Forum Administration

[hack]

Nobody wants it gone. Linesman suggests this once or twice a year, and, surprisingly enough, ever time the overwhelming response is to keep the thread.

I have no idea why a thread and its future would have anything to do with the person who started it save for someone's personal emotional reaction to it, which has nothing to do with properly moderating a forum.

[Rocky Bleier]

Much ado about nothing. I don't lie awake at night contemplating thread titles or forum moderation. Life's too short and stress-filled to get upset about what is said here.

[hack]

You know, its a vicious cycle. Lose sleep over it at night, and then you become a cranky poster during the day and worsen the problem. Group hug? Or should we all just step back and let Mike and Liney continue their own group hug?

[lineygoblue]

Just let me and Mike continue our "group hug" or "bromance" or any other way you want to characterize it.

Jeff hit the nail on the head earlier. If we eliminate ONE of our opposing fans' threads, then they ALL have to go. Personally, I want to keep all three. But, if a clear majority of the Michigan fans want to purge this forum of all outsider threads, then I'll be more than happy to oblige.

My position on this one final time. The original "Borg Resistance Thread" (i.e. ohio thread) was created by Paul S so that he could have a thread to "resist" our "BORG" attempts to "assimilate" him into the M-Borg. Those were the good old days in our forum, and we all had a ton of fun, trying to get Paul S to become a Michigan fan. He was a great sport about it, and even came to some of our "BORG" meetings. So, the thread became a permanent part of our forum. Since Paul has left, we kept the ohio thread so that we could restrict Talent and Strangelove's "my pee pee is bigger than yours" talk to one thread.

The Husker fans here, especially Entropy, was also a charter member of the Michigan forum, and I've met him, and sat with him at Michigan Stadium watching a Michigan spring game. He's a fine guy, and along with Wild Hoss and The Wizard, they bring good conversation to the forum. Their thread STAYS, as far as I'm concerned. Nebraska and its fan base has been an excellent addition to the B1G, and I believe we need to continue to respect that here in our forum.

Finally, Mike's thread. NOBODY had a problem with Mike's thread until just the last week or so, when the "chicken" stuff came up. Mike's thread (to Hell and all) has been here for YEARS. Now, because he asked me to reinstate his original title, we get all this grief about it. I don't understand why. NOBODY had a problem with it a month ago. Yet now, .. because of Hoke's remarks .. we have a problem with it? I don't understand that. And I don't understand why we didn't have people griping to have his thread tossed out BEFORE all this took place.

So, the policy from today is as follows: All opposing team threads, (ND, ohio, Nebraska) will receive the same treatment. They all stay, or they all go. With respect to the title of ohio's thread, it will remain as I named it, unless Paul S comes back, and asks me to change it. It was his thread, and I'll respect his wishes if he returns and requests a change. Until then, that title stays. Entropy has his Husker thread the way he likes it, and it will remain that way. Mike's thread will be changed as he has requested.

Any other concerns, please email me at lineygoblue@gmail.com

I'm tired of talking about it in here.

[Optimus Prime]

Unfortunately, if I were to leave then it would be down to DSL to remind you hens about the greatness of the FLAGSHIP, and we all know his competencies barely extend beyond feeding himself and maintaining some coarse levelof hygienethatdoes,at least, meet social norms in a smattering of equatorial third world shitholes.

We were led to believe for years he was actually a snappy cross-dresser.

[Rob F]

... hug? Or should we all just step back and let Mike and Liney continue their own group hug?

not that there's anything wrong with that, unless of course, Liney's wife catches them ---then watch out!!!!!

[Tony G]

Since Paul has left, we kept the ohio thread so that we could restrict Talent and Strangelove's "my pee pee is bigger than yours" talk to one thread.

Would that be restriction of interstate commerce?

[whodean]

Keep the oLIEo thread and limit the douches to only that thread

[*JD*]

Much ado about nothing. I don't lie awake at night contemplating thread titles or forum moderation. Life's too short and stress-filled to get upset about what is said here.

I pretty much agree with the Rock on this. I do, however put an extra minute or two into thread titles for the Pistons' Forum.:-D

[Dr. Strangelove]

Keep the oLIEo thread and limit the douches to only that thread

No

[Rob F]

Just let me and Mike continue our "group hug" or "bromance" or any other way you want to characterize it.

Jeff hit the nail on the head earlier. If we eliminate ONE of our opposing fans' threads, then they ALL have to go. Personally, I want to keep all three. But, if a clear majority of the Michigan fans want to purge this forum of all outsider threads, then I'll be more than happy to oblige.

