RealGM

Mass Dispatch 26.0.

In this week's edition of Mass Dispatch.

The Mass Matter focuses on you the User and I have three questions for all of you.

We also have Week 17 of “Beat The Commish” with The Regular Season Champions, Who won The Season Users vs. Moderators battle and a little preview of what's ahead for The Playoffs. And yes, there are picks to be made this week.

Ask Howard addresses the report process and if I have ever given someone the boot.

We then have our Mass Dispatch User, Thread and Moderator of The Week along with The General Off-Topic Board User of The Month

In Inside The Administrator's Office, I discuss my fellow Administrator dream34

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



The Mass Matter: I want to hear from you..........

Happy New Year to all of you.

We saw many exciting changes to the Forums in 2014 and I am hopeful that we will have many more in 2015.

The recent upgrade to the new version of the forums has been a little bumpy but I can assure everyone that it is for the better and

We hope to do yet another phase of upgrades similar to the ones we did earlier in 2014 although we do not have an exact timetable at the moment

However, enough of what we are planning though.

The Mass Matter is about you The User to kick off the New Year.

I want to hear from all of you and specifically anyone who wants to be heard.

I have three simple questions that I would like to ask all of you.

1)How can I make your experience on The Forums better?
2)What changes and/or additions would you like to see to The Forums?
3)If you have something to say to me out of frustration, lay it out with no penalty.

You can respond in this thread or shoot me a PM.

I'm already planning to merge some Forums (One merger is a done deal and at least one other close) and Global Moderator LittleOzzy and I have been exchanging PM's about possibly adding a General Major League Soccer Forum and an English Premieer League Forum to our Soccer section.

Feel free to weigh on these but I mainly want to hear from all of you on those three questions.

Please do not hesitate to respond as I am here to serve this community and make your experience on our Forums the best it can be.

I will respond to every post in this thread and all private messages.

Here is to a great 2015!



Beat The Commish Week 17 and Wild Card Weekend

The first ever “Beat The Commish” regular season is in the books.

While we are going to do a playoff round which I will explain later in this space, I want to share with everyone some winners.

First things first, last week I went a very respectable 12-4 and I only got beat by a few Users.

Here is everyone who “Beat The Commish” Week 17

Slot Machine: 15-1
Greatness: 14-2
The Regime: 13-3

These Users also led their team to a victory this week over The Moderators .725 to .687 giving The Users a victory this week.

This not only won The Users The Week, it also clinched the regular season head to head matchup

Users now Lead 9-7-1 giving The Users a victory over The Moderators.

The Users have defeated The Moderators for the Regular Season

A big congratulations to The Users.

In the Individual groups, we have a Winner in The User group and a tie in the Moderator group.

By one game, our “Beat The Commish” User Champion with a record of 175-80-1 is

WVU

In the Moderator group, Geoffrey P. and my fellow Administrator dream34 will share the Moderators Regular Season Title with identical 176-79-1 records.

Our “Beat The Commish” Co-Moderator Champions

Geoffrey P. and dream34.

The competition is not over yet as we are going to do a Playoff Bracket with a Point System once The Wild Card Round is settled.

It's going to be all about winning The Regular Season.

For now, please make your Wild Card Weekend picks.

viewtopic.php?f=437&t=1363977


Ask Howard

Have a question about RealGM, The Forums, An Issue you would like me to address publicly or something in general, just post it in the Ask Howard Thread of The Mass Dispatch Forum or you could send me a PM and I just might answer it in my next column.

This week's questions.

Aaron It Out Asks: How does the report process work? Does it go out to all board mods? What is the purpose of "notify me when the issue is taken care of"? In my experience no mod ever has. Do the mods see who is reporting the post? Is the whole thing like pedestrian crosswalk buttons in NYC?

