Mods and other leaders..... Let me start by saying I really enjoy my Dolphins news and interactions on Dolphin message boards. Specifically the time we all shared at FINHEAVEN. My time over there goes back further than the average member. For the most part, my interactions there were positive, but over the course of the last year I found myself in trouble with the Mods (some of you here in fact) a few times for going after trolls on the boards over there. I think my frustration came because frankly there were people over there that were put into leadership (writing) (allowed in VIP) that had no business being in there. I could post specfics in terms of constant negativity in their posts, but I'll just hope you understand where I'm coming from. I have no problem debating any topic with a DOLFAN, that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about a guy in VIP for example that I have seen on Fins boards for over 10 years and never seen anything positive about our organization. In his opinion: Don Shula sucked, Dan Marino sucked, Zach Thomas sucked, Jason Taylor sucked, the Dolphins are over hyped, our organization is an embarrassment, etc...yada yada,...yada! I beg to differ. I think we are one of the greatest sports organizations ever. I'm proud of our history, and while I acknowkledge we havent done much for a while now, I'm still very proud to say I'm a Dolphins fan, and all the people that mentioned one particular "fan" smacked I consider cornerstones of that pride. I don't think it's a stretch to say 99% or more of all Dolphins fans agree with me. I don't enjoy seeing the same person blast my team on a fan website over and over. Every aspect negative 100% of the time. My humble request: Make this board something special that comes with a common sense wisedom on when enough is enough. Trolls don't have to be tolerated here to be a thriving board. Neither do phony fans that always want to create an strife when they post. PLEASE think this over. One major problem I had with the former board was how some people got into the higher level of the board there and consistently brought it down. The ignore list isnt enough. Give us a board we can come to everyday and know we are going to have intelligent Fins diologue. If you do, I am sure the level of support you will recieve will be impressive. I hope this place becomes an elite site for fans. Let the noobs and fake fans (trolls) live and die on the old board. Create something here that is a clear step above! I see the leadership over here as being CLEARLY all DOLFANS! Good hearted guys that will do the work to make this a great site, but as you guys are setting things up and deciding how you will run things, I hope considering what I've said is part of that process. Good luck with the work ahead, and know that many of us here are willing to help however we can. D-Mike
I saw your post at FH earlier. I want to dispel your notion that we were somehow responsible for the TOS written by AJ. We were just enforcing it and one major issue we had was that TOS was outdated. Unfortunately, the TOS was such that it had for a long time enabled some bad habits. At some point we have to treat people like adults and that includes making them take responsibility as adults for the actions. The TOS at FH was written in such a way that it basically enabled cry babies and we were sick of dealing with that mentality. This is new start and the TOS is one of the first things to be revised.
And having run a couple sites myself and still running our church one, TOS are NOT easy to draft or keep uptodate, and very hard to make sure they are complete and detail and entail everything that needs to be in it....kinda like other things, you write them best you can and when someone exploits a loophole in it you update it to cover that particular thing. But TOS are very very hard to make complete. Much easier to enforce once you get them hammered out. ...so good luck to the staff here because that is a difficult task at best....t
Yeah I hate TOS, they are like policies in furniture store websites. You can check out my family's furniture store at rosiehomefurniture.com. I wrote the policies .
That is really exciting to hear. Specifically, I will never understand why some (MikeO) were allowed to ruin the boards there. If he a is friend of yours, I'm sorry for mentioning him, but he ruined my experience there at Finheaven. Add the normal onslaught of trolls and I became really disappointed with FINHEAVEN. Good Luck on your efforts here, let me know if you need time or money, I'm willing to help out with both should the need arise. I just want to talk Dolphin football with real fans! D-Mike
Had a feeling you had him in mind.. Mikeo was somehow grandfathered in from the beggining.. I'm real sure there are no such caveats here.
That goes back again to AJ. AJ promised MikeO a life time membership in Premium and Premium has access to VIP.
Completely agreed. I've been wondering this myself. How was MikeO allowed to stick around for as long as he did? He offered nothing but negativity to the aggregate conversation, to the point where I got some PMs from mods for taking him to task. (I went overboard in those instances, I admit.) No MikeO automatically makes the new venture better than DN.
I wouldnt have mentioned him specifically if I had realized it was a post...I thought I'd gotten a PM from Celtkin. I wasnt looking to insult, but frankly he killed Premium over there. Everyone is entitled to have a differing view, but when the greatest people in an organization are knocked over and over, and everything else is negative, I call a troll a troll. I go way way back with this individual and his negativity. Over 10 years on Dolphin boards. The Herald Boards, Sun Sentinel, Dolphin Digest, etc....that guy closed down every board he participated on, including his own boards which died as well.
Wow, I thought I was the only one who hated MikeO lol.. But I dont think we can go around banning people just because we find them annoying. Its a fine line..
Richard Simmons is annoying, but no one minds it. MikeO is just a wellspring of hatred. He spent his tenure propping up teams rival to not just the Dolphins, but to all South Florida teams: the Patriots, the Yankees, and I believe even the Knicks. He's a northeast fan, not a Dolphins fan, and I believe he posted on FH/DN simply because he could. He never had an argument of substance, never thought things out very well, and posted only to say "we're doing it wrong," even if we did it right.
Phewwww.......... I enjoyed MikeO from a purely entertainment aspect...I knew his posts were going to start flame wars.... I feel soooooo guilty for enjoying that....
I was never i VIP at FH (but would love to be here) but i agree with the idea of election or something similar to come to VIP. But i believe it should work both ways- Elected in if you seem to be a good contributor or at least not a wellspring of hatred, and elected out by mods if you become said wellspring. All of us are coming here because we trust and repsect the founder (celtkin, muck, Cali) so i see no reason we couldn't repsect there judgement if someone is a pest.
I totally agree with this post! I'm all for our leadership having the authority/ power to take whatever actions they deem necessary to handle trouble-makers and muck-rakers.
Folks.. I know the TOS as it stood was already talked about by Premium members..and in fact, Mal had suggested we try to revamp them. We now know that would never happend due to the fact the very people (Person) that could stop it from happening was rarely involved with the site and therefore wouldnt have the nessecery insight to correct the situation I know that I myself had bad interactions with some (MikeO included) but we have to be very carefull about making this an exclusive resort. I think that the IGNORE option is mandatory in the future myself. We can then pick and choose what we watch.
You're absolutely correct. MikeO is simply being cited as an example of how the prior TOS did not cover everything it needed to. (His presence being the result of friendship and favoritism isn't exactly thrilling, either.)
Does that mean, if we are drinking they have to have pasties..and if we are just sipping Coke or coffee it is sans everything?? Just asking
I said this in another thread but if we can find a way to make an R-rated LL and keep it out of sight of those who don't want to see it or should not see it, then I am all for it.
Can the TOS include no USC fans? Just a suggestion but one I think will really help the site out a lot.
They do it over at the 4 caulksmens website you have to ask or pay or something and they give you access much like how we have vip inaccessible to people who are not paying members
Make it a pay forum...a token amount, say $1 so you don't profit from our depravities But so that you control the audience via password.
It's pretty easy to figure out, especially if there is longevity of posting and minimum amt. of posts required.
at the 4cs they got it setup as a r rated and then an x rated so you might want to think about something like that.
You could set up a thing kinda like what HolliFinFan said. Make a person sign the document and have a minimum number of posts once they are elected in or they pay a small fee.
