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This site needs an ombudsman (1 Viewer)

Dear Mr. Pickles,

There's a poster on this site (I'll call him "Trees" to protect his real identity) who is constantly mocking my food choices. I'll post about my dislike for a particular food, and within minutes Trees is there to post pictures of women eating said food to demonstrate how great it apparently must be. Or telling stories about how he enjoyed something containing said food yeserday. He's driving me crazy, and I don't think I can take it anymore. Can you help? Thanks.

Bob

 
Bob Sacamano said:
Dear Mr. Pickles,There's a poster on this site (I'll call him "Trees" to protect his real identity) who is constantly mocking my food choices. I'll post about my dislike for a particular food, and within minutes Trees is there to post pictures of women eating said food to demonstrate how great it apparently must be. Or telling stories about how he enjoyed something containing said food yeserday. He's driving me crazy, and I don't think I can take it anymore. Can you help? Thanks.Bob
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Link to the pics?
 
Mr. Pickles said:
Bob Sacamano said:
Dear Mr. Pickles,There's a poster on this site (I'll call him "Trees" to protect his real identity) who is constantly mocking my food choices. I'll post about my dislike for a particular food, and within minutes Trees is there to post pictures of women eating said food to demonstrate how great it apparently must be. Or telling stories about how he enjoyed something containing said food yeserday. He's driving me crazy, and I don't think I can take it anymore. Can you help? Thanks.Bob
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Link to the pics?
Click to expand...
:thumbup:
 
Just for the record: Are we getting sober pickles or drunk pickles, or both. THERE IS A HUGE DIFFERENCE HERE!

(PICK OR QUIT!)

 
videoguy505 said:
Da Guru said:
Now you make what you think is an innocent comment that has a little humor in it and you are gone for 30 days..that is without a personal attack on anyone or swearing.
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30 days? Despyzer got a lifetime ban for exactly that... first offense penalty.
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well.. come on.. it's Despyzer. i mean the guy pretty much asked for it in the Test Forum.
 
Battles said:
Mr. Pickles said:
On the Forum Moderation at Footballguys: A Grossly Selective Retrospective, 2003-2010
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[Joe] Dodds, time to add Mr. Pickles to the payroll. I need you to pay him out of your stock account I've been keeping track of in your stock thread. I'm currently over leveraged in pork butts and bbq sauce. TIA. [/Joe]
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[Dodds] As long as he doesn't mind being paid with Wheat Pennies. [/Dodds]

 
The more I think about it, the long story that pickles posted is not his M.O. He likely stole that from JoeT. Pickles is a 5 word or so poster.

 
Mr. Pickles said:
On the Forum Moderation at Footballguys: A Grossly Selective Retrospective, 2003-2010

..... the serious talk of Marshall Faulk's ball cancer: all gone.
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Those were the days man. Those were the days....

 
Mr. Pickles said:
Bob Sacamano said:
Mr. Pickles said:
Bob Sacamano said:
???
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lettuceladies.com?
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Hey, I'm anti-lettuce in all of this. It's Forr... um, Trees who's finding sites with women engaged in horrific acts of ingestion. And apparently clothing.
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Is this the only vegetable to which you have such a strong aversion?:pullsupachair:
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Other vegetables are, well, vegetables. They come with health benefits, flavor, and no need to be paired with something else to be interesting or have flavor. Lettuce is a chip disguised as something remotely healthy, only it completely lacks the chip's flavor profile. It's an excuse for eating salad dressing and bacon bits. It's filler on a burger or sandwich. People tell you it provides some sort of cooling contrast or texture mechanism, but you can incorporate those same features by including some tomatoes or bacon (or slightly less-objectionable shards of glass) and actually incorporate complexity of flavor into the equation. Lettuce is wholly unnecessary and downright useless.
 
Dear Mr. Pickles,

When I set up my profile, the site asked me which NFL team is my favourite. So I picked one. It seems that information has now been construed to mean I "follow closely" said team, as evidenced by the informational sidebar of this post. Since I haven't watched a single NFL game in about 2 years and couldn't name 4 players on my team, this is clearly not true.

Where does the fault lie here?

 
Smoo said:
Dear Mr. Pickles,When I set up my profile, the site asked me which NFL team is my favourite. So I picked one. It seems that information has now been construed to mean I "follow closely" said team, as evidenced by the informational sidebar of this post. Since I haven't watched a single NFL game in about 2 years and couldn't name 4 players on my team, this is clearly not true.Where does the fault lie here?
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Dear Smoo,You were duped, and it's not your fault. It was misleading.The language should be clearer so people know what they are endorsing and to what degree. I'd email Memphis Foundry with your concern.Best, MP
 
Dear Mr. Pickles,

I was hoping to engage in some meaningful political discourse, but each time I opened a political topic, I found the same few posters overwhelming any possibility of actual discussion with regurgitated "facts" and arguments from extremist blogs from both parties. Although I admit that I have learned some tasty recipes from those threads, is there something that you could do?

