Please Read - "Who's Hottest?" Type Threads - And An Apology (2 Viewers)

[msudaisy26]

Thanks NR. I do understand what you're saying there. And we'll try to raise the level of civility there. If you've got ideas on how to make political discussion more civil, I'd love to hear them. It's a challenge. It's one of the bigger reasons we made the decision to separate the Political Forum from this forum. 

 I think the bolded is what most of the people have a problem with in here. Why you are willing to discuss ideas for one topic and yet another topic is a firm my way is the only way.

 

[NewlyRetired]

Thanks NR. I do understand what you're saying there. And we'll try to raise the level of civility there. If you've got ideas on how to make political discussion more civil, I'd love to hear them. It's a challenge. It's one of the bigger reasons we made the decision to separate the Political Forum from this forum. 

I have no ideas and I don't think it is possible with the cast of heavy posters in there. 

I am VERY thankful you moved it out of the FFA.  If you can't remove that element entirely, at least it has been sequestered.  

The amount of awful comments in any one day in that forum is greater than every single who's hottest thread combined in history.

 

[Joe Bryant]

I have no ideas and I don't think it is possible with the cast of heavy posters in there. 

I am VERY thankful you moved it out of the FFA.  If you can't remove that element entirely, at least it has been sequestered.  

The amount of awful comments in any one day in that forum is greater than every single who's hottest thread combined in history.

Thanks. 

You'd said, "I hope you can see why that has quite a few people in here scratching their heads."

What you said may be a little bit why. We'd love to have a better answer too. 

 

[NotSmart]

 I think the bolded is what most of the people have a problem with in here. Why you are willing to discuss ideas for one topic and yet another topic is a firm my way is the only way.

My assumption is that Joe didn't see any wiggle room with his view on the Who's Hottest situation and thus there was no reason to discuss it first to get ideas or feedback.

A second possibility is that the plan was to go scorched earth first, then give back some ground which would placate the masses.  I don't think this was planned this way, but I suspect it's what's going to happen.

 

[Joe Bryant]

My assumption is that Joe didn't see any wiggle room with his view on the Who's Hottest situation and thus there was no reason to discuss it first to get ideas or feedback.




 

Thanks NS.

You are right here. 

 

[Juxtatarot]

Thanks NR. I do understand what you're saying there. And we'll try to raise the level of civility there. If you've got ideas on how to make political discussion more civil, I'd love to hear them. It's a challenge. It's one of the bigger reasons we made the decision to separate the Political Forum from this forum. 

My idea to help the PSF is to ask for volunteers from some of the well respected long time posters to give moderator powers to.  I think it can take too long to clean up some of the bad stuff and higher mod numbers would help that.  It also makes it more likely a mod would see some of the borderline stuff and take action to nip things in the bud before they get out of hand.

 

[KCitons]

As ugly as the PSF forum can be, at least the threads like the over 50 showed some general agreement. I get there is a problem with questionable posts in both. But at least it was something that brought people together, instead of tearing them apart.  

 

[Aaron Rudnicki]

People in any forum need to police themselves to some extent. Same holds true for the political forum. Maurile spent a lot of time moving posts into a new thread to try and inform/educate people on posts that we don’t want. Not sure it helped a whole lot though. The same cast of characters keep rehashing the same battles over and over again. Ban some and they are going to be back posting under an alias within minutes. The only way that place improves to where most of us would like it to be is if the active posters take it upon themselves to make it better. Not really sure heavy moderation will help as people don’t typically respond well to it. When someone gets suspended, they come back and report everything else that they think is over the line just to try and take others down with them. That creates a ton of noise and makes it hard to identify and remove the clearly objectionable content. 

Not really sure any of this is relevant to the current discussion in this thread though. 

 

[NewlyRetired]

My assumption is that Joe didn't see any wiggle room with his view on the Who's Hottest situation and thus there was no reason to discuss it first to get ideas or feedback.

I think you are correct.

For me, and it sounds like many others, it is difficult to understand having wiggle room for acceptance of posts that try to insult entire races of people but that saying a woman over 50 was attractive was so bad it just needed to be removed.

 

[Joe Bryant]

My idea to help the PSF is to ask for volunteers from some of the well respected long time posters to give moderator powers to.  I think it can take too long to clean up some of the bad stuff and higher mod numbers would help that.  It also makes it more likely a mod would see some of the borderline stuff and take action to nip things in the bud before they get out of hand.

Thanks. I think something like that may be a possibility. The problem is it's tough to not let biases influence decisions there. What one person sees as offensive another person may not. And the gray area of snarkiness is tough. But adding more moderators may be something we look to there.

