A Discussion of the Rules (July 14th 2008)

Mr Magnolia

IrishMike wrote: »

Just doesnt make sense to me when only some threads are closed

That's a different matter altogether. I don't know why some are closed and some aren't. Perhaps it's to do with soccer being seasonal - makes it easier to draw the line. Probably a discussion for another thread though

leninbenjamin

5starpool wrote: »

Well apart from the monster thread in BGRH, the poker forum has one 27k post thread with 720k views. If these threads were causing harm surely threads like these would be requested to be closed and restarted etc?

the thread you are referring to is three years old. 10k posts in a year isn't much, compared to the superthreads. The previous generation of United and Pool threads averaged about 2k posts and over 50k views in a month in the close season!

IrishMike wrote: »

May i ask how?
You are only displaying 15 or 30 posts depending on your settings.
You are not displaying the entire thread repeatedly.
It should have the exact same server load as if you were viewing any other 30
posts in another thread.

twould be more to do with the MySQL server i'd imagine. this is one for CuLT anyway, not the mods.

Necronomicon

I don't understand why there are so many complaints about match discussion in team threads. It was frustrating going into a superthread on a saturday evening and having to trawl back through pages of running commentary to find the last place where something was discussed.

Nalz

Necronomicon wrote: »

I don't understand why there are so many complaints about match discussion in team threads. It was frustrating going into a superthread on a saturday evening and having to trawl back through pages of running commentary to find the last place where something was discussed.

I agree. I also love the way warnings were given out and then the points were noted when others explained them. This is major overkill as elRabitos metioned earlier. I suggest in future that these new rules should be described better with more detail and more defined...and less of the dictatorship tone.

5starpool

leninbenjamin wrote: »

the thread you are referring to is three years old. 10k posts in a year isn't much, compared to the superthreads. The previous generation of United and Pool threads averaged about 2k posts and over 50k views in a month in the close season!

The arguments here are for thread size/number of views, not per month. It still gets ~20k views per month, not insignificant either, and more I would imagine than all but the Liverpool/Man U threads.

leninbenjamin wrote: »

twould be more to do with the MySQL server i'd imagine. this is one for CuLT anyway, not the mods.

Seems like the mods just decided though in this case, unless of course they got a PM about the matter advising them which I would find a little odd.

IrishMike

leninbenjamin wrote: »

twould be more to do with the MySQL server i'd imagine. this is one for CuLT anyway, not the mods.

No its a question for the mods who decided on these new rules.
They make no sense if its not a serious server load issue which i doubt that it is.

Necronomicon

Trilla wrote:

I agree. I also love the way warnings were given out and then the points were noted when others explained them. This is major overkill as elRabitos metioned earlier. I suggest in future that these new rules should be described better with more detail and more defined...and less of the dictatorship tone.

Sorry, I think I may not have been clear in my post. I meant I don't understand why there are complaints about no longer being able to talk about matches in team threads. I think it diluted the old superthreads and made them less interesting to read.

_blank_

Some mod input would be nice, tbh.

IrishMike

Des wrote: »

Some mod input would be nice, tbh.

True, Xavi explain the rules to me please

Hobart

Necronomicon wrote: »

Sorry, I think I may not have been clear in my post. I meant I don't understand why there are complaints about no longer being able to talk about matches in team threads. I think it diluted the old superthreads and made them less interesting to read.

It's more a question of how it works. Talking about a players form would, in most cases, require some reference to a game. Talking about the teams formation past present or future, would lead to discussion and reference to a game. Talking about a result and how it's leaves us in the league, would require reference to a game. Talking about the CL group, would require reference to games. When is a game deemed not to have started?

For example, if I talk about Liverpool's need to sign a striker and bed him him because of the tough start to the season, am I talking about the matches? If a poster retorts that in his opinion games against spurs, west brom and middlesborough are not that tough, are we talking about matches? And if we are not, when does that discussion begin?

leninbenjamin

5starpool wrote: »

Seems like the mods just decided though in this case, unless of course they got a PM about the matter advising them which I would find a little odd.

eh... where do you get that out of? the poster formerly known as PSI who's new name i can't spell has already said in this thread that it was at the request of CuLT.

GuanYin wrote: »

Incidently, Cult has suggested that more regular renewal of the super threads will help with server load issues. For this reason, the threads will be restarted at certain points (we're either going to go with quaterly or a posting threshhold depending on admin advice).

can people maybe read up on the changes before they start putting a sledgehamer to them? it would be nice if people paid attention...

IrishMike wrote: »

No its a question for the mods who decided on these new rules.
They make no sense if its not a serious server load issue which i doubt that it is.

see above. the poster formerly known as PSI who's new name I can't spell has already given her reasons. this is one for the admins.

