Negativity

[jimmer]

 

 

What's also "realistic" is that the Twins will be competitive in the next two-to-three years, and it will because of the same vilified people in the front office.   Most of the negative complaints are really at the margins that won't effect our most competitive time frame.  Perhaps a better move here or there, the team is slightly more competitive slightly sooner than planned, but really, the FO evaluations are pretty short-sighted.

Sooner than planned?  

 

Do you know the exact season this team plans to be slightly more competitive or just competitive in general? Do you know when our 'most competitive time frame' will be and how long it will last be? Serious questions, because you make it sound like it's a given fact the good seasons are coming two or three years from now. 

 

I ask because now you're saying it's two or three years away.  I remember when some people who consistently defend the FO were telling all the 'negative nellies' to be patient because 2015 was the year we'd be competitive and 2016 we'd be serious contenders. Now it's being being moved back two or three years to just be competitive?  And you think people who kept being told to be patient for 2015 shouldn't have issues with having the expected competitive years moved back and back?  That's 7 or more seasons you are now talking about for a team that needed a new ballpark to stay competitive.

 

The problem with the argument you provided is that the expected competitive years keep being moved back and this seems to be no problem for some.  For some, it seems totally acceptable and for those who don't find that long of a wait to be very acceptable, they are somehow 'short-sighted' in their complaints.  

[LimestoneBaggy]

 

Reality is in the eye of the beerholder.

 

FTFY,  . Smile everyone, even KC eventually made the World Series.

[gocgo]

Is it negativity or realism?  I'd like to think that the Twins will contend this year...I'd like to think that women look at me like they look at Brad Pitt...

 

Am I being negative or realistic to say that neither of those are true?

[USAFChief]

THIS whole thread is allowed to exist in THIS forum because we've specifically created this forum for topics like this, about the nature and operation of TD forums. Questions/concerns about moderation. Suggestions, complaints, inquiries. Pet peeves. Compliments, perhaps, far fetched as that may seem.

 

We try to honestly consider everyone's points of view,but as you can see, just from this thread, those views can be widely different.

 

For the record, I've been a mod for a while now. And I will state, under oath if necessary, that in my tenure not one single poster has been warned, much less banned, solely for being too negative, or too positive. I will also state, under oath if necessary, that we spend a great deal of time and electrons debating actions before taking any, in an attempt to do the right thing.

 

My suggestion, to both "sides," is to relax just a bit, don't take things quite so personally, ignore some of the things that annoy you, and try to be an example of what you want the board to be,

[Mike Sixel]

I think the mods here do a great job........really. This site is great, or I wouldn't keep coming back.

 

I think both "sides" are tired right now.......

[REPETE]

 

This sounds like the reasoning of Indiana lawmakers when they passed their recent, popular law.   

I would say this site, as a whole, is fantastic, esp when comparing it to the morons previously mentioned on Star & Trib (no offense meant towards said "morons"...).  

However, the previous quote about Indiana, while obviously meant as a joke, sums up the problem at hand:
1.  it's a tangent that all too often occurs ("Joe Mauer Batting Title" turns into FO should've never signed him to a huge contract, which spurs "other horrible signings" discussions)

2.  There's always 2 sides to any argument, regardless of it's whether Joe could win a batting title, whether the FO should've signed him to the long term deal, whether the FO should have/have not made any other deals, or whether the Indiana Law is good or bad.  

Without typing a three page post, which nobody would read, it's impossible to get all arguments in this type of forum, so nobody should be trying to "win".  

 

Best thing to do on this site would be to stay on thread, don't take things personal, and don't turn someone's disagreement with you into a personal argument between the two of you.

[Squirrel]

 

 

I think both "sides" are tired right now.......

I think so, too. And frustrated equally. We all just have a different ways of expression.

 

What Chief said above, so true. Thanks, Chief.

 

Sometimes each of us needs to just take a step back and take a deep breath and exhale and realize this is just a game. We are all here because we love baseball. Maybe give the other poster a little leeway once in a while and realize that wanting to win is something we all have in common along with the love of the sport.