The fact that I long for the days of Bueno arguing with NCCommish made me want to stab myself in the eye with the closest thing I could find. Luckily, it was a candy cane left over from last Christmas and it had become brittle and shattered on contact. When mixed with vanilla yogurt, it was quite refreshing.

Best regards,

the rover

 
the rover said:
Dear Mr. Pickles,I was hoping to engage in some meaningful political discourse, but each time I opened a political topic, I found the same few posters overwhelming any possibility of actual discussion with regurgitated "facts" and arguments from extremist blogs from both parties. Although I admit that I have learned some tasty recipes from those threads, is there something that you could do? The fact that I long for the days of Bueno arguing with NCCommish made me want to stab myself in the eye with the closest thing I could find. Luckily, it was a candy cane left over from last Christmas and it had become brittle and shattered on contact. When mixed with vanilla yogurt, it was quite refreshing.Best regards,the rover
Click to expand...
Dear the rover,I'm afraid there really isn't anything that can be done. There will always be people in threads who regurgitate misinformation from questionable sources, or things they dreamed up on their own. The only thing I can suggest is to either ignore people that consistently present bad information, or if you're feeling up to it, take a patient and measured approach. Think of how shiny did things. I think he was more than effective at dealing with people that disagreed with him and was convincing while still being respectful. Of course everyone wants to get in a good barb, but in the long run, the health of the debate depends on how people present their arguments, and you'll never go wrong doing the things that made shiny a terrific poster.Lovingly,MP
 
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Mr. Pickles,

What is your general opinion on private investigators who work for in the gambling industry to provide adequate escrow services?

Yours in Christ,

FM

 
Pickles makes a convincing argument, but I have to wonder whether studs n duds is a better fit for this position.

 
I liked the Ohlmeyer column about "The Decision" very much.

I didn't want to dredge up the insufferable LeBron thread to post that, sorry. Please continue with your funny posts.

 
FatMax said:
Mr. Pickles,

What is your general opinion on private investigators who work for in the gambling industry to provide adequate escrow services?

Yours in Christ,

FM
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Dear FatMax,It seems fishy.

Queen to Bishop 3, Bishop takes Queen, Knight takes Bishop. Mate,

MP

 
I was originally skeptical about Pickles as ombudsman, but I'm slowly warming to the idea. He's doing Joe's work here.

 
Mr. Pickles said:
On the Forum Moderation at Footballguys: A Grossly Selective Retrospective, 2003-2010

By Mr. Pickles

FBG (unofficial) Ombudsman

A key dilemma of any online forum is how to best moderate its users. When footballguys.com moved its forums to new and improved servers on April 14, 2003, it marked not only a defining moment in the site's history, but also introduced new and complex issues associated with the popularity of a highly trafficked forum. Gone was "Ol' Yeller," which had served admirably but was archaic, unkempt, and in need of upgrading, and in came "Baby Blue," a site that was fresh, dynamic, and dare I say, a little bit sexy.

Much like the California Gold Rush of the 19th century, over-eager users flooded the new forums with wide-eyed dreams of fortune and prosperity, eager to make an indelible mark on this nascent community. Some, like Zippy, were perhaps a bit too eager and posted recklessly only to burn out under the burden of lofty expectations. Others abused their new-found freedoms by embedding absurdly large pics of well-endowed starlets directly into their posts. Some sought to bring their unique personalities to bear and made outlandish statements about 33" verts and exploding sliders.

Quickly, within hours really, site moderators knew they weren't in Kansas anymore. Their pollyanna notions of "Ol' Yeller" had been obliterated, and it wasn't clear where things were going.

Behind the scenes, paid staff (Joe) had to determine how to balance the interests of the main site which provided "exclusive" fantasy football content, like AVT which was thieved from Kid C, with those of the user forums. Within the forums, there was a growing divide between the "Shark Pool" (SP), which dealt in the high value currency of whom one should start each week, and the "Free For All" (FFA) which was primarily interested in who had the best rack. Of course there were other subforums as well, such as the Test Forum and Secret Mod Forum, but these were largely populated by drifters and malcontents who barely merit mention. The critical question was: "what is best for business?" What level of moderation should be deployed? Was it better to let the inmates run the asylum, or should a community be held to a standard that mother would be proud of? And how will all of this mesh with Dodds' out-of-control gambling addiction?