Villain

The rules were edited very slightly last night by GuanYin, My reading is now that:

You can't discuss match incidents i.e. fouls, peno red cards etc that could lead to a one sided debate but you can discuss tatics, subs player performances etc in superthreads

Necronomicon

Hobart wrote: »

It's more a question of how it works. Talking about a players form would, in most cases, require some reference to a game. Talking about the teams formation past present or future, would lead to discussion and reference to a game. Talking about a result and how it's leaves us in the league, would require reference to a game. Talking about the CL group, would require reference to games. When is a game deemed not to have started?

For example, if I talk about Liverpool's need to sign a striker and bed him him because of the tough start to the season, am I talking about the matches? If a poster retorts that in his opinion games against spurs, west brom and middlesborough are not that tough, are we talking about matches? And if we are not, when does that discussion begin?

Well my reading, although I'm open to correction, is that we can't post running commentary on an on-going game. That's what I'm in favour of. I agree, if we were banned from referencing past games and players' performances it'd be a little overkill....can anyone clarify this?

Hobart

Necronomicon wrote: »

Well my reading, although I'm open to correction, is that we can't post running commentary on an on-going game. That's what I'm in favour of. I agree, if we were banned from referencing past games and players' performances it'd be a little overkill....can anyone clarify this?

My reading is "1. NO MATCH DISCUSSIONS". I presumed that meant no discussion on matches.

As for running commentary, I actually dislike the "stunning goal there by xyz" type stuff that crops up, but not to the point where it interferes with my reading of the thread. I also think the discussion of match incidents goes beyond the life of a game (example Rio hitting that woman after a game last season) and do merit discussion on the various team threads.

Another grey area seems to be the idea of "transfer" threads. For example you have a Barry transfer thread alive and well in the forum, while on the Manu thread the Berb saga is taking up 90% of the first 20 posts .

jank

Good move imo. The superthreads were being a bit of a joke.

Villain

The Rules now state : "NO MATCH INCIDENT DISCUSSION WILL BE TOLERATED IN SUPERTHREADS."

PHB

First off, nearly everything in here was suggested by the users, either in the forums threads or the discussion of rules threads. This hasn't been just made up by the mods.

Look lads, every single rule that ever existed has gray areas. Get over it. The point is a general one.

For the discussion of matches, you should post in match threads.
For general transfer talk, mostly pre-season, you should post in the general threads.
For specific issues, like say, should Carrick be dropped, you can start a new thread?

The main complaint in the entire thread about why there should be sub-forums is that currently the superthreads have become so big that they are to an extent, very difficult to read.
The superthreads have evolved in a way that they were not intended to do. They were meant to mean we would not have 'Eto, Ronaldinho and Henry are all linked to City' threads constantly. They however became more and more common, but with them has lots of difficulties. Aside from the fact that within about 10 minutes of a match, you can easily have 5 pages of posts!!!

Locating everything in one thread is just silly, and theres no real compelling reason for it
The soccer forum is one of the most busy forums on boards, but its all discussion located within one thread.

And with that, it has problems, primarily the bitching that is constant, and I mean constant, between fans who post in the thread and people who feel like other fans shouldn't post in 'their' thread.

Or the problems with the same topics getting brought up again and again, and again and again. And when they do, the thread gets completely derailed for significant periods. On issues such as how much money Rafa has spent, etc.

And its not at all surprising. People feel now if they started a thread, Rafa is poor in the transfer market, I guarantee you 10 people would post bitching about it going into the superthread. If you posted it in the superthread, then people in the superthread would bitch about an issue clogging up the main thread and the person being a troll.

At the same time, we locate discussion about matches in a multitude of places. If United are playing Villa, you normally have 3 discussions going on about the match, one in the United thread, one in the Liverpool thread, one in the general thread. Then if somebody from the United thread sees something said in the Villa thread that they disagree with, the other person calls them a troll for posting in the Villa thread, and you just have this constant bitching.

People were told to stop calling people trolls, stop telling people to leave threads, but that wasn't working, because there is still this mindset.

All this is bad for discussion, and most of it is at the roots of the complaints people have over the superthreads.

---

So the new structure gets around a lot of these issues.

A thread for each match/group of matches. Liverpool vs. whoever is pretty much going to be a thread every single week. In there you can discuss the tactics for the game, etc. I'd imagine there will be a United thread every week aswell, maybe a Arsenal/Villa one too?

Everything else can then go into the general thread.

