An Open Letter to Hal Richman

The forums are tribal.

I completely agree. The problems with that "tribalism" was a key element of my previous post and is a significant problem of and within our forum and community.

I agree. We should encourage posting, ESPECIALLY by new members.

One thing I'd like to point out, there are a LOT of players that dont' even know these boards exist, or if they do, never check them. Strat could so a better job of advertising not only their product as a whole, but the forums

Agree!!!

I'm also generally happy with both the current SOM online and its services. As someone who has been playing it since the beginning, when there was only 20xx, I never envisioned that there would be 4 Mystery games leagues to play, as well as all the ATG games and live drafts.

I do, however, see room for improvements and places where SOM can be able to improve them. I particularly agree with the suggestion for an off-topic sports forums where we could discuss the NBA, the NFL or other non-baseball sports events and issues. I'm not necessarily against a non-sports forum, but, considering how nasty some SOM and baseball posts can get, I really wouldn't want to see how nasty debates on political, social, and/or religious topics could be.

But, while I do think SOM could and should do things to improve matters--and my following suggestion in no way suggests otherwise--I do think we community members (including myself) could also do more to improve our community. Here are two ways I think we could do so:

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 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 respond to 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 you would show one of your forum and/or league friends: I've seen posters either treat people with disrespect or discourtesy they wouldn't show their forum/league friends, or attack or team up against them simply because they were debating against their forum/league friends. If this happens to a new member of the forum, we can pretty much expect him or her to never return.

For example, in my very first post on the forum--I avoided the forum for many years--I simply left a small paragraph voicing my agreement with LMBombers' defense of the autodraft. A veteran poster--whom I will not name--responded by swearing at me and calling me (through direct implication) a "communist"...real "welcome to the community" stuff. If some (if not many) community members continue to treat new and/or unknown members in such a way, then we have no chance of enlarging our community...or even keeping the one we have.

So, in short, if members of the SOM community want to improve and enlarge our community--along with SOM doing its part--we need to actually get more communal and more welcoming.

I agree with you, l.strether. Most of all, by encouraging posts by people that haven't posted much before, and showing courtesy to other members in all cases, but especially newbies.

It's a delicate balancing act between avoiding a feeling of censorship, but trying to keep a civil and courteous tone in posts.

Re censorship - I know that there was a fair amount of this in the early days on this new site, but I really think that there's been very little censorship - at all - for a long time now. I think some posters might have some complaints on censorship (I could wink at someone here, with a smile), but in general, I really don't think that this has been much of an issue at all since the very early days.

But as l.strether says, we need to be courteous, if we want to encourage people to post!!!!! Again, I think we are all courteous 99.99% of the time. It's just that it only takes 1 or 2 posts to spoil things.

l.strether, I know this was an issue in your experience - and that's a serious issue - but I don't think it's been a frequent issue, from what I've seen. I think that the more pervasive issue is to encourage a sense of community, and getting more people posting. I like a lot of what people have to say, including geekor's original post. It would be nice to see some promotion of the discussion boards, maybe some technological enhancements, and some ability to link with social media in a savvy way. In short, let's make it really fun, and get people talking to each other!

One thing I'd like to point out, there are a LOT of players that don't even know these boards exist

Just a little history. I started playing way back when the 2001 season was new. I played for a couple years before I became aware of the boards.

Being courteous seems like commons sense. Recently I had to place one person on my foes list because they would not quit following me around calling me a liar. I noted same person in one thread calling someone an idiot. Fascinating that same person calls for others to be courteous.

Wait a minute.......I thought the forums were dead and no one went there any longer. How did this thread get so many responses in just a few hours then?

I am usually so excited to see any topic that is not pleading for someone to join their league I read the thread no matter what the topic is about.

A point was made that the boards often generate people playing more teams. I agree. For that reason alone they should bring back the general MLB discussion forum. People coming there to just talk baseball will keep them coming to the forums which will eventually lead to them joining leagues. Seems like a low expense means of generating more revenue.

I'm forever in dept to a couple old-timers. I know he doesn't like it when I mention his name a lot but aray0113 put up with so much crap (me going beserk with anxiety over my elite pitchers getting bombed and such) or questions from me that he deserves a gold star. At the very least!

Jerlins too.

Being courteous seems like commons sense. Recently I had to place one person on my foes list because they would not quit following me around calling me a liar. I noted same person in one thread calling someone an idiot. Fascinating that same person calls for others to be courteous.

Since you're clearly referring to me, Valen, without just showing the class to address me directly, I'll respond to your post.

