Please read: Posting protocols for the Jays board

[YogiStewart]

Thought I would take a minute to post this, considering how the tone and the quality of posts have diminished over the past week.

The Jays' board is different than, for example, the Raptors' board. There were less shenanigans and, one can argue, more adult discussions that took place. Things changed this week, starting with Prince Fielder, then declining more with the Yu sweepstakes and, today, reaching another low with some name calling.

LittleOzzy issued a warning, I edited some posts and I locked a thread due to poor behaviour. so congratulations.

The board won't be allowed to decline into a slagfest. Call it radical, but if namecalling or other crap continues, the moderators won't hesitate to call for board suspensions.

Thanks

[Lateral Quicks]

Personal attacks - such as namecalling - should have no place on this or any other board. Attack the opinion, but not the person.

[wbbfan]

Glad to hear the steps are being taken to restore the quality of this board.

[Relentless88]

Does this mean Schad is coming back? Will dagger get banished? DRAMA.

[Homer Jay]

When a man pretending to be insane to get out of prison, is the voice of reason, you know something is wrong....

[torontoaces04]

Does this mean Schad is coming back? Will dagger get banished? DRAMA.

Schad who?

When a man pretending to be insane to get out of prison, is the voice of reason, you know something is wrong....

Huh?

[LBJSeizedMyID]

Wonder if it's because the general masses on the Blue Jays board are older...which in case leads me to wonder why aren't there more younger fans. Which also leads me to wonder if the "whole growing the farm system from the bottom up" is the strategy to bring younger audiences to the game.

[YogiStewart]

Wonder if it's because the general masses on the Blue Jays board are older...which in case leads me to wonder why aren't there more younger fans. Which also leads me to wonder if the "whole growing the farm system from the bottom up" is the strategy to bring younger audiences to the game.

what are you babbling about?

[torontoaces04]

Wonder if it's because the general masses on the Blue Jays board are older...which in case leads me to wonder why aren't there more younger fans. Which also leads me to wonder if the "whole growing the farm system from the bottom up" is the strategy to bring younger audiences to the game.

[LBJSeizedMyID]

Was havin ga "Deep thoughts by Jack Handy" moment

[Randle McMurphy]

YogiStewart, that damn Rogers apologist.

In all seriousness, I doubt this will turn into a real problem. The mouth-breathing casual fans should all be gone within a few weeks if the Jays have another one of their boring, spend-nothing offseasons and then it will be back to normal.

[Osiris]

I also think this will resolve itself, but I think some steps could be taken by members of this board not openly entering the abyss and inviting those that dwell there to come partake in what we have.

You know who you are.

[UN-Owen]

Wonder if it's because the general masses on the Blue Jays board are older...which in case leads me to wonder why aren't there more younger fans. Which also leads me to wonder if the "whole growing the farm system from the bottom up" is the strategy to bring younger audiences to the game.

what are you babbling about?

His post was pretty clear, so to label it as "babbling" comes across as quite insulting


You want a more respectful Jays board?

Lead by example

(you just need to look at the post below yours to see what I mean)

[James_Raptors]

I post on very few forums, but, for example, the one I have posted on the longest is called the VN Forums. Over there I'm known as Orc_Merlin, because my first lv 50 character in the game Dark Age of Camelot was a little kobold warrior named, you guessed it, Orc. Can you guess what server I made him on? Over on the VN boards, where I've been posting for a decade, I have approximately 27,000 postcount. The mods and admins over there allow much more than you would see around the RealGM. Swearing is technically against the rules over there, but it happens everyday, usually without warning and/or giggling little edits by mods. Now, don't get me wrong I love the community there and in fact I've even met a few of them IRL. For many of us who post there, we are quite close, simply because the game was released in 2001 and the forums have been around longer.

Another example, back in the mid 1990's I played a game called Subspace. It was a simply pvp based 2-d spaceship game. The most popular "zone" (server) at the time was called Trench Wars. I was asked to be on staff there, and eventually Dean of Staff and a "supermoderator" (SMOD) of the zone. Basically my job, which I did not get paid for, was to hire other mods and smods for the zone. Because I started playing that particular game near it's inception, I also played a role in game mechanics and map design, eventually leading me to running their official forums. Granted, it was no RealGM in terms of traffic, but we had over 1,000 unique posters/members.