Howard's Response: When a User reports a post by hitting the “!” button in the upper right hand of posts, the report goes to a section of the Moderator Administration Area that can be viewed by

The Moderators listed on that Forum
Global Moderators
All Administrators including Myself

The Moderators of the Forum check this on a regular basis but this is not the main way they find out about reported posts.

If a post is reported, the thread that it is in lights up and know something has been reported.

I need to learn how to better take screen shots as I'd love The Moderator view to everyone.

Moderators can see who is reporting a post but are not allowed to do anything to it if one of their posts is reported. In these situations, another Moderators looks into it.

As for notifications, I am working on a new procedure for this and once we all get settled into the new look, I'll be announcing to The Staff and likely will write about it in Mass Dispatch.

Wo1verine Asks: Here's a question for the next edition of Mass Dispatch. ( Apologizes if been asked already) 

Has a mod ever been given the boot for whatever reason(s)? ( abusing power, not getting the ' job done' etc.)

I read that members who started off with warnings have later on been given mod duties , so thought i would ask the opposite.

Howard's Response: I did answer something similar but have no problem answering this question.

I have let Moderators go in the past for conduct but have not had to do that in the past few years. I've vetted the entire Moderator Team as I brought almost the entire current staff onto the Team.

While I feel that I've done a wonderful job putting a great group of people together, I'd had a few blunders and I'll probably discuss some of them in “Inside The Administrator's Office” in 2015.



Mass Dispatch User, Thread and Moderator of The Year with General Off-Topic Board User of The Month

It is time for our Weekly Awards. If you would like to nominate a User, Thread or Moderator for an Award, just make a post on The Mass Dispatch Forum or send me a PM.

Mass Dispatch User of The Week

Ruzious

memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=1990


Ruzious is a poster on our Washington Wizards Forum which has many great long-time Users.

Not only are they one of the best Users on our Wizards Forum, Ruzious follows the college game closely and is very knowledge about the top NBA Prospects.

This User has been on RealGM for over 13 years and love what he brings to our Wizards, NCAA, NBA Draft and Trades and Transactions Forums.

I want to thank Ruzious for being a wonderful User since the first year we had the Forums in 2001 and wish them many more years on our Forums.

Congratulations to our Mass Dispatch User of The Week Ruzious!

Mass Dispatch Thread of The Week

The Detroit Pistons Forum's “Pistons WAIVE Josh Smith” Thread

viewtopic.php?f=14&t=1362283

Josh Smith is a very good NBA player but not every good player is a good fit for any NBA Team.

From the day The Pistons signed Josh Smith, many Pistons Fans and NBA fans in General wondered how Josh Smith, Greg Monroe and Andre Drummond would play together. After all, Smith might be a combo forward but his natural position is at the 4.

The Pistons tried to play him at small forward last year to predictably bad results. When Stan Van Gundy came in to be head coach and run the organization, he was determined to try and make it work with Josh Smith.

Van Gundy is a wonderful coach and is not a quitter but even though it will be a huge cap hit for The Pistons for two more seasons after this one, he did the right thing for both sides.

The Pistons are already looking better for the change and I saw it firsthand when Detroit beat the crap out of The Orlando Magic the other night.

This thread shows the reactions The Pistons' fans have had this since the news and if your not doing anything on New Year's Day, it is a good thread to read through.

Congratulations to our Detroit Pistons Forum!

Mass Dispatch Moderator (s) of The Week

The Detroit Pistons Forum has had a couple of threads win the Thread of The Week so it's time to recognize The Moderators on that Forum.

Snakebites, r0cd0gg, TheBigLip and the newest edition who I got to join up this year dVs33 are doing a wonderful job moderating that forum.

The Forum has become very active over the last year and we have a great group of newer posters over there and some that have returned after many years.

All of you do a wonderful job carrying on the reboot of this forum that was started by Global Moderator Cowology and then now-Retired Moderator Ajax82.

Our Pistons Forum would not be what it is without you.

Congratulations to our Detroit Pistons Moderators!


