general nz-wi tour thread metathread

[Blocky]

Frankly, this argument has a flipside too. If a legion of previously docile posters who never got into fights all suddenly get into fights with one poster, it could indicate that the one poster is getting on their nerves. This, in the end, is a discussion forum, not a debate forum, and we do expect a certain level of geniality and graciousness during discussions, particularly in tour threads, in order to maintain forum atmosphere. My ideal tour thread - and I'd say most others would agree with me - is something approaching a pub-like atmosphere, where good cricket discussions are had and not everyone has to agree, but stupid ****fights don't start because one poster took offence to this poster's argument or this poster was too aggressive or whatever.

This is not to say you can't call ****ty posts ****ty -- hell, I do that myself a lot -- but the percentage of ****ty posts is actually pretty small in my experience, and "this person disagrees with me" is in no way tantamount to the post being ****, or the person being stupid, or whatever. It kills forum atmosphere when people do that, though it's very difficult to infract.

Something to ponder.

The thing is though, this forum is never docile. There are just different "villains" of the day and the more you post here, the more familiar people get with your posting style. As an outsider looking in, of course you're going to be pissed off at "Blocky" when it seems every thread he's in turns into an argument, you're probably not going to note that "Blocky" has a strong personality type which offended other people in other threads who bring their personal **** in to the new thread and attempt to attack/bait and do it with groups, then as an impartial observer, you see that go down without context or history of when I first started posting, I didn't mind dishing out insults to people because I believed it was banter and people weren't a bunch of skirt wearing nancies. I think you'll see my style now isn't about outright "You're a ****ing idiot" like it used to be, although I still reserve the right to point out if I think a point of view is stupid.

That was me, ftr. The problem there was less disagreement, the problem there was that the atmosphere of the tour thread had been completely destroyed by what I saw as an utterly pointless argument that you had started and you alone seemed interested in. Many people have suggested temporary blocking the offending poster from the thread in question to deal with the situation, that was the nearest thing we have.

ha. I thought it was Dan. See, the idea that "an argument that you alone were interested in" doesn't ring true, because I don't respond to myself. I only really respond to others, a lot of the "heated discussions" we end up having is because I don't have the type of personality where I'll let someone question my point of view without a response. And my version of response is to firmly validate my opinion by pointing out why I think things and bringing past events into account - i,e if I make a statement about Wagner, I will revert back to how many people absolutely discredited him and said he had no business in the side. The same with Guptill. Those are pertinent to the actual match situation, as is the current Sodhi discussion because ultimately NZ are going into matches with a guy who cannot hope to contribute with his "strongest" skill suite, "but it's a broken record" - my answer to that is he keeps getting selected.

Considering that's cricket discussion, that goes back to my earlier point. I really don't give a crap what Howsie thinks of Neil Wagner because I know he doesn't have a clue about the situation, so I don't bother responding to him on Neil Wagner rants. Even though he tries his best to start **** when I say "Wagner won't do as well until he sorts his technical issues out" - apparently then I'm "making excuses" rather than "discussing cricket" - people are too personally attached to these players in my view.

 

[Dan]

If you make infractions public they will literally appear to everyone in their profiles like they do to the mods, I think. You wouldn't have to keep a spreadsheet; you'd just have to click on their profile and have a look.

I'm more concerned about the consistency complaints too though, really.

Yeah, I was thinking more along the lines of the Red/Yellow cards show up on posts in-thread, but the infractions tab is still private. Hopefully that's possible in vB.

 

[Prince EWS]

You'll see a lot of major forums refuse to have "personalities" as moderators, the administrator account simply exists and you have no clue who that person is and that person isn't made known to you during discussions. It's because moderators are people to and can quite easily be in the wrong and make wrong decisions, I always question any scenario where a moderator has been involved in a discussion that results in someone being banned.

I think the benefit of having actual contributors as moderators is the context they can get from seeing the discussion unfold first hand. Otherwise you just get a context-free moderation system where the admin reads the reported post and judges it based on that alone.

