Hey all, the last few months have been rather hectic, stressful and full of uncertainty. Nothing feels right. And that's without even discussing the Hokies. I want to address a sentiment I've heard a few times recently, both directly by email and in the community, that TKP isn't as "fun" as it was, or there's too much arguing, or it's different.
I feel that too, and largely I think that's a byproduct of Tech football and the "new normal" of every day life. It's a lot easier to have fun, when things are fun. As an online community grows, it changes. There are new voices, louder voices, differing opinions, casuals, power users, *gasp* trolls, and regulars. They all interact with TKP and the community differently. The tone of the community is reflective of those who contribute to it — yes that means, you!
Please take a few minutes and think about that.
OK.
From a management perspective, I've also received the feedback about threads (discourse pls) and moderation. As far as the latter is concerned, the moderation team is doing the best they can. Perfection is unattainable, but they are trying to enforce the spirit of the Community Guidelines to the best of their ability. And it's not easy. Thank you to those of you who simply listen to them when they chime in, or drop a random appreciation. It means a lot.
Regarding the recruiting threads. As was originally stated, it's an evolution. The team is going to circle back at the end of the month (in a few days) and discuss what went well, what didn't and how they can improve.
Thanks all!
Comments
Thank you Joe, GGC, VTGM, and Chris.
You know what we need to get back to as a community? I think you know
I think I know what you mean
Ew, Hellman's?
/sssslatheriton
Gotta be Dukes baby
Hahaaa leg
I don't mind duke's but I can't get it up here
TMI
Lmfao
Sitting here in the quiet-ass waiting room for the audiologist and this just made me lose it.
I think so, Brain. But where will find rubber pants in our size?
Nasty ass Hellman's atleast use a tub of dukes
Tom's dad:
To be fair, I don't care who you are, you're going to notice Emma Watson in that situation, and you most definitely are going to have to work at it to act completely normal.
I mean his dad is a British comedian, so its in his nature
Those comments he makes about SuperDry is spot on. Every year at the F1 Race in Austin you see tons of British dudes wearing SuperDry stuff that have no business buying that shit.
Leg for you
What movie is this from?
Loaded Weapon 1
I think the website is great, and the community is functioning just fine. Party on y'all!
Agreed! I spend a lot of time here.
In my humble opinion, this is still the best community for VT Alum and news and discussion of VT sports. Plus, the articles are top notch. There's a reason I stopped looking at any other sources for VT (primarily football) information. Yes, not winning more is frustrating, clearly points of view on COVID were frustrating. But that doesn't change the quality of insight you get here, and, like I said, it's still a good VT community. And I appreciate the jobs the moderators have done/are doing. Keep up the good work!
I definitely agree that it's the best community, though that might just be because this community generally trends a bit younger than other VT fan sites and aligns more with my overall outlook on sports, life, etc. I'm still on TSL every now and again for the actual content (which I do like), but after the past few months especially I have to actively avoid comment sections and forums for the sake of my blood pressure (and sanity).
Things have been off for everyone this year, and sure, the past few years have been hit or miss for us when it comes to sports, but TKP is still one of the first sites I pull up in the morning just in case there's something new, be it an article or a forum post.
I enjoy TKPing as much today as when I first found this site years ago. I look forward to reading about the potential of new players, regardless of star rating, the exploits of current players and the fortunes of former players. Both the humor and the criticism are interesting to me, and the only things I avoid are topics that don't interest me and the occasional name calling contests when commenters get all huffy. All things considered, it remains my favorite sports site and almost certainly will stay that way. Thanks Joe!
Overall the site is great and the moderation is fantastic. I hope any suggestions I or others make aren't taken as an insult or jab. As you know engineers can't always communicate with appropriate emotions. Keep it up!
I will say that this site is much like Virginia Tech. We may not always have the best football or basketball news, but the fishing threads are awesome...and it's way better than Le Sabre.
I've been avoiding posting and I've read a lot less recently because I'm in a shit mood pretty much every day.
