Official Forum, Moderators, and the general attitude of some posters on the site.
 

Years ago, Official Forum was the premier forum for officials to come and discuss all aspects of their sports. Civility was maintained here. Participants, while not always in agreement, always showed respect to one another. Name calling was usually addressed by a moderator.

Over time, maybe it is the way of community, or maybe it is just reflecting a larger national trend, respect seemed to slowly slip away. Name calling and personal insults began. Slowly but surely, they have become the norm on here. It has now gotten to the level where many of the old timers are leaving for other venues. One friend, a while back, contacted me via email because he was so disturbed by the lack of respect being shown on here.

I suspect, that if the trends continue, participation on this forum will continue to decline, until it eventually goes the way of the old McGriff's Forum. I know myself, my participation has dropped here from checking in multiple times a day, every day, to maybe checking in a couple of times a week. (Posting even less that once a week.)

It is my wonder why these behaviors are not addressed by moderators. Why is there no protocol for us to adhere to regarding how we treat one another. Why isn't the basic Golden Rule applied here, where we are all of the same avocation? Supposedly brothers and sisters in pursuit of similar goals. Much of what happens here now is counter-productive. Perhaps, with the dawn of a New Year, it is time for all of us to consider our personal approach in how we post.

Just me thinking aloud.

If you have specific complaints, we are more open to feedback than you might think.

Adam, I don't believe it is so much the moderators, as the general climate of the forum these days that allows insults and name-calling to happen with almost any topic being discussed. Read almost any softball/baseball thread and you will see it start to degrade to insults and name calling.

Could the moderators do something about it? I am sure. But it just seems to have become accepted.

Just one very small example: http://forum.officiating.com/softbal...r-board-3.html

Honestly, I saw a bit of give and take there, but I wasn't following it that closely. If you have a specific post in mind, please feel free to report it to the moderators. We may not necessarily agree, but if you think we're missing stuff (always a possibility), then a more effective option would be to report the post and see what happens.

I recall the old McGriff days in the late 80s or early 90s. It was when I first started umpiring in my son's local Little League Baseball league. To date, I haven't seen any internet sports officials' forum that was as bad as that. There were more personal insults and obscentities posted than there were actual rule discussions.

What happens here (at least on the baseball and softball forums; I can't speak for the other sports since I don't visit them) are orders of magnitude less severe. Yeah, there's the occasional retort from some of the old-timers that deserve to be ignored. But for the most part, this place is tame.

In the thread you mentioned, there was some sniping back and forth by a couple of folks. But they did stay on the subject of the issues with the play and subsequent ruling. If this place was like McGriffs, they would have talked about each other's abilities, mothers, manhood, etc. I honestly didn't think it was worthy enough of being stricken by the moderators, in my opinion.

McGriffs
 

"I recall the old McGriff days in the late 80s or early 90s."

Ah, McGriffs, I remember those days fondly. McGriffs started in about 1997 and was overrun with spam and insults by 2001. It was disbanded 2-3 years later after many fruitless attempts by Gary McGriff to bring it under control.

So there, you lousy dirtbag, and so is your mother :D

The lack of civility seems to be both an increasingly large part of our culture in general and a reflection of internet anonymity. Regardless, I agree that incivility can lead to website decline, but also to having a lot of lurkers who don't wish to expose themselves to ridicule or insult.

Not sure what moderators can do, though, especially if incivility becomes pervasive.

We can address it, but sometimes we have to have someone point it out to us.