I'm sure they won't mind me saying this, but James and Fusion do a lot more moderating than they do posting in tour threads. I get frustrated with them sometimes; "James/Fusion moderating" is definitely a thing in my head, but I think they provide the balance we need sometimes between engagement and objective outside decision-making. They provide the removed objective balance that sometimes the mods like Dan, Spark and myself may need after being involved in the debate. As Spark pointed out, sometimes one of the more engaging mods will report a post and advocate a certain action only for James, Fusion or one of the other mods to suggest they might be over-reacting, but by the same token sometimes someone will report a post that requires much more context than just reading the report and a couple of posts either side could provide. It's a nice balance.

I've always said that mods should have more authority to take action when something is really obvious, but Hurricane and a few others have advocated completely getting rid of the consensus decision-making, and I think that would be a terrible idea. I think borderline infractions taking a couple of hours is a much better problem to have than having 20% of infractions reversed later. I can assure you that the consensus-based system absolutely does make for better moderation outcomes in complicated cases.. we just need to get the balance a bit better between accuracy and speed when someone should obviously be copping an infraction, I think. I

 

[Spark]

I genuinely hope we've reached Peak Flamey Arguing in this tour thread

oh no, we are a loooooooooooong way from peak flamey arguing

 

[Blocky]

Yeah, me and Phelgm best buds....

No what annoys me is that WW gets away with this crap all the time. How is "the kiwi's aren't going well, what they need is roach, he would bowl better then this' not straight up blatant trolling get the **** out of the thread type ****? He's not dumb, he knows what he's doing. But because he's a West Indies fan and their is only one or two of them on CW they can't afford to lose him.

As it is you'll probably lose other guys as a result as DoG said which would be a shame.

He's discussing cricket, when he states "Well, WI would compete better here" - it's no different to you and I having disagreements over Wagner vs Bennett or anyone else that you think will somehow miraculously perform for NZ. I don't see why you have any issue with him going into a thread to give us a serve about the NZ Cricket side losing considering how much of a serving he took during the West Indies series we had against him, some of you even expected that he would disappear from the forums due to the loss, but he took his hits like a man

Now when we're struggling and he makes a statement about "Well, this is a poor performance, WI would do better than this" - you get THAT offended by it and somehow he's the issue?

 

[Blocky]

I think the benefit of having actual contributors as moderators is the context they can get from seeing the discussion unfold first hand. Otherwise you just get a context-free moderation system where the admin reads the reported post and judges it based on that alone.

I'm sure they won't mind me saying this, but James and Fusion do a lot more moderating than they do posting in tour threads. I get frustrated with them sometimes; "James/Fusion moderating" is definitely a thing in my head, but I think they provide the balance we need sometimes between engagement and objective outside decision-making. They provide the removed objective balance that sometimes the mods like Dan, Spark and myself may need after being involved in the debate. As Spark pointed out, sometimes one of the more engaging mods will report a post and advocate a certain action only for James, Fusion or one of the other mods to suggest they might be over-reacting, but by the same token sometimes someone will report a post that requires much more context than just reading the report and a couple of posts either side could provide. It's a nice balance.

I've always said that mods should have more authority to take action when something is really obvious, but Hurricane and a few others have advocated completely getting rid of the consensus decision-making, and I think that would be a terrible idea. I think borderline infractions taking a couple of hours is a much better problem to have than having 20% of infractions reversed later. I can assure you that the consensus-based system absolutely does make for better moderation outcomes in complicated cases.. we just need to get the balance a bit better between accuracy and speed when someone should obviously be copping an infraction, I think. I

Don't take consensus decision making away, I think that allows you guys to remove yourself from the situation and also for more impartial "Well, I wasn't involved in the heat of the moment so what I see is...." reason. I also think ultimately if certain people continue to perpetuate arguments that have already died a natural death in threads, they need to have infractions put on them. That includes me, If I quote something out of context hours after the debate has been killed, please give me infractions for it. I think one of the major reasons we have thread derailment comes down to that, because any disagreement you have with an individual gets recriminated three to four hours later when someone else finds it, quotes it and starts it again.

 

[morgieb]

oh no, we are a loooooooooooong way from peak flamey arguing

Oh dear god. Don't remind me.