A thread for big long transfer sagas, especially between two big teams, ala Villa and Liverpool. People in the Liverpool thread are bored to death of talking about Barry, yet new people come constantly and then the thread gets de-railed for a couple of pages.
This would solve that problem. Which ones go to a big thread? We'll see. I'd say the is summer Ronaldo to Madrid and Barry to Liverpool would be dead certs. Can't really see too many other examples, maybe Flamini staying or going earlier in the season.

A thread for specific issues. How much money has Rafa spent? Should Carrick be dropped? Can Spurs challenge for 4th? This will take a lot of the sidetrack discussion from the superthread, stuff that people are so resentful about. If you've read this forum for a while, you don't want to have the debate about money. Everything that has been said has been said. If people want to debate it again, let them, but take it out of the superthread.

All this leaves the superthreads. They serve the general purpose: to discuss the transfer targets of a team and where it is going. It means we don't have a billlion summer transfer threads every summer. It keeps a flow and builds up a core of posters. It means if you have a general comment, ala, you think that Young has been playing well lately, you can pop that in. It's a general thread to cover everything.

All the points brought up are basically saying, but there are greys areas, and a superthread does solve that, because well it covers everything. But that problem is a secondary problem! The other problems are much more important. Yes you are obviously going to talk about a match in a general chat about how somebody is doing or something, that's not the problem and to be honest, those objections seem ludicrously pedantic.

The point about the admins one has been confused. The admins suggestion is not the reason we are making the structural changes. We are making them for all the reasons above. The admins point is that the superthreads are bad on the server. How? I've no ****ing idea, and neither do you. It's just something the admins mentioned to us. As such, we're going to lock the superthreads when they reach a certain size so that they don't get too big. That's the admin point, and its secondary to the big discussion.

mike65

Mike.

IrishMike

Your writing blows mick

mike65

Not even a doctor!

Mike.

Villain

The thing is I think now that its been changed to incidents nothing much will change, match disucssion in match threads, major transfers get a thread of their own everything else that isn't major stays in the Super Threads

5starpool

leninbenjamin wrote: »

eh... where do you get that out of? the poster formerly known as PSI who's new name i can't spell has already said in this thread that it was at the request of CuLT.

I had missed this. Perhaps they consulted CuLT about this before, but I still find it odd that it is not a general boards directive if it has much of an impact.

--amadeus--

Ok, as I said, in principal these should all be good moves. But maybe we need a clearer definition of what a "superthread" actually is. The general run of teh mill thread is created to discuss a particular point / idea / argument. Do players earn too much, is Barry moving to LFC, Should Trap monitor teh EL, etc. Very simple and easy to understand. Matchday threads equally so - they cover a specific match.

But what does a "superthread" do?

Could I (risk backseat modding and an infarction!) and suggest:

Superthreads are a form of team clubhouse. They exist to discuss matches, transfers, incidents, news and rumours from the perspective of a given team. They are open to all but posters should be aware of and resptectful of the thread atmosphere. Any generic conversations on general football or non club specific incidents should be outside the superthread and on the main board

So if a Utd fan wants to make a specific point about Ronaldos potential transfer and how it impacts Utd and thier plans (eg the manager won't get the money because of the debt) then it's into teh Utd "clubhouse" as it's pretty team specific. The discussion is then mostly among Utd fans and those with an interest in the team. If though the poster wants a more general discussion with other fans and with reference to wider issues (LFC being in debt, Arsenal not or whatever) then it's a new thread.

leninbenjamin

--amadeus-- wrote: »

Superthreads are a form of team clubhouse. They exist to discuss matches, transfers, incidents, news and rumours from the perspective of a given team. They are open to all but posters should be aware of and resptectful of the thread atmosphere. Any generic conversations on general football or non club specific incidents should be outside the superthread and on the main board
...

The discussion is then mostly among Utd fans and those with an interest in the team.

I strongly disagree. no area of the forum should be the bastion of any particular fans. if I want to be critical of United I should be allowed to, I shouldn't have to second guess my posts to cater for certain groups sensitive dispositions, as i find i'm increasingly required to on this forum. there are plenty of fan fora on the net to cater for such.

the superthreads are a collection of discussions that all have a common theme, that would otherwise clutter the forum if given their own thread. simple.

Hobart

PHB wrote: »

Look lads, every single rule that ever existed has gray areas. Get over it. The point is a general one.

I agree. I don't think it is anybodies intention (certainly not mine) to try and pick holes in the new structure. However, if new rules are going to be enforced, they need to be clear. Making them up as you go along will only lead to the thing that you are trying to avoid. For example, at the top of the new superthreads there is a rule, rule number 1 in fact, that clearly states 1. NO MATCH DISCUSSIONS
- Match threads will be created for matches/match weeks where required.
- Match discussion will be deleted. It would seem that this is not the case. Can I suggest, and I have have read the "new charter" that this new rule is explained fully at the top of the new thread(s) and corrected in ored to avoid confusion.