 

[Capella]

People in any forum need to police themselves to some extent. Same holds true for the political forum. Maurile spent a lot of time moving posts into a new thread to try and inform/educate people on posts that we don’t want. Not sure it helped a whole lot though. The same cast of characters keep rehashing the same battles over and over again. Ban some and they are going to be back posting under an alias within minutes. The only way that place improves to where most of us would like it to be is if the active posters take it upon themselves to make it better. Not really sure heavy moderation will help as people don’t typically respond well to it. When someone gets suspended, they come back and report everything else that they think is over the line just to try and take others down with them. That creates a ton of noise and makes it hard to identify and remove the clearly objectionable content. 

Not really sure any of this is relevant to the current discussion in this thread though. 

Sounds horrible. 

 

[Joe Bryant]

I think you are correct.

For me, and it sounds like many others, it is difficult to understand having wiggle room for acceptance of posts that try to insult entire races of people but that saying a woman over 50 was attractive was so bad it just needed to be removed.




 

There is zero wiggle room for "posts that try to insult entire races". If you see something like that, please report. Thanks. 

 

[Ghost Rider]

There is zero wiggle room for "posts that try to insult entire races". If you see something like that, please report. Thanks. 

What about posts like this that implies that all men are sexual harassers: 

https://forums.footballguys.com/forum/topic/766425-kids-are-quoting-trump-to-bully-their-classmates/?page=3 (8th post from the top)

 

[NewlyRetired]

There is zero wiggle room for "posts that try to insult entire races". If you see something like that, please report. Thanks. 

I didn't mean it that way. 

I meant that you seem willing to go out of your way to try and fix an area that so many find objectionable and yet you had no problems nuking an area that so few found objectionable.

I am just struggling to see the consistency but I guess that is just related to our own point of views.

 

[Ghost Rider]

I didn't mean it that way. 

I meant that you seem willing to go out of your way to try and fix an area that so many find objectionable and yet you had no problems nuking an area that so few found objectionable.

I am just struggling to see the consistency but I guess that is just related to our own point of views.

Agreed. I doubt this would have been a problem two weeks ago, but the 177 "who's hottest?" threads were major overkill and likely the tipping point.  In particular, the one that showed girls around 14-15 years old was fairly creepy.  I cringed and moved on from that one fast, but I can see how one might have been more than a bit disturbed by that. 

 

[msudaisy26]

Is this thread going to turn into a tattletale thread? If so can we just go back to the way things were and give a few more people hall monitor badges? It will then work itself out and I am sure there are a few people that will gladly volunteer to the internet police.

 

[IMAX 3D]

Thanks for the answer @comfortably numb

My thought would be it's more like this: 

I don't know it's "moral" or "religious" as much as it's just what I think is the right way. 

You wrote: 

I think we may be not communicating properly here. Nobody that I know of is removing random conversations. What we're removing is the who's hottest type polls where guys have their "locker room talk" in public posting pictures (often without the woman's consent) then make often crude comments that the moderators have to remove. That may be "real life" but that's not something we're going to have here. 

Talking about "random real life" situations is the majority of what happens on this board. But that's very different from what I wrote above. 

Isn’t the entire Shark Pool a bunch of threads discussing players without their consent (sometimes with crude comments)...I’m sure you can find cases of players being called bums, frauds, cheaters and worse

 

[KCitons]

Agreed. I doubt this would have been a problem two weeks ago, but the 177 "who's hottest?" threads were major overkill and likely the tipping point.  In particular, the one that showed girls around 14-15 years old was fairly creepy.  I cringed and moved on from that one fast, but I can see how one might have been more than a bit disturbed by that. 

Why not just remove that one thread and warn the creator? It seems to be an all or nothing approach. 

 

[Slapdash]

People in any forum need to police themselves to some extent. Same holds true for the political forum. Maurile spent a lot of time moving posts into a new thread to try and inform/educate people on posts that we don’t want. Not sure it helped a whole lot though. The same cast of characters keep rehashing the same battles over and over again. Ban some and they are going to be back posting under an alias within minutes. The only way that place improves to where most of us would like it to be is if the active posters take it upon themselves to make it better. Not really sure heavy moderation will help as people don’t typically respond well to it. When someone gets suspended, they come back and report everything else that they think is over the line just to try and take others down with them. That creates a ton of noise and makes it hard to identify and remove the clearly objectionable content. 

Not really sure any of this is relevant to the current discussion in this thread though. 

