Fantasy Sports Arena 2015 Feedback thread **Mod warning post 121**

Copper_pipe wrote: »

Would a Viber/ WhatsApp group or maybe a Group email be a bit of an overkill for the team news?

CSF wrote: »

Yeah probably

A lot of us are pure luddites

CSF wrote: »

The rankings thing is a touchy one, because I doubt I'm alone in that I would attach more weight to the opinions of someone who'd been in the top 5k 4 years in a row.

Of course you would, the same way you're going to trust the opinion of someone with a proven track record of success in any field over someone who you feel may be still learning the trade.

The problem creeps in when people start using it as a stick to beat people with on the forum. Ie. Why should I listen to you, you're 500000 in the world or 'who are you to have a go at me, I'm a regular top 10k finisher'. I did the latter once, apologised soon after, and really there should have been rules infracting me for doing so.

I agree that I'd attach more weight to certain posters but, to be honest, after posting here a while, you should be able to identify those posters yourself.

I do think a link to your team in your sig is a good idea. After all, earlier in the season I encountered one poster stating it was easy to finish in the top 10k when he never had. This poster also stated they finished in top 15k most seasons when questioned about this but again never had.

CSF wrote: »

Had to google that:D

As did I. However Im definetly a Luddite.

iroced wrote: »

Very good summary Nody :cool:.
Since I haven't posted yet in here I'll start by commenting on each of these points. And add whatever I can think of afterwards...

1. FAQ is a good idea. Newcomers will have no excuse for asking basic questions (which can "pollute" threads). FAQ could consist of:

1. a link towards the game rules official page specifying that both "Frequently Asked Questions" & "Rules" tab shall be consulted. 99% of the answers you'd be seeking are there. It just requires a little effort and time.
   
   
2. a few FSA "nicestness" about popular misunderstandings of the official rules e.g. any saved transfer will be lost if you play your WC ; you can activate your WC anytime during the GW you chose to play it and yes it will wipe out all your previous, present and future transfers in this given GW ; the transparency of the current Bonus Points system could be addressed here too by posting the full detail of how it is calculated...
   
   
3. a few season updates on how the game is working/changing e.g. the price change system this year which doesn't include WC transfers anymore.
   
   
4. a few links to popular FPL related sites. I think this thread did/does exist but is probably buried in the umpteenth page so it may be wiser to include it in the overall FAQ sticky...
   It could be organised by category like price change predictions sites (FFF, FPLS, fiso, totalfpl), general info site (FFS, FFCheat...), FPL stats sites (FPL Discovery, FFF, FPL Statistico tool), useful twitters (Ben Dinnery FFS twitter, FPL official twitter...) etc...

2. Since FPL occupies 99% of discussions here, sub-forums for the other Fantasy related games would give a better visibility to them. FSA was created to gather most fantasy-related games so giving the non-FPL games more visibility sounds fair. I generally play some Fantasy Rugby and it's true that it can be a pain to scroll down the 1st page or have to go to the 2nd one of the FSA to find it...

I'm not sure the tags system would work here. We'd end up with the same amount of FPL related threads and the [FPL] tag will not make it that much easier to find the [6N] or [Autumn Tests] threads.
This leads me to 3.

3. This point is closely linked with 2. I think one of these solutions should be applied. If it's decided sub-forums are the way to go, I don't see it necessary to regroup the weekly threads into superthreads. Since we'd have a fully FPL-dedicated forum, the already existing superthreads would continue to be fed on a daily basis and the weekly ones will slowly make their way to the second page and beyond. A few threads (e.g. GK selection, Christmas preparation...) will continue to "suffer" from it and could be relegated to the second page but I don't see it as a major issue. Maybe to sort that out and avoid the creation/use of threads serving similar purposes, a sticky could be added (and updated from time to time by the mod) with a list of the long term active threads and what they are about if it's not obvious. That should prevent us from creating similar threads a few months apart and lead us to (better) post and discuss our matter in the most appropriate thread.

And If we don't go for sub-forums, superthreads could be created. I have to be honest and say that I'd largely prefer the first option. The GWs-dedicated threads work fine as they are IMO and if we could regroup the Transfers and Matchday ones we can not do it for the captain poll. I know it's a very minor detail but it is sometimes interesting to go back to the weekly threads from the previous seasons. Superthreads would impede that.

