On Basketball discussion and other forums

[Mr. E]

Good evening RealGM users,

Last week this seasonal Olympic Forum was re-opened. Like all other specific forums it concentrates on one area, in this case the Olympic Games and anything surrounding the Games. You may see other Olympic discussion occurring on other forums around RealGM, and that is because each individual forum makes decisions on what type of topics of discussion are relevant to that particular forum.

We have had some controversy in recent days due to the decision to move all Olympic-related discussion from the General Basketball forum to this forum. Many of you do not agree with this decision; but some of you seem to have developed a narrative that I, as the moderator of this forum, am not listening to the will of the people and am refusing to move certain threads back to the General Basketball Forum.

That is not what is actually happening. The decision to move all Olympic discussion from the General Basketball forum to this forum was made by multiple people, including myself, the General Board Moderators and the Site Administrators. It is standard practice by the General Board to move topics to relevant forums if those forums exist. That is what is happening in this case. I am not going to move a topic back to a forum that moves it here because it would be going against the decision of those of us who moderate the RealGM forums.

I have tried multiple times to offer a way to voice objections to this group decision, and that is through the RealGM Feedback and Suggestions forum. I can see at this time that no one who has objected to this has done so; and in some cases the advice is being openly mocked. EDIT - This has been addressed on the Feedback Forum

I cannot stress this enough to RealGM users: if you feel that there is a situation or a decision with which you do not agree then it is far better to appeal to the senior moderators and site administrators on the Feedback & Suggestions forum rather than to derail threads with non-relevant discussion. That forum can be found here: viewforum.php?f=40

In the opening topic to this forum I stated that the only rule of the forum was to treat people with respect. Some of you may not like it, but that includes me and any other moderators who are added as the Games get closer. I do expect an announcement to be made soon to help draw attention to this forum.

I will leave this thread open for comments or suggestions; but from here on out any discussion on the matter in other topics on this forum will be considered to be derailing threads, or in some cases trolling. I also hope that I've made it clear that any time a thread is moved to this forum then it is part of a group decision, by which I will abide.

I strongly implore those of you who would prefer the basketball discussion to occur on the General Board not to try to start any threads over there in some form of protest as those threads would either be locked or just moved over here.

I volunteered for this forum because I am a fan of the overall Olympic experience, both the good and the bad. I want this to be a place where people can discuss those things and not have the topic be the forum itself.

Thank you for taking the time to read this. Please let me know if there are any questions.


(edit - poster Ancalagon has taken my advice about the Feedback Forum as I was typing this. Thank you!)

[bb22]

Agreed. It is only logical to discuss olympic basketball in the olympic forum. People will eventually catch on. However, I must admit that I never would have come to this realm of the forum if it were not for the locked topic on the general board that directs users to this area. Still a little complicated for the non experienced forum navigator, like myself.

[NeoWarriors]

I agree with the idea that all Olympics discussions should be in this forum. I also agree that Olympic basketball should be discussed in this forum. But I do think that individual game threads should be allowed on the game board. The threads will run a course in a matter of 3 hours ish and can be locked at conclusion of the game. You can tell by the low turnout in the Game of Thrones over here that nobody knows about it. Just my 2 cents.

[ken6199]

We have a sticky thread on the GB with a link to this forum.

During the Olympic *Basketball* games, what we can do is update that thread with a link to the game thread here. One of us GB mods will do it - since that thread on GB is a locked thread. This should serve the purpose of directing the traffic here during those games.

An Olympic basketball game is not only a basketball game but also an Olympic game. I support Mr.E that it belongs to here because RealGM is *not* just a basketball forum.

And thanks for the good work Mr.E put down in volunteering to serve this board.

[Mr. E]

Thank you for the responses so far!

Like ken6199 said, we will update that stickied thread on the GB with each game thread that will lead right to that thread.

When the Games start we will have Daily Game posts which will cover the three games being played on each day.

You'll always be able to find the link at or near the top of the General Board.

[tsherkin]

Thanks to all posters for their understanding: this forum is temporary, and designed to accommodate posts pertaining to the Olympics. It will include any threads pertaining to basketball at the Olympics, for the sake of organization and consistency. ken is doing a hot job of making sure relevant threads have a link in the sticky on the mainboard, so if there's a thread here that isn't on the GB sticky thread, PM ken (the GB mod) to add that there, so everyone knows then location of the thread.

Cheers,

Tyler

[boomershadow]

I will leave this thread open for comments or suggestions; but from here on out any discussion on the matter in other topics on this forum will be considered to be derailing threads, or in some cases trolling. I also hope that I've made it clear that any time a thread is moved to this forum then it is part of a group decision, by which I will abide.

(edit - poster Ancalagon has taken my advice about the Feedback Forum as I was typing this. Thank you!)

