High School Football Forum: Charleston-Caruthersville game posts/moderating/state of semoball

Posted by Rachel Crader on Mon, Sep 10, 2012, at 9:34 PM:

Hi all,

I'm sure some of you will have questions about some of my decisions, so I'm going to do my best to make a public explanation and make myself available for questions here tonight and tomorrow. After that, my guess is that I will have said all I have to say on the topic.

Often times it is easy decide a comment should be deleted, but sometimes comments are on the edge of what is allowed on semoball.

All of you who have been on the site regularly know that I try to keep the forum talk here on a level above what you typically find online. This sometimes angers people who feel I am too strict. However, I believe that the moderating discussion to try (emphasis on try) to keep conversations free of bickering and personal attacks is one of the main reasons the semoball community continues to grow month after month and year after year. (That's not hyperbole.)

There have been a couple of topics related to the Charleston and Caruthersville football teams that have persisted this week, and they need to be addressed.

First, I deleted a thread with video from the game because it questioned a kid's intentions/integrity/sportsmanship, etc. I consider that to be a personal attack. There is no way any of us could ever know what was going through a kid's mind on the field and this is not a place where we'll be questioning the motives of a teenager.

On the other hand, if a video exists and you want to share it on semoball. Obviously I can't and shouldn't try to keep you from watching a video and thinking whatever you want to think. What I can do is keep an ongoing, public discussion of a kid's character off semoball.

I have been away from semoball most of the day and realize I have missed some of these comments that should be deleted. I will work to delete them all as soon as I post this, but you find one I miss please hit the yellow exclamation point beside the comment and alert me.

Continued discussion on this topic will result in suspensions. I think at this point, it already has been covered more than it ever should have been.

The second topic that I've heard about some about is people asking about the grades of athlete that will be recruited by colleges. This is very tricky because no one was accusing the player of having bad grades or suggesting he wouldn't qualify, they were saying that a key aspect of which schools end up recruiting a player is how good the player's grades are, which is true. However, I completely understand that this is a slippery slope because it doesn't take long for people to start making assumptions about the kid's grades.

There's not an easy answer here and I'm open to talk about it, but there is a line between discussing legitimate topics and talking about a high school player in way that belittles them, which I'd like to avoid.

That leads me to the third and final thing, I always say that the conversation should stay focused on the games and the play on the field and that discussion...but that also can be tough. Where is the line between having a legitimate discussion about the speed of a player or a team or a player and how that will likely affect a game and seemingly picking on a player for his or her shortcomings on the field?

We would have a lot less to talk about if we never talked about a player or teams strengths and weaknesses, and yet sometimes that too can seem to cause unnecessary harm to a high school athlete.

I struggle with this a lot and am open to your thoughts. While I want to keep the semoball forums "clean," I realize the risk in moderating to the point that no one can say anything and there's no reason to keep coming back.

Sorry this is so long, but every once in a while I think it's good to share some a state of semoball thoughts with all of you to assure you that your complaints are heard and that I'm trying to do the best for all.

Thanks to all of you who keep coming back and making the community great.

Replies (6)

  • Bumping this so everyone sees it.

    -- Posted by Rachel Crader on Tue, Sep 11, 2012, at 1:50 PM
  • what a suck up geeze!

    -- Posted by Perrywinkle on Tue, Sep 11, 2012, at 4:21 PM
  • Bleed Green, I think that is the best post you've ever written.

    -- Posted by Preacher Man Fan on Tue, Sep 11, 2012, at 4:54 PM
  • I meant the first one, not the one where you told TheDaddy to shut up! LOL! And yes, Rachel does a great job running this web-site.

    -- Posted by Preacher Man Fan on Tue, Sep 11, 2012, at 5:49 PM
  • yea yea yea... and its the only post that i can halfway understand what he's trying to say.

    -- Posted by Perrywinkle on Tue, Sep 11, 2012, at 8:23 PM
  • *

    Bumping this so everyone that did not see it the first 2 times can see it again.

    -- Posted by wheresthebeef on Thu, Sep 13, 2012, at 1:21 AM

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