4. Ok with the solution here. Having our FPL ID in our sig may be interesting though as long as any point is argumented, rankings is absolutely irrelevant to the debate.

5. OK with the solution here. Same issue than the "lol at xxx owners" which was well dealt with by Futureguy earlier on in the season.

6. Not sure I get this one. If it is to be edited within 24h what's the point? We can get this info easily and early enough from a few twitter accounts and from the BBC website.
In principle that'd be a nice little info at the start of the Matchday thread but in practice a nightmare to apply wouldn't it? The OP and/or the mods would be slaves to the team line-up official announcements ...

7. I have no pb with that. I don't think we ever had abusively early opened threads. The one from this GW is a genuine mistake from the OP. Nothing wrong about it. I understand that GW transfers threads are opened very early (I mean between the 12:45 Sat game and the Monday night one, so many games have to be played that you can change your mind 10 times about iyour transfers) but in the meantime price change can force your hand to move on a player as soon as Saturday eve and it's natural that FSA allows you to discuss it in the appropriate thread.

Hi folks,not had enough time to date to put a few thoughts together for this excellent thread, so sorry for being somewhat late to the party. Doing it now to save half a day lost when I get back to work tomorrow!

I'm quoting Iroceds response to Nody as a I agree with most of what he says.

Agree fully on 1 and 2, as well as 4 & 5 where Iroced has nailed it above I think, particularly regarding the proposed sticky and what to put in it. Having the sticky won't stamp out lazy posts, but at least will allow mods to give people a gentle nudge towards that sticky without having to come down hard, unless a poster is repeatedly asking lazy questions.

I also agree with something MrP said to about avoiding a proliferation of stickies. I think the recent warning from Futureguy this season could be removed now and a version incorporated into an updated Charter, then the FAQ Sticky and the Paid Sites Warning (could this be merged into the charter and highlighted therein too at this stage? I dunno) would be the only stickies.

Regarding no 6, this is not an issue IMO, accessing team lineups in the matchday thread is easily done really. You're generally scrolling through the thread from where you last read it anyway, and you come across them. Plus. I am also a Luddite, but even I gave in (as I said on the other thread) and joined twitter this week. You don't need to follow every club twitter (although I'm doing this for now to see how it goes), follow Ben Dinnery and favourite him and he retweets the lineups from the clubs and you'll get them notified to you directly minutes after they come out. Many FPL dedicated websites' twitters do the same I think. If you have fotmob you can get them. There are many many ways to get the lineups within minutes to make this a non issue as regards this forum. I'd remove it from the list to be honest.

I also think 7 is a bit of a non issue personally. I don't care when transfers or match day threads are opened, but it is deemed a significant problem by others I have no issue with the proposed solution either.

Which brings me to 3 where I have a slightly different opinion to my French colleague. I do think higher number of threads is, let's say, somewhat messy. There are a lot of weekly threads, and general super threads and it's hard to know, even when you're posting here for a while, what to put where.

Questions like "which 2 defenders from these three do I play this week" for example....is that "rating my team" or "general FPL"? It's not really "GWwhatever transfers", although that's where it most often gets posted. It's probably appropriate for the Matchday thread,but that's not open yet cause it's only Thursday.

Or for another example, I read that Hazard is doubtful for Chelsea's next game. That can end up being posted in the weekly transfers thread more often than not. Partly because the dedicated "injuries thread" is now on page 2.

What I'd tentatively suggest is a multifunction GW super thread which could be dedicated to anything relating to people's teams for that particular Gameweek including Matchday updates. It would replace the GW Transfers and Matchday threads, and could also pull in stuff regarding team selections, team news relating to that week including more contemporary injury/suspensions relating to that week (as opposed to more longer term stuff such as "latest is Aguero out for 6 weeks" or "Walcott back in training, may be back GW22" which is for the dedicated injuries thread).

I'd suggest the title of this thread should be standardised to indicate it's targeted content - e.g. GW24 Thread (team selection, transfers, team news, Matchday). The bracketed part could be added by a mod if not done by the thread starter.

I would also think that the weekly captain poll is a different, more specific topic and should retain it's own thread and poll. It's very clear already what goes in it.

I realise this will only reduce the thread count by one thread per week, but I suppose my point is not necessarily about the quantity, but more about clarity of what information you will find where, and where is best to ask your question or post your nugget of news.

