On The State of ES and This Fanbase

[Art]

On 12/29/2019 at 5:39 PM, Lombardi's_kid_brother said:

 

A lot of people were upset when that judge ruled that Art had to be buried alive in Karl Swanson's mausoleum, but I thought it was a fair interpretation of the contract. I wonder how long his provisions lasted.

 

Oh, I'll be back in full....in five years when my baby is out of the house.   My kids make it quite impossible for me to enjoy anything BUT them.   I still visit in spurts though.

While I do understand the impulse to prevent a moron from posting, "Haskins sucks and is not the future of the team," in a thread by itself, I do think the mega threads are a hindrance to conversation and to people wanting to visit.   Let the moron post that in his own thread.   You'll know if it should be here or not by how active it is.   Meaning, if the posters have the self-control to leave it be, it's off the front page in five minutes and no one will see it.   If it stays up top it's an active, hot conversation that draws people back.   Obviously, I'm not around for how people post in this very bleak period of time so perhaps I'm still from the optimistic past where conversations of value would just keep rising and those no one cared about would go away.

But as a Twitch user and subscriber I will say this.   I watch a streamer who has to answer the same question 50 times in a stream.   The streamer just answers it each time as if it was the first.   Never gets annoyed.   Never points to a pinned message.   I kind of think a message board should be like that.   Even if 50 threads say the same thing, for the person starting it, he probably hadn't seen the other stuff and just wanted to see who wanted to have a conversation with him at that time about that thing.   So let it happen.    If I were still here more than 5 minutes a month I'd push harder for that, but will just leave that as my advice :).

 

<mod edit rule violating content>

[Lombardi's_kid_brother]

9 hours ago, Art said:

 

Oh, I'll be back in full....in five years when my baby is out of the house.   My kids make it quite impossible for me to enjoy anything BUT them.   

 

I want proof you know your child's name.

[Art]

6 minutes ago, Lombardi's_kid_brother said:

 

I want proof you know your child's name.

 

I think at least one of them starts with B.   Or something.

[RemoveSnyder]

For the record, I love megathreads.

[Tarhog]

Content-specific forums are dying brothers. It's just a fact. There are some exceptions - I belong to an amazing golf forum that is thriving, but I mean it's about golf, and there are a lot of people who will always love and be obsessed with golf. But the Redskins  That's a hard sell. When Om and Henry and Pete and I started our own board, it thrived for a long while. But the miseries that are being a Redskins fan, the overall decline in the popularity of the NFL in general, and the fact that forums no longer appeal when compared to megasites like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, has slowly eroded our membership and participation level.

 

Forums have always been super cool. I hope they survive. I hope ES survives.

 

<mod edit off-topic rule violation>

 

And not that anyone asked, never been a fan of sweeping related smaller threads into 'megathreads'. It sort of discourages folks from creating more nuanced conversations. Sure it's harder to manage a gazillion smaller threads, many of which could be posts. But that's kind of what you signed up for as a staff member. <mod edit off-topic rule violation>

 

Anyway, this thread caught my eye. Interesting discussion. 

[Art]

On 12/30/2019 at 12:54 PM, Tarhog said:

Content-specific forums are dying brothers. It's just a fact. There are some exceptions - I belong to an amazing golf forum that is thriving, but I mean it's about golf, and there are a lot of people who will always love and be obsessed with golf. But the Redskins  That's a hard sell. When Om and Henry and Pete and I started our own board, it thrived for a long while. But the miseries that are being a Redskins fan, the overall decline in the popularity of the NFL in general, and the fact that forums no longer appeal when compared to megasites like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, has slowly eroded our membership and participation level.

 

Forums have always been super cool. I hope they survive. I hope ES survives.

 

<mod edit>

 

And not that anyone asked, never been a fan of sweeping related smaller threads into 'megathreads'. It sort of discourages folks from creating more nuanced conversations. Sure it's harder to manage a gazillion smaller threads, many of which could be posts. But that's kind of what you signed up for as a staff member. <mod edit>

 

Anyway, this thread caught my eye. Interesting discussion. 

