Archive of SportingNews.com's old SOM Baseball forum

This board has seen much better days.

I used to be able to check in every half an hour and have stuff to read, now sometimes hours go by with 1 or 2 posts. Don't get me started on the strategy thread which has 1-2 posts a week!

I'm wondering why? Is it because all of our features still aren't here? Of am I just smoking crack and need to shut up?

You're all dead to me if you don't start picking up the pace. :lol:

Well it ain't dead but it is on life support when you compare it with the old messageboard. This kind of suprises me too considering how much bitching we used to do about that board.

I remember tons of messages complaining about how slow the board was and yet we used it in droves. So TSN listened to our complaints and got us a new, faster, (Stable?) board and suddenly everyone loved the old board again. Now we have a newer and faster board and we are using it less!

Go figure?!

I believe it's dead. Nothing like it used to be. I have even done threads asking where everyone is before.

Although I’m mostly a lurker on the boards, I’ve been around since the beginning, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen board activity this low. I don’t think the board format change can be blamed (even though I preferred the old board to this one). Rather, it probably is a combination of factors including the departure of some very active players/posters (like Penngray) from the site. One thing which might have helped spur a little activity for this new season (and was actually alluded to by another person) would have been if the old Luckyman / JaserD ratings were posted again. It was sort of an annual early season rite that I looked forward to (since I only play a few teams each year and need every bit of help I can get) and that always sparked board activity.

But those ratings also sparked controversy as some people criticized the fact that they were made publicly available at the beginning of a new season which helped some players unfairly (like me) because we got all the scoops without having to put in the work. So I can understand why the people who provided these numbers in the past may have grown tired of the fight and declined to do it this year which, in my opinion, is a shame. I would also say that one reason I think veterans love this game so much is only because of the initial draft and player selection process. The game itself, in my opinion, is quite static once the season begins. Survive injuries and a good team can go on auto-pilot and win and a bad team is bad from day 1. I think the game needs a fundamental change which I don't think TSN will provide and perhaps after 5 years some players have grown tired.

With apologies to Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, all baseball computer simulation message boards go through these five stages:

1. Birth
2. Growth
3. Invasion of the people who can't spell
4. Decline
5. Death

8) ~BK

People stay in their leagues thread. The action is there.

[i:3416e5be0d]People stay in their leagues thread. The action is there.[/i:3416e5be0d]

This pretty much explains it all considering that individual leagues are comprised mainly, perhaps entirely, of veterans. Most online message board communities are very much “closed shop” to those who are not already a member. Little attention or concern is paid to people posting outside the core because they are of little interest to the people in the club. The powers that be, when they respond to posts, will always respond to a veteran over a rookie because there is incentive and reason (a prior relationship with the person) to do so.

If some general discussion about the Strat game doesn’t take place in the non individual league areas, I don’t know how the game will ever grow beyond the core veterans who have been here for 5 years now and whose numbers may also be in decline. Lurkers and rookies (I will not use the word newbies because it is insulting to people who are often mature adults) use this group and the strategy one as their proving ground and, perhaps, springboard into a deeper level of participation within the TSN Strat community. The death of this board, and the self-isolation of veterans in veteran league chats, can only be bad for the game.

Not a bad post, for a newbie :!: :wink: :P

I've noticed the lack of activity as well. Particularly during the day.