Incident #1

[WOMBAT, Mod Emeritus]

Hi DMac,

Not bitter at all.

Frankly, I’m not following the sport that much anymore. Come around here for fun and friendship. More on that in a minute.

Just calling a spade a spade on the above issue.

What I see is something that could drag this new place down, when it has the potential of being an even better place.

And one of the apparent current key headache creators is apparently the King of being able to dish it out for 20 years when they had Teflon, but now can’t take it.

I’m sure Matt can handle it. But if it doesn’t stop, there is at least one more dimension, not that I really like the thought, but revealing a few incoming PMs could really show what Matt is dealing with.

And I’ve given plenty of credit and respect over the years. Just recently used the term yeoman-like. People don’t pay attention to some details of my wordcrafting sometimes. Every single person has room for improvement.

DMac, contact me and share some stories.

Look, the past three years went a little downhill with a few people, and I acknowledge that. But, it’s a two way street. And there were at least five or six factors. Some of which are misunderstood.

Got to run. I’ve got to think about spelling out all the factors and catching them all.

As far as having “lost” friends, I have an open door and have reached out to several people, emails, calls, and not one single reply. So, who’s bitter? I’d say them. I’d happily talk to anyone who has a beef or who wants to laugh - people are more important than message board stuff.

Keep it real.

So, why even point out some behind the scenes BS?

Because this place, which is more of a bar for old connections to meet up and stay in touch, could become LP Titanic #2 if behind the scenes negative influence continues. At least as I see it.

That’s my point.

And I wouldn’t put it past some people to try and harpoon this place, Capt Ahab style.

But yeah, turn it around and blame me.

I support this place, and have had some enlightenment and realize the key is self-policing and self-moderating. How much profanity have you seen from me? Yeah, I tried a few things out early, and might slip occasionally, but I’ve diversified my message board portfolio and am involved in two really, really Wild, Wild West places that make LP not only look Puritanical, but more like Vatican City. So, I have outlets for Wombat Unplugged.

And, just how many cats or other images have you seen from me lately?

I’m here to have fun, period. Have a laugh, share a laugh.

That’s been my mantra for over 20 years. Hope you’ve enjoyed a little bit of it here and there.

Have a great weekend, DMac.
W

Sure sounds to me as if that's quite what the Mods at LP did, those types were given a vacation. Not such a bad idea after all, eh (for all the reasons you list above)? Instead you want to bad mouth the Mods, kick 'em in the nuts, print their PMs, let everyone know that Bald-ego was an rump for devoting so much of his time working on his labor of love (and one that attracted, and kept, a ton of good and knowledgeable lacrosse people). You've lost at least one long time friend as a result, and I'd bet more than that. Maybe you should check your bitterness level, seems a little high and out of line to me.
Here's something you can complain about here; you can't write a-s-s or c-r-a-p?
Very restrictive.

[DMac]

Hi DMac,

Not bitter at all.

Frankly, I’m not following the sport that much anymore. Come around here for fun and friendship. More on that in a minute.

Just calling a spade a spade on the above issue.

What I see is something that could drag this new place down, when it has the potential of being an even better place.
I don't see that on the surface, unless you're talking about vulgarity, and what level of childishness will be tolerated. (Bandito...c'mon)

And one of the apparent current key headache creators is apparently the King of being able to dish it out for 20 years when they had Teflon, but now can’t take it.
So says you based on apparent and apparently.


I’m sure Matt can handle it. But if it doesn’t stop, there is at least one more dimension, not that I really like the thought, but revealing a few incoming PMs could really show what Matt is dealing with.
Right, as JR would say, "Once you've given up your integrity, the rest is a piece of cake." What we're getting here is one side of one man's opinion based on apparentlies. Allegations and accusations.

And I’ve given plenty of credit and respect over the years. Just recently used the term yeoman-like. People don’t pay attention to some details of my wordcrafting sometimes. Every single person has room for improvement.

DMac, contact me and share some stories.
As you note, that's a two way street.

Look, the past three years went a little downhill with a few people, and I acknowledge that. But, it’s a two way street. And there were at least five or six factors. Some of which are misunderstood.

Got to run. I’ve got to think about spelling out all the factors and catching them all.

As far as having “lost” friends, I have an open door and have reached out to several people, emails, calls, and not one single reply. So, who’s bitter? I’d say them. I’d happily talk to anyone who has a beef or who wants to laugh - people are more important than message board stuff.

Keep it real.

So, why even point out some behind the scenes BS?

Because this place, which is more of a bar for old connections to meet up and stay in touch, could become LP Titanic #2 if behind the scenes negative influence continues. At least as I see it.

That’s my point.

And I wouldn’t put it past some people to try and harpoon this place, Capt Ahab style.
Aint buyin that.

But yeah, turn it around and blame me.
Not blaming you for anything, simply pointing out that I think you've been mighty harsh, and unfairly so, with the Mods at LP.

I support this place, and have had some enlightenment and realize the key is self-policing and self-moderating. *How much profanity have you seen from me? **Yeah, I tried a few things out early, and might slip occasionally, but I’ve diversified my message board portfolio and am involved in two really, really Wild, Wild West places that make LP not only look Puritanical, but more like Vatican City. So, I have outlets for Wombat Unplugged.
*Little to none, not pushing the limits to see whether or not your post will be deleted here as you did at LP. Interesting.
**Plenty of Wild Wild West places out there, that was pretty much the reason for Mods at LP, no? Wanted it to be that Puritanical, more like Vatican City place, where the profanity you're not using here wasn't the right place either.

And, just how many cats or other images have you seen from me lately?
I was the first, and maybe only person, to post a cat picture here. Why no cat pictures here? Again, interesting.

I’m here to have fun, period. Have a laugh, share a laugh.

That’s been my mantra for over 20 years. Hope you’ve enjoyed a little bit of it here and there.
You know I have and have tried to contribute my share as well.

Have a great weekend, DMac.
W

Sure sounds to me as if that's quite what the Mods at LP did, those types were given a vacation. Not such a bad idea after all, eh (for all the reasons you list above)? Instead you want to bad mouth the Mods, kick 'em in the nuts, print their PMs, let everyone know that Bald-ego was an rump for devoting so much of his time working on his labor of love (and one that attracted, and kept, a ton of good and knowledgeable lacrosse people). You've lost at least one long time friend as a result, and I'd bet more than that. Maybe you should check your bitterness level, seems a little high and out of line to me.
Here's something you can complain about here; you can't write a-s-s or c-r-a-p?
Very restrictive.

[WOMBAT, Mod Emeritus]

I guess my explanations are:

To be quite frank about it, I’ve been busier over the past two years than ever.

On the road a lot, and just don’t have time to hang out as much.

When things went really south last December, I was on a base, very limited free time, and when I got some brief freedom one day, I deployed a lot of images.

Let me explain something else: cats and images. I used to write lengthy posts and participate in the Forum Poll. Occasionally a post would get deleted, and I would mostly shrug it off, but when you spend 10 to 30 minutes of your life typing up some thoughts, to see them vanish, I started shrinking the size of my posts to a few sentences. Wasn’t worth a greater investment in time.

Then around 2007 or 2008, the editing really ratcheted up, which I felt changed the purpose, meaning and spirit of a lot of my posts. I dropped out of the Forum Poll as a result.

Deletions and editing continued, and my response was to mainly just post images. And cats.

How could an image be deleted as long as I was fairly clean about it and tried to keep it somewhat funny and relevant?

Well, then the fateful and regrettable day happened in DEC 2017 when I was having fun posting about 10+ images of cats and riffs on Belichick (which is Hopkins relevant, the cats much less so). Everything got deleted and I went nuclear, unfortunately.

To me, we’d crossed the rubicon of deletions of textual posts, to edits, and then deletions of photos en masse.

I felt like I’d become enemy #1 around there, because earlier I’d suggested someone do more meaningful things, then T got elected, and TDS set in, and all I was doing was trying to make good on the Moderator thing but had to turn it into a running joke, thus Emeritus.

I didn’t just get a warning for blessing TS, I got a couple weeks ban. Then in early May, I got the whole rest of the month off. Both deserved. I apologized to everyone involved, but not sure they were accepted.

Anyway, that’s what went on with me as the LP Titanic sank.

I own what I did and still try to be a better, older, wiser, mellow Wombat.

This place is far friendlier, and as Admin says, truly FOR THE FAN.

Let’s all do our part to help make this place click.

Anyway, that’s Wombat’s Manifesto Of 3 NOV 2018.

Have a great rest of the weekend everybody!
W

(PS. I’m not in Montana, don’t live in a shack, etc.)

[admin]

Wombat, I'm not going anywhere. Like water off a duck's back. The PMs, posts, etc., I don't take any of them personally. i.e. I don't have any "major headaches". FanLax is a labor of love.

Rewording words doesn't take a lot of work. There's a function within the Admin Control Panel that does it for us. As for ass and crap, DMac, I think you're right. Some words should be replaced but I don't think ass and crap are two of them. i'll amend this after this post. I removed them when I did a big sweep and... they shouldn't have been swept. (DMac, I'm going to send you a list of the current "word censored" words. Feel free to ignore the PM. Or, reply back and let me know which words you think should be allowed.)

I think the referee metaphor for moderating this website/forum is a good one. and I'm doing my best to stay in character. Bottom-line, realistically, who likes the ref? In general, either he's doing the right things so you're OK with him or he makes some calls you don't like and you hate him. But who likes a ref. I know what I'm signing up for and I'm OK with this. Someone's got to do it and as long as I'm being consistent and people (who will be like a VAR) are keeping me honest, I think we'll be fine.

[DMac]

Wombat, I'm not going anywhere. Like water off a duck's back. The PMs, posts, etc., I don't take any of them personally. i.e. I don't have any "major headaches". FanLax is a labor of love.
Side of story #2. Sounds much different, which is the reason I was annoyed with the bashing of the "previous Moderator".

Rewording words doesn't take a lot of work. There's a function within the Admin Control Panel that does it for us. As for ass and crap, DMac, I think you're right. Some words should be replaced but I don't think ass and crap are two of them. i'll amend this after this post. I removed them when I did a big sweep and... they shouldn't have been swept. (DMac, I'm going to send you a list of the current "word censored" words. Feel free to ignore the PM. Or, reply back and let me know which words you think should be allowed.)
Oh boy. As probably the most foul mouthed person here, it's unlikely I'll find any words that shouldn't be allowed. Might come up with a few new ones.

I think the referee metaphor for moderating this website/forum is a good one. and I'm doing my best to stay in character. Bottom-line, realistically, who likes the ref? In general, either he's doing the right things so you're OK with him or he makes some calls you don't like and you hate him. But who likes a ref. I know what I'm signing up for and I'm OK with this. Someone's got to do it and as long as I'm being consistent and people (who will be like a VAR) are keeping me honest, I think we'll be fine.

I think you'll be fine too. Hear you about the ref but they're a necessary part of the game, otherwise the game can go all to hell and get out of control quickly. Pushing the rules is also part of the game and when you can't, or it doesn't work, you shouldn't be blaming the refs for enforcing the rules.

[thatsmell]

As the moderator in quetion who whacked WOMBAT's posts, I'd like to share my point of view.

At the time of the deletions we had received a number of complaints from Hopkins fans who didn't like the cats or the thread regularly veering off topic tallking about non-lax things. From my perspective, I can say that ALL of the moderators over there (and particularly the founding crew) loved the place. It was the fruit of a lot of labor and man hours. Everyone over there did their best for LP and made LP the best they could with the information they had on hand, at the time a decision was made. The same thing ocurred when I whacked WOMBAT's post. I'm not saying I was always right, but that was always the goal.

Now did I deserve a poster's Ire over deleting a post on a forum? Because that was part of the job at LP too. The "water off a duck's back" as Matt says. We were trying to make the place as enjoyable for as many people as possible, and that meant being occasionally told such nice things as "get cancer and die" or that I was a "racist piece of s#it."

Over what, again?

My point is, what does it really matter if Matt deletes a proven troll's account or a garbage post? The posts are a drop in the bucket. There will always be another post by another member, and hopefully one that isnt trying to muck up the board for others. IMO, there is no sense in allowing something nasty or mean-spirited stay. What does it gain? Are those nasty posts changing hearts and minds? Are the trolls encouraging others to participate in a conversation? Absolutely not. The only thing those posts and people bring to the party is a buzz kill. For every person you piss off because you delete their ramblings, you are likely driving away many more by regularly allowing garbage to stand.

Most people when that was explained to them understood that we werent trying to tick someone off, we were trying to protect something people worked hard to create. And we must have been on to something. Because for all the bitching and moaning about the moderators and founders at LP, I always got a kick when people told us they were never, EVER coming back after having a post deleted or being given a short vacation.

Well guess what. Those same people ALWAYS came back. And they usually kept their nose clean for an extended period of time. And most of them were the staple posters at LP and are the staple posters here now. And I still consider most of them good friends.

Even Wombat.

[Matnum PI]

I remember when moderation shifted from one or two founders to multiple post-ers and, from where I was sitting, the forum changed. In terms of the cat posts, then and now, whatever. Those were the easier ones. I think there were other posts that were deleted less because of "doing the right thing" and more for other reasons. I think some egos got involved. e.g. Threats, public and otherwise, when the threat was wholly unnecessary.

"My point is, what does it really matter if Matt deletes a proven troll's account or a garbage post?"... For the record, I don't delete anything. Admin does. And I don't know if he deleted any posts. I know he deleted a thread by mistake. But, otherwise, I think he's just edited swears, etc.

"The posts are a drop in the bucket. There will always be another post by another member"... It's true. There was an ocean of posts but, to the post-er, that drop was meaningful. Of course the idiot's "Eat a D****!!!" post was not (necessarily) meaningful. And, for sure, people make mistakes in moderating posts. But when these mistakes are less mistakes and more personal, I can see why someone might feel hurt.

"We must have been on to something. Because for all the bitching and moaning... Those same people ALWAYS came back"... I don't think that this is a good metric of good moderating or of a well run forum/site. If there were even two websites with a thriving Lacrosse Forum, I might feel differently. But there's really only one. Which is why it's good that we didn't let the ship sink.

[WOMBAT, Mod Emeritus]

Hey TS,

Great post! Let’s go have a beer and toast.

I’m back on the base where all that started 10.5 months ago.

Will have to wait until Spring I guess.

Keep up the great presence here.

Regards,
W

[WOMBAT, Mod Emeritus]

Matt,

Also a great post!

I like the “two sides” of the story you’re covering there.

The cats, other images and memes - will probably be a lot less frequent here, from me at least.

As I tried to explain over the weekend, I went from creating long, fun posts, to shorter posts, and then images, because the level of deleting, editing and changing what I meant or how I styled it got to be way too much. So, I went to pictures.

And the pictures were meant to retain some humor around there, and show the world that, yes, Hopkins students and grads can be funny and normal people, and Hopkins is a great place to go to school.

That was the message.

After the loss of images, I was down to figuring out smoke signals but couldn’t quite figure out how to interface them to html. I needed to talk to the Creator of THE Game to get more help with that smoke stuff.

But then the Titanic sunk from its own doings, and here we are.

I can finally post again without all the nonsense.

Happy holidays, everyone, including anyone still mad at me.

Regards,
W

[thatsmell]

Hey TS,

Great post! Let’s go have a beer and toast.

I’m back on the base where all that started 10.5 months ago.

Will have to wait until Spring I guess.

Keep up the great presence here.

Regards,
W

Im all for it! I’m also a huge proponent of having a laxpower/fanlax happy hour. I think getting to meet people in person over a beer would go a long way to quelling some of the bs that happens on the forums!

[WOMBAT, Mod Emeritus]

Hey TS,

Great post! Let’s go have a beer and toast.

I’m back on the base where all that started 10.5 months ago.

Will have to wait until Spring I guess.

Keep up the great presence here.

Regards,
W

Im all for it! I’m also a huge proponent of having a laxpower/fanlax happy hour. I think getting to meet people in person over a beer would go a long way to quelling some of the bs that happens on the forums!

Yes. Two rules:

1) No outing people’s real names.

2) No weapons.

[dislaxxic]

I love the idea of a happy hour, but i DO have some trepidations about meeting CERTAIN posters in the flesh...maybe an attendee list could be made public? Was thinking that something at the annual LaxCon, or perhaps at the NCAA Final 4 weekend, might work out best...for travel plans??

..

[DMac]

A wise man once said, I believe it was I.W. Harper...could be wrong on that...never mix politics and alcohol. Pretty tall order with this crew.
LMAO, can see it now as the end of the "hour" winds down.
"I thought you were a fargin icehole before I ever met you, now I know GDamn well you are."
Might need some Moderators.
We don't want anyone ending up in court pleading their case.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dv8tVxk6Nj4
Needless to say, I've got an idea or two of how to keep things more on the less volatile side, but guess I need to know what state the gathering will be in (not really) before I make any suggestions.

[ChairmanOfTheBoard]

A wise man once said, I believe it was I.W. Harper...could be wrong on that...never mix politics and alcohol. Pretty tall order with this crew.
LMAO, can see it now as the end of the "hour" winds down.
"I thought you were a fargin icehole before I ever met you, now I know GDamn well you are."
Might need some Moderators.
We don't want anyone ending up in court pleading their case.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dv8tVxk6Nj4
Needless to say, I've got an idea or two of how to keep things more on the less volatile side, but guess I need to know what state the gathering will be in (not really) before I make any suggestions.

many years ago there was actually a pickup game, if you can believe it, for the LP faithful. i couldnt make it down but i think spenny organized. wouldve loved to have gone...

[44WeWantMore]

A wise man once said, I believe it was I.W. Harper...could be wrong on that...never mix politics and alcohol. Pretty tall order with this crew.
LMAO, can see it now as the end of the "hour" winds down.
"I thought you were a fargin icehole before I ever met you, now I know GDamn well you are."
Might need some Moderators.
We don't want anyone ending up in court pleading their case.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dv8tVxk6Nj4
Needless to say, I've got an idea or two of how to keep things more on the less volatile side, but guess I need to know what state the gathering will be in (not really) before I make any suggestions.

What state? Inebriated state, of course!

[admin]

I'm working on the Recruit lists as well as the game schedules and results (believe it or not, I think I've figured out how to do this for the HSers... lotta teams) but, though I don't have the time, I spent some time figuring out how to create events and check-ins at the events. I really like this meet-up idea. At games, bars, whatever. Even just to be at a game and to know, Hey, there are 3 other FanLax people here. I like it.

[WOMBAT, Mod Emeritus]

Folks will need to be wise enough to why they want to meet fellow LAX FANS in person,

and to be sure to leave that ANYTHING BUT LACROSSE stuff (which we can call “but stuff”)

at the door.


On the other site which shall not be named, or, the Titanic, or Mothership, MFS for short, Dan and I once had a conversation about the WC, which, if you recall, was listed as an “experimental forum”.

I told him (and, ha, this was at least ten years ago... LOL, whoo, LMAO...) that I thought it was awful and people were not only becoming mad at one another, but they were also becoming enemies. Over politics and but stuff.

That was a bit contrary to one of the behind the scenes benefits of MFS which was meeting people like Ivyman, spenny and SWAMI in real life.

Dan thought the WC was a great success - and I can see his reasoning: it kept (for the most part) the political talk out of the lacrosse threads (Reminder: why we are here, uh, lacrosse).

In some ways it was a success. But politics still bled over into lax threads and I’m quite sure that was one of the myriad things that the certain person who shall not be named had to do: keep running around and cleaning up the latest “Spill in Aisle Number Three”.

The end result looked tidy and clean, but the sheer intense labor and staff hours involved in mopping were ridiculous (Place HOOK here to remind W for a future story).

I hope this doesn’t become a problem here. The Admin has taken steps to segregate things, and it’s up to the users to self-police.

Anyway, a little history, plus a reminder on why we all are recongregating here, FOR THE FAN.

Let’s make it all succeed, happy and FUN.

Sure, meet up.

Just bring the fun and lacrosse, and leave the other stuff at the door.

W


Oh, while meeting up, I will be unable to post cat memes.

[DMac]

If people are sincere about wanting to meet one another it's really not too hard to do that, no? I doubt there's anyone here who doesn't know that I'll be in the Dome when Cuse is playing, or that Hop16 is going to be at Homewood when the Jays are playing, or that laxfan1313 will be at Schoellkopf when the Big Red is playing. Figure old salt will be at the next home Navy game? (Hell, you might be able to get him to give you a lift to the game in his helo if you get in touch with him.) Just reach out via PM and make an effort, it really aint too hard. I've done it more than once, works like a champ. I know Lax Fi has a long list of people he's reached out to, met up with, and become long time friends with, simply because he's made the effort and reached out. We've had this discussion several times with no results (that I'm aware of) and IMO it's because the discussion stays right here on the forum, no one (or too few) makes an effort to really make it happen. I can't think of any games I've ever been to that doesn't have a nearby watering hole, likely an agreeable meet up place before the game for most, no? Just make it happen if you want it to.

[admin]

When I see political discussions, here or otherwise, I find it odd that there'll be people that have perspectives that are... odd. Contrary to reality. (To avoid turning this into a political discussion, I'm not going to give an example.) Fine, I'll give an example. A guy within this Forum who rhymes with Tostito posts a lot of not-based-in-reality stuff. For example, Trump is the first President to... The example I was going to give was, Keep his campaign promises but the rest of this sentence could be most anything. That Trump is the first President to keep his campaign promises, let alone most anything, is objectively untrue, in several ways. But Tostito very much believes this. People's personal lives and experiences shape their world view and their reality, to them, is reality. A similarly odd thing I've noticed (and I hope you're not offended by this Mr. 'bat, it's not an attack, sincerely) is people referring to "self-policing". As humans, when are we not self-policing? I can't think of the scenario where I would say to myself, OK, in this situation, I need to self-police. At least not since i was child. As if there is always someone keeping me in check and when they aren't around, I swallow hard and need to... self-police. Also, people referring to "no moderators" and "no rules". There are always moderators, always rules. And even if the person really means that there are no consequences when you break pre-designated and/or unspoken rules, of course there are consequences. Tell me a place where there are no consequences and i'll move there and start my Buffalo-Wings-and-Snapple-only diet. Then, while we have a penalty box, someone in the penalty box, tangible written rules, unquestionably a rule system and consequences for breaking these rules, people still will say, No moderators, No rules, Self-policing. Not judging. just find it odd. It feels similar to when I was in FL, it was raining lightly, and I decided to go out and pick-up some dinner. My father-in-law's eyes (may he rest in Peace. he was a good man.) became as big as saucers and he said, What are you! A thrill seeker! You can't go out in that! Apparently he heard in the news, as Floridians tend to hear, that there was a hurricane and, thus, that light rain wasn't a light rain but a hurricane. People see what they see and, sometimes, no words stating otherwise can change this. find it odd. and, i guess, it's stuff like this that makes life interesting. without it, social scientists and stand-ups wouldn't have a job.

Totally separately, FanLax is about lacrosse like Cigar Aficianado magazine is about cigars. Cigar Aficianado is about cigars but it's really about providing content to a group of people, mostly men, mostly wealthy, who have a passion for high quality, usually-expensive stuff. Cigars just happen to be one of those stuff. The people of Cigar Aficianado are an ilk of people and the publishers of this magazine serve them. FanLax is similar. FanLax is about serving the people on this website/forum who happen to have lacrosse in common. But i do not believe that lacrosse is necessarily that essential commonality that holds us together. And I know it's not political perspectives that hold us together. I guess, in time, we'll figure out what that commonality is. Maybe in person over beers.

[Matnum PI]

DMac, agreed. But you're three people. What about the other 489 (and there's-gotta-be more come February) post-ers? Also, I'm lazy. i don't want to have to ask each person one-by-one where they live and if they want to meet up. I don't want to ask women on a date. i want a Dating App!