Changes to the SportsShooter.com message board

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|| SportsShooter.com: News Item: Posted 2003-12-18

Changes to the SportsShooter.com message board
'Instant Feedback' added to encourage responsibility and reward those who post informative messages.

By Grover Sanschagrin

ALERT: Recent requests to add a matchmaking service to SportsShooter.com (ChimpMates) have been put on hold so that we could add some much-needed functionality to the message board.

As many of you know, there has been a lot of discussion about the message board, and "what it has become." There have been many requests for us to "do something about it."

Our first attempt was to retain Jerry Springer as a moderator. He took a look at the site, liked what he saw and said, "This is some good stuff!" But then came the deal-breaker. He comes as a package deal with Steve, his bald-headed bodyguard who steps in the break up all the fights.

This would then threaten my position as the site's most visible 'bald guy' – and we can't have that. (Note to self: Do something about that Treola guy who is attempting to encroach on my turf.)

Then I got a call from Don King. He asked if he could sponsor the message board!

I told him no, because his hair was too crazy.

But I knew we had a real problem on our hands when I saw my war photographer roommate Jack Gruber reading the message board in full body armor and companion chemical warfare suit.

It was scaring the cats.

For those of you just tuning in, let me give you a little background information on the SportsShooter.com Message Board. Oh, just some interesting thoughts for you to stash away in the back of your head for potential use later on.

When the website first launched, there was no message board at all. We added it later on so that the members would be able to talk to each other about the newsletter. That's what the original intent was – to carve out a space on the site so that members could talk about the newsletter, and the topics that are brought up in it.

We were nervous about putting a message board on the site. None of us had the time or desire to play moderator, to make and/or enforce rules, or to take personal responsibility to read every single thread and every single post.

So we left it up to the members to police themselves. That, in our opinion, was the best way then, and it is still our opinion now.

We've all read the requests to add multiple rooms of various topics to the message board, and decided against that. Why? It does nothing to keeping "flaming" under control, it means that we would need moderators to make sure the proper messages are appearing in the proper rooms, and it would make checking the message board a part-time job, as you run from room to room looking for the new good stuff.

We never expected to see such wildly off-topic threads like "Krispy-Kreme" in the message board. The message board just wasn't designed for that, and it was never our intent in the first place – so creating a special message board on the site for messages like this doesn't seem like a solution to me.

Some people will react with: "What?! Are you saying we can't have FUN here?! I thought this place was all about having FUN."

There's nothing wrong with having some fun on the site. Some of the most informative threads on the message boards have a fun tone to them. Humor is welcomed here. But so is usefulness.

Is what you are about to say useful? Do you know what you're talking about, or are you just talking to see your name appear in the thread? Think about that before you push that final button.

With this in mind, we've added a new feature to the message board, and we're calling it the "Instant Feedback" tool.

Appearing at the bottom of each post, in small type, are several links: "Informative", "Funny", "Huh?", "Off topic", and "Inappropriate".

If you are a member, and if you are logged in, you can click these links and provide your "Instant Feedback" on that post. When you do, you will see the number to the right of the word (in parentheses) increment by one.

You can only do this once per post, and you cannot "Instant Feedback" your own posts.

As part of this, there is a new link on each member page that says "Detailed Statistics" to the right of the "Recent Forum Posts" label. Clicking this link will produce a popup window that includes a variety of message board stats for that member.

Included in these stats are the totals for how many "Instant Feedbacks" this member's posts have received, as well as how many "Instant Feedbacks" this person has given out, thus providing a complete message board profile on each member's activity.

We felt this was the best solution.

Also – please don't think this is your chance to grind a few axes by running around repeatedly clicking "Inappropriate" on perfectly valid posts just because you don't like the person who posted it. This kind of activity is considered abuse of the system, and is grounds for membership termination.

Also in the works: Being able to search and sort the message board posts according to how useful they are – by using the data in the "Instant Feedback" tool. But don't expect this too soon, since there needs to be enough data in the system first before we can actually use it – and that takes time.

For all of you who took the time to write us about the message board, thanks for taking the time to do so. We, like you, want the message board to be a rich source of useful information. Hopefully the "Instant Feedback" tool will encourage responsibility and reward those who post messages that are informative and useful.

Just to make things super clear... I've written up the following guide...

Here is a guide to the 5 different message board post markings, what they mean, and how to use them.

The typical, average, normal message board post should generally receive no markings at all. But, when you come across a post that is truly different in one of the 5 ways listed below, you should feel free to flag the post accordingly.

-- Informative
This should be used to tell the poster (and the rest of the site) that you found something of value in a post. If you learned something new, or gained some clarity or additional information on something you already did know, use this. Using this properly will increase the usefulness of the message board, and allow users to search for threads and sort them according to most useful/informative.

-- Funny
This is used to tell the poster that you think what they said was funny, humorous, and/or that it made you laugh.

-- Huh?
This should be used when someone's point was not made because it was written in a confusing way. By marking a post with this, you are essentially asking the poster to try explaining their position again - this time more clearly.

-- Off topic
This should only be used when posts have absolutely nothing at all to do with the stated subject matter or theme of the thread. Do not use this to disagree with the fact that the subject matter exists in the first place.

-- Inappropriate
Should be used only when something truly offensive has been said. Something rude, racist, or blatantly disrespectful. This is NOT used to disagree with a person's opinion. To disagree with an opinion you would POST YOUR OPINION as a message. This rating should be hardly ever used, since I can count on one hand how many times in the past year that it could have been used.