 

[Spark]

He's discussing cricket, when he states "Well, WI would compete better here" - it's no different to you and I having disagreements over Wagner vs Bennett or anyone else that you think will somehow miraculously perform for NZ. I don't see why you have any issue with him going into a thread to give us a serve about the NZ Cricket side losing considering how much of a serving he took during the West Indies series we had against him, some of you even expected that he would disappear from the forums due to the loss, but he took his hits like a man

Now when we're struggling and he makes a statement about "Well, this is a poor performance, WI would do better than this" - you get THAT offended by it and somehow he's the issue?

To give context, WW was actually permanently banned in the past for constantly antagonising posters by bringing up WI cricket in a style of posting I call "nationalistic dickwaving" - constantly trying to prove your team (or indeed your country) is better in every way. In particular, posts criticising his arguments, or indeed criticising WI cricketers, would often be met with specious and irrelevant arguments about how [WI player] > [your team's player]. He was brought back on the condition that he cut out this style of posting, so people are naturally sensitive to that.

More to the point though, it really is irritating when people constantly bring up irrelevant cricketers in tour threads. Every now and then, sure, when it's on-topic. But not all the time when the discussion clearly doesn't involve them.

 

[Prince EWS]

Yeah, me and Phelgm best buds....

No what annoys me is that WW gets away with this crap all the time. How is "the kiwi's aren't going well, what they need is roach, he would bowl better then this' not straight up blatant trolling get the **** out of the thread type ****? He's not dumb, he knows what he's doing. But because he's a West Indies fan and their is only one or two of them on CW they can't afford to lose him.

As it is you'll probably lose other guys as a result as DoG said which would be a shame.

I've debated whether to make this public, but given it's on his wall it already is in a way, so I'll let you in on it.

WindieWeathers has been given the following two moderator instructions:

1. Please don't derail threads by bringing up the West Indies or West Indian players where they aren't relevant.
2. Please treat members as individuals rather than as representations of the teams they support.

If he does either of those things from now on, on top of the official rules, he's ignoring moderator instructions and will get an infraction.

Due to way the infraction system works, we've actually had to deal with him outside the infraction system since his return from the 'permanent' ban we gave him. This has been rectified now, but in general we've handled the situation with him really badly.. and the fact that we've sometimes let people get away with trolling/insulting him because he's done so much of the above has been a part of that too. We'll be more strict on personal attacks in future but we'll also be enforcing those above rules on WW. So if you can restrain yourself from insulting him, you can rest assured he won't be able to randomly bring up West Indians or reply to relevant criticisms of West Indian players with "but a player on the team you support sucks".

 

[Prince EWS]

To give context, WW was actually permanently banned in the past for constantly antagonising posters by bringing up WI cricket in a style of posting I call "nationalistic dickwaving" - constantly trying to prove your team (or indeed your country) is better in every way. In particular, posts criticising his arguments, or indeed criticising WI cricketers, would often be met with specious and irrelevant arguments about how [WI player] > [your team's player]. He was brought back on the condition that he cut out this style of posting, so people are naturally sensitive to that.

More to the point though, it really is irritating when people constantly bring up irrelevant cricketers in tour threads. Every now and then, sure, when it's on-topic. But not all the time when the discussion clearly doesn't involve them.

Yeah, WW is here under special rules. He's agreed to that.

 

[Blocky]

To give context, WW was actually permanently banned in the past for constantly antagonising posters by bringing up WI cricket in a style of posting I call "nationalistic dickwaving" - constantly trying to prove your team (or indeed your country) is better in every way. In particular, posts criticising his arguments, or indeed criticising WI cricketers, would often be met with specious and irrelevant arguments about how [WI player] > [your team's player]. He was brought back on the condition that he cut out this style of posting, so people are naturally sensitive to that.

More to the point though, it really is irritating when people constantly bring up irrelevant cricketers in tour threads. Every now and then, sure, when it's on-topic. But not all the time when the discussion clearly doesn't involve them.

But then that's the entire point of professional sports and international sports, you love your team even during the tough times and you always believe they're just around the corner from a great result - NZ Cricket potentially is worse than anyone else in the world for thinking we have world class talent, look at our consensus view on Williamson being the best young batsman in the world, Taylor being one of the top three and Southee now competing with Steyn for the mantel - all due to one season of performances.

