Strat and TSN

Off topic, but I just played one of those in a netplay league. After his RF made an error, there was a long pause, I thought the connection might have frozen. Then come his eloquent AIM message "this is bullshit" "HAL controls the outcome of too many games". Well, my friend, Denorfia is a fine RF'er, but he ain't error proof!

I Strether-

One of the reasons I dont respond on here often is because of this:

I explain what actually happened and why and then it becomes a question of defending the reality of what has occurred- quite frankly Im tired of repeating the same piece of SoM/TSN history over and over-
its great when newer folks want to know what actually happened and why things are the way they are...

Secondly- to address your premise that the community needs to change- thats a complete red herring.
a few people whine about bad results- thats not the issue that needs to be fixed.

Many people laid out exactly what they felt needed to happen to help both keep existing customers and grow the community- most of which has continued to be ignored. Nothing will change until those basics get addressed- again, thats what has landed us in our current state- and was beyond predictable.

Sure, although I'm not going to name names. I will describe the gripes they made and their irrationality. Although, I must say, I'm disappointed you'd rather debate whether or not most complainers have been legitimate in their complaint than discuss how to improve the forum...which I hope you will do after this.

1. The myriad HAL complaints by users who are either fully aware, or should have been aware, that HAL is not nor can be a "perfect" system. Many of these gripers have demanded free credits merely because HAL was being HAL and the game or season wasn't going their way because of one or more of these HAL functions. Many have complained about one of these areas, some complained about all. But the permutations have added up to a plethora of these grousers.
A. Injuries
B. Caught stealing
C. Pitcher replacements or lack thereof
D. Pinch Hitters
E. Defensive Replacements

2. The Autodraft victims. Until the advent of the live draft, and still continuing beyond it, there have been loads of players crying about their autodraft and how it was "unfair"...when they knew (or should have known) how the Autodraft worked and knew its possible travails. The demands for free credits or threats of leaving were more prevalent in the early years, but they will still appear every so often. Some of those carping about the Autodraft were invited by a SOM moderator to come up with just one consensually agreed upon way to improve the Autodraft...and they couldnt do it. So, yes, the autodraft gripers are mostly absent now, but they were ubiquitous for a long while.

3. The "SOM is too expensive" crew. Now these guys are still around. Even though SOM has never raised its prices since its advent in 2001 (I believe), and has actually lowered it. But, man, loads of SOM users keep griping about SOM being too expensive, without making comparisons to other values of relative cost, addressing SOM's low price-per-day cost, or addressing why they keep paying for a product they deem to expensive. These irrational complainers are still around in droves.

I hope these provides some adequate examples for you, Nev, and they should. I will provide more for you later if you can show me why these don't suffice. However, I do want to discuss what is really important, and that is improving and enlarging the SOM community. You didn't address my previous post that made some salient suggestions on the matter. So, I'll repost that post for you to address...since I know you care about improving and enlarging our community.

I would agree with you there - there was more of a community in TSN and Bernie did communicate with us on new developments. But the community has shrunk not only because of poor customer service, but because of SOM's low visibility - not enough new blood to keep this going. I would say the real hardcore community of players is a vanishing breed due to perceived poor customer service. I've been at this for about 10 years or so and though SOM has had it's problems with TSN and in the current home site, it;s also true that there are a lot of whiny crybabies who complain about EVERYTHING and decided to take their ball and go home

I agree. I've been playing this since the beginning, and while I've seen articulate complainants with legitimate complaints about SOM, I've seen many more whiny malcontents who incessantly carp about SOM while continuing to play it...or leaving it and (not long after) returning.

That being said, I do think there are things players--particularly forum participants--can do to improve and enlarge the SOM community.

1. Participate in and contribute to more forum threads. A lot of forum participants will only contribute to forum threads directly affecting them personally--such as individual league chats--or will only respond to forum threads or posts put up by their friends or posters they know. If many (if not most) of the posters keep doing this, new posters will have no opportunity to "join" the community, since nobody will participate in posts applicable to them or even respond to their posts.

2. Treat "newbies" and those you don't know--and their posts--with the same respect and/or consideration as you would one of your forum friends. Again, I've seen posters either treat people they didn't know with disrespect or discourtesy they wouldn't show their forum friends, or attack or team up against them simply because they were debating against those friends.

For example, the first time I read this forum, I saw a professed new player get in a disagreement with Micheal Grammes over Macintosh (of all things). Although neither Micheal nor the poster disrespected each other, some friends of Micheal's jumped all over the guy. One idiot, (whom I will not name) even threatened him and said "Fan Boys get slaughtered."...real "welcome to the community" stuff. That newbie never posted again and I assume stopped playing SOM.

So, in short, if members of the SOM community want to improve and enlarge that community, we need to get more communal and more welcoming.


P.s. I have never seen a statement that wasn't profane or abusive censored. Can somebody please give me an example of one that was?

Here you go, Nev. Your response and/or suggestions would be helpful

Do you know what Ernie Banks' significance is in the history of ATG?

Do you know what Ernie Banks' significance is in the history of ATG?

He said "Two? Let's play THREE!" ?

Frustrating-

strether;
you are missing the point-
most of the complaining that matters has nothing to do with the game itself.
Sure, all those things happen-

The complaining that matters is about the company.

1. who is answering the FAQs?
2. who is responding to emails?
3. who is responding to community requests?
4. you want the boards to be active- then stop censoring discussions which go beyond SoM...

Simple, really!@!

We have been talking about this same crap for years- why would it suddenly be the communities fault?
When the company steps up to the plate- then we have something to discuss.

Do you know what Ernie Banks' significance is in the history of ATG?

He said "Two? Let's play THREE!" ?

LOL nooooo.

I was hoping I Strether would give it a shot because he's been around as long as I have.

Salty:
One of the reasons I dont respond on here often is because of this:

I explain what actually happened and why and then it becomes a question of defending the reality of what has occurred- quite frankly Im tired of repeating the same piece of SoM/TSN history over and over-
its great when newer folks want to know what actually happened and why things are the way they are...

I never made it a "question of defending reality." I said I believed you that there were unprofane and unabusive comments censored. I just wanted an example to see what one was like. However, both of us know that those who left unhappy did not constitute the "majority" of the SOM community at the time...although I will stand corrected if you provide the numbers.

Secondly- to address your premise that the community needs to change- thats a complete red herring.
a few people whine about bad results- thats not the issue that needs to be fixed.

In no way was my "premise" that the community needs to change a red herring. It's an entirely salient (not diverting)point directly addressing the problems of our current SOM community...which was an integral part of this forum thread. Unless all you want to do is bemoan what went wrong in the past and the poor state of the community today (and I hope you don't), we need to do what we can to improve and enlarge our community now and for the future.

Many people laid out exactly what they felt needed to happen to help both keep existing customers and grow the community- most of which has continued to be ignored. Nothing will change until those basics get addressed- again, thats what has landed us in our current state- and was beyond predictable.

This is great. I applaud them for doing so. SOM can do things to improve matters. But unless we ourselves do things to improve them too, as in my sound suggestion, we'll just be inactive complainers who can't take initiative of our own.

"Do you know what Ernie Banks' significance is in the history of ATG"

I strether any thoughts here?