Friendly reminder, thin comments such as 'We rollin', 'Don't worry, Whit has a plan.' are noise. Count complaining for the sake of complaining along with that too. As of late, there's been a handful of TKPers who contribute to a discussion with that and nothing more. I think everyone gets it, and most everyone feels it. Please feel free to post a well thought out critical (or affirmative, middle ground etc...) opinion or take. Regardless of the position, please advance the conversion.
Moving forward it's a mod down vote warning, and repeated offenders will have their posting access revoked. Thanks!
Forums:
DISCLAIMER: Forum topics may not have been written or edited by The Key Play staff.
Comments
Thank you, Joe! And the mods. I really appreciate everything y'all do.
I love TKP, I love VT!
This is a smart move to make this a point of emphasis. We all know we aren't in the best place as a program. However, constant negativity without original thought is a good way to cause people to shut down the site for a while. As bleak as things seem, we are still all Hokies. There are good days to come.
Can confirm. Took a break for a week to get away from it.
Agreed as well, I felt myself getting bogged down by the negativity and took a few days away.
Yesssss!
We RollinDissertation Proposal
We Rollin: An Empirical Study on the Effects of Momentum in the Field of Recruiting and Roster Construction
Damn, well I guess I shouldn't suggest that we petition to change Enter Sandman to Limp Bizkit Keep Rollin' next season. /s
Seriously though, good call on the site noise. I think I speak for the vast majority of Hokie Nation when I say I've been completely exhausted and let down by how out of touch this program is right now. That comment was about as out of touch as Beamer's "exhibition games" statement in 2015. But, there's literally nothing we can do about it. I won't ever root against this program, but I'm just going to stop caring as much about football as I once did because it's an exercise in futility at this point. But agreed that the noise on the site is a bad thing. We all feel the pain. But this is a great community and I plan on sticking around for the great conversations and threads and completely tangential discussions that happen from time to time. Carry on, TKP!
My biggest loud noise take-when VT went with the Enter Sandman intro, they should have used Alice In Chains "The Rooster."
Best idea since deciding to never eat cheese \S
Shane Beamer just got a brilliant idea for da Cocks.
Not going to lie, I could see that being very well done. Slow clap from the crowd, some fog, then Layne Staley screams "Rooster!" and the team runs out.
I seriously want VT to either have Limp Bizkit Rollin or CCR Proud Mary for the tunnel entrance next year.
Please do not give any money to Fred Durst. Thank you.
Speaking of Limp Bizkit. The blue Ridge rock festival had a poll for fans for who they like to see. One was Limp Bizkit Vs Deftones..... And Limp Bizkit won😑 I died a little bit
Saw them both at the same concert once. Limp Bizkit was about 10x the better show.
That's the only problem with deftones. Chino does not carry over his voice from album to live😂
Sorry in advance, just had to do it...
We.....
Seriously, you should only comment on football and fishing. Your other hot takes really take away from your savantness 😉
If we played Limp Bizkit's Rollin' (in any incarnation, but preferably the remix with Redman, Method Man, and DMX) in the first home game at Lane with fans, 6 year old me would lose my shit in the best way possible. Why I wanted to listen to that at 6 or why I was allowed to listen to the explicit version, no idea. But it happened and I'd let it happen again.
Ok
^this
😂
Thank you. When I first started visiting, I read every comment on every thread most every day, which soon lead me to sign up for the site, and then join The club when it came out. There are now several threads that I never look at because they have become a din of repetitive noise.
I can relate to this but in a slightly different way. I first came to TKP back in 2013ish(?)
I'm not actually sure when I started. I know I wasn't one of the OGs but I was definitely pretty early on. Like you, I was able to read every comment in every thread and I was #7 on the list to join TKPC and have been a member ever since. But now I don't even bother to read most of the threads. There are a few reasons but the most positive reason is that the activity on this website is so much greater than it was when I started. That is a good thing. People are engaged. This community has grown significantly and the sheer volume of content is just too much for me to read anymore. So the reason I'm not reading every comment in every thread anymore has just as much to do with my own bandwidth being too short relative to the content available as it does with not wanting to sift through a bunch of noise.
