Views of Tennis Section

Hi All.

I am one of the idiots who run this place and have been instrumental in its set up. For over 5 years, I have pumped in countless hours each day to try and make this a place for everyone to enjoy.

There are some really busy sections on here, far busier than the tennis section.

However, without a doubt, tennis is the one that causes the most problems. And I have had enough of it.

The admin/ founders decide who mods. We dont always get it right but we do what we think is best. Some sections are moderated incredibly strictly, others loosely but all within the spirit of the good of this site. However, recently, this section is once again causing us headaches.

I understand that you are passionate about your favourite players. And I understand there will be those you dislike. There is not one single player who will win every game. So enjoy it when your player wins and take it on the chin when your player loses. Don't assume that every comment is a personal attack. The number of times that I have heard a tennis poster in this section threaten to leave is unreal.

Well guess what - if you are not happy from here on in, send me your address and I will send you a bon voyage card.

Its quite simple, if you think someone is winding you up, you have several options:

1. React and get upset - this will spoil your day.
2. Take it on the chin and do nothing - you will be just fine in 30 minutes.

The more you feed trolls, the more they will do it.

Now we have tried to give guidance to the moderators on how to police this section and it hasnt worked. People have left in a huff over some decisions and guess what, they all came back at some point.

So here is what I am going to do.

I am hereby announcing that the policing of this section is being relaxed to the bare minimum. If you dont like it, then I suggest you book yourselves in to a spa, because you obviously have very thin skins that need looking after.

From now on, if you think a post crosses the line (see below as to what constitutes line crossing) then report it. At all other times, the mods of this section are not mods, they are posters who abide by the same rules. To report a post, its that little exclamation mark to the top right of any post.

So dont go moaning to Laverfan, Temp or Julius - you are now on your own and we will come in hard and fast to anyone who is keeping me from doing what I enjoy, which is largely sitting on my backside.

House rules for tennis section:

1. Do not post libelous or litigious comments (ie - Player X is on drugs)
2. Do not attack other posters (would you say the things you post to their face?) 
3. Do not offensive material

New start for you all. If you dont like it, I suggest looking at a search engine for a different sterile tennis forum.

This place is for good humoured, reasonable, light hearted debate. Lets keep it that way.

If anyone has any objections to this post, I suggest you go outside and shout them in to the wind, because I have no inclination to debate this.

Thanks Adam, a few of us have been recently asking for this type of approach so that's great. Count me in.

Cheers,
L

I trust then that any strong arming and personal abuse of the mods has completely zero tolerance from now on then? I don't need to worry about that anymore?

temporary21 wrote:I trust then that any strong arming and personal abuse of the mods has completely zero tolerance from now on then? I don't need to worry about that anymore?

I do not know what strong arming is.

However, personal abuse of anyone (mod or not) is not allowed.

Trying to influence them by public character assassination or threatening to leave and such. Can we now immediately remove people for doing that finally?

A wise decision borne out of the slings and arrows of bitter experience.

This is clearly the best for commentators and moderators alike.  Moderation only become activated when one or more of the three rules are broached:

1) No libellous or litigious comments
2) No personal abuse of posters
3) No posting of offensive materials

This i presume then is putting a lot of trust in our posters.

I've no interest if this means we just get people being disingenuous, sarcastic, patronising and slyly insulting to one another, and grinding each other down with no way to blow it off.

That's not a place anyone wants to go in their free time. It's finally time to stop with all that

I think some people take this place too seriously. It is just words on a screen.

A place where we discuss millionaire sportsmen, who just happen to be good at a game we enjoy watching.

It should moderate itself...anything that people don't like they can ignore. Anyone 'Wumming' only does it for a reaction.

Worth a try, it rather echoes my recent post and the advice I give my young son - you can't control other people being d*cks towards you all the time, but you can decide how you are going to react.

Adam,
I am outside now and while shouting into the wind (I'll spare you the details) I notice that there is fresh air, trees, mountains and cute tweeting birds.
There are also girls out here.
Much as I'd love to argue the case about the strictness of the moderating, how to react to trolling, and how to handle aggressive posters, I am feeling a need to go and flirt with one of the girls.
Would you mind if I come back and argue with you later instead?
Are you free sometime between next year and never?

Great call. I think this is just what the tennis section needs. Hopefully, it will become more popular again as a result (although phasing out of Roger and Rafa is not going to help).

Things to remember if you're offended by someone's opinion about your favourite player:
a. You're not your favourite player
b. Your favourite player is probably super rich and couldn't give a monkeys

Shame on anyone for hassling mods to intervene for anything other than personal abuse. They've got better things to do.

Guest82 wrote:I think some people take this place too seriously. It is just words on a screen.

A place where we discuss millionaire sportsmen, who just happen to be good at a game we enjoy watching.

