Why is the board so testy & toxic lately?

Ain't no lately about it son.  

Seriously though, this board can be mad prickly but for the most part I think it does well.  There is the odd thread that turns into a dick measuring contest about who can be the snarkiest but that's the cost of doing business for an onine forum.  

What does make me cringe is when new users post an intersting topic but feel they have to spend a paragraph apologizing in advance for posting and asking users to be nice.  Not a good look for the board when folks feel they have to apologize in advance for contriubting.  

The tone of the board has become significantly more sour in the past three months.  Thought it would improve with better on the field results, but it hasn't.

Jumping on people for starting threads or poor titling of threads is unnecessary.  It will not change behavior. 

If I don't like a thread, I don't read it.  I am not harmed or out anything other than the five seconds it took to realize the thread was mislabled or stupid.  I find that it takes far longer to wade through the vitriol of negative posts to find anything substantive to judge worthwhile or not. 

We all have Michigan in common, so send the hate to State (either one or both)

The Mean Girls-esque, high school personal shots are a never-ending and year-long thing for some people on here.

Because of you.

for a glass of shut the hell up?

Fucking curb stomped us. OSU took our mothers out to dinner, banged her and never called her back. OSU beat us like a red headed step child, etc.

What is...

Oh,
The taste of your lips
I'm on a ride
You're toxic I'm slippin' under
With a taste of a poison paradise

why?

because msu has legit shot to win the national title, and their hoops team is far and away better than ours.

Because we realized that as great of a coach as Harbaugh is, bad things can still happen. 

Oh, Toxic, you say?

Terrorist attacks last week, shootings this week (and almost every week), people are testy everywhere. Lashing out in anyway they can. Take a look at your Facebook timeline.

Because you guys aren't getting laid enough.

Did you watch the 2nd half of the OSU game?

To be fair about the reposts, once something falls off the first page of the sidebar it's pretty difficult to find and the site's search functionality has let me down before.

And:

• We got curb stomped by OSU
• MSU is likely in the CFP
• MSU's bball team is lightyears ahead of ours as it stands
• Our DC left and tried to poach some of our staff and who knows what negative impacts his departure will have on recruiting

In short, it's a fairly negative time.

A bowl win to end the season 10-3 would do wonders.

Also realized just how large the talent gap is between us and them.  It was just a kick in the balls that I haven't recovered from yet.

Furthermore realizing that our recruiting classes the last 4 years have just been fool's gold has been depressing.

I admit that I'm also unfairly bitter towards Durkin right now, I just can't help it.

I think one problem is the twitter culture. It thrives on witty, but often sarcastic, one liners. People post just to get points and tweak others. I mostly don't care, but it is what it is. I will say that I originally came here years ago from another site which was much more unwieldy, juvenile, etc.

Yeah, the OSU loss stung. But I think a lot of people had unrealistic expectations. I've noticed that some people get too excited (we're going to win the Natty!!!) and some people get too depressed (the coaches suck, the players suck, we're never going to beat OSU).

The anonymity of the Internet lends to people saying stuff they shouldn't. I'm reminded of the so called "death threats" afteer the MSU game, mostly coming from 13 - 15 year old snot nosed kids.

I really don't care what words others use . . . but it does seem that lanuage has gotten a lot coarser here. Some of the attacks have become more personal.

Another problem, as I've noted in other threads, and is noted here, is the unwieldiness of the site. Threads disappear in a matter of hours now. And this is affected by the search function and the broken page down feature, and newbies who don't read the site compulsively.

Hopefully, Brian and Drupal 8 and a coder/developer will solve these problems in the next 8 mo.

Here are what I would suggest as solutions.

1. Be civil. If you wouldn't say something to your mom or grandmom, don't say it here. At least in general. Brian uses the f bomb. But he is pretty judicious, and doesn't use it often. Be a grownup about this.
2. Don't take things too personally. Usually, it isn't about you.
3. Be patient with Brian and the mods. They know the site is broken. And are working on it.
4. Be patient with newbies, and help them learn. Be happy that they're excited and want to share. Even if it is an articles from the News that was published this morning or worse, yesterday.
5. Try to ratchet back the snark and sarcasm. I get it. I get the cynicism. But for crying out loud, I roll my eyes at the sarcasm and mean spiritedness of some of the posts.
6. Try to limit your own posting. Is it unique? Is it newsworthy? Have you searched for it already? Could it be included in a snowflake thread? I used to post too many threads, and have really worked on cutting back.