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Was the Shark Pool your gateway forum? (1 Viewer)

How many posts did you make in the Shark Pool or the Free For All before you started posting in the

  • Thousands. Maybe tens of thousands.

    Votes: 39 48.1%

  • At least a few hundred.

    Votes: 24 29.6%

  • More than a dozen.

    Votes: 9 11.1%

  • A dozen or fewer.

    Votes: 4 4.9%

  • N/A. I haven't posted in the PSF yet; I'm just here to vote in polls.

    Votes: 5 6.2%
  • Total voters
    81
Have no idea how to answer this.  Was here for years and years prior to the PSF.  Posted in the SP mostly, some FFA but wasn’t as active then as work was more demanding of my time.  

 
In May 2001 you guys opened up.  The shark pool had some pretty interesting guys posting that spring and summer heading into the season so I started posting that weekend.  And stayed there.  I guess my claim to fame in the shark pool was daring to ask if Eddie George's 2000 season was too much. (Not only his 400 or so carries but with a usage pattern pretty much like 10 carries one week and 40 the next alternating all season).  That question didn't go over too well with seemingly every other poster having rode George to championships in 2000.

Then 9-11 happened.  

Then in the summer of 2002 a certain Joe Bryant asked in the FFA if those posters would be spending any time in the shark pool.    I said I figured during the off season it was 90-10 FFA but I suspected that once the season rolled around that would reverse.   But I was wrong!  

 
Bottomfeeder Sports said:
In May 2001 you guys opened up.  The shark pool had some pretty interesting guys posting that spring and summer heading into the season so I started posting that weekend.  And stayed there.  I guess my claim to fame in the shark pool was daring to ask if Eddie George's 2000 season was too much. (Not only his 400 or so carries but with a usage pattern pretty much like 10 carries one week and 40 the next alternating all season).  That question didn't go over too well with seemingly every other poster having rode George to championships in 2000.

Then 9-11 happened.  

Then in the summer of 2002 a certain Joe Bryant asked in the FFA if those posters would be spending any time in the shark pool.    I said I figured during the off season it was 90-10 FFA but I suspected that once the season rolled around that would reverse.   But I was wrong!  
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I thought cheatsheets. Net was in 98-99

 
  • Thanks
Reactions: JAA
Shark Pool...reading for info, occasional post>>>> Free For All...hmmm what is this place I'll check this out...man these guys love movies and food. Hey! I like movies and food...whoa some of these guys have some twisted opinions about Obama....> Politics...hey were did all the threads go...oh there are over here now

 
2Squirrels1Nut said:
I thought cheatsheets. Net was in 98-99
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My first year of fantasy football was '99.  I was a last minute add to a league while I was home sick in bed.  I used my own crude and flawed version of something sort of like VBD without seeing any fantasy related web sites.   In 2000 I found a bunch of sites including Cheatsheets.net with the VBD article and the projecting every player articles that kind of formalized my thinking.  I'm unsure if cheatsheets existed earlier than that or if it ever had a message board.  During the winter of 2000 I found whatever user group that Joe and Maurile and a bunch of other "names" posted along with some real :censored:  .  My guess is that the nastiness that existed there was part of the reasoning to create these forums, and to created them moderated as they were.  Make no mistake that in addition to those posting, the moderation was one of the reasons for dipping the toes in.  Then in May there was Football Guys which was great, with a whole lot of those sites from 2000 now pointing to FBGs.

 
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Thread title is little mis-leading...

Also - if you have been here long enough, there was no PSF - but maybe this is to identify anyone who came here solely for the PSF. :shrug:

 
Bottomfeeder Sports said:
My first year of fantasy football was '99.  I was a last minute add to a league while I was home sick in bed.  I used my own crude and flawed version of something sort of like VBD without seeing any fantasy related web sites.   In 2000 I found a bunch of sites including Cheatsheets.net with the VBD article and the projecting every player articles that kind of formalized my thinking.  I'm unsure if cheatsheets existed earlier than that or if it ever had a message board.  During the winter of 2000 I found whatever user group that Joe and Maurile and a bunch of other "names" posted along with some real :censored:  .  My guess is that the nastiness that existed there was part of the reasoning to create these forums, and to created them moderated as they were.  Make no mistake that in addition to those posting, the moderation was one of the reasons for dipping the toes in.  Then in May there was Football Guys which was great, with a whole lot of those sites from 2000 now pointing to FBGs.
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Typical 4 digiter. ;)

