06/07 Phillies Offseason Thread

PhillyGirl · December 21, 2006, 11:15:42 AM

What in the hell? They shut down the site? LOL

PoopyfaceMcGee · December 21, 2006, 02:22:11 PM

Quote from: SD_Eagle on December 21, 2006, 08:06:31 AM
They take themselves way too serious over at Philliesphans:

QuoteIf you have tried to access the forums in the last few days, you discovered that they are not available. The site is still up, but for now the forums will be available to the mods and admins only as we discuss the future of the site and whether it will continue to exist, and if so, in what form. Nothing has been decided at this point. If we decide to continue, you will be notified. However, if we continue, it will be by a strict invitation system only, and everyone will have to reapply for admittance. Of course, good and valued posters will be given admittance. But the mods and admins will have final say on who and who is not admitted, the Off Topic board will be eliminated, and there will be very strict prohibitions on bickering and whining that most users have told me they don't like anyway. The most recent dustup included a good deal of false claims as those involved and their defenders sought to justify their actions. None of that will be allowed if the forums are brought back up. More information will be forthcoming as the mods and admins discuss this issue and make our final decision. I have seen a lot of speculation, most of it false. Take anything you hear, especially from the disaffected, with a grain of salt until you hear from me directly.

Dave Snyder Administator

Awful.

ice grillin you · December 21, 2006, 02:38:50 PM

I wonder if Billy Beane is sad?

hes fine...you must have missed this part....

Of course, good and valued posters will be given admittance.

SunMo · December 21, 2006, 03:25:41 PM

Jeff Conine was traded to the Reds for two minor leaguers

Seabiscuit36 · December 21, 2006, 03:34:17 PM

Quote from: PhillyPhreak54 on December 21, 2006, 09:24:20 AM
I wonder if Billy Beane is sad? They worship the vorp there.
QuoteOriginally Posted by Chief32
It makes the board 1000X better.

Sir, if you look at philaphans VORB (Value over Replacement Board) with the new members, you'll see that your statement is clearly silly. While maybe better than it was before, the influx of new posters makes it, at most 458-504 times better. If you're going to quote numbers, at least know what you're talking about.

Rome · December 21, 2006, 03:34:43 PM

I'm not surprised in the least that they closed that pathetic board down. The douchebag who runs it is a control freak who threatens to ban anyone who disagrees with the party line. farg him and his queer little cult board.

Seabiscuit36 · December 21, 2006, 03:35:17 PM

QuoteHere is the latest "gem" from the Pocket Protector Posse"