Life is hard right now for pretty much everyone and while I love VT and want to watch sports there's just too much happening in the world that is more important and caring about it feels silly.
I've rage typed responses (on here, Twitter, via email at work) and deleted more frequently than I think I ever have and I'd encourage everyone else to try and do the same. If someone does or says something you find enraging, close your browser/Outlook and come back to it later. If you're still mad, fine, tell that person exactly where to shove it...but there's a good chance you'll be more empathetic later on.
Thanks to Joe, the mod team, and the larger community for making this a great place to interact with Hokies across the globe.
Here's to brighter days ahead.
What's causing the everyday shit mood?
I mean it's normal to go through some shit time every now and again but if you're in a rut, then holla.
Not speaking for him, but for me, its like adding another block on the depression tower daily.
I own my own business, which I have built up over the last 5 years, and each day I watch it slipping away more and more. There is no end in sight right now, some are speculating by the new year, some are even saying next summer. So for my business, it's how long can I keep my staff employed and how long can I keep the business up and running. Then there is nothing else that can help offset this, like a true vacation, or even just going out to dinner with the family.
I mentioned to folks the other day. I would be happy to just go to a brewery, sit and have some beers, order some snacks, watch my kids cause trouble, and just hang. Thats just not doable right now. I'm in DC, so we are still under strict rules, but even if you go somewhere where its not that bad, you are constantly worried about "Am I getting exposed?" and then you go back to your pod and are stressed you may have exposed them.
Then, add on more stress of everything going on, whether its football, politics, mask shaming, and more.
The simplist things are just not available anymore, and we are just adding gas to the fire.
Do you have any online aspect to your business? Should we start a thread to support other Hokies' businesses? If I can, I would gladly support my fellow Hokies!!!
Yes! Excellent idea. I am happy to support fellow hokies.
It's a great idea, but let's pump the breaks for the time being.
Understand. The self promotion is a slippery slope.
It is a great idea. Not sure why the brakes gotta be pumped but if this could happen at some point, it's a reasonable idea.
Appreciate it.
I wish there was some online aspect. The single biggest thing that would help with my business would be for offices and restaurants to open back up. I don't think that will happen till the kids go back to school. A lot of speculation that won't happen till the new year, and there are rumors of it being next year at the earliest. So we'll see.
Appreciate it, HOAT - that's very kind.
Nothing abnormal, COVID has crushed the consulting firm I work for, quarantine blues are setting in, and while TKP isn't the place to discuss it everything going on around the world related to social injustice has also been draining.
Man that sucks. I am lucky that I can continue to work from home and maintain all of the life essentials - work, salary, paying the bills, etc. Since I'm the only one at my house, I'm kinda stuck looking for social outlets. TKP? YES MOAR! Coworker says hello? PUSH THE VIDEO CHAT BUTTON! Friends want to zoom call for a minute? SIGN ME UP. To be fair I'm not as heavily impact as most. A piece of unsolicited advice, take your breaks where you can get it. Call people you haven't talked to in a while, they probably want to see/hear another human as much as you do. Go outside. Yeah its different. Gotta keep control of what you can. Ignore unimportant things. #HOATLove
via GIPHY
(this is the least weird gif of a horse being hugged, so i'm going with it)
Hey Joe, I am going to assume my last comments contributed to some of this post. I appreciate everything you and your team does for this site. Even at it's worst, I think this is still the best VT online community.
TKP is fine.
In general most people seem to be more on edge with the crazy world of today. Lots of emotions and with the lack of a normal sports season it doesn't help matters. This is why I think, if the ACC and SEC have a season, it's good for us CFB fans' health. I think everyone could use a distraction...some bourbon....and some pie.
I love you guys
MOVED From the "Aug2020 Recruiting thread 3",
(If you were just being snarky, kudos to you, I treated it seriously.)
