Hi everybody, my name's Brock and I'll be part of the team taking over the site

[CubinNY]

 

Hey, quit stealing imb's thunder.

 

Is this referencing what I hope it's referencing

 

do you think they're regretting this purchase yet

This is becoming an awesome thread. One guy is trying to tell us all how great it's going to be while the rest of us are basically ignoring him and fixated on Kyle's former life and cracking wise about stupid horsefeathers.

 

You can take the Tim out of NSBB, but you can't take the NSBB out of NSBB.

[JudasIscariotTheBird]

Cool. I guess this means I won't be (tied for) the worst poster here, soon?

[Sammy Sofa]

 

Is this referencing what I hope it's referencing

 

do you think they're regretting this purchase yet

This is becoming an awesome thread. One guy is trying to tell us all how great it's going to be while the rest of us are basically ignoring him and fixated on Kyle's former life and cracking wise about stupid horsefeathers.

 

You can take the Tim out of NSBB, but you can't take the NSBB out of NSBB.

 

Just taking it in while we can (though, TBH, even that sounds too melodramatic).

 

But, really, this place is going to hugely change if all of this goes into effect, and a bunch of the current regulars will likely slowly disappear because of it.

 

That's not some kind of ridiculous "threat" about flouncing or whatever; I'm sure we've all seen this happen countless times over with various boards or sites or blogs and whatnot. Whenever a plan is rolled out to "upgrade" something to get more eyes/clicks on it, the edges always get sanded off. A lot of the stuff that keeps a lot of us here (namely the non-sports topics and, quite frankly, what we're able to get away with) will inevitably be curbed or will just go away, and, eh, that's just what happens with these sorts of deals.

Edited February 28, 2023 by Sammy Sofa

[Rob]

Mostly monetization happens through volume, both in our overall company traffic and individual site traffic. Our goal is mostly eyeballs, really, and we do that through aggressive social media usage, search engine optimization, email lists, and other assorted things.

 

Because we have such a high volume of traffic from other projects (Twins Daily), we have access to premium advertising options that pay *much* better than most small sites have at their disposal.

 

We want more forum traffic to sustain the community but what we REALLY want is for our news stories, videos, prospect tracker, etc. to dominate social and search channels. And a thriving community only stays that way if the community is on board with tone, opinions, and whatnot. We have some rules forced on us by advertisers but it's pretty extreme stuff that I haven't encountered here at all (racism, bigotry, the really bad stuff) so I don't foresee many issues in that regard.

 

So mostly when it comes to the forums, don't expect us to be heavy-handed. You all like things the way they are in the forum and that's why you're here; if we change too much of that, we're just shooting ourselves in the foot. The way I've thought about this in the past is as "we wrap a shell around your community to protect its integrity and continued existence". We do that with news, user blogs, videos, guides and resources, etc. and a by-product of that is that new users join the community but we don't actually change much about the community itself, nor do we want to.

 

Down the road I might have suggestions how to make things a little more welcoming to new users but it won't be major and it won't happen immediately (and they'll be suggestions).

 

Thanks for your thoughtful response to my question. Nothing about what you've said strikes me as immediately objectionable (though I do harbor some concern that premium advertisers may require more personal data be disclosed, my dumb self posts under my real name and even wrote some front page articles under that name approximately a decade ago, so I'm long-since doxxed on here...).

 

But because you claim to appreciate the culture here, and said culture involves a lot of lovable curmudgeons, I feel it's only right that I haze you a bit by continuing to press you while you're trying to win over this group and protect your investment.

 

I'm a little bit concerned with the moderation of the site. Will the current moderators be continuing on in their roles, and issues such as bans be left to their discretion? Or are you hoping to take an active stance and handle those matters yourself? Furthermore, would you be willing to commit to some sort of pledge of transparency regarding us old-timers? If, for instance, Kyle's relentless doom boner is scaring off new people, I'd hate to see him secretly banned over some petty nonsense with the hope that none of us notice. I'd think that people with a certain amount of seniority here (5 years? 10 years?) should warrant some sort of public disclosure for any bans and the reasoning behind them.

