Some board changes and our next steps together

[pineappleheadindc]

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As has been noticed, hands has been banned. He was banned because his posting style had become a board detriment and it was costing our community some highly-valued users (who PMed on their way out that the board with hands was the reason they were leaving). This should not have come as a bolt out of the sky as he had already been banned from posting on the General Board by the GB mods a month or two ago.

The TOS prohibits users from disrupting normal conversation and just about every hands conversation had devolved into a discussion about hands instead of basketball. (e.g., a discussion of hands asserting that he'd already made the point someone else was trying to make followed by other posters quoting him saying something completely different then followed by back-and-forth argument and mocking.) This pattern was happening on almost every topic, even involving those who'd put hands on ignore.

But the biggest reason for hands ban is the impact he had on our board and its user community. RealGM is not a governmental entity and users are not afforded First Amendment rights here. While Wiz board mods have always tried to mod lightly, our first responsibility is to help keep the overarching community healthy and thriving. When you start losing board members completely (or board members visit less frequently) because of a user you have to take action. In internal discussions, we likened this to the board being a restaurant with the mods here being its managers. If a patron is driving away patrons because of their behavior, you'll ask them to leave. Period. This is no different.

I've locked the hands thread and trust that this announcement has provided some background for all of you who seek to understand what happened. I expect some blowback, either disagreeing with the decision on its merits or based on a philosophical point of view associated with never banning anyone. But the quality of this board is our responsibility. Based on hands many, many transgressions against the TOS noted by any number of different board and GB mods, his GB ban, plus interactions hands has had with admins, this is the decision. And it's the right one. But I'll leave this open for venting for a limited period, then it'll be locked.

Separately, we'd like board input about how we can best move discussions about the Skins, Caps, Nats, and Os onto their boards. If we start a thread for those teams here on the Wiz board, those threads are engaging and populated with lots of regulars. But we have not figured out how to get you (and new users) to move discussions off of this board and onto the other boards. If you have any thoughts, please post them here.

For those who have only joined in the last few years, you should know that at one time, this board was the best of all RealGM. Best as defined as busiest, most interesting -- hey, we *invented* the terms "amazingly sucky" (Juan Dixon), "is suck" (diderotn). Since our halcyon days, we've been bleeding users -- in part, but not totally -- because in our strong desire to mod lightly, we've valued not banning people over the quality of this board. The hands ban serves as an announcement in word and deed that those days are over.

This is a cool place in which to chat Wizards, politics, or whatever. You make it so. We hope that you'll continue to contribute to this community and, as the Wizards continue to be successful on the court, that we can take this board to new heights.

Thanks a lot,

Pine

[dckingsfan]

thanks for the update and clarity...

[payitforward]

Thank you for this information -- and for taking on the responsibilities of Mods. No one can lead anything without a willingness to take difficult decisions. I empathize with the process you went through, as a decision to ban an individual was not something you took lightly, I am sure.

A few questions:

1. Was Hands warned that he was in danger of being banned and advised of the changes in posting style he'd need to make in order not to be banned?

2. Having been warned, was he given an adequate chance to make the needed changes?

3. If he was warned, do you feel ok about providing some account (not in detail of course -- just an overview) of his responses to the warning(s)?

4. Is there a procedure by which Hands would be able to re-join the Board (perhaps for a trial period or in some trial mode) were he to commit to changing his posting style?

Of course it occurs to me now that answers to some of the above may be in the TOS of the Board. I assume it will come as no surprise that I haven't read the document. Even had I read it, however, I would still wish to hear about this particular situation.

Thanks again.

[Induveca]

Thanks much Pine. I can actually return to basketball threads.

I used to own a very large forum, and after finding massive success with one subject we attempted to expand into other subjects.

While we had some success, we eventually realized by continuing to support dozens of semi-abandoned parallel forums significantly decreased the quality of what actually made us money. The success of our original subject caused us to suffer from delusions of grandeur purely because other subjects *seemed* to make sense. Crossover to other subjects, even if it made sense geographically....there was very little crossover.