Woah, really? Is really what people want? This site is moving in some very strange directions. While these types of comments are certainly not discussion provoking, idk why it is up to the mods to strike them down or not. This is an open-forum, or at least semi-open, let the people decide if comments are "thin."
Seems like an attempt to curate discussion. Opens the door for some very subjective decisions to be made by a very small number of people. Why can't people just downvote useless comments or repetitive complaints? Doesnt that reflect how the users feel?
Because the community guidelines prohibit noise. As you said yourself, they do not further the discussion. The role of the mods is to enforce the community guidelines. One-off down votes do not completely moderate TKP, hence the mod role. It's pretty straight forward.
What strange directions?
If a comment has a one-off downvote, clearly people don't think it is worthy of removing. This isnt a zer-sum forum as far as I know, so it's not like a "useless" comment prevents a possibly useful comment from being written.
Just seems like more power being consolidated into a small number of people as opposed to letting the masses mandate discussion. Useless, complaints, and thin are also subjective. So why not let a majority of readers decide what falls under those categories as opposed to a couple of users?
Turkey legs are a much more useful tool for recognizing "good" posts than they are moderation (via downvotes). Even the community at-large downvoting repeated violators won't make a dent in most instances because individual leg counts are so high across the board. Again, this is a scenario in which the role of the moderator of the system will enforce the CGs.
They're encouraged to!
And that isn't enough because...?
Because sometimes when a comment is -30 downvoted, and a mod provides some clarity that the comment constitutes noise, there's still snarky pushback!
I don't know if it's still the case, but at least at one point, the powers-that-be also kept track of the ratio of downvotes to upvotes that each user gives out. I got a warning one time for having given out too many downvotes.
So if I see a thread with 30 comments of noise, I'm gonna be weary with hitting every one with a downvote, because I don't know if I'll see that many comments I want to upvote to even it out.
Lol, I remember that. It was a mess. People were waaaaay too caught up in downvotes. I got a warning for giving *two* DV to French lmao.
It had nothing to do with downvoting French specifically (I could easily exclude staff from downvotes as other communities do, but I don't), rather that your ratio of downvotes to upvotes flipped a switch.
I for one use the downvote button sparingly at best and it is usually just piling on to a shit comment that is well on its way to LOLUVA plaid. Conversely, I don't really upvote that much either (unless it is a "25" number thread where I am trying to get comments to 25 legs).
That could be an interesting study. I know you have looked at overage engagement before, but I wonder what the relation is to the number of times a person posts to the number of times they up/down vote.
I doubt it, I have always upvoted far more than I downvote.
Yeah, dude, we're talking about two completely different things.
I got an e-mail from the site saying that I'd been downvoting too many times compared to upvotes, which is what Joe was explaining. I don't recall any corresponding forum topics.
Uh, well that isn't what happened to me so perhaps the reason was as I suggested.
Serious question coming up not trying to be a smartass:
Is the comment of a simple but non-discussion moving forward positive post the same noise or is that acceptable? I don't particularly like scrolling through 30 repetitive DJ Kaled "Another One" gifs (or any of the other ones we typically post here) when our next .83 rated recruit commits and don't feel they add to the conversation but just wanted some clarification. Is positive noise acceptable even if it doesn't further the conversation? I say this as a paying member so this isn't just bitching from someone that isn't fiscally invested in this site.
I don't consider someone trying to put a smile on the face of other TKPers with a GIF the same as the repetitive self-loathing. There's some value in the former, making someone laugh. GIFs have become part of the culture and fabric of the community. Obviously, everything in moderation though (no pun intended).
