Meta: Changes with mgoblog as we head into season?

Submitted by StephenRKass on

At first, I was going to put this in the OT thread, but my interest is meta, not ot. I have two questions:

  1. What changes are coming to the board with the beginning of the season?
  2. What changes would you like to see come to the board going forward?

I'm wondering if there will be any server tweaks to accomodate increased traffic. Is there any redesign of the banner and the board layout planned? Will speed increase? Will the feature to page down the mgoboard finally come back? (I know there are ways around this, but it still doesn't work right.) What should we expect from Brian, Seth, Ace, and others in terms of content? I like some of what Seth writes (about understanding formations, etc.), and would love to hear more from coaching types about what is going on (Magnus, Space Coyote, Steve Sharik come to mind. It is possible that Sten Carlson and Brown Bear might know something about football?)

Those questions have to do with what plans Brian et al are ready to put in place. Of less importance but still interesting would be to know how much traffic the board gets, how the business plan is working, etc.

Mgoblog continues to be my favorite blog, period. I don't post or comment as often as I used to, and am glad to see younger and newer members (I'm thinking of you, WD) post often.

As for changes going forward, well, I'm actually pretty happy. Adding in the ability to upvote and downvote was a plus, simply to allow the commentariat the ability to help in moderating posts that are out of line. I suppose I would like an Android App for my Samsung, but that's about it. It is hard work to maintain a website like this, and I think that Brian and crew are doing a great job with it.

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Voltron is Handsome

August 19th, 2014 at 11:31 AM ^

new banner?

 

EDIT: I think Jake Ryan and/or Devein Gardner deserve to be on the new banner (if there will be one).

Joined: 05/12/2014

MGoPoints: 3908

umhero

August 19th, 2014 at 12:16 PM ^

We should have a banner contest like we did a few years ago. I would vote for a Jake Ryan or Devin banner.

Maybe they could require the submissions use photos from the Mgoblog photo library?

Joined: 07/26/2009

MGoPoints: 2894

Magnus

August 19th, 2014 at 11:32 AM ^

I've been happier with the site since we got the ability to pos/neg back. As far as content goes, I didn't think Brandon Brown added a ton to the site that wasn't already available. I'm glad the site found a replacement for Heiko.

Overall, I would say the one thing I hope gets upgraded is server speed during the inevitable overload of users during the season.

Joined: 07/17/2008

MGoPoints: 165915

Gitback

August 19th, 2014 at 12:46 PM ^

Here's my "opinion, man."  Learn some decorum.  

I mean it's one thing to say "I didn't always find his posts insightful" and to just bust out with "he sucked!"  People, maybe even talented people, see stuff like this and say "why bother trying to contribute if I'm just going to get railed."  

Constructive criticism is fine, but just declaring that someone "sucked" is rude and unhelpful.  If you thought his contributions weren't particularly up to par, maybe tell us why, maybe give an example, perhaps suggest what you'd like to see instead.  But busting out with "he sucked" ...you're just making noise for the sake of making noise.

Joined: 04/12/2011

MGoPoints: 2126

TIMMMAAY

August 19th, 2014 at 1:29 PM ^

And nobody else had said it, when it has been pretty clear that a lot of people felt it. 

Edit: if you've paid any attention to most of my comments here over the years, I generally show lots of decorum on the forum. In this case I feel pretty strongly, and mayb went a half step too far. At least I'm honest about it though. 

Joined: 09/08/2008

MGoPoints: 56291

canzior

August 19th, 2014 at 1:41 PM ^

I didn't feel like he was contributing as much as his predecessors.  And speaking with some players he interviewed, he din't particularly leave a lasting impression.  I enjoy and appreciate the work that was done, but I think the people who previously held his position were a bit more dynamic, and he wasn't around long enough to meet the standard.   

Joined: 05/28/2010

MGoPoints: 9227

evenyoubrutus

August 19th, 2014 at 11:53 AM ^

I wish people didn't feel the need to be such a douche about things like that.  It is hard to put yourself out there publicly and provide a free service only to have people write shit like "you suck" on message boards.  Assuming TIMMMAAY is not your real name maybe you should put your own picture and real name on here if you're gonna say that kind of stuff.

Personally, yeah I tended to skip over anything he wrote because I didn't find it very interesting but what good does trashing him do?

Sounds to me like you're still bitter about the Da'shawn Hand thing.

Joined: 11/04/2008

MGoPoints: 178158

aiglick

August 19th, 2014 at 12:27 PM ^

I agree with you. Some people on message boards can't help it because as you pointed out you can use an anonymous identity. There was an article I read about how mods on many sites with comments get really depressed sometimes due to the stuff they see on the boards. I guess one solution is to remove commenting functionality entirely though that may be throwing the baby out with the bath water. It's fine to disagree but there's a way to do it with civility and decorum.