If I owned the boards, I'd convert them to a reddit style format, include some automated AI analysis of statistics post game and tie those back to an exclusive relationship with DraftKings across all boards as a sticky in each topic. Maybe in-board purchases for rollover deep advanced stats on players as they are mentioned.

Then I'd find an exit. This userbase could be monetized far more extensively, without offending the board. I've done it.

- migrate away from a 15 year old tech in phpbb.
- look at the 400 million dollar marketing budgets of fantasy sports companies. Determine their cost of acquisition for one diehard fan (I'd assume 80 dollars), then yearly revenue from that fan (assuming 275). Lastly assume they conver 8% of the userbase. There is your valuation.

15,000 converted users over 2 years (assuming 80k active board members) equates to 1.7 million pure profit per year. Charge for 5 years profit, I assure you they'll monetize the base in other ways. Sell at a 10x multiple and a 20 million ask is more than reasonable for such a niche market.

Hire any of the dozens of solid M&A firms for tech firms. Need an intro? Hire the local law firm which represents the largest tech firm in your area. A good M&A firm will likely see far more metrics than I....

My 2 cents.

Sorry for the essay I got excited.

[closg00]

Thanks for the info about hands. I gnashed my teeth often with his posts, but he was kind of like that crazy uncle you have to deal with at Thanksgiving.

Won't hands be back under a new user name? Hands had multiple sock-puppet accounts, he'll get around the ISP block.
When you see the phrase "we just have to sit-back and wait" coming from a Ball Boy, watch out

[pineappleheadindc]

Guys, LyricalRico reminded me to publicly note that this decision was a group one among the Wiz mods, not just mine as the poster of the original note. Decisions like these are not made capriciously...we went back-and-forth for a while on the topic ahead of time, hearing each others' positions and considering any number of factors.

Also note that board mods do not have the power, alone or in a group, to ban a user. The recommendation is made to admins who own the RealGM franchise and we all consider things behind the scenes. Such was the case here and, since hands is banned, you can safely and correctly surmise that the site owners ultimately believed that hands ban was the correct decision.

I'm not going to further engage in a back-and-forth about what happens behind the scenes, who said what to whom, etc. I think I've given you enough background to understand the situation. Thanks for your understanding.

Pine

[DCZards]

I hated Hands posting style. I'm one of the few on this board who have openly criticized him for the "I'm the smartest guy in the room" tone of most of his posts. But I'm shocked that he's been banned. No, I haven't read the board rules but if there's a rule that bans someone simply because a handful of people don't like his posting style, that's scary.

As long as it's not profane or downright nasty, belittling or insulting toward another poster I'm fine with just about any post. I don't recall any of Hands posts crossing that line.

While I understand the concern that posters have left the board because of Hands, I've always looked at it as a freedom of speech/style/opinion thing that all of us have to be big enough to live with and accept...especially in the Internet age when all types of people are expressing their opinions on a particular subject.

Regardless of his style, tone or opinion, I saw Hands as a true blue Zards fan, probably more so than some of the people who complained about him, so I'm disappointed by this drastic action. There must have been some alternative.

I know I don't have all of the background regarding Hands' ban, but that's where I'm coming from based on the explanation.

[miller31time]

I hated Hands posting style. I'm one of the few on this board who have openly criticized him for the "I'm the smartest guy in the room" tone of most of his posts. But I'm shocked that he's been banned. No, I haven't read the board rules but if there's a rule that bans someone simply because a handful of people don't like his posting style, that's scary.

As long as it's not profane or downright nasty, belittling or insulting toward another poster I'm fine with just about any post. I don't recall any of Hands posts crossing that line.

While I understand the concern that posters have left the board because of Hands, I've always looked at it as a freedom of speech/style/opinion thing that all of us have to be big enough to live with and accept...especially in the Internet age when all types of people are expressing their opinions on a particular subject.

Regardless of his style, tone or opinion, I saw Hands as a true blue Zards fan, probably more so than some of the people who complained about him, so I'm disappointed by this drastic action. There must have been some alternative.

I know I don't have all of the background regarding Hands' ban, but that's where I'm coming from based on the explanation.