 

Also, #FreeDaBum

[Brock Beauchamp]

 

Is this referencing what I hope it's referencing

 

do you think they're regretting this purchase yet

This is becoming an awesome thread. One guy is trying to tell us all how great it's going to be while the rest of us are basically ignoring him and fixated on Kyle's former life and cracking wise about stupid horsefeathers.

 

You can take the Tim out of NSBB, but you can't take the NSBB out of NSBB.

Oh, I'm also finding this wildly entertaining. You all are obviously a tight-knit group and snarky as hell. It's funny to watch.

[CubinNY]

It will be cool, just let it progress. If they've done it before with other places and it's worked, it should, in theory, work with NSBB too.

 

The main problem will be people looking to make arguments or pretending to be obtuse about what they are posting ("hey, I'm just asking questions"). For the most part, that will get squashed. I think it will be great to get more people here and have lively discussions from the MAGA crowd until they get banned for saying something racist or homophobic.

 

It will also be great to get more baseball talk going since you know this is a baseball site and all. I think some new people will be here just for that and leave the nonsense to the rest of us. As long as there is good tolerance for nonsense, the "old" guys should be just fine.

 

I'm rooting for the new overlords to Make NSBB Great Again (MNGA).

[Rob]

After CubinNY posted that, he is obviously exempt from my above post asking for transparency in banning decisions. We are all on board with that one.

 

No comparing the things we love to MAGA.

[Brock Beauchamp]

 

Just taking it in while we can (though, TBH, even that sounds too melodramatic).

 

But, really, this place is going to hugely change if all of this goes into effect, and a bunch of the current regulars will likely slowly disappear because of it.

 

That's not some kind of ridiculous "threat" about flouncing or whatever; I'm sure we've all seen this happen countless times over with various boards or sites or blogs and whatnot. Whenever a plan is rolled out to "upgrade" something to get more eyes/clicks on it, the edges always get sanded off. A lot of the stuff that keeps a lot of us here (namely the non-sports topics and, quite frankly, what we're able to get away with) will inevitably be curbed or will just go away, and, eh, that's just what happens with these sorts of deals.

This is a very real thing. There *will* be attrition simply because change causes people to re-evaluate their decisions and some will just drop off over time. But my goal is to minimize that as much as possible by being transparent, changing only what *needs* to be changed (mostly tech right off the bat), and working with all of you to get your opinions on things.

[CubinNY]

After CubinNY posted that, he is obviously exempt from my above post asking for transparency in banning decisions. We are all on board with that one.

 

No comparing the things we love to MAGA.

Why are you worried about transparency? There was never transparency before. The modes made decisions on a case-by-case basis depending on a lot of factors. Usually, people would get warned a bunch of times and then get temporarily banned (I speak form experience here), some never came back, and some did.

 

If they post rules or whatever, that's cool, but rules never work because there are always exceptions. I'll leave it up to them. I cannot imagine a situation where it would become untenable for most of us. But if it happens, it happens. I'll worry about that when it comes time to worry about that and then I'll bitch on my way out.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

Nothing lasts forever. My first thought when I saw the thread titled big news that tim had finally gotten bored and was going to stop fronting the bandwidth and hosting costs for our digital equivalent of the old men who drink coffee all morning at fast food restaurants.

 

It's been going for almost 25 years now. At some point either the site was going to end, it would change drastically, or we start following Fred one at a time.

 

What will be will be, not worth worrying over, so long as imb is never ever let into the insider's forum. Unless that already happened?

[Rob]

After CubinNY posted that, he is obviously exempt from my above post asking for transparency in banning decisions. We are all on board with that one.

 

No comparing the things we love to MAGA.

Why are you worried about transparency? There was never transparency before. The modes made decisions on a case-by-case basis depending on a lot of factors. Usually, people would get warned a bunch of times and then get temporarily banned (I speak form experience here), some never came back, and some did.