 
Joe Bryant said:
fatguyinalittlecoat said:
I feel like this exchange perfectly encapsulates why it is so difficult for pro-Trump folks and anti-Trump folks to have good discussions:

Forget about the snarkiness on both sides, that's not really the issue.  It's that supermike80 and The Commish have totally different conceptions of what a good discussion looks like.  At least anecdotally, it feels like a lot of pro-Trump folks feel the same way as supermike, and a lot of us anti-Trump people feel the same as The Commish.  This problem doesn't seem to have a solution.  Each of them are getting frustrated with the other because they feel like they're discussing things in an appropriate way but the other guy isn't.  I've been trying to articulate this distinction between pro-Trump people and anti-Trump people for like four years but I think these two short posts illustrate it better than I ever could.   
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Thanks for the post there. It's a fascinating question as to why the sides have a tough time. I appreciate what you're saying but to me, that's not how I see the differences. I do have some thoughts there but not the time tonight. I'll try to get to that some as I do think it's super interesting. And probably should be it's own thread as this definitely isn't the right spot for it though.
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I'm going to continue this discussion in this thread. This is not the right thread for it, but neither is the moderation thread, and neither is starting a new thread.

I think political discussions on the FBG forums have changed over the last decade, generally for the worse. There are probably a lot of different reasons.

I suspect a big part of the reason that online political discussions were better in 2010 than they are in 2020 is similar to the reason that SAT scores are higher in Mississippi than they are in Connecticut. Between 2000 and 2010, probably about 4% of the population was regularly participating in online political discussions -- a small, self-selected minority who were really interested in such discussions. Today, it's probably more like 88% -- i.e., everybody with a cell phone.

Twitter and Facebook are probably somewhat to blame. They've brought political hot takes to the masses. You can't get away from them. They fill up our social media timelines. And we're not talking about thoughtful, measured contemplation here, but click-baity sloganeering engineered for virulence.

The twitterfication of politics seems to be spilling over into other venues such as this one.

In any case, I sympathize with both supermike80 and The Commish from the other thread. There are times for being interested in what other people think, and there are times for shutting up and leaving people alone, and it's hard to articulate the distinction.

Here's my oversimplified attempt.

If another poster takes a position that differs from yours, and you think there's a decent chance (at least 5%) that he's right and you're wrong, go ahead and ask him to explain his thoughts. If you're trying to figure out what you might be missing, and you're participating in the discussion because you hope to learn something, you should continue to engage the other poster.

If another poster takes a position that differs from yours, and you're pretty certain he's just being dumb, there's no use asking him to explain himself further. Don't worry about him. Worry about yourself. Explain your own position if you want, but skip the cross-examination.

Frustration occurs when one person's genuine questions feel to another person like a hostile cross-examination. And that misunderstanding is common because a lot of questions around here are attempts at cross-examination, so people generally become sensitive about it and understandably irritable.

 
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fatguyinalittlecoat said:
I hope at some point Maurile reveals his motivation for starting this poll.
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Maurile Tremblay said:
Between 2000 and 2010, probably about 4% of the population was regularly participating in online political discussions -- a small, self-selected minority who were really interested in such discussions. Today, it's probably more like 88% -- i.e., everybody with a cell phone.
Click to expand...
When the bit about selection bias occurred to me, I initially dismissed it because, while it might be true about the internet in general, it doesn't seem particularly true about FBG because we don't get a lot of new forum participants here. Most people have been around for a long time.

But then it subsequently occurred to me that we do get some new-ish participants here, and it's almost always the brand new accounts -- not the people who've been around for a decade -- who are most likely to have a trollish posting style. Especially when the new accounts jump straight to the PSF without passing through the Shark Pool or the Free For All.

I doubt that the poll results will reveal anything interesting, but I was just wondering whether my perception was accurate that very few people got their start on this forum here in the PSF.

 
Agreed that Facebook and also Fox News turned the 4% to the 88%. Suddenly anyone with an opinion figured it was just as valid as an informed opinion. “Free speech”. Yeah sure, but the level of infomedness and discourse is in the toilet as a result.

