Mass Dispatch: The Latest Happenings On The RealGM Forums

[Howard Mass]

RealGM Users,

Welcome to the first edition of my new RealGM Forums Column titled Mass Dispatch where I will give users a more personalized experience by discussing issues on the forums, taking users questions, recognizing user achievements, great threads and even dishing out some inside stuff that goes on around here among other things.

Each column will start with The Mass Matter where I will discuss an issue on the forums that I or users feel needs to be addressed.

The Mass Matter: Our General NBA Board Policy

There is no issue on our forums more controversial than our General NBA Board Policy.

Almost all of the questions and complaints I receive in my PM inbox on a daily basis are related to the policy.

They are endless.......

- Users cannot stand the tight enforcement of our policies
- Do not understand why they got a strike
- Feel they were being treated unfairly
- The moderator hates me
- Your a terrible Administrator Howard Mass

I get it ALL and believe it or not, I have something that I would like to confess.

I wish we did not have a strict General NBA Board Policy.

Do you think I like having to update the strike lists every time someone commits a violation?

Do you think I like having to update someone's permissions when they get strike two and thus get Read-Only Access?

Do you think I like the endless appeals?

Do you think I like sending rejection notices?

Do you think Moderators like taking time out from posting to police all the violations?

The answer to all of these is NO.

The General NBA Board Policy was a last resort to get everything under control and isolate all General NBA Board violations to the General NBA Board so users would not get suspended suspended (three or seven days) or be banned for violations on a forum where there is bound to be more violations than normal racked up.

Unlike NBA Team Forums where you have one group of fans discussing their team, on the General NBA Board, you have 30 fan bases, some old Sonics fans and others who are just fans of players.

This gives us many different viewpoints and something you say could more easily rub someone the wrong way.

Over the years, we tried many things including to reform the forum including

- Adding More Moderators
- Having Crackdowns
- Numerous other policies that did not go far enough

None of the above worked no matter what we tried and to make matters worse, users would get three day suspensions which not only kicked them off The General NBA Board for a few days, but the team forum they post on where they are a valuable user.

This also got those forums riled up, complaining and made a few Moderators into villians who unfairly have a reputation of being just that :Unfair and out to get people.

Since the policy went into effect almost two years ago, three-day and seven-day suspensions have dramatically fallen since no user gets these with a General NBA Board Strike.

The 12 hour suspensions for a General NBA Board Strikes also lite a fire under users but these are needed to allow a user to cool down and be aware of their strike. In addition, if the user has attained their second strike, this gives me time to apply their Read-Only Access Status.

The appeals process will be the subject of The Mass Matter later this month when our Strike Amnesty Period starts.

Back to the policy, while things are very strict on the forum, the biggest problem is a simple one.

Users do not read the policy.

So many users clearly bait a user and/or fanbase and think they are not doing anything.

Others are derailing discussion with derailing gif's and others are trolling.

Since the first round of the playoffs ended, we have not had many violations on The General NBA Board but I get tons of complaints mainly from the derailing discussion part.

I am tired of users racking up strikes on the forum and I want to work with everyone to fix this.

In the next addition of Mass Dispatch, I want some user questions to answer regarding General NBA Board strikes in my Ask Howard section.

Let me know some specific questions that you may have so I can answer them. This will allow everyone to have a better understanding of the policy and move us towards a General NBA Board with good constructive discussion and less violations.


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 or you could send me a PM and I just might answer it in my next column

Here are this week's questions

Earl Asks:

As you have seen there is a thread where people are trying to bring back Adrian _05.
What will it take for him to be allowed permission to post on the off topic board once again. Seeing some of the new posters that we have gotten on the OTB board have made us realize that Adrian isn't as bad as we thought he was. It can be said that the worst poster in the OTB is running away with the award this year.

Howard's Response

When a user receives an individual board ban, they are assigned a first appeal date. The user in question has a first appeal date of June 30, 2014 which means they are eligible to appeal their board ban from our General Off-Topic Board.

It is up to the user to write up an appeal stating why they should allowed back on the forum. I then review the appeal and make a decision.

ReturnofMVP3 Asks

In your column can you please mention people who get there forum rights returned, for example when I get allowed back on the general board?

Howard's Response

This is something that I actually might do. Thank you for the suggestion.

Want To Ask Howard?

If you have a question that you would like to ask, please post it in this thread on The Mass Dispatch Forum

viewtopic.php?f=437&t=1330025

or you could also send me a PM.


User of the Week

In this section, I hope to recognize multiple users for great posts, assisting users or for just being a good user.

Some forums are planning to have users of the week/month and I am hoping others will follow. This week to get things started, I am going to pick a user of the week myself and this one is pretty obvious.

The RealGM Forums User of the Week

Carl2680

memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=162295

for this post which at first was not taken that seriously

“I got inside sources in the Nets organization, and the word is Jason Kidd will get fired because he asked for a raise. Kidd also wanted the GM position, but the Russians told him no. Kidd will be the next coach of the Milwaukee Bucks, and possibly the GM too.“

viewtopic.php?p=40241560#p40241560

Carl got this story two days before the media did and when he was asked why he posted it here, he had this to say.