 

No one here is trying to squelch opinion. Opinions, discussion, disagreement, frustration and passion ... they are all part and parcel of what sites like this are about. And everyone's opinions, no matter what 'side' they fall on, are valid here. But take note ... someone will disagree with you. I don't care how right you think you are, I don't even care how much 'fact' is on your side, someone will disagree with you and their point is as valid as yours. Debate away. That's what it's all about. But please don't get offended or defensive; or feel the need to hammer away at your point on and on and on and on trying to convince someone how wrong they are. Mostly, take a breath, and just think before you hit 'post.' Chances are the other poster wasn't trying to offend you or won't ever agree with you. So give a little from time to time and just let go and walk away when you hit an impasse. Or agree to disagree before things get too far out of hand.

 

A little respect goes a long way, too. I've been seeing some wording around the forums lately that is not helpful ... garbage, trash, stupid, clown ass, idiot, etc. Be mindful of how you are using your words. If you think how you are using those words towards someone else ... FO, players, other posters ... would be disrespectful if used towards you, find better words that are not going to inflame or attack.

 

Also, please, try to stay on topic. There are peripherals in any discussion, and are pertinent, to some extent, to mention.  But try to keep focused on the main topic and not the peripherals. Discussing the FO is an easy peripheral to almost every topic, but try not to let threads all end in the same place.

 

Lastly ... losing sucks. But we are all in it together. I hope every day for a win ... and when I get one, I'm happy. And when I don't, I hope tomorrow is different.

[Squirrel]

 

 

Best thing to do on this site would be to stay on thread, don't take things personal, and don't turn someone's disagreement with you into a personal argument between the two of you.

Yup, you summed it up nicely.  Thanks.

[Dantes929]

 

I understand your point, but I find blanket statements like that as hard to read as any negativity. Although I was not on this website at the time, I was vocal that the contract given to Mauer was not a good one for the Twins. I did not mind a long term contract, but the size of the contract and the guaranteed money was too much for a player not yet on the open market who had only shown power for one season.

 

My point is that some people had differing opinions along the way. We did not agree to anything 99%, and that makes for a better fan base and a better board. It also makes some people sound negative while others sound optimistic. As long as posters stick to facts and make logical arguments, there should be room for discussion. Otherwise, we are all just blowing wind, and that is almost as bad as blowing hot air.

I understand your point also.   My comment wasn't super scientific but it wasn't completely grabass either.    I wasn't on this forum at the time where I would have expected a little more caution and reasonableness.    My comment was about the Tribune pages.   Back then I read pretty much all the articles and pretty much all the comments.   My own position about Mauer was that they should write off half of his contract to public relations and for fans to not expect MVP every year from Mauer.   I didn't mind the contract because we weren't spending a whole lot of money which wasn't mine anyway and that whether Mauer was worth it or not he was still a very good player.  I also didn't know why they would do it at the height of his marketability.   They could have just waited a year and signed him to a similar deal.  That was my stance.   There were no more than two commenting at the time on the Strib pages that were against the extension.   Two.    Over the weeks preceding the signing there were many hundreds posting in emphatic terms that the Twins needed to sign Mauer or else.   Now many posted multiple times but two against   hundreds makes my 99% reasonable.    I regret saying afterwards that 99% called the Twins morons for signing Mauer because there were more than 1% defending him but it was still the vast majority on the Tribune pages.    Now maybe they are two completely different sets of people but you also see how the vast majority of posters demanding the extension at the time vs the vast .majority of posters criticizing the extension afterwards is logically inicompatible.    You may in fact be one of those that were against the extension.   I won't argue that.   Only you know.   I just know at the time there were hundreds of posters demanding the extension with only a couple against and afterwards there were hundreds saying the extension was a terrible move with few defending it.  You do the math.  

[Loosey]

The original poster mentioned we should talk about the MLB roster and not focus on the minor league prospects, yet at the same time be positive.  I know its only been one game but that one game was pretty brutal.  Our minor leaguers are the bright, positive spot in this organization.  And if the front office, which has done a great job of compiling lots of high grade prospects, gets over their strange fear of failing with the young guys we could have more things to be optimistic about.  I spoke about this a few days ago, but I think the FO is afraid of the young guys failing.  Because if the team fails with veterans that have never been successful before that is to be expected, but if they bring up the prospects now and they fail to live up to expectations, it might turn into a "oh no, now what do we do" scenario.  The longer they stay in the minors and are only prospects the longer we can all say wait until the prospects come up, once they do come up the that clock to be starts ticking everyone will want success soon after.

[bird]

 

Or try this on for size:

 

I didn't really like the Pelfrey extension, but he seems like a pretty good guy, and competitive (came back early from injury, was upset he didn't win the starter job.)  Maybe he'll build enough value to be trade bait when Meyer is ready.