For the discussion of matches, you should post in match threads.

Again, and not picking holes in what you say, what (generally not exactly) do you mean by this? Is it the match coming up this weekend, next week, CL games? If I refer to a game coming up in 6 weeks, is that post likely to be moved to the "game" thread from the super thread when the game is upon us?

For general transfer talk, mostly pre-season, you should post in the general threads.

That seems pretty clear.

For specific issues, like say, should Carrick be dropped, you can start a new thread?

Again, pretty clear. It would also appear to me that a "general discussion" would also allow for the "carrick should be dropped" kinda comments and this rule may lead to a lot of duplication, but lets see how it pans out.

The main complaint in the entire thread about why there should be sub-forums is that currently the superthreads have become so big that they are to an extent, very difficult to read.

I don't really agree with this, and this is a personal perspective. From a super thread perspective (and there are normally only 3) a simple flick to (for example) 2 days ago would normally allow me to refresh on what the users are saying about their particular team. What I would find time consuming and distracting is, for example, to have to look at :

1) A superthread
2) 1 or 2 Prem Match thread(s)
3) A Transfer thread
4) An "incident" thread
5) A CL game thread

and all on 1 team, in order to get a feel for where the posters think there team is at in any one week. Multiply that by Manu, Liverpool, Chelsea and Arsenal and you get quite a lot of threads. But, again, that's just my perspective.

The superthreads have evolved in a way that they were not intended to do. They were meant to mean we would not have 'Eto, Ronaldinho and Henry are all linked to City' threads constantly. They however became more and more common, but with them has lots of difficulties. Aside from the fact that within about 10 minutes of a match, you can easily have 5 pages of posts!!!

I understand that the mods are trying to weed out the perceived distractive nature of superthreads, do you not think that 2-3-4 threads on the go at any one time on a team is even more distractive?

Locating everything in one thread is just silly, and theres no real compelling reason for it

But, it's not done that way, is it? We already have transfer threads. Every week we get "Prem Game" threads. When the big 4 are up against one another, we always get a (e.g.) Manu V Arse, thread.

And with that, it has problems, primarily the bitching that is constant, and I mean constant, between fans who post in the thread and people who feel like other fans shouldn't post in 'their' thread.

I, for one, don't see how this is going to address this issue. Do the mods think that the size of a thread is directly proportional to the amount of trolling that goes on in it? It doesn't make sense tbh.

Or the problems with the same topics getting brought up again and again, and again and again. And when they do, the thread gets completely derailed for significant periods. On issues such as how much money Rafa has spent, etc.

I agree. A simple move would be a lot less work, as the forum stand, than trying to police new rules.

And its not at all surprising. People feel now if they started a thread, Rafa is poor in the transfer market, I guarantee you 10 people would post bitching about it going into the superthread. If you posted it in the superthread, then people in the superthread would bitch about an issue clogging up the main thread and the person being a troll.

So my understanding of the new rules is that if people do as you have said above, you will warn and move or delete the posts?

At the same time, we locate discussion about matches in a multitude of places. If United are playing Villa, you normally have 3 discussions going on about the match, one in the United thread, one in the Liverpool thread, one in the general thread. Then if somebody from the United thread sees something said in the Villa thread that they disagree with, the other person calls them a troll for posting in the Villa thread, and you just have this constant bitching.

Again, if your motive for this action is to cut out the bitching, it will not work. Can you not see that all you are doing is moving that "bitching" from one area to another.

People were told to stop calling people trolls, stop telling people to leave threads, but that wasn't working, because there is still this mindset.

Well then ban or warn these people.

All this is bad for discussion, and most of it is at the roots of the complaints people have over the superthreads.

I have to say, and I'm not one for frequenting the reported posts forum, but I see no "huge" volumes on specific incidents in relation to the superthreads on the reported posts forum.

---

So the new structure gets around a lot of these issues.

A thread for each match/group of matches. Liverpool vs. whoever is pretty much going to be a thread every single week. In there you can discuss the tactics for the game, etc. I'd imagine there will be a United thread every week aswell, maybe a Arsenal/Villa one too?

Believe me, you will get a multitude of "start a new thread" type posts or reported posts in regard to people talking about games, transfers, incidents in different threads with the implentation of this.

Everything else can then go into the general thread.

Fair enough.