“Why? So one of those ESPN rats take the credit. I rather share the news with the fans here. ESPN, and the rest of the media have a hard for the heat. They only care about James.”

viewtopic.php?p=40280899#p40280899

Even though Carl does not have a lot of posts, I hope he becomes a regular user here and I'd like to thank him publicly for choosing to post the news here on our RealGM Brooklyn Nets Forum.

Please note that players, executives and the media do read our forums so you never know who is reading your post here on our RealGM Forums or who you may come across.

Please join me in congratulating Carl2680 our RealGM Forums User of the Week.


Thread of the week

When someone breaks a big story here on the RealGM Forums, it has a good shot at winning the RealGM Thread of the Week too.


The RealGM Forums Thread of The Week

The “Kidd Will get fired (Power struggle in Nets front office) Thread

viewtopic.php?f=23&t=1330298

In the next addition, I plan to recognize multiple threads and if you have one that you would like to nominate, just post it on The Mass Dispatch Forum or send me a PM.

Please join me in congratulating our RealGM Brooklyn Nets Forum and all of the users who posted in it.


The RealGM Forums Moderator of The Week


RealGM Brooklyn Nets Moderator Rich Rane.

Rich has always been a solid Moderator who along with RealGM Senior Brooklyn Nets Moderators JerseyJac do such a wonderful job Moderating our Brooklyn Nets Forum.

We do have people who come to our forums and start false rumors but Rich had the good instincts to leave the “Kidd Will get fired (Power struggle in Nets front office) Thread open so I got to give this one to him.

Please join me in congratulating our Moderator of the week: Rich Rane.


Inside The Administrator's Office

Many users ask me what goes on behind the scenes on The RealGM Forums and while I cannot tell you everything, I would like to share some things and will as I end my Mass Dispatch columns.

Over the past few weeks, new Moderators have been added on our Boston Celtics, Los Angeles Clippers and Orlando Magic Forums.

While I was very happy with the selections, I was also very pleased to know that there is a deep bench on both our Boston Celtics and Orlando Magic Forums should a Moderator vacancy ever occur or there is a need for another Moderator on those forums.

The Los Angeles Clippers forum has a smaller forum and with it a smaller bench but one that seems to be growing with their traffic spike as of late.

I look at the forum as a whole during the process and just because you are not contacted does not mean you were not considered.

While we are on the subject of new Moderators, new Clippers Moderator og15 kept missing the PM notifications when we were communicating and it was like 2 ½ weeks of snail mail. LOL! It was worth it though as myself and many Moderators had wanted to get him on board for years.


Final Thoughts

I hope all of you enjoyed this first addition of Mass Dispatch. If anyone has a question, feedback or something they would like to see in Mass Dispatch, please post it on The Mass Dispatch Forum or send me a PM.

Thanks to everyone for helping make the RealGM Forums the best forums on the internet.

[15th overall]

What can be done to address the bandwidth issues during events like the Draft?

Last Thursday was a disaster.. I essentially had to wait for the draft to end before I could discuss the picks. You guys do a great job here and I'm not trying to rail against the site; but wouldn't it be worth it to spring for an extra server (or w/e, not an IT guy) specifically for events that are gonna bring in high traffic, like the Draft, trading deadline and Finals?

[amcoolio]

RealGM is the best sports forum on the internet, I don't think anyone can debate that.

The General Board policies are fine for the most part. I agree with warnings/strikes/suspensions on purposeful thread derailing, trolling, name calling and attacking or insulting a poster or fanbase(the biggest and most appreciated rule), advertising or linking or clickbait, and so on.

I think the one area that needs improved is the very broad and often times vague "baiting a poster or fanbase" category. It seems 99% of the time its up to a specific moderator's discretion, which is unavoidable. But the problem is when the same moderator has certain ties to a team, or takes a side of an argument, or often times when he/she is involved in the topic already, and issues a ban on a very subjective "baiting" incident.

Here's an example, "The Charlotte Bobcats are a terrible franchise, and MJ is such a crappy owner".

This seemed to be a perfectly acceptable on the general board at any time in the past few years, and there was one global moderator who said something similar to this in a "which franchises should be relocated thread".

Would this not be considered bating the Bobcats fanbase? If not, then why is....

"I know you didn't watch the Bobcats or the NBA for that matter before the playoffs" to a Miami poster on the GB Mia-Cha playoff series thread, who was making generally wrong statements about the Bobcats rotation throughout the regular season, considered a suspension?

Another problem is that with this vague baiting rule it seems some fanbases are left off the hook and that it is just considered "good natured ribbing". For instance, in the Bkn-Tor GB playoff series thread, far, far worse things were said between the two fanbases than my statement, but it didn't seem to matter and no one cared. Thats fine, and I am fine with good natured ribbing between fanbases especially in something exciting as the playoffs. But it really seemed that the Miami-Charlotte thread was a "no fun allowed, Miami has earned this, don't even argue" thread whereas the Brooklyn-Toronto thread was about as you expect: "two passionate fanbases who will obviously butt heads but its the playoffs" full with digs at the city of Brookyln and digs at Canadians and such.