 

If they post rules or whatever, that's cool, but rules never work because there are always exceptions. I'll leave it up to them. I cannot imagine a situation where it would become untenable for most of us. But if it happens, it happens. I'll worry about that when it comes time to worry about that and then I'll bitch on my way out.

 

I was upset early on with Tim because of the lack of transparency. But over twenty years I think we all felt out the contours of the moderation decisions and got to a place where we didn't need the transparency anymore -- the decisions became fairly intuitive.

 

This is potentially a soft-reset on that. And I'd rather not spend twenty years feeling out the contours again.

[Outshined_One]

Why are you worried about transparency? There was never transparency before. The modes made decisions on a case-by-case basis depending on a lot of factors.

 

I once started a thread where anyone who posted in it would get banned. That was a fun week.

[Brock Beauchamp]

Thanks for your thoughtful response to my question. Nothing about what you've said strikes me as immediately objectionable (though I do harbor some concern that premium advertisers may require more personal data be disclosed, my dumb self posts under my real name and even wrote some front page articles under that name approximately a decade ago, so I'm long-since doxxed on here...).

 

But because you claim to appreciate the culture here, and said culture involves a lot of lovable curmudgeons, I feel it's only right that I haze you a bit by continuing to press you while you're trying to win over this group and protect your investment.

 

I'm a little bit concerned with the moderation of the site. Will the current moderators be continuing on in their roles, and issues such as bans be left to their discretion? Or are you hoping to take an active stance and handle those matters yourself? Furthermore, would you be willing to commit to some sort of pledge of transparency regarding us old-timers? If, for instance, Kyle's relentless doom boner is scaring off new people, I'd hate to see him secretly banned over some petty nonsense with the hope that none of us notice. I'd think that people with a certain amount of seniority here (5 years? 10 years?) should warrant some sort of public disclosure for any bans and the reasoning behind them.

 

Also, #FreeDaBum

First, the data we collect is no different than what's currently being collected. It all comes through Google, who has a stranglehold on the website advertising market. Where we have gains is that we have access to higher-quality (ie. higher paying) ad clients. In essence, our overall volume allows us to punch above any single site's weight class.

 

Moderation won't change, at least from what I've seen of it. All current moderators are not only welcome to stay on board but are encouraged to do so. I'm going to observe, especially in the beginning.

 

I don't believe in shadow bans, especially for long-time posters. I give opportunity after opportunity. There was one case on Twins Daily where it literally took a decade to permanently ban the biggest pain in the ass on the board. I've since learned my lesson and will pull the trigger a little more quickly but it's ALWAYS with moderator input. I do not believe in unilateral decisions unless it's beyond the pale... which DOES happen but not often.

 

A bit of background on me that absolutely applies to operating a community: I'm raising two adoptive Black daughters and part of my old neighborhood literally burned during the George Floyd unrest in Minneapolis. To say my tolerance is nonexistent for racist, sexist, gaslighting, etc. commentary is an understatement. People are free to hold whatever opinion they please but voicing things that would make me ashamed to show my daughters the community isn't going to be allowed. I did some scouting on this community for quite some time and part of the reason I reached out to Tim is because my personal beliefs seemed to be very much in line with the already-existing community.

 

But those instances are few and far between, frankly. We had a really wild ride at Twins Daily during the summer of 2020 but we emerged the other side with a *better* community that had less hit-and-run trolling and more substantive conversation.

 

Unless I'm missing something huge - and I don't think I am - most of my input is going to be about procedure and creating an environment for new posters to want to contribute. And it won't be hard-and-fast rules, it'll be a slow adaptive process often led by my own content and interaction with those posters.

 

As example is that "mega-threads" are often unwelcoming to new users. Mega-threads seem to be popular here. I'm not going to start locking them or anything but I'd like to start having conversations about how to split those topics up into more specific content. I'm going to try to get all of your buy-in on my ideas, not just impose them on the community. I had to do the same at Brewer Fanatic and while a couple of people were salty about it for awhile, over time I won over the board - by ALWAYS trying to work with them to reach a compromise - by showing them things can be slightly different without upsetting the apple cart.