Funny you should say that, my initial thought was having a positive and negative split, but after thinking about it a little, once the negativity has its own place to be by itself, all the threads with decreased negativity automatically become neutral to positive, which solves the problem if everyone buys in and respects it.
I'd like it better to have the recruiting thread focused on recruiting and analysis, and if I wanted to read about how bad the coaching staff is recruiting wise, I'd go to the Noise thread and can still enjoy that over there. I might even give my own thoughts if I wasn't worried about someone taking something slightly critical I might say and turning it into a battle cry to fire the coaching staff.
But yeah, if the positivity becomes suffocating,
have a specific thread for homers and send them there, orjust tell them to take their positivity to the Noise thread, too. HahahaI think a Noise/Negativity thread would be the biggest thread of them all because that's where the arguments would go and everyone would still want to read the venting even if they don't want to engage with it - everyone watches the car chase to see the big accidents. Plenty of people will still engage with the negativity, because that's what we do. And again, I might like being negative, too, if I didn't think it would infect a thread or affect other people.
Also, you wouldn't have to ban people for melting down because they have a safe place to meltdown that won't derail other threads. Still have to respect CGs, but a little more leeway to be a jerk when it's separated.
I don't know if it can actually work or if Joe and the Mods would actually want to try it, but in my mind it makes sense to think about it at least if it would help and improve the site overall.
I understand the work it takes to moderate something like this, and the toll it takes on the Mods/Owner, and that's why I'm trying to help them with a possible solution, but if my comment is not helpful, they can easily post "not helpful" and I won't make any more suggestions. I'm sure thy don't want to be inundated with 100 suggestions from everyone.
To Joe - thanks for providing this site, I like it and want it continue, and I want you and the Mods to be happy, too.
Thank you guys for all the effort and energy you put into this.
GO HOKIES!
Increased membership leads to several things, more diverse opinions, more trolls. more law breakers and less tolerance. When we were smaller we knew each other better. which meant we let each other slide a bit. Not no mo'! Someone mentioned the fishing thread, it's the pruest on the site. Why because there are no tangents. We all fish. Not so with the others. Though I do appreciate the humor in tangents! I am rambling now. Anyone remember the old Big East Page? That was brutal! Don' let it go there Joe.
The smoking meats thread would like a word... maybe the compromise is a smoking fish thread
Sign me up for a smoking fish thread!
Ah, if only I could give this more legs lol
Now that's a tangent! 😂😂😂
He could use a drinking buddy.
The Golf thread disagrees politely with your opinion on the fishing thread and will happily buy the first round at the 19th hole while we have a gentlemanly discussion about their relative merits.
Why not both.gif
I was blissfully unaware of all the drama, I don't think I've read a recruiting thread all the way through until just now.
Remember when we used to do meme threads? What sweet summer children we were.
It was a simpler time... a happier time....
Joe, you're a rockstar! Even though there's no such thing as perfection, TKP provides fantastic VT athletics information and conversation. Chris mentioned it in another thread, but in most cases the disagreements folks have generally produce good conversations. I'm grateful to be part of what's going on here and to contribute in some small way to the productive side of things (although I've certainly contributed to the negative side on occasion).
I think what you're feeling is much of what most of America is feeling right now. Simply put, as some psychologists have articulated, most of us don't have any idea how to navigate through seasons that are disorienting . Sure, as individuals and families we face things that are troubling and sometimes tragic. But we, collectively, have never had to deal with all that 2020 has offered us. It's been terribly disorienting to say the least. And because of that we are all struggling, at some level, to figure out how to exist. Communicating from this place can be a challenge. Kudos to you Joe for being on the front lines here and allowing us all to descend on your site and work it all out.
I'm a...casual-regular? Idk. I typically type stupid shit to try and garner a laugh, stupid shit on away game threads to try and garner a laugh, Nascar/F1 stuff, and remind folks how loud the Boise game was. I'm a man upon an island. AND...I literally just learned how to use to quote doo-dadd thingy, after eating Mexican food nonetheless! High five to myself!