My position on this one final time. The original "Borg Resistance Thread" (i.e. ohio thread) was created by Paul S so that he could have a thread to "resist" our "BORG" attempts to "assimilate" him into the M-Borg. Those were the good old days in our forum, and we all had a ton of fun, trying to get Paul S to become a Michigan fan. He was a great sport about it, and even came to some of our "BORG" meetings. So, the thread became a permanent part of our forum. Since Paul has left, we kept the ohio thread so that we could restrict Talent and Strangelove's "my pee pee is bigger than yours" talk to one thread.

The Husker fans here, especially Entropy, was also a charter member of the Michigan forum, and I've met him, and sat with him at Michigan Stadium watching a Michigan spring game. He's a fine guy, and along with Wild Hoss and The Wizard, they bring good conversation to the forum. Their thread STAYS, as far as I'm concerned. Nebraska and its fan base has been an excellent addition to the B1G, and I believe we need to continue to respect that here in our forum.

Finally, Mike's thread. NOBODY had a problem with Mike's thread until just the last week or so, when the "chicken" stuff came up. Mike's thread (to Hell and all) has been here for YEARS. Now, because he asked me to reinstate his original title, we get all this grief about it. I don't understand why. NOBODY had a problem with it a month ago. Yet now, .. because of Hoke's remarks .. we have a problem with it? I don't understand that. And I don't understand why we didn't have people griping to have his thread tossed out BEFORE all this took place.

So, the policy from today is as follows: All opposing team threads, (ND, ohio, Nebraska) will receive the same treatment. They all stay, or they all go. With respect to the title of ohio's thread, it will remain as I named it, unless Paul S comes back, and asks me to change it. It was his thread, and I'll respect his wishes if he returns and requests a change. Until then, that title stays. Entropy has his Husker thread the way he likes it, and it will remain that way. Mike's thread will be changed as he has requested.

Any other concerns, please email me at lineygoblue@gmail.com

I'm tired of talking about it in here.

Liney speaks nothing but the truth in his above post.

As I and others have pointed out, Linesman has the right to run this forum in any way he sees fit. He more-or-less founded this forum, did a lot of "legwork" in both setting it up and worked in cooperation with Deb of the Lion's Forum every step of the way. I personally think he's done a helluva job as head of this forum .

While most of the discussion and criticism of the forum events of the last several days have been measured and civil, there have been a few comments that have been somewhat out of line and unnecessary. Correct me if i'm wrong here: this forum is intended to be primarily for the discussion of U of M Sports, especially Football and Hoops; it is here for the enjoyment of all who participate and risk submitting their opinions, with the knowledge that sometimes things will get a little nasty and heated. I don't believe that any of us are so naive as to think that it would be any other way---is there anyone here that hasn't participated or at least lurked/looked in on other forums?

If someone doesn't like it here, there are obviously other alternatives available, but good luck finding one that keeps everyone happy at all times. Go try MLive if you want to wade thru a pile of virtual dogshit to find an occasional nugget of something worthwhile. I rarely see a discussion there that last more than 4 or 5 posts before someone turns it into mudslinging, political or otherwise. Hardly entertaining, IMO.

On the other end of the spectrum of forums is MGoBlog, where things are rigidly policed and anyone out-of-line is quickly ban-hammered out of existence. Sure, MGoblog has a ton of positives going for it, as it is far-and-away the best written and informative place I make a regular stop at. But the place does suffer from a severe bad case of "group-think"; if you dare buck the prevailing opinion on its discussion board, you better have your ducks in a row and plenty of proof/documentation of opposing ideas/viewpoints. Otherwise, everything you post will be "neg-banged" to the point that it's a waste of time to even post whatsoever. And keep this in mind, too: Brian and his staff are paid (and probably well) for the work they do over there. That's a far cry from what this place is, where the monitors do what they do fro free and for the most part let things work themselves out.

As I see it, this forum is a small "niche" outpost among all the thousands upon thousands of forums out there. Among U of M Forums, it is but a small blip on the radar of all U of M Forums, but it is one most of us are proud to sorta call "home". I've looked in on numerous other Michigan forums and discussion websites, and have no desire to leave this one. Why get our panties tied up in knots over something that should and will soon blow over?