General Off-Topic Board User of The Month

After winning this award three straight months, hermes felt it was time for someone else to win this award and requested that another User be recognized for their contributions to our General Off-Topic Board.

This month, another User made great contributions to the forum while conducting themselves well on other forums and giving me some good feedback.

Their holiday cheer was also a breath of fresh air on the forum.

The General Off-Topic Board User of The Month and the new Queen of The GOTB is

Sofia!

Congratulations to Sofia!


Inside The Administrator's Office

This past has been a crazy one inside my office.

After we switched over to the new look, Michael Haegele (dream34) stayed up all night making changes so we could get all of the adds-ons that we have done over the years include the mobile stuff to the new version of the forums. Then, he unfortunately got sick and things slowed down for the weekend. We literally had to plead with him to rest up before he finally agreed too.

You guys might know dream34 as The Tech Guy Administrator who comes by sometimes to answer questions but he is so much more behind the scenes. The man is truly driven and could not ask for a better person to work with. If our CEO Ryan Hoak gave me a ballot and told us to vote for an MVP amongst the core staff, as much as I love everyone, I'd vote for Michael Haegele this year

We are pretty close to having everything set up again although my Administrative tools are not all there yet so it is a bit more time consuming at the moment to ban users and reject spam accounts.

I know this new look has been an adjustment and trust me, it has been for me as well but in the long run, it is going to be for the better and am already seeing the benefits this new look gives us.

So, please keep giving us Feedback on the new look and any problems you are having.

Just know that dream34 is working to get everything up to speed and truly wish that everyone could see all that he does behind the scenes.


Contact Mass Dispatch

If anyone has 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

Hi Howard,

I'd like to talk about the possibility of expanding the soccer forums. I'd like to speak for that idea and support any plans of growing those forums. I'd be lying if I didn't admit that it would be a challenge to maintain high activity in an expanded soccer forum, but we believe that we can generate activity, promote the new forums, and increase interest.

I'd be fully committed and on board with helping the board grow.

I'm 100% for the expansion of the soccer area by adding a Major League Soccer forum & English Premier League forum.

The Premier League is the top soccer league in the world and deserves it's own forum.

Major League Soccer is the league with the biggest growth potential on RealGM, and has an established fan base with teams already connected to NBA cities. MLS soccer is going into it's 20th season at an all time high, but still has so much potential to grow. Jumping on the bandwagon now only makes sense for a primarily North American forum.

Hello Howard,
I am in favor of expanding the soccer forum, but in a different way. I feel that the MLS forum doesn't have much activity and i fear that it will end up being like the NHL forum. I think that we should start small by making an international forum and team club subs first and then if that ends up bringing in more volume we can begin to separate further. A lot of the regular posters on the board are also on board with this. I think we should put it to a vote.


Here is my proposition.
Looking at the top posters in the MLS thread (since 2011) There are only 5 people that have posted consistently. Assuming that the activity in this new forum expands lets say 10 more posters. Is that enough posters for the board to be considered busy?


As to my proposition it would be something like this.
1)RealGM Soccer(Forum)

-Club Soccer/Football (Sub-Forum)
(Main Threads)
=EPL League
=La Liga
=Bundesliga
=MLS
=Italian League
=Transfer Thread
=Arsenal
=Man U



-International Soccer/Football (Sub-Forum)
(Main Threads)
=USA Soccer
=Euro Cup 2016 (France)
=World Cup 2018 (Russia)
=Germany national football team
=Random Thought thread
=FIFA Ballon d'Or Award/International Awards
=Media thread (popular on the NBA Gen board)
=Top 100 List (Similar to NBA PC board)


My biggest concern with this split is that International football has some Inactivity when there aren't any major tournaments, but by making a media thread and a random thread thought thread, PC thread, top 100 list, we can keep it going.

