Mass Dispatch 27.0: Responding to Your Suggestions, Ideas and our Newest Moderator

[Howard Mass]

Mass Dispatch 27.0

In this week's edition of Mass Dispatch.........

The Mass Matter focuses on your Feedback from last week, the continuing transition to the new forums and an Announcement coming next week.

I also introduce The Playoff Bracket and Scoring for “Beat The Commish”

In Ask Howard, I answer a question about giving a User a special title under their name.

We then have our Mass Dispatch User, Thread and Moderator of The Week

Inside The Administrator's Office introduces everyone to the newest member of The RealGM Moderator Team and how it happened behind the scenes.

The Mass Matter: My Thoughts On Everyone's Suggestions

Last week, I asked for your Feedback and am very pleased with the response that I got from all of you that took the time to share your thoughts.

Many of you weighed in on the potential Soccer expansion, Notifications, Ignoring Users, Navigation, Special ranks and Policy.

The Feedback everyone gave was outstanding and will help us going forward.

I did want to weigh in on some of the Feedback.

First of all, Michael Haegele (dream34) is busy with another assignment so the remaining touch ups are on hold.

I did exchange E-Mails with him today and is hoping to be done with his other assignment soon so he can resume work on the Forums and maybe even do some extra stuff.

Here is my take on some matters and things that were suggested.

Soccer Expansion- I am strongly considering adding a General MLS Forum before the start of their season. It is something that I am not set on in any way but adding individual forums is off the table and if it ever is done, they will be rolled out team by team based on interest level and not all together.

When we expanded our Forums to MLB and the NFL, it was decided at the last minute to have NHL Forums which probably was the wrong move.

I will not make that same mistake again. A decision on an MLS Forum and a Premier League Forum will be made by March.

Notifications- dream34 is going to work on these for not only AND 1's but for being able to delete them when he finishes with his current project.

Post Limits- This was suggested but feel The General NBA Board 60 day waiting period is more appropriate as Users would just post-pad to get to the set post count.

Ignoring Users- We will explore making this option more visible.

Navigation- I still hope to do the second phase of the navigation plan soon.

Special Ranks- A few Users made some suggestions and even posted one of them in Ask Howard. I hope to start awarding them soon.

If I missed anything, please let me know.

I will do everything I can as always to make sure 2015 is our best year yet on the Forums.



Beat The Commish” Playoff Format

I have posted a Playoff Bracket Format for all participants.

viewtopic.php?f=437&t=1365655

Please make your picks through the Super Bowl by Saturday Afternoon.

I will tabulate the Wild Card Weekend and Divisional Round for next week's edition.



Ask Howard

Have a question about RealGM, The Forums, An Issue you would like me to address publicly or something in general, just post it in the Ask Howard Thread of The Mass Dispatch Forum or you could send me a PM and I just might answer it in my next column.

Wo1verine Asks: I thought i would PM you to ask if it was possible to change the " RealGM" title at this point under my name?

I have had a couple ideas for mine that would involve Wolverine/X-men.

Keep up the good work, thanks.

Howard's Response: This is actually a really wonderful question.

Like I have mentioned, I am planning to give some Users special titles (ranks) under their names.

I am still trying to decide if I will have specific titles, custom titles like Wo1verine is suggesting or both.

Some possibilities for standard titles include 5 years, 10 years, Salary Cap Expert among other things.

Custom titles could be tailored to suit The User and/or home forum and the options are limitless. I'm hoping we can have a special icon as well like Moderators do.

I definitely plan to have special titles/ranks and while I am delaying this a bit, it will be happening.

Wo1verine, when you get the ideas for your proposed title together, please PM me and we will discuss.

Mass Dispatch User, Thread and Moderator of The Week

Mass Dispatch User of The Week

Game 6

memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=163133

This User was recommended to me for User of The Week by Global Moderator Mark K.

They are a huge poster of news especially on our General NBA Board and a Miami Heat Fan.

My guess is their User name was inspired by that Game 6 many non-Miami Fans dread back in the 2013 NBA Finals.

Mark K. is so high on this User, he made an appreciation thread for them.

viewtopic.php?p=42238006#p42238006

It's great to have such an enthusiastic User who loves to post news on our Forums and Game 6 you are our User of The Week.

Congratulations to The Mas Dispatch User of The Week Game 6!