DCZards, your line of thinking is a reasonable one and we definitely had this discussion (in great depth). By the time everyone presented their points, we eventually came to the decision based on a few points, some of which Pine has already mentioned in this thread.

1) This board's (and RealGM's) purpose is to drive basketball discussion. Hands11's posting style was hindering valuable discussion.
2) Good, knowledgable posters are leaving the board, citing familiar reasons. As mods, we have to take into account the wants/needs of the board we moderate.
3) The freedom of speech/style/opinion argument is an important one. We will never try to restrict people from having opinions but it's important to note that this is a privately owned company and the rules that apply (or don't apply) here are much different than that of the real world. If a poster is bringing down the quality of a board but is also following the Terms of Service, it is the decision of RealGM's administrators to figure out of if they want posters like that remaining on the site. In this instance, they didn't. The TOS are guidelines on how to conduct yourself on RealGM and not the be-all-end-all of rules and engagement.
4) This was not a decision that was made without a lot of give and take. We didn't all come together and say "We want hands11 gone by any means necessary." We had an internal discussion that, while I won't go into specifics, was varied with respect to our opinions and stances. But ultimately, as a group, we weighed the pros and cons and felt that it was in the best interest of the board to follow through with this. One specific I will say is that we did understand that we were requesting a ban for a die-hard Wizards fan as well as someone who truly saw the Wizards Board as a home away from home. That was one of the biggest "cons" of this decision. But it wasn't enough of a reason in our opinion when presented with the other reasoning and arguments.

Again, I get where you're coming from. This situation is a rarity of sorts and a pretty extreme case but we feel that it is a decision that will ultimately make the board a better, more inviting place to talk about the Wiz.

[closg00]

I hated Hands posting style. I'm one of the few on this board who have openly criticized him for the "I'm the smartest guy in the room" tone of most of his posts. But I'm shocked that he's been banned. No, I haven't read the board rules but if there's a rule that bans someone simply because a handful of people don't like his posting style, that's scary.

As long as it's not profane or downright nasty, belittling or insulting toward another poster I'm fine with just about any post. I don't recall any of Hands posts crossing that line.

While I understand the concern that posters have left the board because of Hands, I've always looked at it as a freedom of speech/style/opinion thing that all of us have to be big enough to live with and accept...especially in the Internet age when all types of people are expressing their opinions on a particular subject.

Regardless of his style, tone or opinion, I saw Hands as a true blue Zards fan, probably more so than some of the people who complained about him, so I'm disappointed by this drastic action. There must have been some alternative.

I know I don't have all of the background regarding Hands' ban, but that's where I'm coming from based on the explanation.

Don't worry Zard, Hands will be back under a new name, perhaps posting from his local library or cell phone You can also catch him on the Post Insider and Bulletsforever threads, he has plenty of places to hangout.

[montestewart]

I hated Hands posting style. I'm one of the few on this board who have openly criticized him for the "I'm the smartest guy in the room" tone of most of his posts. But I'm shocked that he's been banned. No, I haven't read the board rules but if there's a rule that bans someone simply because a handful of people don't like his posting style, that's scary.

As long as it's not profane or downright nasty, belittling or insulting toward another poster I'm fine with just about any post. I don't recall any of Hands posts crossing that line.

While I understand the concern that posters have left the board because of Hands, I've always looked at it as a freedom of speech/style/opinion thing that all of us have to be big enough to live with and accept...especially in the Internet age when all types of people are expressing their opinions on a particular subject.

Regardless of his style, tone or opinion, I saw Hands as a true blue Zards fan, probably more so than some of the people who complained about him, so I'm disappointed by this drastic action. There must have been some alternative.

I know I don't have all of the background regarding Hands' ban, but that's where I'm coming from based on the explanation.

Don't worry Zard, Hands will be back under a new name, perhaps posting from his local library or cell phone You can also catch him on the Post Insider and Bulletsforever threads, he has plenty of places to hangout.

