The Competition With the ES Board

[Huddle]

The main reason that we are all NFL football fans is the we are all competitive by nature and, short of war, the NFL offers the ultimate competitive game.

This board is in a competition with the Extremeskins site for membership and is losing the battle. In order to first survive and then eventually turn that around, you need a turnaround strategy. Luckily, the ES mods have left an opening. It's their Achilles Heel. Within certain extreme limits, personal attacks are permitted and even encouraged, with mods participating, depending upon the opinion expressed.

The ES policy favors those espousing the currently popular opinion whatever it might be; and since the homers outnumber the realistic fans in all NFL cities, ES is a site favoring homers.

When it comes to their football team, the homers are manic. When winning, their hopes go unrealistically high. When losing, they sink into anger and harsh criticism. Their opinions will always conflict with those of the realistic fan. The case of Mark Brunell is instructive. To the homer, Mark Brunell went from being completely washed up in 2004 to an All-Pro in 2005. To the realist, Mark took too much blame from the homers in 2004 and is getting too much credit for the 2005 turnaround.

This natural conflict between the homers versus the realists presents the opportunity for this site to increase its membership by promoting a higher level debate between the two groups.

Threads that preach to the homer choir are boring. Their authors are seeking praise and usually get it. The debate threads are what people want to read and participate in because, as being football fans attests, we are competitors by nature.

On long-running internet debate boards there's a simple rule: argue the topic. Ridicule and other personal attacks are not only considered rude and gutless, they are seen as signals that the aggressor is devoid of sound, logical points.

It's too much to ask that posters turn the other cheek when attacked; but since our posts provide a written record, it's easy for moderators to nail the aggressor, the poster who took the first shot. I suggest a hardline policy on this board to do just that and do it fairly. The moderator's opinion on the topic should not influence his judgment either way.

A mod recently told me here that this board didn't want "controversy for the sake of controversy." Well, who decides when the original poster is creating controversy for controversy's sake...a moderator who disagrees with the poster's opinion?

A weak position by a discussion board on arrogant, personal attacks results in promoting the currently popular opinion and stifling the unpopular. It's a not-so-subtle form of censorship that degrades the debate. This is what they are doing over at Extremeskins...and this is the weakness that this board can exploit.

The LaVar debate, the Ramsey-Brunell debate, the Brunell-Campbell debate, the pros and cons of the major personnel moves...controversy...this is what Redskins fans want to read about and discuss. The number of responses and reviews on such threads are evidence of this. Give the fans what they want but do it better than they do over at the ES board. Do it by a rigid policy of stifling the personal attacks on people who post unpopular opinions.

In the ES board, you are facing a bigger opponent. Offering the same kind of posts with fewer participants isn't going to beat them. You need to do something very different.