A thread for big long transfer sagas, especially between two big teams, ala Villa and Liverpool. People in the Liverpool thread are bored to death of talking about Barry, yet new people come constantly and then the thread gets de-railed for a couple of pages.
This would solve that problem. Which ones go to a big thread? We'll see. I'd say the is summer Ronaldo to Madrid and Barry to Liverpool would be dead certs. Can't really see too many other examples, maybe Flamini staying or going earlier in the season.

Where does a transfer become a saga? I noticed that there was no thread dealing with the ronaldo to madrid thing, and yet there is for Barry. How long before the Berb to Manu transfer becomes a saga? What happens then?

A thread for specific issues. How much money has Rafa spent? Should Carrick be dropped? Can Spurs challenge for 4th? This will take a lot of the sidetrack discussion from the superthread, stuff that people are so resentful about. If you've read this forum for a while, you don't want to have the debate about money. Everything that has been said has been said. If people want to debate it again, let them, but take it out of the superthread.

Again, that seems fair enough, but I don't really feel that one swallow makes a bj. A bad performance by Carrick in one game will get the most militant of anti-carrick onto his band wagon, are we going to have one of these after every game?

All this leaves the superthreads. They serve the general purpose: to discuss the transfer targets of a team and where it is going.

Again, too general. Barry is/was a transfer target. At what point did he cease to be? At what point did his transfer become a saga?

It means we don't have a billlion summer transfer threads every summer. It keeps a flow and builds up a core of posters. It means if you have a general comment, ala, you think that Young has been playing well lately, you can pop that in. It's a general thread to cover everything.

All the points brought up are basically saying, but there are greys areas, and a superthread does solve that, because well it covers everything. But that problem is a secondary problem! The other problems are much more important. Yes you are obviously going to talk about a match in a general chat about how somebody is doing or something, that's not the problem and to be honest, those objections seem ludicrously pedantic.

Again, your comment might seem fair from your perspective, but then again you would have discussed these with your fellow mods, and so they would be clear in your head as to what you are trying to achieve. If what you are saying and what other mods have said is contradictory, and questioning that is a form of pedantism , well then I apologise.

The point about the admins one has been confused. The admins suggestion is not the reason we are making the structural changes. We are making them for all the reasons above. The admins point is that the superthreads are bad on the server. How? I've no ****ing idea, and neither do you.

Actually, I do, but I'm just being pedantic there, as a qualified DBA of some 13+ years experience

Nalz

Hobart wrote: »

....

Actually, I do, but I'm just being pedantic there, as a qualified DBA of some 13+ years experience

An absolute fantastic post. I agree 100%

GuanYin

A few points.

I'm sorry the new rules come across as dictatorial. Most of you are used to my tone. I had heap loads of stuff to write yesterday for this update and an unbelievable amount of PMs and correspondence to keep up with from all you guys as I was doing it. All the while I was trying to get my work done. It all might have been a bit rushed.

On the other hand, there is/was a large deficit in common sense with the reactions I've seen so far. The MAJOR change is we've made the banning procedure less strict, we've given more notice to users and the event of a long/perm ban should be seen miles away by any user.

To think then than we're going to ban people for referencing a match in a thread seems a bit conflicting.

More than anything else, the rules have been left grey and fuzzy because we don't want to come in and be dictatorial.

The two most common complaints levied against the soccer mods by various users are

1. We're too strict.
2. We're not strict enough.

That is no joke.

In this case, we've set down guidelines, we're out of season so we're not quite sure how they will work in practice but we're holding off putting a mindset of rules into your head until we see how this all works in-season. One thing I can assure you, until we see the system working and unless someone is being an absolute jerk, noone is going to get banned over the superthreads. At worst, we'll ask you politely to post in a different thread. Oh noes!!!!!

Finally, Cult made the suggestion to us that we lock the superthreads more often. It is a common thing in many sites that have a long thread for discussion of spoilers or whatever. We have several of these threads running simultaneously. I can barely turn on my computer, so I won't begin to offer a reason for the superthread locking except to say two things.

1. Cult suggested it.
2. Why is it a big deal?

Nobody like change I understand, but as PHB said, most of this change was requested by you guys.

_blank_

GuanYin wrote: »

The slate is wiped clean on all previous ban records for all users.

w00t, I missed this earlier.

Second time this has happened to me :cool:

IrishMike

Des wrote: »

Second time this has happened to me :cool:

Thats because you have been online constantly since 1993

Nice work on the new charter, all we can do is give it a chance before we start
to whinge and moan constantly like always

Thanx 4 The Fish

IrishMike wrote: »

.... all we can do is give it a chance before we start
to whinge and moan constantly like always

QFT