I've certainly sparred with hands(this one goes to)11, usually enjoyably so, occasionally a little less enjoyably. I balanced some of the previously cited criticisms (and a few others not mentioned) against the times when he seemed to keep threads alive during very dark times for Wizards fans. I recall one time when the Wizards were like 15-50 late in the season and no one gave a **** anymore, and he created a game thread, just to give people a place to go. I also balanced his at times complete domination of threads (with multiple War and Peace posts) against the many links he posted of video, stories, interviews, along with some of his own observations that I've found useful and occasionally come around to agreeing with (yeah, I said it). He's a little obsessed with all things Wizards, and that would seem to have a place here, even when he's tone deaf to other views.

So far, I've seen four posters--doclinkin, daSwami, DCZards, and payitforward--voice disagreement. High quality posters, level headed posters (well, maybe not PIF, but he's nonetheless smart, thoughtful, and a fine writer on basketball and other things). I'm guessing others disagree, and I can't say I agree with this (what's wrong with people just using the ignore function?) but I'm not a mod, and I have to admit that limits my perspective on the bigger picture, as well as my knowledge about incidents that led to the ban. The mods as a group seem pretty thoughtful too, and they are stuck with an at times thankless burden. I'm assuming they took into account the potential disagreement among posters.

closg00, I know you enjoyed some of that sparring like I did.

Oh well, maybe now ed wood will appear more frequently. Maybe even hoopalotta will reemerge. (This is mere speculation. For all I know, they just have other things to do.)

Rock on, hands.

[fishercob]

I will not miss reading hands11's posts. I've had him on ignore for some time, but when you come to a page and see eight straight posts by someone you're ignoring, it's hard to ignore them.

I empathize with the fact that this decision most assuredly bums another human being out. Because hands11 isn't a person; he's an online character. But there's a person behind hands11 and posting here brought him some happiness and comfort and now he doesn't have that. So that sucks.

I don't know about any of the recent specifics (if there are any) that precipitated this decision. I do agree with Pine that this board has lost some of what made it special. That's not all hands11's fault, but he played a role. He basically walked into a party where most of the people new each other -- some casually, some well; some were close -- and acted like he owned the place. He talked for every ten times he listened, repeated himself incessantly, and agitated the community as a whole. So some people stuck around to fight with him because they enjoyed it, some did their best to ignore him, and some left. Undoubtedly, the community suffered.

Over the same period,new people have showed up that the party. They've introduced themselves, respectfully learned the mores of the community, and become valued members -- even leaders -- themselves.

One of the things that made this board great was the forensic nature of so many of the discussions. We argue(d) for sure, but there was a goal of testing ideas and thinking about things critically. We do a lot less of that as a group now, and I'm hoping to see that change.

The other distinguishing factor of this board was that it was so well moderated. It's much easier to have meaningful discussions when they are well organized -- when every idle thought isn't a new thread. Disagreement is always welcome, but acting like ass incessantly is not. So, I want to give a shout out to the mods for taking the time to consider the community as a whole here. I'm not saying the decision to ban is a good one or not (I don't know) but I appreciate the time, care, and consideration, and understand that actions and behaviors have consequences.

[TGW]

I also had him on ignore and hated his posting style, but I think a ban is too harsh.

Maybe allowing him to post with certain restrictions would help. He would post 20 times a day, and maybe 3 of them were good basketball-related posts. The rest were puffing, arguing, and I told you so posts—maybe restricting him to 5 posts a day would help. That would push him to make each post count.

Can we possibly have a board vote to bring him back? I respect the mods decision, and I wouldn't have an issue with it one way or another, but I think when you strip out the annoying posts, Hands has made some valuable posts. The last playoff run, he was good (I would still see his posts although I had him ignore), and I would hope we can get that version of Hands back and not the offseason version.

At the end of the day, it's a message board. As long as he's not spamming, let him eat. I'm sure he's learned his lesson.

[TheSecretWeapon]

I mostly agree with fish's thoughts on this. That hands the person might feel bad today, and won't get to participate on this board...well that sucks for him. But, he's been the lone fixture on my ignore list for virtually all of the last couple seasons. So I can't say I'll miss him.