 

In a nutshell, I plan to work in the margins a lot and talk things through as much as I can.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

Honestly I just feel weird that someone spent money for us and am going to feel guilty of it doesn't pay off at all. I'm willing to give it a go to be a normal baseball site and care about baseball again. It's like the yahoo season of community, I'm down to email Diane.

 

Someone tell me some popular Twins opinions so I can start disagreeing with them.

[Brock Beauchamp]

Honestly I just feel weird that someone spent money for us and am going to feel guilty of it doesn't pay off at all. I'm willing to give it a go to be a normal baseball site and care about baseball again. It's like the yahoo season of community, I'm down to email Diane.

 

Someone tell me some popular Twins opinions so I can start disagreeing with them.

If it doesn't work, it's my own damned fault, no need to blame-cast on others. :D

[Irrelevant Dude]

That's not some kind of ridiculous "threat" about flouncing or whatever; I'm sure we've all seen this happen countless times over with various boards or sites or blogs and whatnot.

There is also the scenario where the stated and actual intentions of the new owner are entirely different. I'm not suggesting that is the case here, and the new owners appear to have a track record of managing similar sites, but I have seen this sort of transaction go down in a way that irreparably damages the site.

 

One particular example that comes to mind for me is the NintendoAge video game forum that I used to frequent for mostly retro video game news, chat, trading, etc. It was a rather popular retro gaming forum that had been around for a long time and it was still thriving at the time its sale was announced. The announcement came along with assurances from the new owner that they would be making some changes but would continue to maintain the website in much the same way as it already existed. After the sale closed, the forums were almost immediately shut down and redirected to a new page with a very bare bones forum that had obviously been thrown together in about 30 minutes. That forum never got updated or moderated and eventually disappeared without any word from the new owner. The community basically dissolved and presumably migrated to various different other websites, but as far as I know nothing came close to replacing the original site. It appears what happened is that the person who bought the website never had any intention of keeping the forums running, but simply wanted access to the game pricing and other data that had been accumulated by the community over a long period of time. I remember reading somewhere that the site's original owner never would have sold the site if he knew the purchaser's true intentions, but that ship had already sailed.

 

Despite that previous experience, I think we have to give Brock and crew the benefit of the doubt and hope that a majority of people here are willing to stick around through the changes. Obviously they are doing this for a reason, and making money is almost certainly part of it, but hopefully that can be done without sacrificing everything that currently exists.

[Brock Beauchamp]

That's not some kind of ridiculous "threat" about flouncing or whatever; I'm sure we've all seen this happen countless times over with various boards or sites or blogs and whatnot.

There is also the scenario where the stated and actual intentions of the new owner are entirely different. I'm not suggesting that is the case here, and the new owners appear to have a track record of managing similar sites, but I have seen this sort of transaction go down in a way that irreparably damages the site.

 

One particular example that comes to mind for me is the NintendoAge video game forum that I used to frequent for mostly retro video game news, chat, trading, etc. It was a rather popular retro gaming forum that had been around for a long time and it was still thriving at the time its sale was announced. The announcement came along with assurances from the new owner that they would be making some changes but would continue to maintain the website in much the same way as it already existed. After the sale closed, the forums were almost immediately shut down and redirected to a new page with a very bare bones forum that had obviously been thrown together in about 30 minutes. That forum never got updated or moderated and eventually disappeared without any word from the new owner. The community basically dissolved and presumably migrated to various different other websites, but as far as I know nothing came close to replacing the original site. It appears what happened is that the person who bought the website never had any intention of keeping the forums running, but simply wanted access to the game pricing and other data that had been accumulated by the community over a long period of time. I remember reading somewhere that the site's original owner never would have sold the site if he knew the purchaser's true intentions, but that ship had already sailed.