I just don't have any issue with anyone saying "HA, our team would've done better than you" or "HA, Roach is a better bowler than this **** that Boult serves up" because the very nature of sports is competitive instinct. Consider that WW and I are seemingly considered the most flammable personalities here and the ones involved in the most arguments, we've had massive **** fights regarding cricket and our opinions, I remember serving him bigtime during the WI test but both of us get that it's all about the cricket, which is ironic considering you'd think the two people who argue the most would degenerate into an argument.

We both share the same issue, if you disagree with our opinion we don't just let that slip, we'll tell you why you're wrong which for passive aggressive people really infuriates them. I don't have an issue with the current posting style of WW. I actually see him being in the same light as most Kiwis and Aussies treat each other and I think its fine.

 

[morgieb]

As another thread suggested, you should implement ****blocking IMO.

Would be an easy way to cool down a thread when it is getting heated if the poster in question who is seen as contributing to making threads heated isn't really doing anything infraction worthy.

Also I think that the mods here need to be less consentual....particularly in things like tour threads which can go downhill rather quickly.

 

[Spark]

I just don't have any issue with anyone saying "HA, our team would've done better than you" or "HA, Roach is a better bowler than this **** that Boult serves up" because the very nature of sports is competitive instinct.

Hmm, neither of these two examples are really what we're talking about. It's more, for example:

Country A poster: "I don't think [Country B batsman] is very good tbh, he doesn't move his feet at all"
Country B poster: "Yeah but look at [Country A batsman] and how **** he is" or "Lol you weren't saying that when [series where Country A got beaten]" etc etc
Country A poster: "That has... absolutely nothing to do with what I just posted"

But actually both of those examples would be seriously looked down upon tbh. Again: discussion board.

 

[WindieWeathers]

Yeah, me and Phelgm best buds....

No what annoys me is that WW gets away with this crap all the time. How is "the kiwi's aren't going well, what they need is roach, he would bowl better then this' not straight up blatant trolling get the **** out of the thread type ****? He's not dumb, he knows what he's doing. But because he's a West Indies fan and their is only one or two of them on CW they can't afford to lose him.

As it is you'll probably lose other guys as a result as DoG said which would be a shame.

Goodness me you know i can handle people not liking me!!..that's fine, BUT WHY DO YOU CONSTANTLY TRY TO SPREAD LIES ABOUT ME? yesterday you pasted my posts from the NZ/PAK thread on this forum and tried to smear me saying they were done "over six hours" when they were infact posted over three days and nothing in them was abusive or mocking..and now you're making up rubbish with that Roach line which distorts what i said about India, SL and WI perhaps having attacks that would suit the UAE tracks? it's a damn joke!!...especially when you've dished out abuse to others and now you want to judge me?

Howsie let me make it clear..you have a problem with me? fine!!.. IGNORE MY POSTS..i really don't give a damn if we never exchange posts again..but don't think i'll just stand by and let people try to smear my name with mistruths...it's not happening.

Every man and his dog knows who is ruining that thread. Yet for some reason we're getting taught a lesson about not feeding trolls instead of just banning the ****ing troll.

The funny thing is i don't recall ever debating with this poster and yet he's gunning for me like i stole something!! ...like Howsie if you don't like what i have to say put me on ignore...trying to get me banned because you disagree with my views is quite frankly childish.

I continue to hope the mods see through these scanderlous tactics.

 

[Blocky]

Hmm, neither of these two examples are really what we're talking about. It's more, for example:

Country A poster: "I don't think [Country B batsman] is very good tbh, he doesn't move his feet at all"
Country B poster: "Yeah but look at [Country A batsman] and how **** he is" or "Lol you weren't saying that when [series where Country A got beaten]" etc etc
Country A poster: "That has... absolutely nothing to do with what I just posted"

But actually both of those examples would be seriously looked down upon tbh. Again: discussion board.

Weird, because to me the whole thing about posting opinions is to be ready to swallow your hat when you get it wrong.

i.e if Ish Sodhi turns around and takes 12 wickets in the next test and we win against Pakistan, I'll swallow my hat and be prepared to take endless recrimination around what I've stated.

I guess for me it just comes back to how sensitive and personally attached some people seem to be, I just don't see any reason to get angry over someone saying "So Ross Taylor is the best huh? I bet you Chanderpaul would've batted out the draw" - although admittedly I wasn't around in the days that WW was initially perma-banned so I don't know the full story.

