Why can't we open a thread that discusses everything to do with the GPS, scholarships, controversy, and all without being censored by moderators?
Because such things cause discussion of the rugby to be subordinated to round-robin conversations about the other stuff.
Moreover, the more other stuff gets mentioned the more acrimony is generated with people questioning the content of other posters on the matter and suddenly the GPS thread turns into bouts of slanging matches. When that happens schoolboys get involved and escalate the process.
That's what happened in the NSW GPS thread a couple of years ago and in most schoolboy rugby threads in Sportal around the same time. The last I looked, all schools threads in the Sportal rugby forum had been closed because of it, though that could have changed by now.
The G&G moderators had to get involved almost on an hour to hour basis in the NSW GPS thread and since we are all volunteers, it stole our time.
Then I had my best idea since I joined the forum. I postulated that we should start a separate thread for scholarships etc (and another one for discussion of selection bias, which also led to flame-outs). We would discourage discussion of those matters in the GPS threads even if they were just part of a post because responders would pick out the controversial part to attack.
When we made the change we got many complaints like yours, though not always so articulate nor reasonable, but the complaints got fewer as time went by.
The scholarship virus got contained in one ward and a funny thing happened: when people discussed the scholarship matters in the new scholarship thread, the posts got more reasonable and less inflammatory than they were in the GPS thread. It seemed like the stirrers had lost interest.
I started to see the beginnings of too many discussions on scholarships etc and the start of a bit of slanging off and taunting after last weekend in the Qld GPS thread, so I took the gloves off.
The isolation of scholarship discussion will stand because it works. I don't think I even have to ask the other moderators about that after what we went through two years ago.
As to whether there should be a separate one for the Queensland GPS, or not, is another matter.
I have argued in the last few days when people have raised the point that the scholarship thread is Sydney-centric, that it is so because Queenslanders don't use it.
If I take this to the other mods they will probably say to give the existing one a go and see what happens.
So let's see if using it can work for Queenslanders too. The issues are the same for each state - only the names of the schools differ.
I think you will find that NSW writers on the matter, such as "Hugh Jarse" will have a big interest in the Qld situation and write some interesting stuff - and so will others - but they may not visit a Qld GPS scholarship thread to give their input.
Nor might other Qlders wanting to complain about losing players to Qld GPS schools be attracted to using a thread with GPS in the title.
Let's give it a go for a while and if the argument is that the season is not very long, then the rebuttal is that the matter is not altogether about this year, but future years also, when different parents etc will be writing on the matter.
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