I had no part in the decision to ban him, but I support it. If there's a board vote on bringing him back, you can put me down now for "against."

[JWizmentality]

Don't want to pile on, but to be honest with you I never read much of hands posts as I found them to be too long and winded for my short attention span. So I can't really comment on his style. During the Raps-Wiz playoff games though I did take in his "No one is smarter than me" rhetoric on the GB and was rather embarrassed for him. Not surprised he was banned there and if that's the way he's really been posting here then can't say I'm surprised.

[Illuminaire]

Coming down from the mountain of my self-appointed semi exile (The one in which I try hard to stick to my decision to disown my Wizards fandom until major leadership changes are made... and then still watching them all playoffs and lurking here every single day. The Wizards are the girl I tell all my friends I've broken up with, but I keep running into at parties and then waking up the next morning feeling awful about my life).

Ahem. Anyways...

Hands and I never got along. His style of having the first word, last word, and every word in between never sat well with me. I have an instinctive twitch reflex when it comes to people who will never admit being wrong. I confess with shame that I kind of enjoyed it when PIF kept quoting Hands' own words to show him how he often he both zigged and zagged on the same issue.

With all that said, I do regret seeing that the nuclear option had to come into play. I have always respected Hands' commitment and passion for the Wiz. He might have come across as more than a little Dolores Umbridge at times, but I never doubted he'd be one of the guys screaming loudest at the phonebooth.

It sounds like the mods did their due diligence here. I respect that they need to keep part of the process private, though I have to echo some other posters' thoughts about one specific thing.

It is very important to me that part of the process was explaining to Hands what was wrong and giving him a reasonable chance to change. I haven't seen that referenced yet in any of the mods posts. Maybe it's assumed. But to me, that's a crucial step. Yeah, the guy was stubborn and I'd never seen him admit fault once in his entire tenure, but that should still be his mistake to make one last time.

If that was the case, cool. It's unfortunate, it sucks, but I can't fault the mods for taking the only path left to them. It would settle my mind a great deal if those who made the decision could provide at least some vague illumination about what steps were taken before the board equivalent of the death penalty was enacted.

[thinker07]

I am constantly surprised at how serious an issue it is to get banned from a message board. I think most people in America could get fired from their jobs more easily and flippantly than the consideration was to ban hands. I am an absolute believer in the notion that if someone or a group of people have invested their time and money into building a business and enterprise like RealGM then they have the absolute right to run it in a way that fits their sensibilities and overall objectives. It's definitely a bonus when those people are extremely careful and thoughtful about their decisions and relatively transparent as well. As an occasional participant here, I don't believe that I even deserve that - though it's appreciated. The Mods and owners here are fundamentally more fair and patient than I would be if this were my board.

Although I didn't really get into the hands thing one way or another, I don't come around as much because to me the board has become dominated by a handful of posters for whom every argument and point returns to EG and how stupid he is. Virtually every decision or action the team takes just inexorably becomes typical Ernie, #sowizards, I hate Ernie but I don't hate this decision, I like this player but Ernie won't draft him, I love 2nd round picks but we can give them away because Ernie won't pick anyone good. And on and on - I find that flat and boring and a bigger problem for me than hands ever was.

[Earth2Ted]

I just find the final hands box score a little mind blowing-

31 thousand something posts lifetime.
8.37 posts daily, that's more than one every 3 hours round the clock 24/7/365 for more than a decade.
And he didn't have a lot of cheap one word "IBTL" posts either.

I have mixed feelings on the ban- but at least you can say he was given the opportunity to get more than a few words in edgewise.

And there were a lot of guys on here that showed all the patience in the world hearing him out.

Certainly more than I did- I never could read him for long enough to figure him out.

[barelyawake]

My feelings are:
A) There are very good mods here who allow more than most, which is good. Keep that I said that in mind. Freedom of speech is good.
B) This board does get rather cliquish sometimes. Hands was right a few times when he was the only one saying so. Those types of voices are needed.
C) Hands did post too much. But, that makes his banning even sadder because obviously he was a fan.
D) It's a sport website. A manly sport. And you have to complain to mods over hands? I get PIF, but hands? That was a joke btw. The guy was as harmless as they come. I really worry about a culture where everyone has to edit themselves constantly. And I say that now worrying that what I just wrote, which is in no way offensive, now lines me up as the next on the chopping block. That's the environment you want to create? Something to think about. And I have no dog in this fight.