I thought Maurlie's idea was a really helpful one.

 

[Phil Elliott]

There is a great diversity of cultures/experiences/quick wit here. For those that can get past political/religious views (or anything else that is a non-debatable topic) there is a wonderful collection of knowledge here that has helped many people including those that have had some tragedy in their lives or asking for some advice on many types of situations and topics.  There is still a lot of good in the FFA. 

 

[cheese]

Those particular threads aren’t my thing, but I wanted to chime in on the “oh well, find another board if you don’t like it” sentiment that took up most of the first 10 pages. 

One of the biggest things that differentiates this board from the rest of the Internet is the sense of community from almost 20 years talking to a surprisingly consistent group of people. I’ve probably met up with 40 of the posters here for different things. Some of us spend an amazing amount of time here and care about other people here. For me personally,  Joe’s “plenty of other boards” mentality is way more frustrating than any policy change. It’s clear to me that they don’t really understand why these boards are so successful.  The core posters here don’t just bail when something happens we don’t like. We’re too invested for that. We fight to make/keep the community awesome. Now, is this the place to take a stand? Not for me, but I’ll say if we lose a big core of our regulars over this and the subsequent “too bad, my house” rhetoric that is a big deal to me. It’s not as easy as you think to just recreate this somewhere else. 

 

[bostonfred]

Eh, sorry amigo but wasn't this seal already broken with the PSF debate?

I'm sure you see the difference between saying "let's put political posts in a sub forum so you can create as many as you want without disturbing anyone" and "you are no longer welcome to discuss these topics here".

 

[-OZ-]

It is for things like this that I spend 80% of my forum type time at reddit now. The up down type moderation has flaws but in general you get better content and more diverse interactions.

I had already really dialed back my time here after the horrible way the dodds stuff was handled, but I figure the way this is headed I'm 99% out the door.

Was a good run.  

What happened with Dodds?

 

[TLEF316]

The whole "pictures posted without their consent" thing is pretty funny to me.

95% of the photos posted in the Who's hottest polls were CLEARLY posted by girls looking for attention based on their looks. When 3 girls post pictures in matching yoga outfits hanging all over each-other and sticking their butts out toward the camera (on a public instagram page) , its pretty clear why they're doing it.

Doesn't give people the right to say nasty or vile things about them, but the pictures are public domain and their motivations for posting them (They are seeking positive attention and commentary on their looks) are pretty darn clear.

I can understand having a problem with posting pictures from other sources (and I get that it would likely be impossible to efficiently police the gray area between "wannabe instagram models seeking attention" and "pretty girls just posting a group picture") but lets not be naive here.

I honestly didn't know that those conversations had gotten to that point. I rarely read those threads. I'd usually just look at the pic, vote (mostly out of curiosity to see if my opinion was in the majority) and move on.

 

[SaintsInDome2006]

I'm sure you see the difference between saying "let's put political posts in a sub forum so you can create as many as you want without disturbing anyone" and "you are no longer welcome to discuss these topics here".

Nope, same thing.

 

[Dedfin]

What happened with Dodds?

He went straight up bonkers, basically turning his posts into Alex Jones-esque blog. He said some pretty ghastly things. Then he went away, but came back under a normal account.

 

[Chaos Commish]

I support Joe's decision here. I haven't subscribed in years, but I might to show support. If all we did was suggest some women over 50 were attractive as you imply, I'm sure Joe would be fine with that. It's crude often degrading sexual objectification of them that he doesn't want to endorse by accepting it at his business. See the difference? Some seem to be completely missing that. It has nothing to do with racism, politics, who posted the picture where, Dodd's delusions or any other issue some want to frame as hypocritical. If hypocrisy really disturbs you turn out the lights and lock the doors. There isn't a slippery slope justifying worries about what's next here. Joe doesn't want sexual objectification of women here. Good for Joe. Society is in an evolutionary direction where something we men find innate, harmless, and entertaining -- how we view the opposite sex as meat to pound -- is harmful, immature, and degrading. Good for society. Grow up men. It's a changing world and women deserve better. From reading through this it's obvious you're going to have to work on this online and off. This might now be a good place to start practicing.

 

[trident]

Sorry but no. Working with companies like DRAFT, FanDuel, DraftKings and others that go through extensive regulations and monitoring to offer legal products is something we're ok with. Allowing our message board members to post pictures of women, often without their consent and then objectify them with crude comments we have to delete is something we're not ok with. 

I fully understand other people might have a different way of deciding what is ok and what is not ok. But that's how I see it and that's how we're going to proceed here. 