 

Good to see you brother.  <mod edit rule-violating content> 

[Tarhog]

Never crossed my mind - I know you're good people and always have.  Interesting about 'megathreads' - it occurs to me that it's sort of a form of 'Twitterization'. I love Twitter, but the format sort of encourages stream of consciousness posting, snark, and aggressiveness. I think folks tend to be gentler and more respectful when someone's taken the time to start a discussion than they are just responding to another individual post. And as for insults, you know me - overly sensitive

[Art]

3 minutes ago, Tarhog said:

Never crossed my mind - I know you're good people and always have.  Interesting about 'megathreads' - it occurs to me that it's sort of a form of 'Twitterization'. I love Twitter, but the format sort of encourages stream of consciousness posting, snark, and aggressiveness. I think folks tend to be gentler and more respectful when someone's taken the time to start a discussion than they are just responding to another individual post. And as for insults, you know me - overly sensitive

 

If Twitter encourages posting, snark and aggressiveness it's a wonder I haven't taken better to it :).   But you're right.   You build a bond with the "OP" in threads.   You refer to the OP.   The OP sets the path of the conversation and that gets lost in the mega threads.   But it is maybe just a sign of the times.

[Lombardi's_kid_brother]

37 minutes ago, Tarhog said:

When Om and Henry and Pete and I started our own board, it thrived for a long while. But the miseries that are being a Redskins fan, the overall decline in the popularity of the NFL in general, and the fact that forums no longer appeal when compared to megasites like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, has slowly eroded our membership and participation level.

 

 

 

You founded the Pickle Party!!

 

The forum that promised reasoned, nuance intelligent debate with Sarge and McD5.

 

That place was the best.

[Tarhog]

See - all you have to do is mention 'asshole' and one shows up. I love the internet. 

[Lombardi's_kid_brother]

Reason will prevail.

 

With NavyDave and tr1.

 

Come for the nuance. Stay for the rolling emojis.

[Est.1974]

On 12/28/2019 at 4:19 PM, ConnSKINS26 said:

 

Maybe for some it's gone, forever tainted. And that's understandable after all this time. But if Snyder does the right thing the right way this offseason, bringing in a GM/HC pairing hired on merit rather than selfish nepotism, that runs things from the top down on their own and begins to fix the culture around this team....just be patient and then watch this board flourish under that "real" football discussion again, the stuff people say has gone missing amongst all the deserved negativity. 

 

Well I would say today is a great indication as to what makes this place tick. I mean, the dynamics and appeal of message boards tend to follow the path of the subject matter.

 

Today is a very small yet significant 'tell' as to what we as ES members would feed off. We can only hope we get a few more crumbs to feast on.

[Jumbo]

20 hours ago, Art said:

Also, the moderating here is different.   Hell I have PERSONALLY been banned more here than I ever banned anyone while I was here :).   And I wrote the rules here, with Die Hard and Blade.   So I know I was fine posting as I did :).   Keep that in mind.    The ban hammer should be a LAST resort to repeated issues.   Not the first reaction to something.   Not ever. 

 

you banned plenty more than that, sometimes on very shaky premises in the views of other mods and many members...and you were not fine posting as you did today....consider keeping that in mind

 

i've written on these matters in more detail but won't post it here....i will say there's plenty of the current staff /membership that knows there's a lot of revisionist history and just plain old self-serving bull**** going on here between you and tarhog

 

but i'd suggest the most relevant thing here is you're not a mod or a staff member of any type

 

if you wish to post here you need to internalize that fact and follow the rules like every other member

 

 

Quote

 

Remember, I wrote the insult rules here.   Content matters.   I wrote the rule for myself, obviously, as I do not expect others to fully appreciate nuance.   You clearly seem to struggle, yeah?

 

 

 

 

um, yeah, no....speaking of struggling

 

approx 5 years ago, with input from the other mods at the time, i rewrote the rules to a significant degree using the originals as a base

 

you no longer know exactly what is intended in those rules since the rewrites were done to suit our specific intentions and are understood and applied that way by the current staff---we specifically discussed such distinctions from the past during the rewrites and later in implementing them as such over the years that followed---but you're not staff and this shouldn't concern you

 

and in your two previous bans you were told to read the rules just like everyone else....but here we are again

 

if you had, you'd have read one of the provisions of rule 18 is to give board management/moderator commentary in the feedback forum and not off-topic within a thread...and while part of the topic in this thread is "es", the op makes it clear as to what issues he's addressing and hadn't strayed into opionating on mod/management matters....he and everyone else was following the rules well enough and tk got a little into mod stuff with one poster's remark but he can do that, he's a mod...only you and tarhog were doing that stuff at length or in multiple posts/threads

 

anyhow, you're banned again for several rule violations-----5, 12, 18 re: more than one post in more than one thread

 

 

 

 

[Voice_of_Reason]

6 hours ago, Lombardi's_kid_brother said:

Reason will prevail

Specifically the voice of reason 

 

 

[The Sisko]

 

On 12/29/2019 at 4:40 PM, Lombardi's_kid_brother said:

 

FIrst of all membership has not increased. Membership has literally died off in a lot of cases.

