Happy. Am I guilty?

[admin]

I do not think this board is a refreshing change. More like they need to change.

They are happy with mediocrity. Probably why they sat and watched Hopeless Hugh

Think he was talking about the message board mate - is new. 

 

[splutcho]

I do not think this board is a refreshing change. More like they need to change.

They are happy with mediocrity. Probably why they sat and watched Hopeless Hugh

take us down and then reverted to being happy in championship.

We are now watching players leave and be replaced by freebies and oldies nobody 

else will pay over the top wages for. Last minute loans will complete the lack of ambition.

Happy to beat a 10 men team. Yes. I will be happier to beat an 11 man blackburn team 

tomorrow and and get an away win at weekend. 

Well aren't you Mr Sunshine. If you're such an old boy you've probably seen worse times than this and you should know that we'll have our ups and downs and in no circumstances whatsoever is the best course of action to whine about it. Last season is done. It's gone and nothing will change what happened. We were poor on the opening day and we've bounced back by beating what was put in front of us, which is all they can do.

I would love to know how we are "watching players leave" and how this is different to any other relegated side. To sum up, I really hope you don't attend the games, because the club doesn't need your brand of "support".

 

[Agent Dale Cooper]

I'm not hot headed but if someone says something I disagree with I'm not gonna be all sweetness and like and agree with it, I'm gonna call them on it like I would expect people to call me out on things they agree with.

I think as Norwich are technically my second team I can look at things on a more neutral note and unbiased.  

For what it's worth, I think this site is already proving to be a great alternative to the Pinkun site, but it's important that we don't become too heavy-handed with moderation of people's views. If you try to sanitise things too much, you lose a lot of people's passion and human nature. I don't see anything wrong with people having a frank exchange of views and saying they think someone's views are nonsense, as long as they can justify it with reasons and not resort to personal insults. I'm a pretty diplomatic kind of bloke, but it takes all sorts to make a world and I think we should make sure we're not too conservative with where we draw our 'line in the sand'.

 

[cityoldboy]

Think he was talking about the message board mate - is new. 

Whoops sorry 

 

[splutcho]

For what it's worth, I think this site is already proving to be a great alternative to the Pinkun site, but it's important that we don't become too heavy-handed with moderation of people's views. If you try to sanitise things too much, you lose a lot of people's passion and human nature. I don't see anything wrong with people having a frank exchange of views and saying they think someone's views are nonsense, as long as they can justify it with reasons and not resort to personal insults. I'm a pretty diplomatic kind of bloke, but it takes all sorts to make a world and I think we should make sure we're not too conservative with where we draw our 'line in the sand'.

I agree and may have been a little heavy handed with Paul earlier. Bear in mind moderation is a new game to me. I think we will find the right balance.

 

[cityoldboy]

Well aren't you Mr Sunshine. If you're such an old boy you've probably seen worse times than this and you should know that we'll have our ups and downs and in no circumstances whatsoever is the best course of action to whine about it. Last season is done. It's gone and nothing will change what happened. We were poor on the opening day and we've bounced back by beating what was put in front of us, which is all they can do.

I would love to know how we are "watching players leave" and how this is different to any other relegated side. To sum up, I really hope you don't attend the games, because the club doesn't need your brand of "support".

Glad to get such a banal predictable response. You just left out ' why don't you go to watch ipswich ' to complete your cliche.

The type of support I provide is now over 1500 Norwich games supporting the team vocally for every minute of every game and say what I think after the game.

The type of support we do not need is are people like yourself  who have a go at fans who have been to most games for past 45 years

and dare to be critical of the club. Why not sit back and see Chase nearly destroy the club, Huckerby not have contract offered, Roeder *bleep* off the fans and

Hopeless Hugh lose game after game with pitiful performances. Why not ring up canary call and tell proper fans to stop being critical and ' get behind the boys '

I could stop going and leave the plastic fans, not singing, concentrating on what they are eating and providing zero atmosphere. I am sure you would like that.  

 

[admin]

Glad to get such a banal predictable response. You just left out ' why don't you go to watch ipswich ' to complete your cliche.

The type of support I provide is now over 1500 Norwich games supporting the team vocally for every minute of every game and say what I think after the game.