I don't think any Hokies are happy with the current state of the program. Feel free to criticize that, but put some effort into it (not directed at you specifically, but TKP at-large). Beating the horse has become tiresome and makes for an unpleasant experience.
I'm doing my best to ensure TKP doesn't devolve anymore than it has.
Joe,
Fair enough. I think the pushback, from my point of view, is the response to the people who constantly post a similar set of reasons (excuses???) why Fuente just hasn't turned the corner and needs more time. My personal opinion aside, those arguments appear to be two sides to the same coin.
For what it is worth, the Virginia Tech athletic director just made the same "excuse". I think most of us would agree that the circumstances played the bigger role in that decision. Regardless, Fuente will be coaching this team this year. So the "we rolling" comments are doing nothing but stirring a pot. This is a fan site. I know everybody needs to vent from time to time, but this community will implode if all we do is vent for the next year. I think what Joe is asking is, when possible, make the effort to see a silver lining in the clouds of gloom. If that isn't possible, try to at least articulate a comment that inspires discussion.
That's a fair point I agree with the premise too, five years provided Fuente ample time to build his team. Other than old man Tyrell Smith, I believe every player on the roster was signed on Fuente's watch. Though for what it's worth, I haven't seen near the volume of a terse 'he needs more time' as the variations of "we rollin'". That's why I brought it up.
A lot of the time those kinds of comments just gaslight a meltdown subthread. It's not noise because it gets replies, but if you're trying to clean up the mess, they're every bit as problematic.
FWIW I was gone for over a year (not even any unlogged in page hits) and the atmosphere seems a bit improved from what it was before I left.
BEARD RUINED TKP WHEN HE CAME BACK HUEHUEHUE
You do have a point though in that everything that has needed to be said has already been said, and can only be said so many times before it becomes noise.
2020 has just not been a good year. Everywhere. It's hurt this community. From COVID to the football team, it's been tough. I personally found this site cause GIFs made my day. We only had 5 football GIFtories this year, so making the site fun has been tough. We all want to connect and talk to everyone, but it's hard when we are all upset.
This site isn't 247 or TSL. There's a lot of noise there, and I have no use for those forums. I've found posters learning about each other, and some of us, know each other personally. My boss is on here. My clients and some of my suppliers are on here, fraternity brothers, alumni I was in school with, my brother who is also an alum, etc etc. It's a real community in an online forum.
If Joe and the mods need some help with keeping the noise down. I'm all for it. Let's keep this a special place.
Thanks Joe. I've taken a break from TKP for the last week and a half due to all of the repetitive the "sky is falling" comments. Yes, the majority of the people on this board understand the issues VT football is facing. Continuing to bitch about it does nothing other than stir up the mob and increase apathy.
I am honestly a little torn on this. I get that you want to keep the noise down but as someone who would be considered a serial gif poster I can't really help but feel a little attacked. It fells like I need to start penning these long posts with multiple bullet points and charts and spreadsheet data to back up my point, or not engage at all. I think a lot of people can be intimidated to come on here and post for fear of getting shouted down, and it does really feel that TKP is far less inclusive than it used to be. For the first time I am now questioning my TKPC membership, and if it is worth it to continue if I get downvoted for posting a gif or banned from posting. If I was banned from posting I most certainly would be asking for a refund at that point.
From Joe earlier in this thread.
We all know gifs are an important part of the TKP posting culture. There is no reason to fret about getting nuked/banned from posting for participating in those things.
Thanks for pointing that out, I guess I missed it....
Check out my reply above to NOLAHokie regarding GIFs. As a serial GIF poster myself, and someone who spends an entire day putting together something called GIFTORY, that's not what I'm talking about. This was very specifically about the varying regurgitation the comments mentioned in my original post. There have been TKPers as of late who have contributed that and nothing more.
I should have also reiterated in my original post it would help if we could all recommit to good faith discussions. Over the last couple of months the back and forth has seemed so contentious and I don't want TKP to devolve as it grows. I think sometimes it gets lost in the shuffle that everyone here is a Hokie. To me this place is a virtual sports bar, and no one wants to drink a beer and shoot the shit with an asshole.