A little history here: Once upon a time, there was a Freep Forum, with separate sub forums for Lions Fans, Tigers Fans, Pistons Fans, Red Wings Fans, U of M Fans, Politics, Current Events, and even spartan fans. It was, however, poorly monitored by the Freep, and when things got out of hand in some of the sub-forums, the Freep shut it down. Most of the individual sports sub-forums survived, as word got around that Worldcrossing (the web outfit that designed the software for the Freep Forums) allowed groups to set up their own forums.

As time went on and the servers there couldn't keep up, constantly crashing, the Lions group branched out in a couple different directions, with many of them landing "here" (Deb's Lion's Forum). The Pistons and Red Wings Forums kinda limped along (or more likely, I just didn't pay much attention to them), but the Tiger's Forum and The U of M Forum stayed very healthy, lasting thru all the Worldcrossing outages and technical problems, until at long last, WX decided to shut itself down....

The Tiger's group by then had become more and more "clickish"; while there was still a good core group n the Tiger Forum, there were some there that got pretty childish and set up a parallel "secret" forum that was pretty exclusive and was there largely to mock some of those who were in the main group. Pretty much junior-high type behavior, and I think that this was one of the big reasons while that group somewhat disintegrated over the last few years. Remnants of that group still exist as "Tigersclubhousegang.com, but the place is all but dead. Many of them have set up a facebook group, but even that one is a far cry from what the Worldcrossing Tiger's Forum used to be in its heyday.

And then there's this group here. We have a handful of us, Liney and myself included, that have been around since the days of the Freep Forums. Many many others hooked up with the rest of us over the many years on Worldcrossing, some of them migrating over from the CollegeFootball Megasite (a huge group that I occasionally participated in, and---I think---where we dug up Wiz, Hoss, Talent, DSL, and maybe a few others) Compared to the Tiger's Forum, we've done quite well (not as well numbers-wise as Deb's Lion's Forum, maybe, but still, nothing to be ashamed of). We've long allowed some amount of "loyalty-diversity" among us, allowing space for not only the current roster of bucknuts and UNL and ND Fans, and even a "dormant" Iowa fan (Tunz), but we have (and potentially could again someday) even allow spartie fans to post.

Think about it---this place obviously has something about it that brings us all back, so is it really such an awful place that we need to drastically change what is working???

[hack]

No need for drastic changes. In the end, yes -- there's little in the way of bullshit here. Still, the forum would benefit if maybe Liney didn't overhaul his whole approach but perhaps was willing to compromise sometimes. Mike had the sense to do so.

[DennisT]

Who said anything about removing threads? No reason for that.

Here is where liney misses the point, imo.

Finally, Mike's thread. NOBODY had a problem with Mike's thread until just the last week or so, when the "chicken" stuff came up. Mike's thread (to Hell and all) has been here for YEARS.

Exactly. Nobody said a peep about to hell with Michigan for years. But change it to cluck cluck cluck for 24 hours and Cluckmore gets his panties in a bunch and goes running to liney who succumbs due to his long running intercollegiate bromance which is sweet and lovely and touching and all but like Jeff, I think it was, said - this is a Michigan forum fergodsakes.

Much ado about nothing but it is a mistake to let the enemy call the shots here.

My final two cents.

[hack]

Who said anything about removing threads? No reason for that.

None at all. Nobody wants that save for Linesman and maybe one or two other people at most. Yet, still, a few times a year an excuse is found to perhaps put the Ohio thread to bed for good. We'll be voting on that one again soon, no doubt.

[*JD*]

As time went on and the servers there couldn't keep up, constantly crashing, the Lions group branched out in a couple different directions, with many of them landing "here" (Deb's Lion's Forum). The Pistons and Red Wings Forums kinda limped along (or more likely, I just didn't pay much attention to them), but the Tiger's Forum and The U of M Forum stayed very healthy, lasting thru all the Worldcrossing outages and technical problems, until at long last, WX decided to shut itself down....

The later part is true for the Pistons Forum. That got a lot more traffic than the U of M forum when it was on WorldX. Things got hairy for a while when Die Hard had a meltdown. Out of that (Who or Hack can correct me if I'm wrong in the order of things) spawned The Pistons Palace, which got a lot of traffic as well.
It wasn't until the 2nd move post-WorldX, coupled with the disaster that was the Iverson year and the bad year after, that things really got whittled down.

There's still a fair amount of posting (and seemingly a TON of lurkers), but nothing like it used to be. It's kind of like here in that there are 15-20 frequent posters. It's different from here in that there's a lot more arguing going on there.

We all morans.

Perhaps when they start winning again it will become as fun as it used to be.