 

I don't think Schafer or Robinson are all that great, but I didn't think Fuld was either, and look what he brought back in trade.  Plus, he's playing a key part for the vaunted Billy Beane, so there's that.  Plus, I'm hopeful the reason the FO wasn't more aggressive finding a CFer was that they felt Buxton will be ready this year.

 

On the other hand…I wish the FO would've signed Brandon McCarthy instead of Phil Hughes I mean Ricky Nolasco.

 

 

God I hate rainbows and sunshine.

[bird]

 

Here's the simple problem with too much of either negative or positive posts: they are Boring.

Write about something new. People may like it. You may like it, too.

 

 

Good suggestion. When I open a thread and immediately receive the information that the Twins have lost 90 games for four straight years, I'm eternally grateful for the insight. You know, that information is starting to sink in too.

[bird]

 

The record isn't an opinion, it's real.  Four years of 90 losses and if the major improvement isn't occurring in the fifth year, I think it's reasonable to say the FO has done a horrible job.  It should be the job of the FO to build a winning organization, which makes failure to do that a direct reflection on their job performance.

 

 

Four years of 90 losses?

 

Link please?

 

[bird]

I have one favor to ask, in all seriousness, of my friends on here who have a fervent belief that the entire, or even primary cause of the last four years of futility is FO incompetence. I realize it's hard for some to fathom, but some of us equate the futility with some combination of factors that certainly involves mistakes as part of the cause, but doesn't signify incompetence. We're not holding the FO blameless. 

 

And those of you among this group who take great pride in your statistical and analytic capacity, I'd ask you to acknowledge that causation is always the hard part, and none of us are gonna get that part completely right.

 

Our conversations are much more interesting and civil when we talk about what we might see as a mistake as opposed to talking about a perceived mistake as a sign of incompetence. A little balance and fairness can go a long way.

 

Thank you.

[diehardtwinsfan]

I'll go ahead and delete it, but gotta say, what also gets old is seeing some posters defend EVERYTHING this FO does at EVERY turn in ANY possible way at ANY time the FO is criticized.  And then, to boot, they get to slam anyone who says anything negative with no noticeable consequence.

Whole threads can be created and allowed to exist for the purpose of slamming the actions of people labeled 'negative nellies'.

I want to address this comment (and I'm not really aiming my reply at you Jimmer, just to be clear).

 

Personally, I'm one to disagree with the front office where I think they've made a mistake (see May, Trevor 2015 for example or our CF situation), but I know that myself, along with a few others, feel we are being forced to defend the front office as much of the criticism borders on ridiculous (such as the claims that some implied that they should have somehow known Santana was juicing). Something I was told during marital counseling some 13 years ago applies here to... "not right, just different". Keep that in mind. You and I may not agree with the Milone/Pelfrey decisions, but that doesn't mean that the front office is incompetent, especially given the fact that they've had a track record of success. It doesn't mean you have to agree with their decisions either. It's simply a pretty big leap from 'I don't agree with this decision' to 'these guys don't know what they are doing'. That's just not being fair, and it invites the bickering that we've seen on the forums of late.

 

To me, and I think I'm speaking for the mods here, this is where the negativity goes overboard. No one is saying that everyone needs to agree with the front office, but when people start injecting their pet peeves into every single thread and concluding that everyone over there is inept... well, let's just say that this is where being upset goes overboard...

 

 

Side note, there are inpet front offices, but we are hardly there. Some real good examples: Pitt and KC before their resurgence, the Cubs before Theo... Or the Cleveland Browns. A lot of that, I might add gets traced back to ownership.

[howieramone2]

 

 

I've been gone for a bit. Is it okay to refer to the usual suspects as the Negative Nellies? I'm hoping not to hear from my favorite mod.

[howieramone2]

 

THIS whole thread is allowed to exist in THIS forum because we've specifically created this forum for topics like this, about the nature and operation of TD forums. Questions/concerns about moderation. Suggestions, complaints, inquiries. Pet peeves. Compliments, perhaps, far fetched as that may seem.

We try to honestly consider everyone's points of view,but as you can see, just from this thread, those views can be widely different.

For the record, I've been a mod for a while now. And I will state, under oath if necessary, that in my tenure not one single poster has been warned, much less banned, solely for being too negative, or too positive. I will also state, under oath if necessary, that we spend a great deal of time and electrons debating actions before taking any, in an attempt to do the right thing.