Anyways, I hope that cleared things up.
Good feedback, and this is the opposite of the desired experience. I'm open to any suggestions for how to improve that.
I don't know if there is anything you can do that improves that as it really is more of a community thing. I don't have any specific examples I can pull up right now, but over the years I can recall times a comment from someone who has never commented before post a comment that may be considered noise as mentioned but then the downvotes might make them never comment again. Now, if noise comments are all that person has to offer then fine, we don't need to see those comments, but I can't help but feel maybe if that person I never saw comment before did not get the downvotes, they may feel less intimidated and continue to engage the community, and may start posting less noise and have more to offer the group.
I wish I had the solutions, but yeah I think the contentious nature of some of the recent threads can definitely turn potential new TKPC members away. Once it gets heated and the reply thread goes almost vertical I have long tuned myself out of that convo.
As for the game day threads those are the very definition of noise. I never look at those, it's impossible with people posting on every play "great run" or "nice pass" or "that was a terrible play call". That shit is impossible to follow while watching a game so I don't engage with any of those threads.
I say the game threads should be locked shortly after the game is over. I don't look at those threads as the game is going on, just occasionally before or after the game. As you said, it's impossible to follow during the game, and it's even worse after the game trying to figure out which "terrible play call" the comment is referring to. But sometimes the postgame discussion gets buried in that thread.
I think having the vent threads after bad losses are still a good idea though. Should be fine to post some "we're rollin"s in there without doing harm. Those posts in those specific threads should not be nuked IMO.
Vent threads serve an important purpose. In addition to the obvious benefit of allowing people to air their grievances and cope if that helps them, it also confines the postgame reactions to a single thread so that users who aren't interested in the vent can avoid it if they so choose and participate in other threads instead.
Without a vent thread you get people airing their grievances across a myriad of other threads and conversations. So I would imagine they won't be going away.
Even with the vent threads, you get people airing their grievances across a myriad of other threads and conversations. And it is usually the same people who instigate the incessant bitching and moaning. It makes following threads difficult because they get overrun by the same tired comments. I know there are some people who have expressed this sentiment in other threads recently. This is as much noise as the folks posting "we rolling" or other such nonsense.
Only way vent threads go away is if we win more games.
Win-win imo.
this is absolutely true....and a Liberty Vent Thread is going to be way, way more brutal than, say, a ND Vent Thread. Losing sucks and Vent Threads are a good place to allow posters to dump their emotions after the game. But losing to good teams isn't as bad as losing to crappy teams.
The beatings (vent threads) will continue until morale (the team) improves.
Whether we like it or not, Liberty was not a "crappy" team this year. They have the money and the institutional support to compete at our level currently because our level has descended to "mediocre ACC team." They will almost certainly lose coach Freeze in the short term, but they will be able to pay for another winner. They are not going away and we need to stop scheduling them if we want to avoid dogfights for Virginia bragging rights.
So just avoid them because we are scared to lose. Nah, let's just beat them.
We have to pay them to come to Lane, and they will always be motivated to knock off the bigger program. There is simply nothing to gain from playing them except a "W". Better to schedule a directional G5 team rather than funding a wannabe state rival.
Liberty in 2020 was a less talented but much better coached team. Therein lies the rub. VT should win that game on talent alone. It's not only embarrassing that we lost due to bad coaching, it's doubly embarrassing that a less talented team beat us because of coaching.
I don't expect VTs coaching staff to out-coach every coach they go up against. But I do expect VT to live up to the caliber of team that they became under Beamer and beat less talented teams from lower divisions, not only consistently, but soundly. Under Justin Fuente, VT has lost to less talented teams way, way too often. It is absolutely infuriating. You may not have thought Liberty was a "crappy" team in 2020 but they certainly were a beatable team that VT should be beating without much trouble.
