I am finding it more and more difficult to enjoy participating in Rockets discussion in the GARM these days for two big reasons: 1.) A lot of posters here are not Rocket fans and have no problem throwing anyone and everyone under the bus which leaves real fans agitated and defensive. 2.) People are extremely overeactionary and self entitled and feel the need to make major overhauls to the organization after minor issues such as a turnover or a loss. I find myself not engaging in discussion anymore but rather in a constant battle against bad posters. I propose we add a new forum that is public to read but posting privileges are by invitation only. This forum would be reserved for the highest quality posters. This would include the following type of posters: 1.) People who don't make new threads during the game as a reaction to one play. 2.) People who makes posts out of thought and not emotion. They have a premise, supporting words and it promotes legitimate discussion. 3.) People are respectful of other people's idea's and do not make retribution threads as a passive aggressive attack at other posters. 4.) People who are respectful of players/coaches in their posts even if they do not like them on the team. 5.) People who don't turn player facial expressions into complex psychological and mind reading essays. I think this gives good fans/posters a place to have solace from craziness of what is happening now, and it creates an incentive for new posters to not do the things above in hopes of receiving an invitation. Ideally, the rules would be much stricter than the GARM and moderation tight. Some might argue this would kill off the GARM, but if you kept popular threads like game threads, highlight videos, trade threads, etc. I think you would still see significant traffic.
How do you suppose they find out who those "quality" posters are (reps are not always credible)? There are sooo many members..... I'm sure there are a few new members that are not bad and that are actual rockets fan.
Rep is a great place to start, although not end all be all. I have been here six years and I can name numerous quality posters with and without rep. I can also name numerous posters who are terrible but have lots of rep.
I don't spend more than 5-10 minutes max at the GARM and my experience has been much more enjoyable. I imagine that most posters are below 20, and possibly in their mid teens, so I keep that in mind when I venture into the dark.
This sounds like a utopian ideal I agree with the concerns Lars but i think the idea needs a bit more work. I think your idea of rep is a good one, what if people with only 4 bars or above can participate and with strict consequences for counter-productive commentary? This will lead to a more manageable situation for mods with a smaller work load and give people some incentive to remain respectful and productive. Alternatively, this type of forum might remove most of the quality posters from the rest of the boards, leaving good posters who are unable to join stuck in the mire battling the trolls and LOF/LOH
I think if the forum continues on this path it is going to drive away all the good posters anyway. I cannot remember it ever being worse than this.
Maybe start a new sub-GARM that is invite only by moderators (or at least you have to get 'cleared'). Kinda a microcosm of what Clutchfans used to be? Just a random idea. #2 is older than Clutchfans itself. Just sayin'. I actually think the Texans forum is worse in this way than the GARM is (current situation notwithstanding).
How about using your ignore list? The increasing number of people visiting this forum is a direct function of the team's success (plus the addition of highly popular/controversial players). You're basically saying you either can't or don't want to deal with it. You should also be aware that public attempts to distinguish between real fans and those who aren't is being perceived as trolling. (i.e., you're part of the problem by dumping fuel on the fire).
A restrictive forum would be nice, but wouldn't rid us of the actual problem. Just have to report them then add them to Ignore. I'm up to 17 now.
I make heavy use of my ignore list, but this problem is beyond the scope of an ignore list. LOFs are like cockroaches, you squash one and two more take its place. Take Tinman for example. I have had him on my ignore list for years, but any thread with even slight praise for McGrady is completely derailed by his stupid crusade. He has zero incentive to stop and his nonsense doesn't fade with time. Even on ignore, he still ruins the quality of the forum. He is the epitome of the type of poster that would not be given an invitation. The purpose is to add incentive to be a good poster and allow established good posters to actually post in a secured spot, without all the work they put in, being swallowed by idiotic bickering. We have several very good posters here. I have seen Durvasa, an excellent poster, get dragged into really stupid exchanges trying to make rational points with irrational people. I just think we can be more pro-active with this.
How about aggressively using the Sticky function to raise good threads, and effectively push the ill-considered and divisive threads off of page 1?
It's becoming almost impossible to not troll in the GARM. The threads are so idiotic. I would like to have an actual discussion, but it's just not possible anymore. Between each well thought out post are 12 posts calling harden a scrub and McHale a terrible coach.
This isn't a bad idea to me, actually. As someone else suggested, the easiest thing would be to make it a Contributors Forum, with the moderators being able to suspend or ban problem posters at their discretion.
There might already be a private restricted forum where some members hand-picked by Clutch are having private discussions, presumably about basketball (I don't have access to anything or know for sure...but if it exists, I would have just made sure I would never get access to it, if there had ever been any chance ) Perhaps if that exists, it could just be opened as read-only for others?
