Pro Wrestling Forum - Feedback Thread & Discussion

Lord TSC

The mods of the Pro Wrestling forum have decided to try and open up a thread wherein we can have a discussion with the community about the direction things have gone in recent times. I know from private conversations (and some public ones) that a lot of users have felt there has been a shift in tone in more recent times, and the mods would like to try and address that shift, in the hopes of creating a more positive and friendly atmosphere for good faith discussions.

As such, we've opted to create a general feedback thread, to seek opinions about what's come before, and what can come in the future.

Before we begin, a few notes....

• The purpose of this thread is mainly to address the fact that a certain level of aggression and tribalism has been generating repeat problems over the last few years. The forum has gone from one where we, as mods, had one or two mod messages a year, to one where we're having to step in weekly into problems. It tends to be a very small number of problematic posters who constantly pop up in these issues too, and we're aware 95% of posters on here operate in good faith, looking for genuine discussions and conversations about the world of pro-wrestling. We are not trying to say people cannot criticize things, or have to engage in toxic positivity. Disagreements are normal in conversations and debates. But there are a few posters who are at best tribalistic to a problematic degree, at worst outright trolling because they want to wind people up. The latter is what we'd largely want to address. Its ok to like one thing and not like another. It is not ok to be on a mission to spoil the thing you don't like for others too, with never-ending moaning and attacks designed to make everyone miserable.

• Simultaneously as this thread goes up, three of our more problematic users are being issued with yellow cards for repeated low level trolling, and will receive two week bans as a result. The mod team feel that it's time to actually push forward with harsher attempts to curb **** behavior, and when it's the same few posters who are always involved in issues on the forum, it's worth attempting to remove those contributions temporarily in order to see if it can improve the obvious issues.

• We'd appreciate if this did not become witch hunts, in terms of users hurling aimed insults at specific posters. We want this to stay civil and be a general discussion aimed at improving the atmosphere of the forum. Not an attempt to crucify posters, or air out personal grievances. Likewise, it's not really the place to drag up, for example, a yellow card and a ban you got that DRP has already been dealt with at admin levels. Threads like this give openings to some levels of problematic posters to try and get some jabs in at people. This isn't a platform to attack individuals or Moderators. This isn't to turn into a witch hunt against people you don't like. This is your chance to tell us what we should or should not be doing for the betterment of the community.

From the mods point of view, we feel it's perhaps time to start being quicker and harsher in dishing out punishments to bad faith actors. We've largely not had to do that over the last decade, but it feels like some people are in need of such reactions. I have personally spent years now talking to some posters who continually double down on their uncivil posting styles, and get aggressive when asked to have a moment of introspection. I've always had anxiety about overstepping bounds as a mod, wanting to try and remain positive in interactions, not wanting to scare people off....but it's reached a point where I think some people have taken advantage of the soft touch moderation, which has caused the issues I've personally wanted to avoid over the years

So....yeah, as mods, we'd appreciate feedback on how to proceed with our little corner of the wrestling world, and how to create a better atmosphere. We want to encourage civil conversations and discussions, of what we like and what we don't, but in the process, we want to work harder to stop people posting in bad faith or with a tone that is meant to cause problems.

ThePott

This sounds like a good and reasonable step for something that isn't easy to resolve.

I've said in the past that the room for discussion and debate on here has really shrank over the last while. Some people don't want discourse, they just want point scoring for whatever brand, be it AEW or WWE. It's fine to have preference of course but it's when people have no objectivity, post biased sources or only pop into one thread to gloat or stir that it ruins what could be (and has been in the past) a promising outlet for discussing wrestling for Irish people.

I try and respond to people on here that I feel are being unreasonable or showing bias and it only ever gets ignored by the poster until they do it again or it puts me in a position where people assume I'm pro or anti something, when I'm really just trying to be fair. There's people that gang up on others, on both sides and it's kinda sad that I know there's people on here that won't ever engage with me because I've disagreed with them in the past, it ruins the purpose of a discussion board, when we can't discuss differences in opinion or taste.