Mass Dispatch Thread of The Week

Our New York Knicks Forum's Thread on the big three-way deal involving Iman Shumpert and J.R. Smith.

viewtopic.php?f=24&t=1364750

Quite a few deals have happened in The NBA this week. No deal got more of a reaction from Users than when the Knicks shipped Iman Shumpert and J.R. Smith out of town.

The thread on our Knicks forum as over 1900 posts and various reactions on what this deal means for The New York Knicks going forward.

A thread that long with great discussion easily winds Thread of The Week.

Congratulations to our New York Knicks Forum!

Mass Dispatch Moderator of The Week

kdawg32086

When I select Users to join the Moderator Team, I simply ask them to conduct themselves well, follow the Terms of service, our policies and be active while having fun. I never like moderating not to be fun or work.

However, kdawg32086 went the extra mile over the past month or two and asked if they could try to sway a User who had turned down the chance to become a Moderator.

I agreed as long as they were not pressured in any way.

Late last week, I received a PM from him with the good news that The User that myself and the Current Affairs Moderator Team wanted as a Moderator had a change of heart.

While other Moderators like Duck III (I can easily see him getting this award sometime this year) helped, it was kdawg32086 who got this ball rolling to get someone I thought we would not be able to get onto the Moderator Team.

Congratulations to our Mass Dispatch Moderator of The Week kdawg32086!


Inside The Administrator's Office

Don't you just love to get great news?

Over the past couple of months, it's been a rough time for me from my sister and nieces having to move, then my cat died, the crooked Governor of my home state was re-elected (no offense to anyone who voted for him on these forum) and now my car is in the shop for my brakes amongst other things and it's going to be a huge bill.

It's one of those rough times but I did get some good news......

In this space about a month ago, I mention their were two Users who turned down the opportunity to become a Moderator.

When I informed the Moderators of The Forum, they were disappointed but one Moderator kdawg32086 asked if it would be ok if he could recruit via Pm which I said was fine but do not pressure them.

As mentioned above, after two previous attempts by myself with the most recent one not even getting a reply, kdawg32086 was able to sway a User who has been here since 2001 to join the team.

Last week, we finally had a chat and it went great. After going through another step in the process, myself and our Current Affairs Moderator Team finally got our guy......

Gwgw

Gwgw has been a User on RealGM since 2001 and brings a fair-minded conservative approach to our Current Affairs Forum. I always like to have a political balance among the Current Affairs Moderator Staff.

He is definitely a wonderful edition and am happy to have him as the newest member of The RealGM Moderator Team.

Welcome Aboard Gwgw!

Contact Mass Dispatch

If anyone has a question, feedback, feel a user, thread or Moderator should be recognized or something they would like to see in Mass Dispatch, please post it on The Mass Dispatch Forum or send me a PM. You could even send me a note on Twitter @homassrealgm

[RIPskaterdude]

hello

[trwi7]

Have to chat to become a mod? Gross.

[Howard Mass]

Have to chat to become a mod? Gross.

It's part of the process and in a future edition of Mass Dispatch, I'll discuss it a little more.

[humanrefutation]

Re: the inability to see embedded tweets on Tapatalk - is that a RealGM issue or a Tapatalk issue?

[Hawk Eye]

Meant to put this in the last mass dispatch..

But I think one idea would be adding a podcast board. Maybe then branching it off into different threads for whatever different podcasts people prefer and who their preference of listening to is. Would also be cool if RealGM had their own podcaster.

[irie]

Notifications- dream34 is going to work on these for not only AND 1's but for being able to delete them when he finishes with his current project.

Thank you for re-adding them.

What do you mean by deleting them?

[Smitty731]

Notifications- dream34 is going to work on these for not only AND 1's but for being able to delete them when he finishes with his current project.

Thank you for re-adding them.

What do you mean by deleting them?

Right now you can't delete notifications after you read them. Many have asked for the ability to delete the notifications. I think this is what was meant.

[E86]

Any chance we can get the twitter embedding to work on the realgm app


Sent from my iPhone using RealGM Forums

[mttwlsn16]

I like the new format. Looks good, although I've yet to figure out how to get straight to the Clippers forum from the home page without clicked on Forums, Basketball, LA Clippers, where before you could get straight to it by just hovering over the team name.

However, I get zero notifications of any kind on the app. IDK why, and it RealGM doesn't work with Tapatalk for me anymore.

[Naija Boy]

Would it be possible to take some action against these misleading thread titles that are constantly being created? People need to stop posting titles that make it seem as if rumored deals or moves have already happened.