jimdahl

I thought you were going to say: Bison fans owe star2city a few more apologies

The question has come up, outside of this forum, what are the posting policies and evaluation criteria referenced in the above post. Rules to which everyone agrees when they join: From: http://forum.siouxsports.com/index.php?act=Reg&CODE=00 Explanations of how moderation is applied: http://forum.siouxsports.com/index.php?showtopic=8853 Those materials could undoubtedly use refining, but everything you need to know is there.

Interesting topic -- I made "should the WCHA add Bemidji St." the front page poll. I'm a little surprised to see it 50-50 in early voting.

I was more responding to a question about the fan base than the players. It's a very young team, prone to mood swings and fits of talent mixed in with fits of mediocrity. Kolzig is really the one stable veteran, and Ovechkin is so ridiculously good that he shines no matter what else is happening. Though the Red Wings are one team they just haven't matched up well against ever since the '98 cup, I do agree that Washington has dramatically underperformed this season, for having added Nylander and Backstrom to Ovechkin and Semin. I can only repeat my stat from above -- they are 11-6-4 since Bruce took over as head coach (if only they hadn't started in a 7-14-1 hole).

This doesn't represent a change in any policy, rather will hopefully just make us more consistent in applying existing policies (which should make everyone happy). When you click "Report", it doesn't automatically do anything to the post; it just invisibly notifies us that it's one we should make sure to look at. When we do look, we'll evaluate it using the same criteria we do now for the posts we already read. This just makes sure posts that readers think are potentially troublesome are among those we read. Clicking "report" simply out of spite won't work because if there's nothing wrong with the reported post, we wouldn't do anything to it, and would instead probably get back to the person who made the false report.

If you report at least 1 post per month for 6 months, you get one of these. Oops, wrong link! I mean one of these:

Sorry I wasn't clear -- linking to interesting text someone else wrote is good, copying and pasting the text someone else wrote is bad.

Small D.C. just isn't a hockey town. The Skins are the one team everyone is behind. Drawing new residents primarily from New England/New York, everyone's a baseball fan (not to be confused with being a Nats fan, which no one really is yet). However, because most of the Caps fans are transplants who love hockey, my experience is that they're often reasonably knowledgeable and passionate. I definitely see way more Caps jerseys on the metro on game days than for any other local sport on their game days, and they were 95% this year's model on day 1.

This has actually been the Caps' gameplan since before the strike. Remember that just before the strike, the yhad a firesale, shedding all of their top talent and salaries. That was part of a shift toward trying to build talent instead of acquire it. Some may have misinterpreted their mediocrity the last couple years as unwillingness to spend money, but they actually have the money -- they had the 2nd highest payroll prestrike -- they just decided spending it on trying to buy stars wasn't working for them or the Rangers. Though the Caps certainly aren't yet living up to the potential of the talent they have, they are 11-6-4 since Bruce took over as head coach (if only they hadn't started in a 7-14-1 hole). My biggest fear is that its taking enough seasons to develop the offense that we may need a replacement for Kolzig by the time the offense is playoff-worthy again.

Another pillar in our efforts to improve the quality of discussion on the forum is you! The forum is busier than ever, and we need more eyes on the ground. When you see a problem post, particularly personal attacks against other members (attacking the messenger instead of the message), click report (in the lower left corner of each post) and let us know! Be a little judicious in its use, as each time we receive a report we're going to be predisposed to take that out on someone, so it's better for all of us if the post really is problematic.

We've done that a little -- part of your impression certainly comes from your having hung out primarily in the forums specifically created to contain controversies. The nickname forum was specifically formed when it was becoming a problem in the sports forums. Understanding that it's a very emotional issue for the people who post there and that most are interested in a, let's say vigorous, debate, we're definitely a bit more laissez faire (though do still try to keep people talking about the topic instead of each other). The D-I forum was similarly created to siphon off the UND/NDSU transition smack that was interfering with the football forums. There have been discussions in the past about the possibility of a smack forum. I've never loved the idea, but if it were overwhelmingly supported might oblige, because the whole point is that I wouldn't have to visit it anyway. That said, since we last discussed it I've seen it tried many times, and it's made every board at which it's tried worse in my opinion (though I have no familiarity the forum you cited above). No doubt -- that is the difficult part. There were no civility problems when it was 100 people making a couple dozen posts a day.