 

Despite that previous experience, I think we have to give Brock and crew the benefit of the doubt and hope that a majority of people here are willing to stick around through the changes. Obviously they are doing this for a reason, and making money is almost certainly part of it, but hopefully that can be done without sacrificing everything that currently exists.

Being concerned about what I say versus what I'll do is absolutely legit.

 

All I can say in response to that is Brewer Fanatic still has most of its long-time users a year after we took over, a bunch of new (quality) posters, and the general vibe has been pretty positive. In time, I hope to show you all the same thing has happened here.

[CubinNY]

That's not some kind of ridiculous "threat" about flouncing or whatever; I'm sure we've all seen this happen countless times over with various boards or sites or blogs and whatnot.

There is also the scenario where the stated and actual intentions of the new owner are entirely different. I'm not suggesting that is the case here, and the new owners appear to have a track record of managing similar sites, but I have seen this sort of transaction go down in a way that irreparably damages the site.

 

One particular example that comes to mind for me is the NintendoAge video game forum that I used to frequent for mostly retro video game news, chat, trading, etc. It was a rather popular retro gaming forum that had been around for a long time and it was still thriving at the time its sale was announced. The announcement came along with assurances from the new owner that they would be making some changes but would continue to maintain the website in much the same way as it already existed. After the sale closed, the forums were almost immediately shut down and redirected to a new page with a very bare bones forum that had obviously been thrown together in about 30 minutes. That forum never got updated or moderated and eventually disappeared without any word from the new owner. The community basically dissolved and presumably migrated to various different other websites, but as far as I know nothing came close to replacing the original site. It appears what happened is that the person who bought the website never had any intention of keeping the forums running, but simply wanted access to the game pricing and other data that had been accumulated by the community over a long period of time. I remember reading somewhere that the site's original owner never would have sold the site if he knew the purchaser's true intentions, but that ship had already sailed.

 

Despite that previous experience, I think we have to give Brock and crew the benefit of the doubt and hope that a majority of people here are willing to stick around through the changes. Obviously they are doing this for a reason, and making money is almost certainly part of it, but hopefully that can be done without sacrificing everything that currently exists.

I don't think the situations are analogous. We have no commodity to sell other than comments about jorts, Simpson memes, and laments about how stupid we all were when we were younger.

[Irrelevant Dude]

That's not some kind of ridiculous "threat" about flouncing or whatever; I'm sure we've all seen this happen countless times over with various boards or sites or blogs and whatnot.

There is also the scenario where the stated and actual intentions of the new owner are entirely different. I'm not suggesting that is the case here, and the new owners appear to have a track record of managing similar sites, but I have seen this sort of transaction go down in a way that irreparably damages the site.

 

One particular example that comes to mind for me is the NintendoAge video game forum that I used to frequent for mostly retro video game news, chat, trading, etc. It was a rather popular retro gaming forum that had been around for a long time and it was still thriving at the time its sale was announced. The announcement came along with assurances from the new owner that they would be making some changes but would continue to maintain the website in much the same way as it already existed. After the sale closed, the forums were almost immediately shut down and redirected to a new page with a very bare bones forum that had obviously been thrown together in about 30 minutes. That forum never got updated or moderated and eventually disappeared without any word from the new owner. The community basically dissolved and presumably migrated to various different other websites, but as far as I know nothing came close to replacing the original site. It appears what happened is that the person who bought the website never had any intention of keeping the forums running, but simply wanted access to the game pricing and other data that had been accumulated by the community over a long period of time. I remember reading somewhere that the site's original owner never would have sold the site if he knew the purchaser's true intentions, but that ship had already sailed.

 

Despite that previous experience, I think we have to give Brock and crew the benefit of the doubt and hope that a majority of people here are willing to stick around through the changes. Obviously they are doing this for a reason, and making money is almost certainly part of it, but hopefully that can be done without sacrificing everything that currently exists.