Joe, they consented when they got the picture taken in the first place and put it on the internet.

 

[Joe Bryant]

What about posts like this that implies that all men are sexual harassers: 

https://forums.footballguys.com/forum/topic/766425-kids-are-quoting-trump-to-bully-their-classmates/?page=3 (8th post from the top)

This one?

Neither will sexual harassment. It's how men are. And there is no changing it. However as a society we can let it be known that it is no longer acceptable and those who engage in it will be made an example of and punished to the extent they can with whatever measures are in place.

 

[trident]

Understood. We'll be changing the name. 

To what?  Nazi Germany Part 2?

 

[shuke]

I support Joe's decision here. I haven't subscribed in years, but I might to show support. If all we did was suggest some women over 50 were attractive as you imply, I'm sure Joe would be fine with that. It's crude often degrading sexual objectification of them that he doesn't want to endorse by accepting it at his business. See the difference? Some seem to be completely missing that. 

If you would read the thread it seems mostly everyone sees the difference, except Joe. 

It doesn’t really matter though. We’ll all move on. 

 

[trident]

BTW, if you want to post at a PG-13 and above site, you can come to Mike's site at FFToday.

Unfortunately sho posts there as well.

 

[Chaos Commish]

If you would read the thread it seems mostly everyone sees the difference, except Joe. 

It doesn’t really matter though. We’ll all move on. 

I've read a bit of it but it seems Joe has to continually make the point I made so people clearly don't see the difference. I just put it in stronger words because I'm nobody. I could be missing a bunch of people agreeing with him, I guess.

 

[Joe Bryant]

To what?  Nazi Germany Part 2?

I hope not.

 

[NewlyRetired]

I've read a bit of it but it seems Joe has to continually make the point I made so people clearly don't see the difference. I just put it in stronger words because I'm nobody. I could be missing a bunch of people agreeing with him, I guess.

Many are in agreement that the who's hottest threads could easily go overboard by the posting of a few knuckleheads.

Just as many agreed (including some females in this thread) that the Over 50 thread was nothing but positive.

I think your extremely condescending post to me about having to improve myself missed that connection.

 

[trident]

I hope not.

I know it is your board and your rules and that is given, but it just feels like that sometimes.

 

[Chaos Commish]

Many are in agreement that the who's hottest threads could easily go overboard by the posting of a few knuckleheads.

Just as many agreed (including some females in this thread) that the Over 50 thread was nothing but positive.

I think your extremely condescending post to me about having to improve myself missed that connection.

Sorry. I edited that to note it was absolutely not directed at you. Sincerely, I apologize if it reads that way. I was addressing men in general in my mind, not even men specifically here. 

 

[NotSmart]

Society is in an evolutionary direction where something we men find innate, harmless, and entertaining -- how we view the opposite sex as meat to pound -- is harmful, immature, and degrading. Good for society. Grow up men. It's a changing world and women deserve better. From reading through this it's obvious you're going to have to work on this online and off. This might now be a good place to start practicing.

If you replace the bolded above with "football players", just curious if you see any parallels with what you wrote and society's changing views on football.

 

[-OZ-]

He went straight up bonkers, basically turning his posts into Alex Jones-esque blog. He said some pretty ghastly things. Then he went away, but came back under a normal account.

Thanks. I knew he went to a normal account but totally missed the background.

 

[Yankee23Fan]

Its the apps and the email that generate revenue. The message boards are dominated by the fringe hard core fantasy football enthusiasts. So why does Joe bother with the FFA? He likes it. I still like it too. We’re a collection of mostly middle aged guys that share a lot of common traits and life experiences.

I'll have you know that I'm a fringe Anti-17th Amendment enthusiast thank you very much.

 

[Chaos Commish]

If you replace the bolded above with "football players", just curious if you see any parallels with what you wrote and society's changing views on football.

More than you would believe. I've lost interest in football. But I'd go back to my suggestion about that is not what this is about. 

 

[Yankee23Fan]

Thanks @comfortably numb .   Can you elaborate in way more detail and specifics on

1. The direction you think the community is being steered. 

And much more importantly, 

2. Specific examples of why you think this. 

Thanks. 

Eh, the originals of us are getting older and there is a new round of people coming in that weren't there for old yeller and don't think like us.

Welcome to the problem of every social club of any variety ever conceived that has lasted over the course of the aging of its original core.

 

[NotSmart]

More than you would believe. I've lost interest in football. But I'd go back to my suggestion about that is not what this is about. 