Joined: 11/27/2010

MGoPoints: 21418

JHendo

August 19th, 2014 at 12:47 PM ^

During basketball season, somehow in a thread (which may have been related to Aaron Craft), the conversion of assists to turnover ratio came up in order to compare the efficiency of players.  Other players (i.e. - Caris, that kid from Creighton, etc...) got wrapped up in this, and I said something to the effect of how non-sensical it was to use assists to TOs when comparing primary ballhandlers to secondary offensive role players as it is about as apples to oranges as you can get.  Brandon replied back with something mild but to the contrary that really made me question his analytical abilities.

Now, it wasn't anything real major or memorable, and while I don't doubt basketball may not be his best topic, I for whatever reason could no longer could find it in me to really trust him as a great pillar of knowledge like some of the other guys here, let alone that I didn't find his writing to terribly interesting.  I don't think he sucked by any means, but we have had and will continue to have others here (whether it be in a official capacity or not) who will be able to contribute a little better.

Joined: 10/25/2008

MGoPoints: 13993

xxxxNateDaGreat

August 19th, 2014 at 1:20 PM ^

Re: Brandon, it kind of seemed like he had a mix of bad luck and questionable decisions. He seemed like a nice enough guy for the most part, but he had some baggage coming in. Between the stuff with him and Steve Lorenz, some questions of twitter usage to contacting recruits (before MGoBlog), the recruiting article that set up The Purge 2013(tm), and just some articles of questionable relevance, I'm just kind of glad to start anew.

I feel bad saying that, especially now when he isn't here to defend himself, but it sounds like he's moving on up and we're starting fresh and it's probably for the best. Good luck to him.

Joined: 11/28/2011

MGoPoints: 2312

BiSB

August 19th, 2014 at 11:35 AM ^

We're all ears.

I'm bringing back Opponent Watch, starting next week with a preseason edition. But if the masses clamor for other stuff, we can make it happen.

Joined: 08/15/2009

MGoPoints: 46071

BiSB

August 19th, 2014 at 1:51 PM ^

I go back and forth on the TWIT stuff. Sometimes I think it was pretty funny, but sometimes I felt like I was contributing to the BuzzFeedification of the internet and the debasement of society in general. A focus on the lowest common denominator of internet life is entertaining as all balls sometimes, but I feel bad about some of the stuff I wrote.

That said, this "Titterverse" idea may have some potential. And would in NO way debase society.

Joined: 08/15/2009

MGoPoints: 46071

1464

August 19th, 2014 at 11:57 AM ^

We had one of these threads a while back.  My thoughts were:

Goodbye posts for exiting seniors during the offseason next year.  The scope would be who they were as a recruit, how they panned out as players, what positive or negative extra-curricular activities did they do (Mott's, chess club, good at playing school, DUIing) outside of football, what degree did they get, are they heading to the league?  Basically: what we expected, what we got, where they are heading, with color sprinkled in.  I'd love to have write ups that include Pahokee type stories.

I'd also like to see a user profile thing come back.  It's interesting to see "who" everyone is, and I think it kind of helps to deflate the stigma that we are all simply passing our time putting nice butt grooves in our computer chairs.

Also, a State of the Site address from Brian would be pretty cool.  I'd like him to do a "this is the site, here is my perspective, this is our path going forward" type thing.  I'd also be very interested in a write up on how this site was built, and how it gained popularity.

Joined: 06/21/2010

MGoPoints: 37173

StephenRKass

August 19th, 2014 at 1:05 PM ^

I really loved the Michigan Daily stories on Pahokee and Denard, and love when there are links to stories like those. If we were able to have some of those more regularly, that would be awesome. Looking at 85 players, and 4 - 5 years to cover them, that would mean you could have 2 - 3 player profiles a month from January through August and cover all the seniors. Great idea. (EDIT:  and I'd love to hear more about guys than just football.)

I wouldn't mind some of the six zero type user profiles too.

And yeah, to hear more from Brian (and some from Seth) on the State of the Site would be good, whether now or in January. All good ideas (I'm chiming in here especially for BISB.)

Joined: 07/15/2008

MGoPoints: 22989

JClay

August 19th, 2014 at 12:07 PM ^

A State of the Site address? Its not like Brian is particularly low-key with his perspective to begin with. If someone doesn't know what the guy feels on a given subject, they're probably not reading the frontpage with any regularity.

Joined: 09/14/2010

MGoPoints: 13753

justingoblue

August 19th, 2014 at 12:08 PM ^

Six Zero is wicked busy but felt comfortable giving M-Wolverine "license" to use his name and format and that got some new ones done last year. If someone with the right kind of posting history wants to volunteer to get involved we could always ask Six Zero what he thinks of the idea.

The only issue I see, again having helped getting these done before, is that the only one that feels right for this point in the calendar is Adam Schnepp and even that would probably need to be ready to post by Saturday; that's a pretty tall order.

Joined: 11/16/2010

MGoPoints: 29741

ST3

August 19th, 2014 at 3:06 PM ^

Did he come back with an alternate identity? I'm awful at figuring out those kind of things. I mean, Ghost of ____ I can get, but after that, I'm amazed when people can associate past and present MGoUsers.

Joined: 09/11/2010

MGoPoints: 52315