The international forum is a good idea, but I'm with LittleOzzy in the idea that it's a good time to jump on the MLS forum. The MLS is growing and it can be really beneficial to get a head start on the competition when it comes to forums. A good example of the potential growth can be seen in the Orlando city soccer thread in the magic board. There is a 23 page thread for a team that hasn't played its first game yet. That kind of excitement can expand to other teams.

Thanks for the Detroit Basketball shout out Howard.

MLS and Orlando City forum! Lets do this!

I'm in two minds in regards to expanding the RealGM soccer board. On the one hand, I've advocated adding a couple of expansion forums for some time (primarily a Premier League and International subforum, though I suppose I wouldn't be entirely opposed to MLS forums), but on the other, the lull in activity from October-November makes me think that there's a chance it might further diminish the activity we do get now. Glancing through the NHL boards, I see a few of them haven't even been posted in since early 2013. I wouldn't want to see the same happen to a potential soccer expansion.

The huge spike in new posters we got during the World Cup proves that there's a potentially larger userbase for the soccer side of RealGM, though. Not only that, but I see a ton of posters on other sections of RealGM who have favourite team icons for soccer clubs that I've never seen posting on the soccer board. If there's a way to tap into that and keep new posters invested, I'm all for it, but it seems like a big ask.

With that in mind, I back expansion provided that things don't get too convoluted. I agree with Earl and think that an International soccer subforum would be a good place to start, as it really is an entirely different prospect to club football. Premier League/Bundesliga could be next. Whatever happens, I'll continue to back the soccer board and continue to contribute as much as I can in keeping it active.

Here's my argument against the expanded soccer forum, from the thread there...

blkout wrote:I don't fear change, I fear the board being ruined by superfluous subforums.

Let's look at the most popular threads as they are..

Spoiler:

Spurs thread: 1,571 replies, 61.2% of them by two people (and1GS + Baphomet).

EPL Discussion thread: 1,065 replies, 50.5% of them by 4 people (MaliBrah, 5DOM, Baphomet, J-Mezzy)

Chelsea thread: 980 replies, 63% of them by 4 people (5DOM, treiz, fatlever, J-Mezzy)

Bundesliga thread: 1,261 replies, 60.7% of them by 4 people (Foye, Det, Little Nathan, cgf)

Team USA thread: 1,161 replies, 50.4% of them by 4 people (PANDEMONEUM, and1GS, BUCKnation, GSWarriors1)

MLS thread: 1,776 replies, 59% of them by 3 people (LittleOzzy, edfmx86, kdawg)... 34.6% of them by 1 person (LittleOzzy, 615 posts)

Basically all of the activity here comes from roughly 20 people, which is fine but not many of them cross over into other threads at any real volume (and1GS, Baphomet, J-Mezzy, 5DOm.. that's it). So if you have these individual subforums it'll be down to 3-5 people max in every forum to create activity. And LittleOzzy will practically have to create all of the activity for an MLS forum.

I do like Earl's suggestion, I think that could work though the international forum would be dead for long periods of time inbetween games.

Can I suggest moving the report button pretty much anywhere else? Whenever I go to And 1 or quote a post, unless I'm paying complete attention to where I'm clicking a lot of times I end up hitting the report post button. I don't know where exactly you would be able to move it to but anywhere else is better than where it is now.

Wasn't there another retired Pistons mod in there somewhere who ran alongside Cow and ajax back in the day?

With respect to reported posts...

Howard has already covered who can see. When one of those mods logs in and views a forum with reported posts, the thread title has an extra icon next to it indicating that it contains a reported post (or more than one). The post itself is higlighted in red for them in-thread as well.

We also have access to a list showing open reports (by thread/forum/overall).

As far as completion notification, the forums are supposed to generate a generic "this report was closed by [mod]" PM when we close off a report so that a poster who makes a report can follow-up. There is also a moderation log which records this information so other mods can follow up if a user queries them about a reported post which was closed by a different mod (best to ask a mod from the board where the report was issued, though).