 

Young fans - if they exist - don't join message boards. I mean, this site is the height of technology from 1999. Everyone is on Twitter or Reddit or InstaChat or other things that frighten and confuse me.

 

We're old. Our shut-ins that posted the news literally died. I think we sent flowers.

 

The posters who haven't died have found other ways to spend their time - babysitting grand kids, worrying about polyps in their colon, etc. Remember Zoony? I hear he's spent a lot of time trying to resolve his impotence problem. Aging is a ****, man.

I was going to say something along the same lines, albeit not nearly as humorously as you did.

 

i have observed exactly the scenarios you described - in my own life. In the last decade we’ve had two children, one in her 90’s and the other 14 and lost numerous family members, some as young as 24 to a host of things I don’t want to think about again. I’ve developed an addiction to fantasy football, even as my team died a slow death. On top of all that, I discovered social media and mobile online gaming. In the meantime, a lot of the familiar faces around here left, died, or were sent packing. 

 

The board is just changing due to a confluence of factors that nobody can control, many of which have to do with changing tastes, social realities and the ever changing mix of personalities.

 

Finally, I’m going to have to fall on the side of not liking the megathreads. While they’re a convenient way to keep the number of threads under control, when something happens, they can also bury folks’ comments under a barrage of posts. At least with more threads, the discussions are more granular and the folks that do see it may be more inclined to participate in the discussion if the don’t think their comments will immediately be snowed under. Maybe we could have the best of both worlds by creating a small number of additional sub-forums where more generalized discussions about certain topics could be had, e.g. Skins QBs.

 

Either way, you guys do a great job with the board and we do appreciate all the hard work that goes into it. 

 

 

[spjunkies]

Well this has turned into the most depressing thread of the year

[MartinC]

The mega thread topic is interesting. 
 

There is no prohibition on people starting threads. But I can see why less members do. 
 

From memory the whole thing started when the board was simply awash with RGIII and Cousins threads. It always (obviously) seems to be the QB position that sparks controversy. So we contained all that into a single thread. 
 

Around the same time, or maybe slightly later, there was the Twitter thread. Which was great but also became a black hole sucking all conversation and topics into it.

 

So we broke that up to try to encourage more diverse threads and conversations.

 

i mention that just to point out we have taken some steps away from mega threads when appropriate.

 

Ultimately this board is what we all make it. And that has and will continue to evolve. I personally spend as much time on Twitter as here - but I value the more in depth conversations I get into here.

 

As I type Rivera is confirmed as the new HC. Allen is gone along with the entire medical staff and a front office shake up is in progress. Go start some threads (or take part in existing ones 😉) on all this!! 

[Jumbo]

8 hours ago, spjunkies said:

Well this has turned into the most depressing thread of the year

 

 

aw, chin up buckwheat----soon the year will be over 

[Smurf3]

To ConnSkins26:

 

......" where people can show off their football knowledge in a constructive way and truly care about getting into the weeds about 5th string Linebackers ...."

and reference to deck chairs on the Titanic as opposed to the simple truth that the ship was poorly designed and just sank when the underlying structure failed.

If you want to collect deck chairs more power to you. Kind of like worrying about the paint scheme in a home's family room when the foundation of the house is crumbling and water is seeping into the basement. I have noticed on the baseball board on which I post that it seems there are several would be GMs who try to run the team from the board and go into minutiae about suggested trades and free agent acquisitions. They go on and on into deep analysis as if they were actually on the team's payroll.

My response is, Who cares about a 5th string linebacker unless they make a play to beat Dallas and who cares about deck chairs on the Titanic unless they were supposed to keep the ship in one piece?

Not a criticism, I just think there should be separate boards for basic fans (by the way, I can name a good chunk of the 1961 starting lineup....ever heard of Don Bossler?) and would be GMs and coaches who are trying to run the team.

That is all.