The type of support we do not need is are people like yourself  who have a go at fans who have been to most games for past 45 years

and dare to be critical of the club. Why not sit back and see Chase nearly destroy the club, Huckerby not have contract offered, Roeder slag off the fans and

Hopeless Hugh lose game after game with pitiful performances. Why not ring up canary call and tell proper fans to stop being critical and ' get behind the boys '

I could stop going and leave the plastic fans, not singing, concentrating on what they are eating and providing zero atmosphere. I am sure you would like that.  

Wind your neck in, and cheer up - a real fan such as yourself should be happy when we get a win? 

 

[Agent Dale Cooper]

Glad you decided to unlock this thread, admin. Much as I found cityoldboy's response a bit confrontational and patronising, I think we need to allow people to fight it out between themselves. I think the biggest danger this forum faces is not descending into meltdown through people insulting each other, but rather being too keen to 'cleanse' the forum of any unpopular views or confrontational posts.

On the 'other place' a lack of respect and moderation often leads to multiple threads being derailed by Machiavellian agendas and point-scoring exercises, but so far it seems that the posters who try to offer balanced views (such as myself, I hope!) get listened to and appreciated a lot more; I found that a lot of the time my posts on the 'other place' just got ignored underneath a blanket of flame wars. I think there's a nice balance on here at the moment, and the forum seems to be doing a good job of cleansing itself!

Keep up the good work, folks.

 

[admin]

For what it's worth, I think this site is already proving to be a great alternative to the Pinkun site, but it's important that we don't become too heavy-handed with moderation of people's views. If you try to sanitise things too much, you lose a lot of people's passion and human nature. I don't see anything wrong with people having a frank exchange of views and saying they think someone's views are nonsense, as long as they can justify it with reasons and not resort to personal insults. I'm a pretty diplomatic kind of bloke, but it takes all sorts to make a world and I think we should make sure we're not too conservative with where we draw our 'line in the sand'.

Hi mate. Censorship is not on the agenda. This forum still needs some simple guidelines written and pinned to the top of the main board, with an explanation of the warning system and suspensions, I don't want people to feel like they are treading on eggshells, some perhaps do at the moment I think. Is my responsibility to ensure that people can relax, but I've been neglecting my real world stuff and so need to take a backseat a bit on this for a while to catch up. 

For the benefit of any doubt though (based upon earlier discussion), if I logged on at 11pm and found an inebriated Paul had lashed out and called somebody a c*nt, unjustifiably, and it had resulted in a 10 page tit for tat, the thread would get locked and Paul would probably get some time out (say, a couple of days suspension), and a PM telling him to chill out. Just using Paul as an example, as per earlier discussion up thread. I had somebody sending me a message apologising for something and asking not to be banned the other day, after doing something which probably didn't reach 2/10 on the annoyance scale. 

So this forum does need a clearer moderation system, and nobody should feel like they can't be themselves. A clear system would also benefit Splutcho and Morty because thus far there have been a few times when there has been confusion over what Splutcho the poster thinks, and what he is saying as a moderator, have to appreciate that both are Norwich fans and want to be free to say what they think also. Perhaps both having second accounts which they can log in and out of would assist with that, so people know whether they are talking to Splutcho the mod, or Splutcho the human being who supports Norwich.

People may have noticed that I'm trying to do similar, by using 'Admin' for site related stuff, and 'Canaryboy' to talk about the football club that I love (canaryboy doesn't even have mod privs). 

In fact I'm so against 'censorship' that I've told Splutcho and Morty that I prefer threads to be locked rather than deleted, even if they offer nothing of value. I've been building and maintaining sites for a good 5 or 6 years, but I've never run a community, so nobody should have any reason to believe that I have a clue what I'm doing.... I'm making it up as I go along and still trying to suss it all out. 

 

[Agent Dale Cooper]

Hi mate. Censorship is not on the agenda. This forum still needs some simple guidelines written and pinned to the top of the main board, with an explanation of the warning system and suspensions, I don't want people to feel like they are treading on eggshells, some perhaps do at the moment I think. Is my responsibility to ensure that people can relax, but I've been neglecting my real world stuff and so need to take a backseat a bit on this for a while to catch up. 