All in all, the Gen Board policy has definitely made the forum a lot easier to read in the past few years, and RealGM is obviously on the right track with how much its grown. I would just suggest a healthy discussion on the baiting rule and maybe some guidelines so that everyone is on the same page. If it is generally accepted, but untrue, does that still make it baiting? MJ has done a fantastic job as owner since buying the team...saving it from utter collapse and reconnecting with the community, and increasing the value from 175 million to well over 600 million.... But I'm fairly certain I would be banned for baiting the Bucks fans for saying (this is obviously not my opinion) "That new Edens guy is a terrible owner, the Bucks should be relocated and can't be sustained in Milwaukee" whereas with the former nobody would bat an eyelash.

whew! sorry for the wall of text

[AI]

What can be done to ensure a level of consistency by the GB moderators on what constitutes baiting? On the GB, many times I have seen obvious, hardcore baiting simply being ignored, while other times I have seen severe action taken on users who were likely in the grey area of baiting.

I don't know, perhaps it is simply a confirmation bias thing? I understand the baiting rule is likely one of the hardest to uphold by the moderators, I just don't see it being enforced in an egalitarian approach.

I hope this post does not upset any of the GB moderators, either. With a website as popular as RealGM, moderating is really like a second job that does not pay - many people seem to forget this. The majority of you all do an excellent job keeping this subforum clutter free and worth reading, which I along with many other posters greatly appreciate.

[Gremz]

If possible can you please respond to my question next please Howard?

[EArl]

Earl Asks:

As you have seen there is a thread where people are trying to bring back Adrian _05.
What will it take for him to be allowed permission to post on the off topic board once again. Seeing some of the new posters that we have gotten on the OTB board have made us realize that Adrian isn't as bad as we thought he was. It can be said that the worst poster in the OTB is running away with the award this year.

Howard's Response

When a user receives an individual board ban, they are assigned a first appeal date. The user in question has a first appeal date of June 30, 2014 which means they are eligible to appeal their board ban from our General Off-Topic Board.

It is up to the user to write up an appeal stating why they should allowed back on the forum. I then review the appeal and make a decision.

Thanks for responding to my question.
Its on Adrian if he wants to appeal.

[GimmeDat]

This is great! Relatively new user to the forum, but I can safely say RealGM is the best, in particular the active and insightful Bulls board.

Oh and Carl, you da man!

[DiscoLives4ever]

Any plans to introduce an anti-and1?

[ReturnofMVP3]

Any plans to introduce an anti-and1?

I'd like that

[WVU]

Keep fighting the good fight Howard. RealGM is the best

[torontoaces04]

TL;DR

[MIA]

Any plans to introduce an anti-and1?

I'd like that

Could be called a foul or something... lol

[Parliament10]

Merging Threads -- Multiple Credit.

Often times, Thread originators are the most prolific posters, and keep their own thread interesting. Merging, takes the named credit away from one or more.

Is there a better way to recognize multiple Thread creators, when Merging?

i.e. " "John X contributed to this Thread." -- Or something like that.

[mj234eva]

I got a strike (and a read only GB "ban") for calling Scott Foster a dick. Except I didn't spell the word out, I spelled it "d!!ck" (without the extra !) or something like that. The global admin said I was evading the word filter, I still don't understand that, SINCE THE WORD ISN'T EVEN FILTERED OUT!

edit - "d!!ck" (without the extra !) is filtered to **** but not dick. What the f?

[MalikJoakim24]

I got a strike (and a read only GB "ban") for calling Scott Foster a dick. Except I didn't spell the word out, I spelled it "d!!ck" (without the extra !) or something like that. The global admin said I was evading the word filter, I still don't understand that, SINCE THE WORD ISN'T EVEN FILTERED OUT!

edit - "d!!ck" (without the extra !) is filtered to **** but not dick. What the f?

Send a PM to Howard brother

[CoolbeansB]

Is there a way to post videos??

[tsherkin]

I got a strike (and a read only GB "ban") for calling Scott Foster a dick. Except I didn't spell the word out, I spelled it "d!!ck" (without the extra !) or something like that. The global admin said I was evading the word filter, I still don't understand that, SINCE THE WORD ISN'T EVEN FILTERED OUT!

edit - "d!!ck" (without the extra !) is filtered to **** but not dick. What the f?

It should be pointed out that in the interim since this happened, the poster above has a warning for derailing that resulted in a 3-day suspension, then another warning for personal attacks/baiting (these two on the Chicago board), then ANOTHER warning for derailing and backseat moderating (this one on the CA board) which led to a second 3-day suspension. We're not really talking about someone who got harped on for one instance of being a problem here.

[MalikJoakim24]

Is there a way to post videos??

Code: Select all

[youtube]insert youtube link here[/youtube]

[tsherkin]

Is there a way to post videos??

Code: Select all

[youtube]insert youtube link here[/youtube]

Thanks for showing that to everyone, MnM.

[MalikJoakim24]

anything for you tsherkin