I love y’all, but I’ve been really disappointed in this place lately.
First: The politics are totally out of hand. In the shoutbox, in the game threads, everywhere. I get it, it’s an election year, and a contentious one at that (aren’t they all?), but it’s gotten stupid. We have a politics forum for a reason.
Second: We have been really trashing some of our own here lately. We all need to remember that Niners are Niners. When you post about someone in the family, you need to know that the Athletic department reads this board, the players read this board, the parents read this board, the recruits read this board, and the recruits parents read this board. Have some tact.
Mac works too hard for some of the nonsense that has gone on here lately. This board has always had a way of attracting some strong opinions, but lately we’ve had a little bit too much crazy. I have heard more people say “I’m never going back there” or “I will never join that place” in the last 365 than anytime in my fandom. Getting into it with visiting fans is for social media and the CUSA board. We don’t need to let them derail our threads here. It’s a bad look.
In conclusion, I am calling out the moderators to help us clean this up. I’m not even sure who they are anymore to be honest, and that’s a problem. I am well aware that I post too much nonsense to be a moderator. I am also calling out individuals. We need to be better. We need to remember that to some kid who we are recruiting right now in Texas, this may be his only window into the pulse of our fan base, and we need to be, and do better.
I don’t think the moderation team here is concerned with limiting political talk in any way. I dare say it’s pretty much encouraged in the Shoutbox. That said I wish you luck with this endeavor.
The shoutbox is a chat room and anything other than porn should pretty much be fair game there. Can’t feasibly talk about sports all the time in a chat room.
A lot of sports talk happens in the Shoutbox that never makes it into a thread. That’s an issue as it makes the board look dead to anyone without SB access or knowledge of it’s existence. That hurts board traffic.
Sometimes the political talk gets to be too much, but it’s hard to always talk about sports, particularly in the SB. I usually just tune out when politics gets going and make it a point to NOT subscribe to the politcas forum. We are all Niners first and foremost and I don’t want political nonsense to sway my opinions on anyone here.
Once we get some rivalries going again like in CUSA 1.0 days we can berate others more and ourselves less. IMO, that’s always more entertaining.
I do worry about how much info gets traded in the shoutbox without being posted on the board. Especially as we have a lot more casual readers than people realize.
I think the folks who tend to engage in the shoutbox can make an effort to “thread” news and pertinent discussion of the teams and games.
The software features which make it really easy to post news stories and tweets, etc with detail are, IMHO, really great, and keep the board relevant as a news and discussion aggregator. So I encourage folks to keep doing it. It makes for healthy discussion about the program.
Also, I will offer an opinion on opposing fans… Back in the days or our early boards, including CUSA TALK, we had a lot of cross pollination with opposing fanbases. Yeah they are going to have different opinions than us, and at times taunt us, and poke at us, but so long as they are not crossing the line with insults, threats, or similar, I think they, on balance, tend to add as much or more as they take away from the board.
I have no issues with other programs’ fans posting here. Some will come with legit stuff and be respectful, and those that don’t usually make asses of themselves fairly quickly. I do worry about admin, players, and their families coming here and seeing us act fools in replying to the asses though. Not sure how to solve that though without taking a heavy moderation hand.
In relation to info being lost in the SB, if we are worried about “outsiders” seeing “internal” info then it’s past time for a hidden board for 100+ post count people. You literally have to be in the SB within 30 minutes of “juicy info” dropping to get it without asking what everyone is talking about. Within a day it could be gone.
Too old to know what’s possible technically but agree that there have been some posts that should never be viewed by recruits or their families. Any way to avoid this happening and still let the SB remain full-throated would be an improvement IMHO.
Yeah, shoutbox is one thing. But keep the crap out of view. Don’t disparage our own guys. Don’t talk crap about our own people. Don’t be a jerk to each other. We’re all passionate about the Niners, but that doesn’t mean you have to run down the performance of a 20 year old kid who just poured his heart and soul into a game.
Yeah, it’s a message board. But before you post something disparaging think about the audience. It’s not just you (the universal you, not you, @earlyniner), it’s every player, alum, fan, recruit, parent, sibling, aunt, etc.
Keep it clean, keep it productive, or don’t post it. It’s simple: Would you post it if your name, address , and phone number were printed with it? If not, just stop.
The above is a good read. Starts out interesting. Then funny, informative, thought-provoking. Best Line: “replete with biomatter”.
Semi-related to this topic. (?) Maybe not, but funny.
What is surprising is that a bunch of adults have time to even post or read the shout box. I check in 2-3 times a day for updated threads around games and recruiting etc. but no way do I have the time or patience to read a chat thread.
Mods should capture critical and news worthy updates in a post for readers if possible.
The vast majority of jobs require 1-3 hours of actual work a day so I’m not at all surprised a bunch of adults have time to kill in the shout box. No different than millions of others that kill time on Facebook, instagram, and twitter every day.
Mods aren’t paid. They shouldn’t be required to do anything except delete explicit or illegal material.
I don’t even know who mods anymore. I think NA might be the only one. 2k and NLP no longer come around.
