty much don’t care about any of those things a whole lot, not enough to talk about them over and over. I don’t pick up the $h!t in those threads. My overall joy and frustration following the team is personal. I literally do not give enough of a crap about Austin Rivers to waste much time on supporting or defending him; it would have been like expending energy ten years ago arguing about how great or bad Quinton Ross was. Rehashing the Doc years while we’ve got (IMO) a better coach now and Doc has a (IMO) similar to worse situation now with a different franchise in a different conference is similarly pointless to me. Others like those things. To me--meh.

But here’s the deal—I see people say “The moderators need to do something!” and “The moderators need to stop this!” about several threads that have continued angry commentary on these topics. That’s totally wrong. You all talk about these things because you want to. I’m not stopping people from keeping these topics alive because, clearly, it/they mean a lot some of you. And it’s Clipper related, and it’s a Clipper board, so there you go. I don’t get involved on those threads too much—not because I don’t care about the Clippers, but because I have other things team related that take up what little part of my brain I devote to the Clips. Ballmer’s ownership and the new arena mean 1000% more to me right now that any lingering feeling toward the coach or parts of Lob City. Players we should pursue in the offseason—and I talk a lot about that—is on a whole ‘nother higher level. Seriously.

And I can tell you as an outsider that there’s not a lot to moderate about the contentious topics. There are largely two sides that don’t agree. Happens all the time. If you don’t get personal, you can talk about how you view the past all you want—how we were better or worse than we should have been, how Austin Rivers was better than we thought, or how miserable Doc was pretty much all the time. You can do that. And if people want to keep past missteps or successes in the conversation, it’s fine. I’ll largely stay out of it because it’s 2022 and I’d rather discuss how we could get Keita Bates-Diop than rehashing DeAndre’s value to the team 5 to 10 years ago.

My approach to moderating has always been to be hands off as much as possible. We have people that disagree here; we also largely have great posters that clearly care a lot about the Clippers. How and why you express that doesn’t mean a damn thing to me until you cross a line into personal attack or undermining the board as a whole. That’s when mods should step in. So, look, go ahead and post about what you want. You’re bright, you’re Clipper fans. If people don’t agree, that’s their right. If nobody responds, that’s telling you something. Don’t try to get me or any moderator involved in something that isn’t in our wheelhouse. Be polite to each other and show necessary respect. Enjoy the thing we share—being Clipper fans—more than the smaller gripes and disputes.

[nickhx2]

well said, thanks

[nickhx2]

So I have some general thoughts which come from a culmination of what I've observed over the past whatever months/years on this board, as well as my own experiences moderating communities. I'll add that this isn't to align myself with moderation to pretend to give myself value or anything, but anyone who's already of the mindset that the mods are against them or the mods aren't doing what that person thinks the mod should do is already out of place.

My actual first experience with rigid moderation came from the fanhome clipper boards. It was actually really crazy for me to see the topics be so-well streamlined, and if anyone even got a little out of line then there would be the edit, the mod note, and that would be that. For the most part, discussion was really strong. But fanhome gave way to scout, and some very divisive posters began to join - and at the same time, the mod team made a decision to let people say things and do things that never would have happened on fanhome. It completely destroyed the discourse, atmosphere, and dialogue of a place I considered pretty sacred. I ended up leaving after that because it just seemed irredeemable. Disruption of topics and disrespect towards each other became the standard.

I used a lot of that later on in my own moderating experiences. For a few years I full-time modded a community of 10,000+ members, which, btw, was endless, taxing, and thankless work. And what I tried to apply most, out of all I learned, was that the community you help to curate comes from the rules and foundations you set in the first place. But what people got wrong ALL the time was that me and team were there to arbitrarily force rules, or discussion, or pick and choose what we wanted to do. Or that we were there to support one person or one group or one thing. That's all completely wrong. Our guidelines were to support dialogue and a community that wouldn't be bringing each other down with attacks and other nonsense. So when people got these ideas in their heads that we were being selective or that we should stop someone from discussing a thing they didn't like, it was super eyeroll. Basically we were there to stop people from being disrespectful and being disruptive, and that was IT. Don't be a dick, and don't mess with the program. Like, it's so actually so simple. Yet, for a lot of people, so difficult to understand that it's about the community and not about their OWN desires.

So back to here, I observe a lot of people have these really weird and out of place expectations of the mods, and it's just so insane to me, because generally speaking, those are the guys who are being the most disrespectful and out of line in the first place. To me, the expectations are very clear about what the guidelines and mods ask of us. And if you don't like it? IMO just find another place to talk basketball or use the very-handy ignore function provided to us by this site. This place gives a lot more leeway than I ever did because the mods expect people to be more mature and respectful (whereas I didn't have that luxury, and I certainly don't have the patience either of these dudes do), and they are also fairly clear about what their job is and what their role is to be for this community. So imo, don't go pushing false expectations on these guys just because they don't do what YOU want them to do. If you have an actual, legit issue then send a message to them in private and discuss it.

In the end, follow the rules, or use the tools (to ignore and never have to read a post from someone you think is a clown, ever again). But don't ask the mods to do something they're not there to do, and then get mad when they don't do it lol.

[esqtvd]

Then mark the DOC OUT thread "off-topic," because it now is.


Your comments re the Riverses are correct: Austin became a serviceable back-of-the-rotation guy [often pushed too far forward because of injuries to others]. He is still in the league getting rotation minutes with a contender.

And Doc had to go--if only because King Kahwi must have given his OK. Kawhi came to the Clippers partly because of Doc's rep and he wouldn't have been fired without alerting KL.

[MartinToVaught]

The constant demands for censorship of the "Doc out" thread just shows that the pro-Doc crew have no legitimate arguments for their position and they know it, so instead they have to try to silence the truth.

[esqtvd]

3-1, in the Disney Bubble.
3-1, seven years ago in 2015.
3-1, NINETEEN years ago with a #8 seed.

Heard it, heard it, heard it. There's also a rule against repetitive posts.