[BigA]

.

As has been noticed, hands has been banned. He was banned because his posting style had become a board detriment and it was costing our community some highly-valued users (who PMed on their way out that the board with hands was the reason they were leaving). This should not have come as a bolt out of the sky as he had already been banned from posting on the General Board by the GB mods a month or two ago.
<snip>
Separately, we'd like board input about how we can best move discussions about the Skins, Caps, Nats, and Os onto their boards. If we start a thread for those teams here on the Wiz board, those threads are engaging and populated with lots of regulars. But we have not figured out how to get you (and new users) to move discussions off of this board and onto the other boards. If you have any thoughts, please post them here.

For those who have only joined in the last few years, you should know that at one time, this board was the best of all RealGM. Best as defined as busiest, most interesting -- hey, we *invented* the terms "amazingly sucky" (Juan Dixon), "is suck" (diderotn). Since our halcyon days, we've been bleeding users -- in part, but not totally -- because in our strong desire to mod lightly, we've valued not banning people over the quality of this board. The hands ban serves as an announcement in word and deed that those days are over.

This is a cool place in which to chat Wizards, politics, or whatever. You make it so. We hope that you'll continue to contribute to this community and, as the Wizards continue to be successful on the court, that we can take this board to new heights.

Thanks a lot,

Pine

Thanks for the explanation. I don't post much but read the board most days. It still has a solid critical mass of intelligent, knowledgeable posters. I've participated in other MBs that have declined when those sorts of people check out. And I also appreciate what you and the other mods do and that you try to go lightly.

I've never had anyone on ignore, but I pretty much scrolled through hand11's posts without reading them. Once in awhile he would make a good point, but you could see the gist of those posts when someone else responded to him. The "I've been telling you this for years and have been proved right" shtick amidst walls of text was tiresome, but not really annoying to me.

On your other issue, the Wizards are the only DC team I'm a fan of, so I'm not going to be much help with that.

[gambitx777]

I had no personal issue with hands. He would often message me encouraging messages about my posts and ideas. But me not having issues with him might come from me being a very rubber like person. As in things just bounce off of me and I don'e take many things to heart, especially on the internet. But I understand and agree with his ban, if someone is hurting the board as a whole then they need to go. I visit other teams boards from time to time and they are dead lands sometimes and no where near as active as this place we all call home. I came here after leaving another known board which was pretty much the wild west and troll city and I was welcomed with mostly open arms and most of every one here is great, knowledgeable, and even though some of us don't agree most of the time, I consider most of the frequent posters here friends if not family. I love this place and consider it my home away from home on the internet and I would never want it to die off like some of the other team boards. So, overall I agree with what the mods did because they have the best interest of the board at heart.

But, I would like to add my 2 cents in about the over all leniency changes that were talked about in the original post by pine. If you don't want to hear my 2 cents on the matter I'll put spoilers tags around them and you don't have to read them!

Spoiler:

I agree with the overall notion of a stronger policy to bring more stability and comfort to the board in an effort to bring posters back home. I don't want it to go to far though and I fell like caution needs to be used. I feel like it will be, I trust the mods here! If someone is generally hurting the community then it needs taken care of. But, if someone posts something that someone else does not agree with, and they report it, do to them personally not liking it or the poster. I would hate for someone to get banned or punished do to something like that. That's not what happened with hands, he was causing much bigger issues, and his ban seems to be justified. I have no problems with this and support the mods decision. I'm just adding in my 2 cents here and that boils down to this. I feel like those of use who are slightly more crude, a little less sensitive, a bit more ope and a tad more opinionated, should be protect if we are not causing overall harm to the board as a whole. Like I said I trust the mods and feel like they will do this, I just felt compelled to share my opinions on the matter. So feel free to ignore this second paragraph if you want!