I don't really have that much of a stake or interest in what forum the Olympic basketball team gets discussed. I do, however, feel the need to point out that moderator response to this topic really does seem somewhat harsh and authoritarian whether or not it was intended to be that way. And I'm honestly sure it wasn't, don't get me wrong. I just feel like some constructive criticism from an outside observer might shed some light on the response this decision has received.

I just think it has actually created two problems where none existed previously. The first is that with Olympic forum having significantly less traffic than the GB, there is less discussion about the US Olympic basketball team, than I had hoped and I expect there would be much more if the topic(s) were on the GB. I have little knowledge of or interest in most Olympic sports, my only real interest is in the quality of discussion on basketball. Traffic or lack of it in the Olympic forum isn't honestly of much concern to this casual basketball fan. Though I see the logic of "It's in the Olympics so it must be talked about in the Olympic forum," keeping strictly to that logic isn't worth the loss of discussion imho.

The second is all this commotion and discussion and moderation about the decision itself. All I wanted to do was chime in with a quick "hey man, it's not that big a deal who cares if we all talk about this on the GB," and the lack of a clear place to do that lead to me reading very thoroughly multiple threads on the subject in different parts of the board and still having to decide between a few different places to post this reply (because I had already gone into it that far and if I had already put that much effort into it then I might as well actually get my thoughts across). What wasn't a problem, in my most humble opinion, was simple matter of discussing all the NBA Players on the Olympic team on the "General NBA Forum."

It also comes off as somewhat dismissive to me to direct further comments to the Feedback Forum and then lock the only thread that was made there (by Ancalagon) about this subject. Just my opinion. I am not saying this to be hostile towards or direct negativity at the Mods who put in lots of hard work that too often is only acknowledged when there is disagreement.

With my thoughts on the subject aired, I will of course abide by the rules set forth by the Mods and Admin. I just wanted to express my opinion that this particular decision created problems where none needed to exist.

[First Step]

I'd totally agree with this decision, if it wasn't tremendously slowing down discussions. But, from my perspective it certainly is. I mean 6 replies in the Nigeria thread should be substantial enough data to support that perspective. But I'm just a USER of the platform, not a DM.

I get that you don't want to have game threads with China vs. Venezuela on the GB, but I think that because the US fields a team of All Stars (ignore Harrison Barnes), that it's deserving of having it's games discussed on the basketball forum, where clearly the traffic is going to surpass this seasonal forum.

[aIvin adams]

Should just have threads on both GB and here. Nbd. Let the users of this forum conduct their own bball discussions. If that wouldn't work on this site then this isn't a legit forum ("olympics")

Your paragraph about how complaining abt this topic on this forum is "trolling" is ridiculous. I infringed on that in my first post and I was contributing to the conversation/community. Terrible rule.

[jptremblay]

I think to remember that a much minor Ball tourbament like Eurobasket, without the the participation of USA, had a lot more traffic and discussion than this olympics.
Only USA games seem to are being really discussed, I think that when an interest match like Spain vs Croatia or vs Brazil, have less than a page of posts.... something is going wrong.

[Von Bismarck]

I agree with completely. Not many people come here to be honest and it's a pity cause we could have had much bigger discussions. But I respect the decision nonetheless.

[Mumbles]

I agree with completely. Not many people come here to be honest and it's a pity cause we could have had much bigger discussions. But I respect the decision nonetheless.

It's kind of hard to respect the rationale from a Team USA standpoint when we field a team primarily comprised of NBA All-Stars. In the modern era of Olympic basketball all roads lead back to the NBA. Team USA Olympic discussion is pretty much non-existant relative to the FIBA World Cup in 2014. Heck I even remember the great discussions and super long threads during the 2008 Beijing Olympics. To cripple or otherwise not maxmize discussion about NBA All-Stars competing on the highest level of World Basketball on fairly big site like RealGM is a mistake. Like others have said, move Croatia vs Spain to the Olympic board...that's understandable, but at least keep one Team USA game thread on the general board for discussion. Sacrifcing discussion about the most imporant Basketball event featuring NBA players in favor of building up a seasonal forum is not good to be kind. Suggestion, let there be one game thread for Team USA's games in the knockout stage on the general board. I think the point has been made, now lets have some spirited and high volume discussion about Team USA on RealGM, good lordy..lol.

[Apollo64]

It was a pretty bad call and the relative lack of basketball-related posting in the Olympics forum shows that. At least you can reassess and let the discussion continue on the GB where there will be more participation. Like the good old times, ya know?

[Hoop Hunter]

It was a pretty bad call and the relative lack of basketball-related posting in the Olympics forum shows that. At least you can reassess and let the discussion continue on the GB where there will be more participation. Like the good old times, ya know?

Yes, really bad call.

Just giving my opinion here. Threads are all locked in the Feedback forum.