kurtfaulk said:
day by day, as more and more people join this site, it will head down the road of a place like ramstalk.
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It absolutely will not. I guarantee that 100%.
(here comes my obligatory overly long post now)
RamStalk is full of people who intentionally antagonize other posters with extremely hyperbolic posts. That's just not going to happen here. We encourage people to offer alternative POVs, and while that may offend the senses of people who don't want to see anything negative about this team, it's a necessary component to a successful message board. As long as people are able to communicate their concerns about a player or the team without making sweeping assessments about said player or team (as a whole), then I don't see what the problem is.
People should take that as an invitation to put together an intelligent counter debate, which will in turn sharpen their own debate skills, and increase their knowledge of the team and the game. I know that my initial reaction to posts that contain negative assessments about the team or its players is defensive, but that's just the way I elect to view the game. Like a kid. Others on here are more concerned with the Rams as an entity that any of its players, and that's why you'll see posts that hone in on what they deem is a weak component that keeps the entity from achieving excellence. These two factions will always clash, but it's important to remember that we all want the same thing in the end.
As long as everyone approaches their posts under the premise of "Would I be offended if someone spoke to me like this?", then I think we can avoid offending other people. I can't give any advice that would keep people from being offended, because that's just a personality trait individual to each person. In other words, nobody knows what offends someone else until it's communicated to the "offender."
You're in good hands here, kurt. All of us (staff) try to cultivate the best possible environment for the members here, and we make every effort to ensure that conversations are well within the guidelines of the established rules. And let me just add this. If I didn't ban the half dozen people I've already banned, this place would already BE like RamStalk. I'm very familiar with the "type", and you have my word that those people will never be a member of this board. Ever.
I think people just need to understand that what you say on any board can be very easily misconstrued. So just take that little extra time to make sure that what you're trying to communicate is done so in a manner that leaves little room for misinterpretation, and isn't overtly aggressive in nature. An easy method for me is to pretend that I'm talking about someone's kid. Because there are posters who are THAT protective of players. And that's fine by me. I can tell you your kid is a crappy shortstop without actually saying that. lol.
opcorn:
