NOTICE: And then there were two addendum

[diehardtwinsfan]

I had a bit of a dialogue with a poster in regards to moderation actions in regards to the "and then there were two" thread. The moderators recommended it be posted for all to see as we felt it could provide some useful guidance:

 

 

1) I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with arguing that the Twins should spend more. It tends to cross the line when the words used are meant to inflame. Certain types of posts which are often laced with sarcasm and oversimplify the views of others in particular tend to attract attention. As we saw in this thread, Twins Daily is a veritable powder keg right now. It doesn't seem to take too much to get under people's skin, and then there's a mess to clean up, and unfortunately, that thread has gotten pretty messy.

 

2) We are also not a big fans of the us vs. them mentality that's been going on. There's a lot of people in the middle being crowded out. I know that there are several mods who felt the Twins should spend more, some didn't. I've been more in the middle on this one personally, and haven't been a fan of Santana... maybe it's b/c he's been a few fantasy teams of mine and never really lived up to the hype... who knows. But one thing we are trying to correct is this extreme us and them viewpoints that tend to derail perfectly good threads into shouting matches between the same few posters. We get tons of complaints from people who are quite sick of it. It harms the overall quality of the site and tends to drive away people. No one wants that.

 

3) There's no rule against saying "they have more money than they are using". As a matter of fact, using those exact words as an item in as a part of the case you are making isn't going to inflame anyone. I think it's well established that they could spend more if they wanted. Pounding that argument into the ground in every single thread, without addressing other counter points DOES cause problems. The same is true with the counter argument that basically says that everything the front office does is good accomplishes the same. What I've seen in some of these arguments is the refusal to answer the counter arguments that others make to these statements, or to even acknowledge that these people have a right to this opinion, and there are a lot of people (myself included) who don't feel the need to spend just because we can, nor do we feel that the front office has done everything right. I doubt we will ever see eye to eye on these, but that doesn't mean we cannot have good discussion. That's especially true if we treat each other respectfully and choose to actually read and respond directly to people as opposed to mischaracterizing their opinions.

 

4) There's some rub in this whole 52% thing. It was well documented in interviews with the front office that this number is not a hard fast set in stone number, but a target. The Twins have never said what they do with the extra, nor has there been a concrete definition on what number they are using to get the 52%. There's a ton of speculation involved with it, and it's brandished about as though everything about it is an indisputable fact. That gets under people's skin. Likewise, I think the bigger issue is that with some, that's only thing they fixate on, and just keep repeating the same line over and over and over again, while mis-stating or just ignoring the points others are trying to make. It gets brought up in nearly every thread where people are talking about money and we have the same argument over and over and over again. To the mods, this is where we start to consider it trolling. The 52% thing can be valid, but the complaints that people made in this thread were equally valid.

 

5) There really comes a point when everything that needs to be said has been said. One of the big problems we had last year is that every single thread was being hijacked by this debate that was being had in this forum. I'd go to check the minor league box scores and find it there. You see a nice article on Sano, Meyer, Mauer, or Correia and it would be there. It was tiring, so tiring that site owners were talking about how they hated to go to the forums. I wasn't a moderator back then, and felt terrible for those guys. I don't need to name names, but we get complaints from "both sides" and have moderated "both sides" heavily. This isn't an issue of favoritism. We moderators don't even agree on this subject. That said, we don't publicize our moderation actions, and I'll simply say that there were a bunch of infractions handed out for this thread.

 

The truth of the matter is that either point can be said, but people need to take some time to make an intelligent point and to do it respectfully. It's not unreasonable to ask people to try and understand what the other side is saying. Doing so will only strengthen your own point, and will do wonders to reduce the consternation we saw in this thread.

 

Please keep this in mind.

 

The mods.