 

[Spark]

The point is that the type of posts we're talking about don't prove anything because they're irrelevant, though, they just wind people up.

 

[Athlai]

Would it help if I came up for a catchy new name for ****blocking?

 

[Dan]

Weird, because to me the whole thing about posting opinions is to be ready to swallow your hat when you get it wrong.

i.e if Ish Sodhi turns around and takes 12 wickets in the next test and we win against Pakistan, I'll swallow my hat and be prepared to take endless recrimination around what I've stated.

I guess for me it just comes back to how sensitive and personally attached some people seem to be, I just don't see any reason to get angry over someone saying "So Ross Taylor is the best huh? I bet you Chanderpaul would've batted out the draw" - although admittedly I wasn't around in the days that WW was initially perma-banned so I don't know the full story.

No, it isn't that kind of thing at all.

Whenever an Englishman says "you know what, I don't particularly rate Narine", and a West Indian comes back with "hahahahaha but you guys have Moeen Ali and he's ****", its tiresome insofar as your country having a good spinner isn't a prerequisite for not rating another spin bowler.

It may very well be true that Narine would perform better than Moeen Ali, but that doesn't mean an Englishman has to rate Narine because they don't have anyone better. They can both be ****, just one more so than another.

(Using this as an example because it actually happened, ftr. WW, don't respond to it on a cricketing level pls)

 

[Prince EWS]

But then that's the entire point of professional sports and international sports, you love your team even during the tough times and you always believe they're just around the corner from a great result - NZ Cricket potentially is worse than anyone else in the world for thinking we have world class talent, look at our consensus view on Williamson being the best young batsman in the world, Taylor being one of the top three and Southee now competing with Steyn for the mantel - all due to one season of performances.


I just don't have any issue with anyone saying "HA, our team would've done better than you" or "HA, Roach is a better bowler than this **** that Boult serves up" because the very nature of sports is competitive instinct. Consider that WW and I are seemingly considered the most flammable personalities here and the ones involved in the most arguments, we've had massive **** fights regarding cricket and our opinions, I remember serving him bigtime during the WI test but both of us get that it's all about the cricket, which is ironic considering you'd think the two people who argue the most would degenerate into an argument.

I've agreed with most of the stuff you've said in this thread but I actually do really disagree with this. I don't think a forum should be a battleground between competing sets of fans looking to conquer to opposition in the name of their team. It should be a place to discuss cricket; not have a separate competition for the fans to point-score with. If I think Roach is **** and I say so then "but a bowler on the team you support is ****!!!!" is just simply not a valid retort because I'm offering an opinion; not challenging the West Indies Supporters Union to a duel. It really stifles debate if people are treated as big flag-waving caricatures rather than individuals with differing opinions. At the end of the day, the qualities of the players who play for the team I happen to support are totally irrelevant to my opinion of Roach, so it really detracts from individual opinions and just becomes and nationality.


People are going to be biased sometimes, and there's going to be some banter and some cheering, and that's all fine. I've said a bit to Spark on Skype today about how we run the risk of having very samey members if let the pack run anyone they don't like out of town... but if you're coming to the forum to stick it to the opposition and wave the flag for your own side at every opportunity in order to win the war of the fans, then CW probably isn't the place for you. We pride ourselves on not having a forum like that. Having posters with different styles, different interests and different things they enjoy about cricket is great, but this is a discussion forum and we draw the line at that sort of warmongering.

 

[WindieWeathers]

Weird, because to me the whole thing about posting opinions is to be ready to swallow your hat when you get it wrong.

i.e if Ish Sodhi turns around and takes 12 wickets in the next test and we win against Pakistan, I'll swallow my hat and be prepared to take endless recrimination around what I've stated.

I guess for me it just comes back to how sensitive and personally attached some people seem to be, I just don't see any reason to get angry over someone saying "So Ross Taylor is the best huh? I bet you Chanderpaul would've batted out the draw" - although admittedly I wasn't around in the days that WW was initially perma-banned so I don't know the full story.

Back then i would have turned this whole forum red after some of the abuse i have received!!..but i've grown up now. The good people of this site know what i can bring to the table which is why i was given a second chance and i'm thankful for that...it's just a pity that some of my detractors from the past still carry that negative energy.