For the benefit of any doubt though (based upon earlier discussion), if I logged on at 11pm and found an inebriated Paul had lashed out and called somebody a c*nt, unjustifiably, and it had resulted in a 10 page tit for tat, the thread would get locked and Paul would probably get some time out (say, 3 or 7 day suspension), and a PM telling him to chill out. Just using Paul as an example, as per earlier discussion up thread. I had somebody sending me a message apologising for something and asking not to be banned the other day, after doing something which probably didn't reach 2/10 on the annoyance scale. 

So this forum does need a clearer moderation system, and nobody should feel like they can't be themselves. 

In fact I'm so against 'censorship' that I've told Splutcho and Morty that I prefer threads to be locked rather than deleted, even if they offer nothing of value. I've been building and maintaining sites for a good 5 or 6 years, but I've never run a community, so nobody should have any reason to believe that I have a clue what I'm doing.... I'm making it up as I go along and still trying to suss it all out. 

Great response, cheers. Easy for me to say from my non-moderating armchair, but it seems to me that the vast majority of posters on here know where the line is, and things will sort themselves out organically more often than not. You're bound to get aggressive posters and flamers from time to time, but the more you try to regulate things, the more you'll get people accusing you of double standards, PMing you to voice their discontent, spreading sh*t about you/the forum and so on... I've seen it happen so many times. If you get blatant trolls and you end up banning them, they'll be in a minority of one, because the regulars will all pull together to keep the place ticking over. A bit like a virtual pub, in many ways...

 

[Keckers]

To be honest, I have found the level of moderation about right. People can disagree without resorting to insults and / or petty point scoring. I've seen a few little exchanges that I've thought were a tad unnecessary and you should hold firm on strong moderation. That's not the same as censorship. You're not removing their ability to express their opinion, just making sure it doesn't descend into really petty squabbles and / or unpleasant arguments.

I would say that strong moderation now is absolutely vital as people are looking for an alternative to the problems found elsewhere. I post here because I believe it is a much safer place to post. I don't want to log in to a discussion board, which should be fun, to find that I am subject to unpleasant comments purely because someone doesn't agree with my opinion. If they are not ale to conduct themselves with the correct level of decorum then I would say you're better off without as they will put people off posting if they are left even a little unchecked in this respect.

Hope that all makes sense. I'm just very aware through this and my job that faceless communication can so quickly descend into unpleasantness and the people most affected are those on the end of the abuse. The people who post the unpleasant remarks are often unaffected by the other person's hurt unless they are made to see it in the flesh.

Sounds like I'm advocating total censorship. I'm really not. Just be ready to jump on anyone making unpleasant, snide remarks, or anyone who puts others down because of their opinion.

Thanks

 

[splutcho]

I see what you're saying Keckers and I agree to an extent, you should certainly be able to have discussion without insults or being too condescending. Both of these are going to put people off sharing opinions. That said, as we all know, talking about your football team can be an emotive topic and it's quite easy for tempers to flare sometimes, I know this, I've been there.

I don't want to get rid of banter between users, it's part of what makes forums in general fun. I'd just like it if a little respect could be shown to everyone, you can disagree with somebody being negative without calling them a p*ntwetter, and you can disagree with somebody being positive without calling them a sheep or a happy clapper. Try and remember that we're all City fans and in the long run we all want the same thing. 

 

[morty]

Great response, cheers. Easy for me to say from my non-moderating armchair, but it seems to me that the vast majority of posters on here know where the line is, and things will sort themselves out organically more often than not. You're bound to get aggressive posters and flamers from time to time, but the more you try to regulate things, the more you'll get people accusing you of double standards, PMing you to voice their discontent, spreading sh*t about you/the forum and so on... I've seen it happen so many times. If you get blatant trolls and you end up banning them, they'll be in a minority of one, because the regulars will all pull together to keep the place ticking over. A bit like a virtual pub, in many ways...

I'll pick up on your "virtual pub" analogy here, as it is one I have used on other, not just football forums. People can all too easily forget theres a human being on the other end of the screen. And I have often used the analogy and asked people "Would you say that to someone if you were stood face to face with them in the pub?" And this is why I would encourage people to use actual photos as avatars, because its not unheard of for people to get unnecessarily E-hard because they have anonymity. Yeah of course discussions will get heated, and it can be very difficult to talk people down when they are just being idiots, and frustrations will spill over.