Within days of the new forum roll out, "Baby Blue" was a baby no longer. Restrictions were put in place to ensure that users did not abuse the system. Initially these changes were small, like the restriction of the IMG tag, where justification was related to things like "server load." However, users started to suspect something different was afoot, and over time there were time outs issued for content, and even bannings. Now, to be fair, this was nothing new. Ol' Yeller had its share of heavy-handedness at times, but perhaps against the backdrop of the new color scheme, the actions of the moderating team seemed a bit over-the-top given the vim and vigor of its ADHD user base.

As the site reached the toddler stage, a reasonable precedent had been established where line-steppers were dealt with, and most were able to abide by the request to keep things to ESPN standards. That is, if Stuart Scott can say it and likely butcher it, it's probably okay for the site. And so it went. Cliques were formed, posters were ridiculed, Joe T's paranoia grew, people were stalked, marriages were broken up... all in the name of good fun.

So when did things change? On or around April 2007 when Shick!, the self-proclaimed "board cop," left the site*... sorta. Of course his exit was loud, it was bombastic, it was public, and honestly, it was probably long overdue. However, Shick! endured an ugly incident where a rogue poster decided to play some real-life werewolf with everyone's favorite math teacher:

Phone rang. Someone called my classroom. That's pretty messed up. They had some choice words for me and my tactics. I hung up pretty quick. They called again shortly thereafter. I unplugged the phone after that. When I got home that night I couldn't not tell my wife. We're best friends and just can't keep secrets from each other. We agreed the best thing was for me to stop being the board cop. I'm currently the lightning rod for criticism of our board moderation. Will somebody show up at my door someday looking to take out their frustrations? I doubt it, but why take that chance? There are some fairly unstable people out there.
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Anyone would be shaken up by an incident like that. Anyone. Even a T-Rex like BGP. Was this an indictment of Shick!'s practices as "board cop?" It was not. Sure the guy got a little jazzed up at times and exacted some personal vendettas on posters, but for the most part he was semi-to-mostly fair, he was pretty careful, he sure as heck meant well, and he was maybe even respected. The job isn't easy.. it's thankless, and very few could probably do it with any proficiency, but for four years, Mr. Factorial did a pretty good job and gave it his level best. Not everyone knows when they've lost their fastball, but Shick! knew it and he got out. Sure he might have threatened to fight a guy or two, and maybe he made a few false accusations especially after a Seahawks loss, but you try being a mod; the pay is lousy and your approval ratings are usually below that of Congress.With the exit of Shick! came the end of what can only be called the "High Renaissance" in the FFA. The late night clique parties, the spontaneous milker drafts, the serious talk of Marshall Faulk's ball cancer: all gone. Sure, Napoleon self-exiled to Elba, but what did we get in his place? Louis the flippin' XVIII: the faceless mod. The boogeyman. Your worst moderating nightmare. Gone were the personalized, usually antagonistic, PMs vaguely informing you about your offense. There was no pleading for mercy here. He wanted to crush his enemies, see them driven before him, and to hear the lamentation of their women. One day you make a comment about a Bush Twin (even the fat one), and the next day you're clipped for a year (ed: please don't clip me for a year). That's how faceless mod rolls, and you'd best get out of his way. To this day, no one really knows who or what the faceless mod is. Maybe a Drinen Markov-chain algorithm? Maybe Wimer on a bender? It's kind of a mystery, but what's known is that things changed. "Same as day one" was a myth. Welcome to the serious business era.

It was around this time that Footballguys started toying with the idea of advertising. While the management of this site protested vociferously about the relative value of the FFA forum and often threatened to shut it down with all of the seriousness of Fred Thompson's 2008 presidential candidacy, the facade of that threat eroded even further with the implementation of a direct revenue stream tied to forum traffic. No longer was it necessary to talk about the theoretical connection between forum use and increased subscriber fees, you could suddenly put a dollar sign on all of those aliases, threads about one man playing Madden, and metrosexual fashion talk. And really, all the better for the two or three guys that get paid by this site, but at least one of the shadowy curtains obfuscating this operation had been pulled back. The Tin Man may not have gotten that heart he so desperately wanted, but he probably could have bought one on the black market.