 
Maurile Tremblay said:
But then it subsequently occurred to me that we do get some new-ish participants here, and it's almost always the brand new accounts -- not the people who've been around for a decade -- who are most likely to have a trollish posting style. Especially when the new accounts jump straight to the PSF without passing through the Shark Pool or the Free For All.
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Maybe have a post requirement:

X number of posts in Shark Pool / IDP / Asst Coach gets you access to FFA

Y number of posts in FFA gets you access to PSF

Or, maybe better yet:

X number of posts in PSF and you lose access to FFA / Shark Pool et al.

:oldunsure:

 
Maurile Tremblay said:
When the bit about selection bias occurred to me, I initially dismissed it because, while it might be true about the internet in general, it doesn't seem particularly true about FBG because we don't get a lot of new forum participants here. Most people have been around for a long time.

But then it subsequently occurred to me that we do get some new-ish participants here, and it's almost always the brand new accounts -- not the people who've been around for a decade -- who are most likely to have a trollish posting style. Especially when the new accounts jump straight to the PSF without passing through the Shark Pool or the Free For All.

I doubt that the poll results will reveal anything interesting, but I was just wondering whether my perception was accurate that very few people got their start on this forum here in the PSF.
Click to expand...
It strikes me that many of the new trollish accounts are likely aliases. 

Grammar aside: I had to look-up the plural of allias. Doesn't seem right to me. 

 
For those of you that aren’t long time posters here, were you guys debating politics in some other forum before you got here or is this a new thing?  Answering that might help to confirm or deny Maurile’s hypothesis.

 
Was strictly SP for years.  Then started gambling a bunch 2007/8ish and started checking the wagering thread in the FFA (pre PSF).  

 
My good buddy had thousands in the shark pool and IDP section, his posts directly led to football articles being made as an addendum to what he contributed. He is the one who introduced me to FBG.

He is now perma-banned for using smilies. 

It was his way of posting less in the pf but still hanging out with some incredibly smart minds.

 
The Gator said:
Maybe have a post requirement:

X number of posts in Shark Pool / IDP / Asst Coach gets you access to FFA

Y number of posts in FFA gets you access to PSF

Or, maybe better yet:

X number of posts in PSF and you lose access to FFA / Shark Pool et al.

:oldunsure:
Click to expand...
My grand idea: automatic microtransactions.

Every post in the PSF costs a dime, and every post in the FFA costs 2 cents.  This money funds Joe's costs for running the boards, and the rest goes to a well-respected charity (or Joe's pocket - his board, his choice).  Maybe skim off a stipend for the moderators too.  Except FBG Moderator; he's turrible.

It's similar to my idea where I pay a nickel or a quarter or whatever to access content (content = anything hidden behind a paywall) rather than the ubiquitous subscription model.  I think both consumers and providers would benefit, handsomely.

 
Maurile Tremblay said:
In any case, I sympathize with both supermike80 and The Commish from the other thread. There are times for being interested in what other people think, and there are times for shutting up and leaving people alone, and it's hard to articulate the distinction.

Here's my oversimplified attempt.

If another poster takes a position that differs from yours, and you think there's a decent chance (at least 5%) that he's right and you're wrong, go ahead and ask him to explain his thoughts. If you're trying to figure out what you might be missing, and you're participating in the discussion because you hope to learn something, you should continue to engage the other poster.

If another poster takes a position that differs from yours, and you're pretty certain he's just being dumb, there's no use asking him to explain himself further. Don't worry about him. Worry about yourself. Explain your own position if you want, but skip the cross-examination.

Frustration occurs when one person's genuine questions feel to another person like a hostile cross-examination. And that misunderstanding is common because a lot of questions around here are attempts at cross-examination, so people generally become sensitive about it and understandably irritable.
Click to expand...
I think this guideline is pretty fair, but it's kind of a bummer.  I like to have discussions.  But very few of the people taking opposing positions to me in these threads meet the 5% threshold.  So the opportunities to have the sorts of debates I like are sharply curtailed.

 
The Gator said:
Maybe have a post requirement:

X number of posts in Shark Pool / IDP / Asst Coach gets you access to FFA

Y number of posts in FFA gets you access to PSF

Or, maybe better yet:

X number of posts in PSF and you lose access to FFA / Shark Pool et al.

:oldunsure:
Click to expand...
:goodposting:

 
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