My suggestion, to both "sides," is to relax just a bit, don't take things quite so personally, ignore some of the things that annoy you, and try to be an example of what you want the board to be,

 

Chief, you wouldn't be the first person to lie under oath. In spite of the excellent of Seth, Jeremy, Nick, Springer and many others, the hallmark of this site is mindless negativity.

[Squirrel]

 

I've been gone for a bit. Is it okay to refer to the usual suspects as the Negative Nellies? I'm hoping not to hear from my favorite mod.

Who is your favorite mod because you just might have your hopes dashed soon.

[ken]

 

Four years of 90 losses?

 

Link please?

http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/MIN/

 

Here you go

[howieramone2]

 

Who is your favorite mod because you just might have your hopes dashed soon.

Don't remember exactly, but I think he's from San Francisco. I envision him as being tall, thin, bald and constipated. Hope that helps.

[USAFChief]

Don't remember exactly, but I think he's from San Francisco. I envision him as being tall, thin, bald and constipated. Hope that helps.

Nope, thats not much help.

 

//wait for it

 

...

 

 

...six seven eight//

 

 

 

 

 

None of us are thin.

[Craig Arko]

[glunn]

 

I've been gone for a bit. Is it okay to refer to the usual suspects as the Negative Nellies? I'm hoping not to hear from my favorite mod.

 

It's marginally OK to use the term "Negative Nellies" in this thread where we are discussing negativity. However, if I see that in a general baseball thread then I will be inclined to issue an infraction point, because it would violate out rule against personal attacks.

 

Personally, I sometimes get annoyed with the same people making the same negative comments over and over in multiple threads, but I am OK with that so long as the posters are respectful of others.  The same applies to the "Positive Petes".

[glunn]

 

Chief, you wouldn't be the first person to lie under oath. In spite of the excellent of Seth, Jeremy, Nick, Springer and many others, the hallmark of this site is mindless negativity.

 

Chief would not lie, under oath or otherwise.

 

The moderators are unpaid volunteers whose goal is promoting interesting discussion of baseball.  Our primary targets are personal attacks and trolling.  Some of us tend to be negative and some of us tend to be positive, but we all enforce the same rules which any TD member can read -- they are in a thread that is stuck to the top of this forum.  Before issuing infractions, we often discuss the situation among ourselves, and we sometimes discuss infractions after they are issued.

 

As Chief stated, we don't issue infractions for being too negative or too positive.  We do issue infractions for personal attacks and trolling.  If anyone wants to know where the lines are drawn, they need only read the policy statement.

[howieramone2]

 

It's marginally OK to use the term "Negative Nellies" in this thread where we are discussing negativity. However, if I see that in a general baseball thread then I will be inclined to issue an infraction point, because it would violate out rule against personal attacks.

 

Personally, I sometimes get annoyed with the same people making the same negative comments over and over in multiple threads, but I am OK with that so long as the posters are respectful of others.  The same applies to the "Positive Petes".

 

There can't be more than a handful of Positive Petes still on the board. Don't you feel a need to preserve them for posterity? You know, kind of like the zoo.

[glunn]

 

There can't be more than a handful of Positive Petes still on the board. Don't you feel a need to preserve them for posterity? You know, kind of like the zoo.

 

I feel a need to preserve both ends of the spectrum and everyone in between so long as they follow TD policy.

[old nurse]

 

There can't be more than a handful of Positive Petes still on the board. Don't you feel a need to preserve them for posterity? You know, kind of like the zoo.

Negativity has won, why bother to post

[TheLeviathan]

The pet peeve negativity and bashing the FO for the sake of it is unnecessary, but we've also experienced four years of some of the worst baseball that's been played in the entire league.  The expectation that there should be some frustration or pessimism is pretty realistic.

 

Being positive for the sake of positivity in the midst of this kind of inept play would be kind of silly.  Fair conversations that are critical should be embraced during times like this, but I agree there could be more effort by some include that very important "fair" part.

[Craig Arko]

Negativity has won, why bother to post

Won what, though? I'm having a hard time understanding what the contest is, and what the prize might be. Ego-boosting? There's gotta be a better way.

[JB_Iowa]

Maybe we could keep the negativity to current Twins events instead of rehashing the last four years. I'd like to think that would keep things more balanced ... starting with how they perform tomorrow.