I know someone will probably want to bring up the JMU loss in 2010 (and that was embarrassing as well) but that one is different because VT bounced back and won the rest of their games that season. Justin Fuente's teams do not do well through entire seasons. His many losses to lesser teams cannot be fairly compared to the JMU loss. Beamer coached that 2010 team up and they got better and performed at a much higher level the rest of the season. Fuente's teams don't do that.
Agreed. I've seen and heard it said a few different places that Fu needs to show the most improvement in his work off the field. I don't see what they're seeing, I think he needs to work an equal amount on every part of his job. He's displayed horrendous situational football at times every year he's been here.
I agree with most everything you posted here. However, I tend to back off the "outcoached" arguments. Effort typically varies by how big the game is to each team. Liberty played inspired and VT played like we were expecting a bye week. I guess you can say it is up to the coach to rally the team, but I see it from every team. As far as the end of the game timeout crap goes, I just say what the hell. Liberty would have been talking about what a horrible decision it was to even attempt the field goal if the block stands. So, I don't know where I am going with this, but you are right, we should beat Liberty without even breaking much of a sweat. The fact that the team thought so too is the problem.
It wasn't just the timeout. Which, let's not forget the numbers just don't show that icing the kicker actually works. If anything it allows a kicker to get a practice shot before the actual try. No, the icing was that after we came back out we played prevent and gave them 10-15 freebie yards that transformed a borderline kick to a comfortable one, which they proceeded to bury.
Every analytical view of how that game ended said we did the absolute worst thing on both of those plays. That is almost as clear cut a situation of coaching costing you a game as it gets. And it happened against friggen Liberty.
That is fine but it doesn't change the fact that lining up for the long kick in that situation was a dumb coaching move by Liberty as well. And I agree the defensive call was the worst decision.
Oh it was an absolutely terrible decision, which is why we should have let them make the mistake. Instead, we one upped their incompetence, bailed them out of a really dumb decision by making a series of even bigger ones, and handed the game to them on a platter.
And I'll say it again-- icing the kicker might work on a 40 yard FG attempt. But a 65 or whatever the hell it was? That's like trying to drain a 70 foot putt. There's no icing an attempt that long. You're just trying to hit the football or golf ball hard and square and hoping it goes exactly in the right direction.
It was an absolutely stupid thing to do. And it turned a great escape victory into a gut-punch loss.
RE OP, I agree and respect Joe's point on the noise.
I'm going to disagree with you on a couple of things here.
The refs screwed us out of a TD when Conner picked up the fumble and was taking it to the house. They threw the beanbag marking a fumble, but blew the whistle when Conner was running it back with nobody in about 20 yards of him. On review they ruled it was a fumble but we got the ball at the spot of the recovery. 7 points off the board.
The refs screwed us again on the blocked field goal. Again we recovered it and took it back for a TD. Fuente may have tried to call a timeout to ice the kicker, but the refs didn't recognize it until AFTER we were on the way to the house. They had no intention of giving us the TO until we blew the kick up. Another 7 points that should have been ours taken away. To add insult to injury, if they really were giving us the TO, they let time run off the clock on a play that supposedly didn't happen.
This happened multiple times throughout the year. Miami got a first down when the receiver went out of bounds 3 yards short of the line to gain. They scored a TD on the next play after they were given the first down they didn't actually get.
Pitt fumbled a lateral that we recovered at their 23, but the refs ruled it a forward pass. It would have given us instant momentum, but they blew it.
Even against Clemson, the refs gave Clemson first downs when they were stopped short of the line to gain. It got so bad that Herbie and Fowler both made comments about how generous the refs were spotting the ball and giving first downs when the play was stopped short.
We weren't the only school screwed over by horrible officiating. But I remember these specific examples since they happened to us.
That's not getting outcoached. It's getting screwed by incompetence. And this year was especially bad for it.