To be clear, I don't want an echo chamber, who the hell does? Especially when there's so many of us who watch and enjoy both AEW and WWE. I just wish that people would be a bit more balanced when they post, instead of constantly trying to incite people. It's meant to be a discussion, disagreements are fine but when people refuse to engage or see someone else's perspective and just drop a post to get people mad and don't post again until they do the same thing a week later, it becomes exhausting.

I've said in the past, it has put me off posting in certain threads because I don't want people to think I'm being too positive or too negative about a certain promotion, person or whatever. I was away most of last week and coming back on a bit more yesterday and getting caught up on opinions, the toxicity and troll posts really shone through. I don't want to lose boards as an outlet to talk about wrestling. Most people in my social circle, aren't wrestling fans. Twitter is a cesspool, Facebook is too public, Reddit, what you say easily gets lost in the ether, lots of other discussion boards are either full of weirdos or w*nkers. Having a place to talk to Irish wrestling fans is cool, where else are you gonna talk about whether Croke Park could have a PPV or converse in Father Ted references?

Hopefully, we can try reset things and be more civil. Wrestling is in such an amazing place right now, regardless of what your tastes are. I wish we could celebrate that as fans instead of tearing into each other over trivial differences.

I promise that if people are nicer to each other, I'll write shorter posts too 🤣

Headshot

Thank you mods for creating the feedback thread.

I'm hoping with this feedback it will stop posters leaving.

My main concern there's obvious posters that bring only negatively to the wrestling forum. They bring nothing constructive to this forum and only take pleasure in winding up posters. It's all well in good banning them from a thread but they just move onto another thread to start trouble again.

That CM Punk was an eye opener for me on how bad it's gotten.

I just don't understand where this hate for certain wrestling promotions come from, it's so immature and something you'd see in the Soccer Forum.

How about introducing "Don't be a dick rule" it would give mods more power because as of now you know who's trolling but it's hard to nail them down without back firing.

The charter has been the same since 2010, it really needs a refresh to reflect changes in wrestling

Necro

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121976335#Comment_121976335

On the charter, that's a very good point and also my bad. When I got modded I discussed this with Lord TSC and BH and had planned to amend it and update. Then stuff happened in RL and I put it on the back burner and forgot about it unfortunately. But it's certainly something that we can fix in the near future.

The White Wolf

I think Headshot raises a good point, and I can admit I was guilty of getting a bit emotional over the Punk stuff. There's an element of tribalism alright, but as also pointed out, this is a relatively new thing for the forum so I can't blame the mods.

However, this is the only forum I've frequented outside of the Soccer Forum that still feels like a community since I joined in 2008. I think that tells you everything about the job the mods are doing and sometimes tinkering with something that's a good thing already, can cause more harm than good.

kksaints

It has to be said that even with the increase of tribalism the last few years, this is still by far the best place for wrestling discussion on the Internet.

JP Liz V1

I miss the draft

Lord TSC

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122008227#Comment_122008227

I was thinking similar tbh.

I feel though the massive write ups were off-putting to a lot of people, both in terms of writing and reading them?

Was there a lower commitment draft more recently? Like, just….draft people, lay out a card and that's it? I feel the last draft tried that, but I can't remember.

Necro

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122009176#Comment_122009176

I can try and run it without the write ups part. There's never ever any issue with the drafting part of it, it gets full attention. The issue is the write ups and the drop off due to the time some put into their shows.

Maybe we could try a lite version of it with just drafting a roster and posting the supercard afterwards, no explanations needed. People then vote on the best card rather than having to read massive pages of build.

DM_7

I think the bit of tribalism was always around, back when TNA were big, then the move towards wrestling in Japan, now with AEW.

The mods overall keep things going well imo.

At times I do wonder about repeated posts that appear to be very negative about a promotion no matter what. They tend to be in more general threads like the news thread, the no chat rule used to help as anyone looking for a rise could not get one if there was no chat. Posters looking to make a low interest news story into a fight won't get far if the topic was not worth a thread of its own..