I love you. And you. And I love you too. I love all you fuckers, even when you're wrong :p
I love you guys. And I still think miracle whip is a shitty substitute for mayonnaise. And I lied to all of you long ago. My dad doesn't have diabetes. I do.
EDIT: This is not the picture I was trying to share but I am not changing this now
Hmmmmm, I was going to say that he was a man-child so pissy at Han over a ship that he made a deal with the devil. But I really can't argue for who is better.
I cannot stop laughing at this!
I discovered this website a day after our Labor Day victory over Georgia Tech in 2012 and I've been back basically every day in some capacity (often times several times per day). The community isn't as tight as it used to be, (size will get after ya) but the content, moderation, and communication from TKP staff have never been better. TKP staff, thank you for all you do.
This is totally unrelated to anything but I am very curious.
Do you have a report that shows you where each user falls? I guess it can track unique users and how often? I come to TKP every day so I assume that's regular status.
I came here five and a half years ago for the Hokie news, liked the community, but stayed for the fishing threads. I also appreciate the site, Joe and the mods, though I am one of those whose buttons are a bit too easy to push, and I'm old enough that I just won't suffer some points of view without calling them out which has caused me to tread on and occasionally over the lines, drawing the ire of those who police the site. While I'll not apologize for my opinions, or voicing them when I feel I just have to, I will readily apologize for making the moderator's jobs harder.
Certainly, my age makes it tough for me to understand the youthful obsessions many have with technology and uniforms and memes and such, and I don't know most of the musicians and haven't watched many of the movies or tv shows younger folks reference, I do appreciate the youthful nature of the site. I have met friends here, people I now fish and correspond with, and it has been a rewarding 5 and a half years, overall. We may disagree with each other over many things, but the thing we have in common, love for VT and Hokie sports, continues to bind us all regardless of the tenor of the times we find ourselves living in and through. Thanks, Joe.
For real though, this is far and away still the best Tech related site (Hell, site in general) on the internet.
3 year member, casual user here. I agree with Porkchop above. There are some rants....but it's easy to scroll through them to get to the good stuff. Recruiting discourse does repeat itself but sometimes I read it anyway to find a few jokes and laughs. Thanks to all for making this a solid site for those that love Hokie sports, fishing, beer, bourbon and BBQ.
A lot of us pay for this stuff!! That speaks volumes.
It took me far to long to figure out where you got Porkchop from. Was a solid minute before remembering it was part of my tag.
Thank you TKP staff
You hit on something in your post. People with less experience on social media sometimes don't realize that just growing a community means you lose some of the camaraderie. There are a lot of reasons for this, but they aren't the point of my reply and probably most people on here know them, so I'll move on.
You deserve major credit for figuring out a way for the community to not get wildly out of balance. I haven't figured out what you have done differently than the several other forums I've witnessed crash and burn, but something's better here.
Just keep it up. There's ups and downs in everything, but especially wildly emotional forums dealing with sports. So far you're keeping the swings from getting too extreme (paraphrasing Frank, it's never as bad as you think, and it's never as good as you think).
Thanks for that. We all appreciate your efforts.
Not sure what other forums you're talking about but I think that one of the key differentiating factors is we're Hokies.
Seriously, the alumni community is just different. My wife is always commenting on how no matter where we are in the world (excluding 300 miles of Blacksburg) if I am wearing Hokie gear and some alumni spots me they always reach out and say hi/stop to chat. My wife went to Indiana and this never happens.
As an example, my wife and I were in Venice, Italy and we were spotted by a retired engineering professor while we were eating dinner. We ended up chatting with them for about 20 minutes.
had a similar conversation with a Hokie just last week on an 8500' elevation peak in Wyoming -- there's just something different about tech and the alumni base.
Went to Telluride for spring break one year. While at the bar one night, bumped into a guy I had a few classes with, 1800 miles from VT. It's a small world.