It should moderate itself...anything that people don't like they can ignore.  Anyone 'Wumming' only does it for a reaction.

Some of the stick Murray got for not beating Novak at the French Open Final really is funny.

What Murray earned for seven days work would take most of the posters on v2 Twenty plus years to earn  

I'd just like to say I thought Julius's post on the other thread was totally where my thoughts are:

JuliusHMarx wrote:I don't think it is negative opinions per se that cause an issue - it is the repetition of them. If a point is made and then continually made again and again over a relatively short period of time (whatever the definition of 'short period' is), or make up the bulk of a poster's posts, then problems can arise and mods/admins may have to step in.

The reason I'd commented yesterday was because we weren't near that situation at all.

Anyway, just a couple of other small points I'd like to make as food for thought:
- Overly defensive posting can be as tedious and offputting as overly aggressive posting
- If you aren't enjoying the debate on here or think it's got a bit stale, start some interesting new threads. Find some articles, do some analysis, pose some questions; anything to get some discussion going
- If all else fails, puns are good

Adam,

I am all for this kind of approach (may have been clear from my previous posting anyway).  Therefore: Thank you!

Brilliant,

Finally,

Hallelujah,

I've been an advocate of this for ages and vociferously argued for it. In fact this is exactly what nearly everyone here has been calling for - to be treated like adults - so what if it gets a little messy or heated at times (so long as it's not abusive) - that's what make debate and discussion interesting - not everyone being FORCED to get along.



emancipator - now where's Socal; my gloves are off

Alas, Socal has gone AWOL. I might start a thread about Fat Dave to try and lure him back.

I sincerely hope people aren't intetpreting this as an excuse to do whatever they want and continue the disrespectful nature of posting we got a lot of the time with him...

No more bickering in other words
We expect you to argue, but we also expect you to listen and respect eachother. This rule means we can go straight to the top and boot people out who go too far from now on

I think we get the message Temp...

I'm not one to get into these silly rows, but I'd venture to suggest that Temp has got it  flat bang wrong, and is looking to create unnecessary work for the mods by continuing to seek to uphold excessive sensibility and offence taking.  I hope I'm wrong, we'll see how it pans out.

No.

What I mean is speaking frankly has laid the traps for people getting too personal and annoyed way too easily nany times before. The most extreme being the "ret@rd" comments that Haddie got way back when

It's the entire reasoning that modfing got so sensitive, it helped keep those here who were getting marginalised by weight of opinion

I don't want us to fall back into that trap, it's great for us to be more like the other forums is love to really talk about whether novak would be definitely better than Roger if he had his start in finals, or rafa with more luck with Injury but we dont want the old baggage coming back with it

THAT would cause a lot of problems for us and a lot of work . Adam has set this up now though so it can't, we can just go to him and not have to worry about it ourselves

Thankfully most of the real problem people we had who get personal are gone, but PLEASE don't let us fall back to passive aggressiveness leading to someone blowing up again

Does that clarify things? I really want to just watch wimby this year without anything to do with this place

barrystar wrote:I'm not one to get into these silly rows, but I'd venture to suggest that Temp has got it  flat bang wrong, and is looking to create unnecessary work for the mods by continuing to seek to uphold excessive sensibility and offence taking.  I hope I'm wrong, we'll see how it pans out.

Yes, I would agree that there has been far too much sensibility and offence-taking in the recent past, and Adam D has it spot on when he talks of those who might have "very thin skins that need looking after"

Plus, on a more fundamental level, the 'new start' mission statement & modus operandi as now clarified by Adam D can only be a good thing in the longer term. I know that I have myself have taken frequent extended breaks from the forum as a result (in part) of heavy modding ; but with Adam's decision to relax policing "to the bare minimum", I am more encouraged.

I echo that lags.

I'm sure what everyone else thinks but it seems the amount of traffic in here is currently vastly reduced. Maybe it'll pick up with Wimb...

temporary21 wrote:No.

What I mean is speaking frankly has laid the traps for people getting too personal and annoyed way too easily nany times before. The most extreme being the "ret@rd" comments that Haddie got way back when

It's the entire reasoning that modfing got so sensitive, it helped keep those here who were getting marginalised by weight of opinion

I don't want us to fall back into that trap ...

I never saw anything like those comments.  I suspect it must have happened early in 606v2 history when there were a lot more people around.  I think there is too few now to cause a problem.  I also got the feeling from Adam D this is the last chance saloon for the tennis section - it does seem to be the section that causes the founders the biggest headache.

Nore Staat wrote:I never saw anything like those comments.

It actually very much did happen, and not all that long ago (maybe last year?).  But that is rather obviously covered under "no personal attacks", and is rather distinguishable from proper tennis talk - even heated tennis talk.

summerblues wrote:

Nore Staat wrote:I never saw anything like those comments.