Also, the rate my team thread kind of crosses over a lot of the other threads. In particular at the minute people on wildcards are using this thread and the Jan Wildcard Thread for the same purpose, again down to lack of clarity. In my opinion the RMT Thread is mainly useful preseason when people are picking an entire team, and have a wide variety of strategies and players they are toying over. That the RMT Thread then hangs about all season only means it's not clear where to post transfer thoughts for your weekly FT, and new or non regular oysters won't have clarity (that word again!). For example you often see people playing their wildcard laying out their options on the General Thread or the weekly Transfers thread.
Proposed solution - have a 2014/15 Preseason RMT thread and lock it once the season starts. Have a 2014/15 Wildcarding RMT Thread which runs throughout the season for people on wildcard. A separate Jan Wildcard thread (as we currently have) would do no harm as it would allow a dedicated discussion on Jan WC strategy as well. Lock it from Feb onwards and let it fade away though.

Again this is more threads not less, but conjunction with the other suggestions above would IMO lead to more clarity as to what to post where, and the threads I'm suggesting replace each other as the year progresses. This clarity would also I'd imagine be helpful to mods, as if something turns up where is shouldn't (e.g. Wildcard RMT post on general thread) then it's easy to just move it to where it should go.

I think the proliferation of on forum league threads are harmless, newbies won't be long realising what they are about. You easily enough just ignore the ones not relevant to you. I think overall the main core threads could be:

• GW Superthread as above.
• GW Captain poll
• RMT thread for Wildcarders
• General Thread for non specific FPL related news and views.
• Injuries and suspensions thread for longer shelf life news (as opposed to stuff just related to the current GW)
• Cups/European comps thread.

Other topics such as "replacing Aguero" or "Costa conundrum" will come and go naturally, as will general questions like "high point of your season" etc.

That's my super post done. Just to add that there is nothing fundamentally wrong here, modding is excellent, messing and arguing almost non existent. I don't do Internet forums for a long long time but have nearly 3,500 posts here in a year and a half, which says it all.

The above thoughts are more about me liking order and efficiency, and think they would help make posting here more intuitive for all.

Missed Nody's post earlier and the responses.

Agree with FHFC and his post.
But I would have a serious problem with having a link to our FPL team in our sig. It'd be compulsory I assume?

I'm actually not that familiar with the sig.
I'm a sig Luddite

Wouldn't this mean that our FPL link is also included in posts on other forums?
I'm not in favour of anyone haven't such ease in finding out my real name tbh.
I don't mind regulars here seeing it. I've nothing to hide either But it's a bit much having my real name available so easily anytime I post.

Most forum regulars are involved in the forum leagues. We can all do our own research. We all have a fair idea of people's history. We also post our weekly rankings. There's plenty of info there already.

There's a lot of talk about lazy posters. The last time the ranking question came up was from a guy that pops in here occasionally, he wouldn't need to ask if he was putting in the same time / effort as ourselves.

Putting a quick link for any passer by to see our full identity is something that's overkill imo and I would actually switch to a lurker rather than doing that.

I'm not sure it has been thought through either... Would it not be an absolute nightmare to manage / moderate?
Would an access request type sub forum be needed to ensure that new posters have their sig set up in advance of posting....

The suggestion re team ID's in SIG's was not that it be mandatory. Also there's no need to put in a link just the number. See my SIG as an example, to non FSA users it wouldn't mean anything.

As I said in my post id be very much against any form of using past or current performance to invalidate or belittle an opinion and posts that do should be reported and moderated strictly

Rikand wrote: »

I think temp-ban, rather than a perma-ban for a first offense at least.

I'd disagree. Anyone who does that is a hindrance to the forum.

Mr.Prodston wrote: »

He actually reminded me of something that crossed my mind months ago about the transfers thread. It's basically the buildup to the following Gameweek thread yet it's almost restricted to transfers. I still like the separation of build up and match day, even just for that freshness on a Saturday morning but I think we could look at the transfer thread as becoming more than just transfer related. Even just the change in title could free up the thread and might reduce some of the other threads that crop up. It should still be free to open from 11:31 on Saturdays for posters to use as a sounding board discussion if they so wish.

Captains poll would stay separate as that works greatl. I think all captaincy polls should have the option to see who posters have actually voted for. It mostly is but some weeks it's not. Not that you can really enforce that just thinking out loud with that. We have to operate within boards infrastructure levels anyway but that's a great weekly tool.