It's a functional system, but if a poster has a specific question, that is where contacting a mod helps you out. If you are not willing to contact a board mod, grab a global and one of us can investigate for you.

I would love to see the MLS soccer board expand if it came with more traffic. There are very few sites out there with good MLS discussion and RealGM definitely has the potential to be real go to place for that. I 100% back the idea up and am willing to do my part in whatever i can to help it grow into something bigger than a single thread.

Baphomet wrote:I'm in two minds in regards to expanding the RealGM soccer board. On the one hand, I've advocated adding a couple of expansion forums for some time (primarily a Premier League and International subforum, though I suppose I wouldn't be entirely opposed to MLS forums), but on the other, the lull in activity from October-November makes me think that there's a chance it might further diminish the activity we do get now. Glancing through the NHL boards, I see a few of them haven't even been posted in since early 2013. I wouldn't want to see the same happen to a potential soccer expansion.

The huge spike in new posters we got during the World Cup proves that there's a potentially larger userbase for the soccer side of RealGM, though. Not only that, but I see a ton of posters on other sections of RealGM who have favourite team icons for soccer clubs that I've never seen posting on the soccer board. If there's a way to tap into that and keep new posters invested, I'm all for it, but it seems like a big ask.

With that in mind, I back expansion provided that things don't get too convoluted. I agree with Earl and think that an International soccer subforum would be a good place to start, as it really is an entirely different prospect to club football. Premier League/Bundesliga could be next. Whatever happens, I'll continue to back the soccer board and continue to contribute as much as I can in keeping it active.

I would type out my own thoughts but this is exactly how I feel.

The fear of the board ending up like the NHL board is a very legitimate one, and something to keep in mind while moving forward. I just feel like we're a year or two away from that kind of traffic being possible.

Either way, I support some sort of expansion (whatever form that might be), and will definitely do my part to contribute as much Revolution/MLS conversation as I can.

Thanks for your work, Ozzy, Howard and Dream.

re: Soccer forum expansion

I've given it some thought, and like many have commented already, I'm not too sure how I feel about it. I don't think the current volume of activity warrants an expansion, but at the same time, if this expansion can promote more activity, that'd be awesome.

My suggestion is to have 2-3 forums that are as general and accessible as possible (e.g. General, Match Day, Transfers/Wiretap). This would allow fans of different clubs, leagues and national teams to interact more easily.

At the moment, I'm very much against the idea of having separate sub-forums for different leagues/clubs. I just don't think we are ready for that kind of expansion yet.

Thanks for answering my question Howard. I think on busy boards the best way to bring a post to the mods attention is to pm a link to them.

Sent from my SCH-R530U using RealGM Forums mobile app

Aaron It Out wrote:Thanks for answering my question Howard. I think on busy boards the best way to bring a post to the mods attention is to pm a link to them.

Sent from my SCH-R530U using RealGM Forums mobile app

Hmmm, it depends. I find that a huge proportion of my moderation duties come from handling reports.

A PM isn't a bad thing, but often enough, a report is the fastest way to get us to deal with an infraction. If there's a thread where the whole thing is going off of the rails or you have a longer-term issue with the way a poster is handling him/herself, or general questions about the board, etc, etc, that's something else.

Manocad wrote:Wasn't there another retired Pistons mod in there somewhere who ran alongside Cow and ajax back in the day?

Think I recall that he threw a good house party back in the day.

Please re-add notifications for And1s. It reminds me to check back on topics from a day (or more) old.

irie wrote:Please re-add notifications for And1s. It reminds me to check back on topics from a day (or more) old.

Would really appreciate this as well. On the main forums I post on (Celtics board, gen. Soccer, Gamer's lounge), the and1 is never abused and like Irie said, it helps me to remember to go back to certain topics/comments. I know on some boards, like the Raptors forum, it is widely abused but why should that hurt the people who use it as intended?