Here is what has been happening regarding the Renegade Phans Phorum at PhilliesPhans.com. Currently the site is still available to mods and admins only. However, we have decided to reopen, but under a different structure that will be explained in a future email. Thanks for all of your PMs and emails. The mods have received a lot of them; I have received a lot of them. We appreciate all the input. I wanted to let you know how we got to this point and what actually happened. There has been a lot of misinformation and false accusations spread around. Here's the chain of events as they unfolded. A small group of people were using the PhilliesPhans board as a take-off point to attack another person online in various places. This harassment included posting actual and photoshopped images online, starting an "IHatexxx" blog (where xxx is the philliesphans screen name of the person being harassed), and posting derogatory and insulting messages on the victim's blog. There may have been other actions, but these are the ones I have been able to verify. The attack seemed trivial to the perpetrators, but naturally it did not seem so trivial to the victim. There was no way to know for sure the extent of the attack, what was going to happen next, and whether the attack would spill over into anything more. As a victim of a similar online attack some years ago, I understand that such actions are harmful. The victim is professional, and these kinds of things can harm one both personally and professionally. Because the attacks happened on multiple fronts, in public online spaces, and were carried out by more than one person, it was difficult to know exactly what was going on and how far it would lead. The victim came to me for help. He just wanted the attacks to stop. He didn't know who was behind them, but he knew it was related to philliesphans.com. I intervened, since this board was the vector for the attacks, some of the offending behavior had happened on the board itself, and the attacks were being carried out by philliesphans posters. As I was working to find out who was behind this, I was notified anonymously that the attacks had been discussed on another board, a board that several current and former philliesphans posters frequent. However, this board is private; it cannot be viewed publicly. I was informed by the anonymous source that there was a thread on this board about these attacks, and that there was one post in that thread in particular in which a poster had admitted to carrying out some of the attacks. Now, the person who had admitted on that board to being a perpetrator of the harassment was a former philliesphans poster. However, the mods had long suspected that he had come back to philliesphans under a different user name. In addition, other participants on that thread, including the poster who started the thread, were current philliesphans posters. The thread itself wasn't an issue; it doesn't matter to me what is discussed in a private forum. However, that thread contained information that might help me pinpoint who was involved in the attacks and whether a previously banned poster (who had been banned for posting particularly hateful and vicious material) had returned to philliesphans. Thus in an attempt to verify things, to get more info about the attacks, and to determine whether the attacker was still on philliesphans using another alias, I PM'd five posters who were online on both boards at the time and asked them to PM me the thread on the other board. Again, let me make clear that my sole intent was to gather information relevant to philliesphans and to the harassment that had occured elsewhere but for which philliesphans was a vector. Of the five people I asked to PM me that thread, three PM'd back almost immediately and said they would not PM me the thread. Another PM'd back shortly proclaiming that he didn't know what I was talking about. Another never got back to me. I allowed sufficient time for the last two to make their decision, I verified that they were online at the other site, and when they didn't reply, I banned all five from philliesphans. The thread was available for any registered user at the other site. Even if a poster there had not seen it before, it would have been a simple thing to copy and paste it into a PM and send it to me. That would have taken no longer than a few seconds. My reasoning for banning all five was that protecting perpetrators of harassment differs very little from actually carrying out the harassment. Furthermore, when that harassment originated on philliesphans, referred to the victim by his philliesphans username, and was carried out by current and former philliesphans posters, that made the philliesphans membership of both the attackers and the protectors of those attackers relevant. Again, the existence of the thread on the other board was not itself the attack, having it would merely help me determine what philliesphans members were involved. Subsequent to banning the five protectors, the anonymous emailer informed me that the thread in question on the other board had been deleted. I discovered later that it had in fact been moved to a mods only forum, at which time the most relevant post had been deleted from the thread, and the thread was then apparently moved back to the forum to which regular forum members had access. While this was going on and for a while afterwards, this was discussed in a thread on philliesphans. One of the mods on the other board made a number of claims that turned out to be false. Another mod on the other forum, and one of the five that I banned, sent material to another philliesphans poster, who posted it in the name of that other person. This too contained a number of false claims. The claims attempted to argue that this was a trivial matter, but they did so by omitting material information and mistating other matters. Some forum members chose to believe the misstatements, some did not, some said we needed more information. One poster twice posted the name of the victim, along with additional hate speech in those posts, despite the fact that I had stated that I did not want the victim victimized twice by having his name revealed. I deleted both posts. When that poster PM'd me that I might as well ban him too, I obliged. I also banned the poster whom we suspected of actually being the previously banned poster who was the primary perpetrator of the attacks, as he posted twice in that thread, both times giving us even more reason to conclude that he had returned under a different username. We also now know that the mods at the other forum knew for a long time that this banned poster had re-registered at philliesphans. The perpetrators argued that this was just a silly prank and that I overreacted. The facts are as stated above; you make your own judgment. The victim only wanted the attacks to stop; it was my decision to ban posters for being involved and/or for protecting those who were involved. I would do the same for any poster who is harassed, and I would do the same again. Philliesphans will NOT be used to harass people. What looks to be harmless to perpetrators looks quite different to victims. I shut down the forums to all but mods and admins. This was not the first time that this particular group of posters had caused problems, but this time they had gone much too far, in my opinion. If this was how the board was going to be used, better to shut it down. Since I shut down the board, the mods and admins have been discussing the future of the board. We have decided that it will reopen as an invitation-only forum. While it will still be publicly viewable, posting privileges will be granted only after an applicant has been reviewed and accepted, and there will be some minor hoops to jump through. Current registered users will also have to re-apply, but the process will be much easier for them. However, each will be approved, or denied, individually. The off topic and complaints boards have been eliminated. There will be other steps designed to insure that posters are interested in good discussion. Those who are there to make trouble, or who aren't interested in contributing to The Best Baseball Talk Online(tm) will be discouraged from joining by these steps. Off topic threads will be allowed, even encouraged, as before. The goal as always will be high-level discussion. You will receive another email outlining how the board will be run. For now, I wanted to set the record straight, tell you what actually happened, and let you know that we will move forward

Geowhizzer · December 21, 2006, 03:56:38 PM

I won't even read papers turned in by my 8th graders that are formatted like that.

PARAGRAPHS, man! PARAGRAPHS!

mpmcgraw · December 21, 2006, 03:57:24 PM

Yea, I am pretty sure that almost everything he said in that email is not true.

Whatever. Philaphans has better posters after the whole merging thing anyway.

SD_Eagle5 · December 21, 2006, 04:01:01 PM

Quote from: SunMo on December 21, 2006, 03:25:41 PM
Jeff Conine was traded to the Reds for two minor leaguers

06/07 Phillies Offseason Thread

SD_Eagle5

SD_Eagle5