[Warren Willson]

Originally posted by Ump20
I know Carl no longer officiates on the field and the quality of ball in Australia has been questioned by some. I don't care whether Carl is retired in Edinburg or if Warren umpired something akin to Division I college. I can't judge them by watching them so all I have is their posts. They can be pretty brutal at times in some of their "rebuttal" posts but their advice and rules knowledge are outstanding. So how come more people are just members in name only? Maybe Carl and Warren (and others) should look how they "react" to challenges and work on being kinder and gentler i.e. not treat us as coaches.

Jim, I understand what you're saying here and perhaps I do come back a bit tougher than necessary at times. I think that comes from being perceived by others as some sort of "tall poppy" that needs to be cut down to make the whole "field" look "even". The field simply isn't "even", despite some poster's refusal to accept that. I know that, perhaps because of the idiom in which I write, some people perceive certain of my posts as "condescending" too. I can't help that. The fact is the higher in the "pecking order" you are perceived to be, the more often you get "pecked" and, conversely, the less likely you are to accept a good "pecking" as nothing more than friendly banter. I'm sure there are times that Carl, like me, is just plain "pecked" out! (grin)

I am certainly prepared to treat individuals as honest enquirers, unless and until they prove themselves to be otherwise. No-one laments that fellow officials can treat each other so badly more than I. I have already given up access to my favourite site because of such treatment. I have certainly NEVER treated the posters here as "coaches", and the fact is that I actually treat most coaches a whole lot better than that suggestion would imply.

Might I suggest an e-mail survey to all "members" to find out how often they visit with an effort to encourage them to participate. I am afraid that if we eliminate negative attacks we might be down to 2-3 posts per day. I would also ask if it is possible that a poster who has his post deleted have that returned to them via e-mail. Afterall they are the authors of posts which sometimes do have baseball content mixed into the "attacks".

I think negative "attacks" can be "eliminated" without harming the posting ratio. I don't think negative opinions should be eliminated, however. That certainly WOULD damage the posting ratio. Oppositive viewpoints are what makes a discussion board just that, instead of a mutual admiration society bulletin board.

I don't believe the board owners should be responsible for returning deleted posts. That's an unreasonable imposition. If we all KNOW our posts are subject to deletion in any thread, we should be capable of keeping for ourselves copies of those we'd rather not lose for whatever reason.

I would also ask RightSports to communicate with us about the overall content and stagnancy of some of the content. I took the chance of becoming a member figuring I spend a couple hundred dollars every year on equipment, videos, and books. I realize some attention has been turned toward legal challenges but I would like to see more substantive interviews and more submissions from the various staff. Jim Simms/NY

I hope either Brad (for the owners) or Carl (as Editor) will respond to this. For my part, I have written approximately 19-20 articles for eUmpire since I became a contributor in mid-September last year. That's an average of 3-4 articles per month, EVERY month. I'm currently unemployed, having been retrenched in November, and I still have difficulty coming up with the requisite minimum of 3 articles per month. There is only so much you can say about obstruction, interference and batting out of order! I for one would be grateful if the eUmpire.com membership were to advise US of subjects they'd like to see covered. That would be an enormous help. All of us have our email addresses posted on the site somewhere. Mine is [email protected].

Don't talk to me about interviews, though. I've had several lined up since before the 2000 Sydney Olympics, only to have them fail to materialise for whatever reason. Nobody is more frustrated by that than me! (grin) Bottom line though, Jim, is that I think the membership of eUmpire.com is already getting everything they were promised and more. If you disagree, please help us to do it better for you.

Cheers,

[Edited by Warren Willson on Feb 21st, 2001 at 08:34 PM]