I never "followed you around" or called you a "liar." In the "Tanaka" forum, you made a haughty rant dismissing my use of the term "3rd" starter. So, I both corrected your fallacious stance and correctly pointed out you were a hypocrite (not a liar), since you had used the exact term the same way in a previous forum thread--to which I gave evidence--entitled "Would you go after Tanaka." You continued the debate without addressing either of my points, so I pointed that out to you and beckoned you to address them if you were going to continue debating me on the matter.

You then continued the debate (at my behest) in the "Would you go after Tanaka" forum without addressing my original point or my claim that you had been hypocritical. I answered your post by pointing that out, correcting your erroneous arguments, and claiming that I was surprised you hadn't admitted your hypocrisy...which at that point was entirely clear. All further use of that term came only in response to your calling the argument "petty" or others questioning the veracity of my claim....Anyone can go back to those two aforementioned forums to check the veracity of what I have just said.

As to my "calling" someone an idiot, you're again grossly misrepresenting me. I never directly called someone an idiot in a post or specifically referred to someone as an idiot by name. To support the suggestions I made in this forum, I gave an account of how a professed newbie got in a testy, but not abusive, debate with Micheal Grammes over Macintosh (of all things). Now, while neither the newbie nor Micheal got abusive, some of Micheal's friends began to hostilely tagteam the newbie. One person actually threatened the newbie and warned him that "Fanboys get slaughtered!!!" I quite justifiably referred to that person (whom I did not name) as an "idiot," even though he was being something much worse.

Finally, you clearly (but incorrectly) question whether I have any legitimate place to give suggestions to improve the community...and, frankly, that's irrelevant. I made solid suggestions, with which both Steve F and GBrookes agreed. And even if I had been a terrible person on these boards, and I haven't been, the quality and validity of those suggestions would still stand. Geekor himself would tell you he hasn't been a complete saint (few have) on these boards, but nothing he had done would alter the legitimacy or accuracy of his post above.


P.s. What exactly is a "Foes list"?. It sounds intriguingly dastardly...

I am posting to bring my post number up and to bring the group average down.
Overall I love how the game is.
It would be nice to have more discussions on the boards but I am no expert and feel you are all above my league for me to make any sense on strategy or opinions on the game.
I play mostly for fun and take risks for strategy.
Sometimes I play too much with my heart.

There are so many options now with the live draft, new sets of cards, and new salary caps (which is a good thing) it makes it harder to fill leagues (which is frustrating). How many leagues have just one or two people in them and will never fill?

It is hard to phrase this without making people (or someone else) mad but the same people I see calling for more courtesy can be pretty argumentative and sensitive. ..... To be fair, there have been times where I felt like an outsider and was too sensitive and I have been a jerk in the past. I think you can debate without making it personal and being argumentative.

I agree that the boards are a big part of the game and there are probably some people who play the game but never think to checkout the boards and those people are missing out. I also agree we should be able to discuss sports in general or other topics like in the old bullpen area.

SOM is a small company, really small. So yes, it is up to them to market themselves better but it is also up to us to keep bringing in new people to play. The last thing any of us want is for the company to go belly up. Imagine if there was no game at all, bummer.

Finally, I wonder how involved the real Hal Richman is with this side of the game? I suspect the real Hal is not cruising the boards much, but I could be wrong.

It is hard to phrase this without making people (or someone else) mad but the same people I see calling for more courtesy can be pretty argumentative and sensitive. ..... To be fair, there have been times where I felt like an outsider and was too sensitive and I have been a jerk in the past. I think you can debate without making it personal and being argumentative.

Firstly, Radagast, I completely agree with you that you can and should debate without being argumentative. I, myself, put significant effort into doing so. If I possibly failed at that in the past or do so in the future, I would truly appreciate someone politely pointing that out to me. As I said earlier, few of us--except possibly Steve F--have been saints on these boards. You, Geekor, Valen, I, and others have made missteps in our posts and should all work harder to improve our behavior on them.

One of the things that would help is if we put aside previous (if not petty) grudges (in general, hopefully) and stop focusing on who is or is not an appropriate maker of solid suggestions. If people keep doing that, nobody will bother to make any suggestions, except the absolutely pure. Geekor and I are not among those, but we both made solid suggestions on how to improve the community. So, if people want to actually be productive, they would actually address those suggestions instead of focusing on the legitimacy of the poster.

I have to decline my saint hood. I have made fun at Scottbdoug's expense a few times.
But I do try to keep it civil, after all , it's just a game, and we all love it or we wouldnt' be here

I should add at this point that it was some friendly and helpful input from Radagast and Geoff that made me feel welcome here just over one year ago (man that year went quick!)