Table Tennis - Forum Etiquette

CLegout in action - well, actually it's Christophe Legout at the 2005 Chinese Tapei Open!

Photo by: Wu Ching-Teng, courtesy www.ittf.com

This page has moved to here.

Greg is now running the About.com Table Tennis site, and as such a number of these articles will be transferred over to About.com. Please feel free to join me at About!

So am I right about the table tennis forums? Or am I talking total rubbish? Why don't you email me and I'll add your two cent's worth below.

COMMENTS

Wednesday 2nd November 2005

Agent Hex wrote:

Forum article:
Greg, your definition of a forum is the more classic internet view that it's a place to put opinions very a very low price of entry. That's very fair. However, in many ways this doesn't necessarily serve the users in the best possible way. For example, many people read the about forum in order to gain some understanding of table tennis, because frankly, it's often difficult to find locals who are interested in such things.

When they get to the forum, the first thing they notice is the equipment section. I think it used to be quite of bit of chatting about, literally, stupid fast blades and rubber. This obviously leads people to think that they need this new "weapons" in order to be any good. I know because I was misled. My stupid, but wait, there's more. What bothers me more is that the "debate" is formed in a way that superficially presents itself as "respectable" or even theoretically correct in some way. I've spend some effort in debunking this for myself initially, but for the benefit of others I've post some corrections and mocked the authors of such BS.

Obvious, it'd be great if the coaching area was busy, but apparently, the "respected" coaches (who are generally worse players than you, I might add) do not often feel the need to contribute.

So if you take priorities more as I do, the etiquette issues are secondary to the presentation of data that readers will not be mislead and screwed by. I've said what I think is "right" rather than polite by most definitions of the word, and I get struck with the consequences. However, change is a difficult process, and I do challenge people who think my process is wrong to demonstrate an alternative rather than criticizing what I say.

Ok, maybe that's a little personal, but I think anyone who's read aboutTT knows what I'm talking about.

Friday 4th November 2005

Rick Anderson wrote:

Hey dude...nice site. I believe I can offer a little insight into your article as well. *All* forums are only as good as the moderation...just like a real debate in real time in real life. If the moderator lets one insult slide and doesnt slam the aggressor then you can expect all hell to break loose...and deservedly so.

Heres a partial list of some of the forums, some old..some new and why they are the way they are.

About.com

Sean has the benefit of the most natural traffic on the net...which is great for any forum. Without the natural traffic one would have to rely on personality to attract posters...which as you can see with the USA forum, if you dont have an attractive personality, can be the kiss of death for the forum. Sean and his pretend moderators (pretend...in that they dont really exist...cept for a few weekends a year..when Seans out of town) do an adequate job but their (his) biggest weakness is that they let insults go unchecked..which leads to escalation. Spo obviously enjoys a certain level of friction on the About.com site or he would delete any and all insults. As it stands...he lets insults remain which means their is a constant poison on his site.

Mytabletennis.net

The biggest problem with that site is that the mods are Chinese. Chinese are very NON-confrontational...which is good...but that ALSO means that they are not use to dealing with it which in turn means that they cant spot a flame if it jumped up and bit them in the a$$. Chinese are great at a lot of things but they are by no means any good whatsoever at being an advocate or moderating. (ya..i know..its called "generalizing" but in my personal experience..this is what i have seen) An Asian who is a moderator but not clueless would be a welcome thing.

Rec Sport:

The Wild Wild West...no moderator..therefore flame wars are absolutely inevitable.

NATT:

A virginal forum and beautiful site. Alan is hands down the most capable of all moderators...although I dont think he officially wears that hat I suspect he would delete..or have deleted, in a heartbeat, anything that resembled a flame.

All forums deserve exactly what they get. Some forums deserved to be flamed while others deserve your utmost respect. Again, it all comes down to someones ability to delete, very quickly, any and all flames.

Rick Anderson