I have people tell me all the time they think they know someone who went to Tech. I always respond, oh, you wouldn't think, you would KNOW for sure...we are loud and proud. And most likely, they ARE a Hokie.
Similar story. My Senior year I went with some friends to NOLA for Mardi Gras. Went to Pat O'Briens, and noticed how familiar this girl was to someone I had a Freshman English class with. Sure enough, same person. Never saw her on campus but go to a bar 2000 miles away.
Another funny encounter: I was living in Germany recently and had to go to the auto parts store for some reason. I was in line to check out and noticed a guy wearing a Hokie hat outside. I went on up to him and engaged in a conversation (luckily he spoke English much better than my German) and found out he went to VA Beach because he had family there and bought the hat. I lived in a small town outside of the main city and to encounter something like that blew my mind.
I have mentioned before running into a couple of Hokies on the Green River in Utah. I was using a home made fly made of wild turkey maribou and the couple asked what the fly was as I released a hefty 5 lb cutbow. I had no name for it, but I thought immediately of "Hokieboo". They looked at each other, then we started talking VT. Wife joined me and there we were, 4 Hokies on the Green.
Watching a VT vs Wahoo game one year in Durango Colorado and this one waitress kept stopping by our table to get the score though she wasn't in our section and all the other tvs were tuned to western games (Pro Hokie tip: If you are far out of town, a 20 dollar tip in advance to the barman can get you access to a private tv). Turned out she'd just graduated VT the spring before and we chatted until game's end.
Lastly, wife and I graduated in December '75. That spring, we upped and moved to Oregon. Went to a bar one night in Eugene with live music. We were dancing and I literally bumped into a fellow on the dance floor and turned to apologize. It was a fellow we'd graduated with and we both knew him well enough to be happy and surprised to see him that far from home. Hokies are everywhere.
It happens with Hokie boards also.
I have an amusing story related to this. When we first played 'bama in 2009, I ended up with a couple copies of the game on DVD. I had been on tidefans trying to get to know this new opponent that we hadn't played since the Music City bowl and got to know a few folks over there. After the game I happened across a post where one of their fans who was unable to watch the game (IIRC, he was deployed overseas at the time) was wondering if anyone had it recorded. I mailed him one of the DVDs and told him to enjoy. He thanked me and offered to send some money. I told him that it was no trouble, and if he really wanted to pay me back he should buy a beer for the next Hokie he ran into. I had forgotten completely about this when a year or two later he sends me an email. He'd been traveling for work and saw someone wearing VT gear in an airport bar. He walks up, gives the guy a big "Let's Go Hokies" and proceeds to buy him a couple drinks while they were waiting for their flights. So not only are we everywhere, sometimes that Hokie spirit comes from unexpected sources!
Since we've all been stuck for several months....
I feel like the entire community needs this. Especially you Joe.
Joe, you've put together a fantastic site. I started silent stalking around 2011. I still remember having a conversation with Kevin Burke when we were roommates at FoxRidge over which site he should write for. We concluded that TKP had more upside since it was just getting established. Fast forward to 2013 when I finally joined the site. I was in one of the lowest points in my life. I had just broken up with a girlfriend who I was with all through college, living in a city where I knew no one, which I moved to for said ex-girlfriend, all while working a commission job that I sucked at so I was broke all the time.
This website gave me a shred of light when I couldn't find any. I still remember posts from back then that made me roar with laughter when it seemed like I hadn't been happy in months. I have never met anyone on this site, but I have no doubt I'd easily hit it off if I ever met any of you (especially those who were around in 2013). Life for me has taken such an upswing, and it honestly all seemed to start when I joined TKP. I thank you for that Joe. I have logged into this site almost everyday since I joined and while it is definitely different, it's also not stopping me from needing my TKP fix. There is too much quality to the content.
That's probably not as true as you think. Plenty of MVs on here and if you are who I think I remember you being we were both in rank 27 your senior year.
-Will
Stephanie was our rank leader right?? I haven't thought about our MV ranks in years!