I don't think the situations are analogous. We have no commodity to sell other than comments about jorts, Simpson memes, and laments about how stupid we all were when we were younger.

Perhaps mining years of our miscellaneous post data is all part of a larger plan to create the ultimate AI chatbot?

[Brock Beauchamp]

Perhaps mining years of our miscellaneous post data is all part of a larger plan to create the ultimate AI chatbot?

I've read enough of this community's posts to know for certain I don't want to spawn that particular chatbot.

[CubinNY]

There is also the scenario where the stated and actual intentions of the new owner are entirely different. I'm not suggesting that is the case here, and the new owners appear to have a track record of managing similar sites, but I have seen this sort of transaction go down in a way that irreparably damages the site.

 

One particular example that comes to mind for me is the NintendoAge video game forum that I used to frequent for mostly retro video game news, chat, trading, etc. It was a rather popular retro gaming forum that had been around for a long time and it was still thriving at the time its sale was announced. The announcement came along with assurances from the new owner that they would be making some changes but would continue to maintain the website in much the same way as it already existed. After the sale closed, the forums were almost immediately shut down and redirected to a new page with a very bare bones forum that had obviously been thrown together in about 30 minutes. That forum never got updated or moderated and eventually disappeared without any word from the new owner. The community basically dissolved and presumably migrated to various different other websites, but as far as I know nothing came close to replacing the original site. It appears what happened is that the person who bought the website never had any intention of keeping the forums running, but simply wanted access to the game pricing and other data that had been accumulated by the community over a long period of time. I remember reading somewhere that the site's original owner never would have sold the site if he knew the purchaser's true intentions, but that ship had already sailed.

 

Despite that previous experience, I think we have to give Brock and crew the benefit of the doubt and hope that a majority of people here are willing to stick around through the changes. Obviously they are doing this for a reason, and making money is almost certainly part of it, but hopefully that can be done without sacrificing everything that currently exists.

I don't think the situations are analogous. We have no commodity to sell other than comments about jorts, Simpson memes, and laments about how stupid we all were when we were younger.

Perhaps mining years of our miscellaneous post data is all part of a larger plan to create the ultimate AI chatbot?

That would be awesome. It would be the dumbest chatbot around. Hell, Mephistoalies and DaBum's posts alone would render the chatbot so offensive as to make it only useful for people who wanted to be entertained by weird non-sequiturs.

[Irrelevant Dude]

Perhaps mining years of our miscellaneous post data is all part of a larger plan to create the ultimate AI chatbot?

I've read enough of this community's posts to know for certain I don't want to spawn that particular chatbot.

That is exactly what you would say. :D

[Sammy Sofa]

Personally, I'm not knocking any of this for any of the changes are inevitably coming; it's just how it is. Tim's not at fault for selling the place, and the buyers aren't at fault for wanting to try and turn their purchase into something along the lines of what has already worked for them.

 

I just think the identity/environment of this place has been defined, for years now, by a bunch of weirdos spending way too much time on an almost forgotten message board, which doesn't exactly jive with any kind of business plan or whatever to make this an actually successful business venture. That's just how it is, and pretty much anytime I've seen something similar goes down it results in much of the original posters slowly posting less and less and then going away. If that's what happens, eh, that's life.

[David]

hccf alone was like a chatbot that ran on a TI-83

[CubinNY]

Personally, I'm not knocking any of this for any of the changes are inevitably coming; it's just how it is. Tim's not at fault for selling the place, and the buyers aren't at fault for wanting to try and turn their purchase into something along the lines of what has already worked for them.

 

I just think the identity/environment of this place has been defined, for years now, by a bunch of weirdos spending way too much time on an almost forgotten message board, which doesn't exactly jive with any kind of business plan or whatever to make this an actually successful business venture. That's just how it is, and pretty much anytime I've seen something similar goes down it results in much of the original posters slowly posting less and less and then going away. If that's what happens, eh, that's life.

TBH, my fear is the opposite. They make a go of it here for a year or so and when it doesn't develop they shut it down due to cost.