But on the whole I think the level seems about right here so far, and a great feature is the ignore, if you really do find that seeing certain peoples posts just makes you want to smash your screen.

 

[splutcho]

Agreed admin, though I think we can help ourselves out there by being more clear about it. I certainly don't want it to seem like we're picking on users whose views we don't see eye to eye with though. We're not going to abuse moderating powers to "censor" posters expressing themselves in a way we personally don't like.

 

[admin]

Sorry Splutcho I deleted my post, which I think you replied to.... for the benefit of others, all I said was:

"I think primarily we just need to work out how to differentiate between when a mod is talking as a mod, and when they are talking as a City fan, so that they are free to express opinions like everybody else without others subsequently thinking that their own opinions are being censored". 

 

[Andy]

I'll pick up on your "virtual pub" analogy here, as it is one I have used on other, not just football forums. People can all too easily forget theres a human being on the other end of the screen. And I have often used the analogy and asked people "Would you say that to someone if you were stood face to face with them in the pub?" And this is why I would encourage people to use actual photos as avatars, because its not unheard of for people to get unnecessarily E-hard because they have anonymity.

Have to agree with this, I find that giving up anonymity on this forum has some real benefits. It reminds me to post responsibly in a respectful way but also hopefully gives added credibility to issues that I consider important. For example when anonymous posters started ranting about the incident at Wolves I think my post helped to calm things down. I realise that some posters prefer to stay anonymous but I would encourage as many as possible to "come out", so to speak, to help make this forum a decent place to exchange views.

 

[Keckers]

Agreed Morty. although I'm hesitant to use a real photo as an avatar due to my job. I agree that people should only say things they would say face to face, although I guess with some, that would include the less pleasant comments.

Splutcho - I'm all for being emotional about our club. I still get hairs raised on the back of my neck as the team line up to come out on a Saturday afternoon. I love seeing the passion of fans expressed in heated debate. But heated debate can occur without resorting to unpleasantness (although even that can be ok up to a point if it's acknowledged after the fact that it was the heat of the debate that raised emotions).. I am just really keen for the site to be well maintained as I've found somewhere I am happy to post as I feel it is safe to do so. I, like many others, don't have the time to invest in something optional like these discussion boards if we're going to be subjected to unnecessarily unpleasant comments. That's what I want to avoid.

For the record, I think both of you are doing a good job moderating and separating mods from your own opinions as a fan.

 

[splutcho]

Have to agree with this, I find that giving up anonymity on this forum has some real benefits. It reminds me to post responsibly in a respectful way but also hopefully gives added credibility to issues that I consider important. For example when anonymous posters started ranting about the incident at Wolves I think my post helped to calm things down. I realise that some posters prefer to stay anonymous but I would encourage as many as possible to "come out", so to speak, to help make this forum a decent place to exchange views.

It is a good point, I might go with a more personal avatar in the coming days.

 

[morty]

I think people are perhaps overestimating the status myself and Splutcho have been given. We have taken this on just to help admin with a bit of forum tidying (moving threads etc) and keeping an eye on things when he's not around. We're not bouncers here to keep the peace with an iron fist.

Speaking for myself (and I would suspect Splutcho too) I'm primarily here to talk about Norwich City, and if theres anything I can do to help maintain a mood that helps that, I'll do it, which I would even if I wasn't a moderator, everyone can play a part in self policing.

If I thought people were afraid to disagree with me, or thought I would unleash some mighty godlike wrath because they had, I'd ask admin to let someone else moderate.

 

[Keckers]

It's just about reminding people of the expected standards and getting admin to take action if people continually fall below the expected standards.

I hope I'm not coming across as really negative. I do believe in firm boundaries as it creates a safe environment for people to feel free to express themselves, and I also believe passionately in free speech in every aspect of life. I think the two can coexist quite comfortably, especially on here. If I made a comment that was unnecessarily unpleasant, I would expect someone to have a quiet word. I do like the fact that the site seems to be self-policing in the main at the moment as almost everyone on here wants a change from the nastiness found elsewhere.

Like I said, I do think the site is great as it is in this regard.