Yes, but there are tremendous parallels with what this current tempest is about - which raises a lot of interesting questions.

 

[culdeus]

What exactly are you talking about here?

Dodds continues to post alex jones type stuff under alias. 

I'm not in the political forum much anymore but the bonesman account is the one which is attributed to dodds that has been the largest offender.

 

[culdeus]

Eh, the originals of us are getting older and there is a new round of people coming in that weren't there for old yeller and don't think like us.

Welcome to the problem of every social club of any variety ever conceived that has lasted over the course of the aging of its original core.

I don't get the sense that there are many new members. It would be easy to data mine for posts by account age to prove,if someone had the ability. 

 

[Dedfin]

Joe's secret plan to shut down the FFA

 

[IMAX 3D]

I don't get the sense that there are many new members. It would be easy to data mine for posts by account age to prove,if someone had the ability. 

Yeah I don’t think there’s a lot of new blood in these forums. 

 

[Yankee23Fan]

I don't get the sense that there are many new members. It would be easy to data mine for posts by account age to prove,if someone had the ability. 

Maybe. 

I have to be one of the posters that's been here the longest.  I also don't use any other board of any kind, though I've been known to dabble :e:lsewhere. 

I understand the reaction of grown men being told by another grown man not to do something. Frankly, I deal with it on a daily basis. And change sucks almost always for those that enjoy the status quo.

Had Joe asked me I would have said kill the whose hottest stuff,  keep the 50 and older thread, and tone down the yoga pants and any other sexually charged picture thread not for any other reason than some of them really needed and age check and many of us stay in here during work---and there have been standards here that while not concrete, have been noticeable. 

But those pictures and threads never defined this place.  I could easily argue that the community built here was built because that wasn't the definition of this place.  We had and hopefully still have something more. 

I've had members here reach out me when my wife miscarried and I was so devastated I couldn't function.  I've helped real people here with legal work.  I've actually suffered emotionally from the losses of some here as if they were family. 

Because in this ridiculously stupid technological world we live in,  "knowing" someone for almost 20 years by way of a message board basically makes them family if you put a little time into it. 

And many of us have put the time into it.  It's still worth it.  This doesn't change that.  For me.  

But, note.... I'm about 60% through a new bottle of bourbon and have had to check my spelling so much that auto correct has basically given up. 

 

[Wrigley]

Maybe. 

I have to be one of the posters that's been here the longest.  I also don't use any other board of any kind, though I've been known to dabble :e:lsewhere. 

I understand the reaction of grown men being told by another grown man not to do something. Frankly, I deal with it on a daily basis. And change sucks almost always for those that enjoy the status quo.

Had Joe asked me I would have said kill the whose hottest stuff,  keep the 50 and older thread, and tone down the yoga pants and any other sexually charged picture thread not for any other reason than some of them really needed and age check and many of us stay in here during work---and there have been standards here that while not concrete, have been noticeable. 

But those pictures and threads never defined this place.  I could easily argue that the community built here was built because that wasn't the definition of this place.  We had and hopefully still have something more. 

I've had members here reach out me when my wife miscarried and I was so devastated I couldn't function.  I've helped real people here with legal work.  I've actually suffered emotionally from the losses of some here as if they were family. 

Because in this ridiculously stupid technological world we live in,  "knowing" someone for almost 20 years by way of a message board basically makes them family if you put a little time into it. 

And many of us have put the time into it.  It's still worth it.  This doesn't change that.  For me.  

But, note.... I'm about 60% through a new bottle of bourbon and have had to check my spelling so much that auto correct has basically given up. 

Day drinking is the best drinking

 

[Da Guru]

I never posted a "hottest" thread myself.   But reading all the backlash and negative feedback it seems this forum was built with hard core football fans and were allowed for 20 years to enjoy whatever as long as there as people were civil and no profanity or nudity...just like some guys and some gals who are hanging out drinking beer at a picnic. So it does seem like you are getting away from what built this place.  As I said earlier even with everything that goes on here there is no tamer forums out there. It would be like the NFL doing away with beer and pickup truck commercials.

Facebook kept making changes and pissing people off and now they are running commercials saying "We got away from what built FB and what it was that people liked about FB in the beginning  and now want to get back to what we were"

To be honest if you did not tell me I would probably have never have known they were gone..but I did enjoy the yoga thread on a Saturday morning with my coffee...looked forward to it.  Actually inspired my workouts after. And for the people who say "Go to Redditt or somewhere else for that...well that would be like going to a football or baseball game by yourself.