It actually very much did happen, and not all that long ago (maybe last year?).  But that is rather obviously covered under "no personal attacks", and is rather distinguishable from proper tennis talk - even heated tennis talk.

Yes sb it did happen like you say not all that long ago. and personal abuse from others also.. the latest being not a month ago attacking me and mentioning my husband. Temp has done all he could to support me but there is only so much he can do.
But like Lydian says.. the traffic on here is reducing by the minute and so many people who I have had friendly and not so friendly exchanges have disappeared some because they don't like the modding, others because they don't like the personal attacks.. take your pick, win some, lose some.
But for me I like debate, not arguments
Being a Nadal always puts you in the line of fire.. the abuse I have received over the years has left me battle weary

I'm amazed; I'd resolved not to come back here and - honestly - clicked by accident and was intrigued by the Creator speaking to us.

This is excellent. I think temp need not worry; the friction between mod and posters was entirely caused by what has now been abolished. With lightest touch moderation I'm confident there will be no such friction.

Ideally. You would have all gotten together and aired your frustrations over te modding versus the repetitive nature and often personal arguments.
We then could have banged out proper compromise that fit everyone better

In the end almost none of you decided to talk. You just decided to hold your breath and threaten to leave like my brother would do

So Adam and everyone just had to choose... Adam decided we were gettin overworked, so went with the "don't have to do anything" choice

Benefits a certain type of argument I suppose but one I, and a lot of other people long since got tired of

A shame really. Losing about 5 big contributors either way, didn't have to happen either...

Can I make a suggestion to contact those who left?

No need for a post morten or continued debate on how we are modding now

Let's just enjoy it.

i think it's just a shame nobody could be adult enough to try and meet in the middle, and accept the ability to cater to more than one type of person

Being given some unbearable abuse, spam and criticism simply for not getting things exactly your own way and strong arming us when not was never acceptable. It's not free speech, it's not just personality, it's not banter, it's just childish plain and simple...

As it turns out. A number of posters did in fact appreciate what was trying to be done and are gone. I don't know if I can get them back but ill try and make concessions with them...

Let it go Temp. The intention is to move on and personal abuse is still covered by the new "light touch" approach anyway. The only poster we seem to have lost as a result of stuff which is now acceptable is CC who, hopefully, will return after a sabbatical.

We can't continue to wear kid-gloves and pander to those that cry whenever their fave player loses. If people prefer to go to a sanitised forum where it's all about their idol and no bad words can be said then fair enough.
As Adam said, time to get on with it.

There's an element of the stable door closing to this one.

Frankly, the place isn't the same since the likes of LK, CC and particularly Socal (to name a few) decided enough is enough (for different reasons)

And I'm sorry, I will be defensive about statistically one of the best players of all time, if posters constantly play down his achievements whilst making out all other ones to be tennis genius's

I really don't see a problem with saying that a poster is writing nonsense or been disingenuous or been a WUM

The problem is that (and I know this as a black man who couldn't give a flying fig about what racist comment so and so says to me) is that an insulting comment is in the eye of the beholder

I appreciate the clarification, but I'm not confident it will make a blind bit of difference

Hero wrote:We can't continue to wear kid-gloves and pander to those that cry whenever their fave player loses. If people prefer to go to a sanitised forum where it's all about their idol and no bad words can be said then fair enough.
As Adam said, time to get on with it.

But that's not the issue. I don't know a single fan of Murray or Novak, who isn't critical when they play badly or lose the plot and then lose etc

The problem is that there are certain posters who have an agenda which is trying to convince everyone, that the tennis world was perfect at around 2006 and then proceeded to decline greatly. They then skew all their comments to this agenda

It's blatantly obvious. But when the likes of Socal and CC point out this hypocrisy, everyone cries foul

Look. I can see the new rules and old wounds aren't gelling with a lot of people. We've lost about 4 people from it who hopefully are still keeping an eye on things

For what it's worth I totally see where hero is coming from. Though I think his assessment of the people who left is a little off the mark, many of them were upset for a lot more than just their player lost. They're better people than what's being implied

But yes we have to move on. Those that don't like it please pm me. We can all have a group chat without derailing things any further

banbrotam wrote:

Hero wrote:We can't continue to wear kid-gloves and pander to those that cry whenever their fave player loses. If people prefer to go to a sanitised forum where it's all about their idol and no bad words can be said then fair enough.
As Adam said, time to get on with it.

But that's not the issue. I don't know a single fan of Murray or Novak, who isn't critical when they play badly or lose the plot and then lose etc

The problem is that there are certain posters who have an agenda which is trying to convince everyone, that the tennis world was perfect at around 2006 and then proceeded to decline greatly. They then skew all their comments to this agenda

It's blatantly obvious. But when the likes of Socal and CC  point out this hypocrisy, everyone cries foul

Then ignore those people or block them, the function is there.