Running those forums were interesting and did not come without it's share of stress. It was a tightrope to run those messageboards straight and narrow, you were often percieved as a "nazi" or not hard-nosed enough. You would have to deal with the usual name calling nonsense but at rare times, even people who got banned (or were anti-forum-government-radicals!) would try and "hack" (or whatever the terminology is) the website down. I ran those forums for a few years, did my best, and eventually quit out of exhaustion.

I've certainly posted on some other forums over the past 20 years or so but those two really stick in my mind. When I came to RealGM, first as an observer with no account, it was to test the waters and see what the community was like. Even though it was a simple messageboard on my computer, the fact is I did not want to devote a single drop of MY time, if the community wasn't worth it, or if the forums were poorly run. I'm also older now and being in my 40's, compared to back in 1990's, I feel as though I have less patience for nonsense. I prefer to have civil conversations, rather than e-thug macho fights, trying to belittle one another as you prove who is right and wrong. Actually, I've never really agreed with the latter example, but my tolerance of that behavior has definately lessened over the years, as my chest hairs have turned from a light brown to occasional (lol, who am I kidding), grey...

What I enjoy about the RealGM forums, and specifically the Blue Jays forum, is that even when opinions differ, much of the discussion feels like it's the type of banter you would have with a friend over at your house watching the game, or in a pub chilling with friends and your favorite beverage, and so on. Much of that you versus the enemy mentality is smoothed over, leaving an avenue for discussion open. I can't speak for others around here, but I welcome this approach and it's something I look for. Maybe as I got older I started to feel like my time was more valueable? That could be it. Why spend minutes thumping my chest when I could learn something from other posters? This is not to say that I don't read some threads and think to myself "what in the world was that individual thinking?!". This sort of thing happens in all walks of life though and not just on the internet.

[CPT]

Totally goes against the spirit of this thread, but if anything ever justified a "cool story bro," that was it.

[James_Raptors]

Totally goes against the spirit of this thread, but if anything ever justified a "cool story bro," that was it.

Was a bit corny.. but ya.

[gei]

I think we're looking at this whole thing backwards. The actual great thing about this board was the lack of "over-moderating"... that allowed us to have heated and passionate debates/arguments about things like the whole Rogers+Darvish fiasco.

Once the mods get involved things become watered-down and boring. The recent rise in attention to the Jays board sadly attracted more attention from the mods as well.

But as the poster above mentioned, it's looking like Rogers is going to do nothing this off season anyway and people will lose interest altogether... making this whole issue moot.

[wbbfan]

I think we're looking at this whole thing backwards. The actual great thing about this board was the lack of "over-moderating"... that allowed us to have heated and passionate debates/arguments about things like the whole Rogers+Darvish fiasco.

Once the mods get involved things become watered-down and boring. The recent rise in attention to the Jays board sadly attracted more attention from the mods as well.

But as the poster above mentioned, it's looking like Rogers is going to do nothing this off season anyway and people will lose interest altogether... making this whole issue moot.

What you call heated debates id call childish arguments and none stop recycled rogers hate. And the watered down and boring interesting baseball talk.

[Wo1verine]

The Rogers hate is well deserved- the more the better as far as i am concerned. If you're not a fan, just comeback when the season starts should be alot less talk about the cheap asses.

[flatjacket1]

The Rogers hate is well deserved- the more the better as far as i am concerned. If you're not a fan, just comeback when the season starts should be alot less talk about the cheap asses.

I don't think anybody is really truly against bringing Fielder to the team, I think most people are just anti-people-who-won't-shut-up-about-rogers.

Like we get it people, you don't like Rogers. None of us can change that. Half the talk isn't even about baseball anymore, I loved the Blue Jays board during the season when nobody here cared about anything else outside of baseball.

I don't see any of the old posters that used to be around post much anymore and its kind of sad, the board is being ruined. We should have a pact not to talk about Rogers in a positive or negative way.