If you click the little post number in the upper-right, you can get a link directly into the desired post (instead of just the thread). While copying other people's posts from another board isn't cool, if someone wanted to start a "coach's show" thread each week and post the link to the post, I bet that would be appreciated by some

In my 3rd grade class.

The way the wikis work is that anyone who finds out anything can update the page (just like anyone posts in the forum thread). That way we all can look at the page at any time to see our collective knowledge (such as it may be )

Some photos of last night's game from the SCSU Center Ice Club.

I'm of the opinion that Bison and Sioux fans have lots of good, substantive discussions on this forum. There are certainly some disagreements, but rarely (anymore) do they devolve into the "you stink" name-calling fests. The key, frankly, is just to not let the "you stink" people join the conversation. Not only do they contribute nothing, but they cause otherwise sane people on the other side to devolve into "no you do". Attempting to drown them out doesn't work, they just get louder and make the real conversation even harder to find. The part of the column I found funny was the call-in Bison fan's indignance that they were discussing North Dakota football (in ND's largest city, a mere 70 miles from the University). I know there's a home-town team, but seriously, to try to pretend UND isn't news in Fargo?

If you feel that you're not suspended due to a moderation error, please forward those posts you think worthy of suspension to the administration and your situation will be addressed forthwith.

Within the last month Despite modestly playing devil's advocate over on PCM's blog post, I agree wholeheartedly and frequently try to remind people to think about how widely each post of theirs will be read. When you make a post you're not at the bar shooting the bull with your buddies; in addition to the usual suspects, your posts will be read by recruits, other school's administrators, potential employees, NCAA officials, etc... Unfortunately, that's what some people with personal grievances are counting on -- being able to use the forum to more broadly exert influence and denigrate their "enemy". The only realistic long-term remedy I can see is for the community to continue to self-police, such that reasonable fan voices drown out the minority pot-stirrers, leaving it clear where the majority lie. It's worked quite well at times in the past, less so other times. Wandering completely off into waxing philosophical now... one drawback to the disproportionate popularity of UND athletics and this site is that the forum reads much more like the forum for a pro team or major D-I team than a forum for a smaller market team.

While not specifically commenting on the mentioned poster (if we were certain that an account was primarily used by a previously banned member, we would close it), it's a good warning to look into the history of a relatively new poster making controversial or inflammatory statements. I can confirm that it has happened numerous times in the past that Bison fans have posed as Sioux fans to make inflammatory anti-Bison posts. Back to the quote that raised JackJD's (in my recollection, a pretty reasonable guy) ire -- a Bison fan asserted that a current NDSU coach would be far outside UND's price range. A Sioux fan rebutted by asserting that UND is the most prominent school in the Dakotas. One could certainly rebut that opinion if one cared to (I personally wouldn't find it worth the effort), but I view that sort of debate as typical message board fodder, and certainly don't see that single opinion as "extreme nastiness" on behalf of the Sioux fanbase against SDSU or NDSU

It took me a minute to figure that out myself; the slotting of games with unknown dates into dated slot confused me As far as I can tell, we already have everything they have on our 2008 football schedule page, right?

Public Reception for Dale Lennon at 2pm Today

I hate to ruin the fun, but I don't think everyone is properly suspicious of...

It's true, I've always kind of thought that one thread was pretty easy to ignore if you weren't interested. Certainly if people were continually creating new threads, which would then take up much more of the screen real estate, that would bug me. I asked a while back if people thought "for sale" was taking too much hockey forum space and the general response was that there wasn't a problem. Even if the topic is ok, there has been a bit too much empty "bumping" of the thread lately, which we usually frown on, but I hadn't noticed because I wasn't reading this thread I hereby request less bumping. Would it help if the name of the thread included "for sale" so people didn't accidentally stumble into it? Are other people now becoming anxious for a general "for sale" forum?

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119143109983647814.html In short -- he stops all the straight shots in five-on-fives, but can't move to close the gaps in one-on-ones and wrap-arounds.

I certainly didn't mean to imply a vast conspiracy, and if I gave that impression, appreciate your giving me the opportunity to clarify that. Believe me, I'm the wrong guy to whom to try to sell conspiracies. My mentioning the Herald was in the context of wanting to note that I think a newspaper opinion page is a friendlier environment for someone who prefers giving a speech to engaging in a debate. If applicable in this case, that would be an indictment of Ms. Hofmann, not of the Herald. Her use of their pulpit doesn't reflect any unique failing of the Herald or its editors any more than a racist posting here reflects any unique failing of SiouxSports.com or me.