Once again I agree with PARlance who echoed what I said earlier about team IDs becoming visible. It's not viable and will only deter people from posting, myself potentially included. I spout on enough as it is so people know not to listen to me

KevIRL wrote: »

The suggestion re team ID's in SIG's was not that it be mandatory. Also there's no need to put in a link just the number. See my SIG as an example, to non FSA users it wouldn't mean anything.

As I said in my post id be very much against any form of using past or current performance to invalidate or belittle an opinion and posts that do should be reported and moderated strictly

Regarding the Gameweek Thread, yeah, there is no reason why there could not be a separate Matchday thread as Mr P suggests, the main thrust of what I was thinking was how the Transfers thread is/should be more than a transfers thread. However I was looking at a single thread as a move towards somewhat reducing thread clutter, and also I think the 'Gameweek Buildup' thread will naturally merge into the Matchday stuff as we go on to Friday evening. People having decided their transfers, "here's how I line up for tomorrow" etc won't have to wait till the Matchday thread is set up.

Plus another bonus I hadn't been thinking about - it removes, or at least somewhat diffuses, the issue about when threads are started. A general gameweek thread can be started at 11.30 on Matchday as Mr P said. As its not a Transfers thread people won't be giving out that its too early to start planning transfers. And the matchday buildup posts can be posted at 12.30am on Friday night without annoying people too!

Regarding the Team ID thing, I didn't really refer to it earlier as again its not something thats an issue for me. I added mine to my sig as was being suggested, but thats because I dont post anywhere else on Boards. I totally see the lads points. Kevs suggestion of just ID number is a safer way if people want to do it.

But I don't think its something which can be enforced or even recommended really. Its liable to cause more of the unwanted type of references to peoples rank/history rather than to inform posters in a 'nice' way as to peoples history or pedigree in the game. Personally I'd avoid it the more I think about it. If people want to be selective about whose advice or views they hold in highest esteem I say make them do the work of getting to know the posters by participating in the forum. Lets not give them a shortcut to rankings/history to allow them to 'rate' a poster they haven't 'got to know' over time, and which can easily lead to snooty type comments if there are differences of opinion.

I've been knocking about here for a year and a half and I by now know from interacting with people whose opinions I might be influenced by, while in other cases seeing a certain posters name as last poster means I'm clicking into the thread not expecting any mindblowing advice . That's not from seeing their season history or current ranking, its from seeing over time whose views I tend to agree with and whose I don't. That changes constantly too as sometime I am proved wrong as people who I didn't heed are proved right.

Rikand wrote: »

I think temp-ban, rather than a perma-ban for a first offense at least.

If it's a first time offence a warning should be enough. After that ban away.

Lucas Hood wrote: »

If it's a first time offence a warning should be enough. After that ban away.

Whatever about temp bans, a warning is way too lenient for that offence.

Lucas Hood wrote: »

In your opinion.

Of course, in my opinion it is the worst offence one could commit on the forum. It isn't really a forum where personal abuse is very common, almost unheard of. This is the biggie.

iroced wrote: »

These 2 posts sum it up perfectly. In French the full term is "forum de discussions" (no translation needed ). So if you don't want to discuss (or at least read the discussions) just go some place else to find your info.

Just one thing about the sig. I thought it would be seen at the bottom of each of your post . FHFC mentioned he added his but I can't see anything. Have I disabled it by mistake?

---

Finally I'd be on PARlance opinion regarding bans towards the Austin-jurisprudence. Permanent ban for a single offence sounds too hard to me. But it should be made clear that a second similar offence won't be tolerated and if so a permanent ban will be issued.

You can't see the sigs on mobile site. But also there is a setting in your profile somewhere to display sigs which was set to 'no' as default for me. I only changed it relatively recently.

Swiper the fox wrote: »

This may not be the correct place to past this and it could well be a waste of time anyway but is there any chance of reviewing bans after a suitable time, perhaps a season. I'm thinking of one poster in particular who was an asset to this site and still occupies a place in the FSA league etc.

+1

Swiper the fox wrote: »

This may not be the correct place to past this and it could well be a waste of time anyway but is there any chance of reviewing bans after a suitable time, perhaps a season. I'm thinking of one poster in particular who was an asset to this site and still occupies a place in the FSA league etc.

Any progress there would have to happen by the end of July for him to be able to take his place next year.

As far as I know, the ban was dished out by an admin rather than the mods of this forum so in terms of this feedback thread, its probably out of their hands.