So where do we stand in 2010? Is this the change we can believe in? I think it's safe to say that "same as day one" is more dead than Generalissimo Franco. The standard of ESPN, and recently "PG," has devolved into "whatever you can tell your grandmother without making her blush." Now, surely there are habitual line-steppers and people that need to be "dealt" with, however the vast majority of people in this forum are adults with real responsibilities and families of their own. They're used to engaging in grown up conversations and reasoning with people through meaningful discourse. It's been a while since they've been told to "cool it," "find a new board," or "go no avatar for now." And really, the hyperconservative content policy is a little out of step with the current state of internet communities and businesses. Of course there are considerations to be made about the product and how its represented, even some legal issues to factor in, but when someone can go to Yahoo or Facebook and read countless spam posts about people being "first," solicitations for hot tranny pr0n, and offers of human trafficking, I think it's safe to say that people don't expect to be nannied to death and that most clear thinking adults realize that your users aren't necessarily a reflection of your product. The idea that you're sheltering anyone from the big bad world or somehow upholding this site as some kind of internet utopia is a bit myopic and naïve.

Should we then advocate for an "anything goes" style of moderation? Absolutely not, but let's be reasonable here. We'll get quite far with a common sense approach. If the content is clearly out of bounds to the point that many object, that's a good starting benchmark. The language filter should be calibrated in accordance with this. Most appreciate the "safe for work" vibe of the site, but not the odd censoring of weird things like STEU into "be quiet please" (try it yourself), which makes not a lick of sense anyway. When people are openly laughing incredulously at various policies and editorial choices, it might be time to rethink them. And it's okay to say you're wrong. Really. Use Thomas Alva Edison as inspiration. Sometimes, against your better judgment, things turn out to be not only popular at large, but good for business too.

In the end, this site, and this forum in particular, are the property of the owners, and that is what everyone understands and appreciates implicitly, to the point that many posters have that line programmed as a macro on their keyboard. It is the conclusion of this ombudsman, however, that relatively small and targeted changes would not only improve the general user experience, but the bottom line as well, without sacrificing that 99.44% level of purity that we've all come to expect. Consistency should be a goal, along with a more personal approach. Perhaps a user roundtable would be productive? Or maybe an expert consultant? Or nothing could be done, and things could continue to be "the same as day one" much as Rome is still the dominant world empire.

Until next time...

* Member 6, formerly held by Shick at the time of that post, was later auctioned off.
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Drifters and malcontents? :lmao:
 
Smoo said:
Dear Mr. Pickles,When I set up my profile, the site asked me which NFL team is my favourite. So I picked one. It seems that information has now been construed to mean I "follow closely" said team, as evidenced by the informational sidebar of this post. Since I haven't watched a single NFL game in about 2 years and couldn't name 4 players on my team, this is clearly not true.Where does the fault lie here?
Click to expand...
I can field this one Mr. P.It was an option, not a requirement.I apologize if it appeared you had to select something, but actually you're able to select "none" as an option.
 
Mr. Pickles said:
the rover said:
Dear Mr. Pickles,I was hoping to engage in some meaningful political discourse, but each time I opened a political topic, I found the same few posters overwhelming any possibility of actual discussion with regurgitated "facts" and arguments from extremist blogs from both parties. Although I admit that I have learned some tasty recipes from those threads, is there something that you could do? The fact that I long for the days of Bueno arguing with NCCommish made me want to stab myself in the eye with the closest thing I could find. Luckily, it was a candy cane left over from last Christmas and it had become brittle and shattered on contact. When mixed with vanilla yogurt, it was quite refreshing.Best regards,the rover
Click to expand...
Dear the rover,I'm afraid there really isn't anything that can be done. There will always be people in threads who regurgitate misinformation from questionable sources, or things they dreamed up on their own. The only thing I can suggest is to either ignore people that consistently present bad information, or if you're feeling up to it, take a patient and measured approach. Think of how shiny did things. I think he was more than effective at dealing with people that disagreed with him and was convincing while still being respectful. Of course everyone wants to get in a good barb, but in the long run, the health of the debate depends on how people present their arguments, and you'll never go wrong doing the things that made shiny a terrific poster.Lovingly,MP
Click to expand...
I now make all my decisions based on the maxim of 'WWSPD?'
 
Harry Manback said:
Smoo said:
Dear Mr. Pickles,When I set up my profile, the site asked me which NFL team is my favourite. So I picked one. It seems that information has now been construed to mean I "follow closely" said team, as evidenced by the informational sidebar of this post. Since I haven't watched a single NFL game in about 2 years and couldn't name 4 players on my team, this is clearly not true.Where does the fault lie here?
Click to expand...
I can field this one Mr. P.It was an option, not a requirement.I apologize if it appeared you had to select something, but actually you're able to select "none" as an option.
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the issue is the individual in question does have a favourite team - but it is not one that he follows closely, hence the dilemma.Its probably for the best if you leave further responses to requests in the hands of the official ombudsman.
 
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