Rules of the Schoolboy forum

[Scarfman]

Welcome to the Green and Gold Rugby forum.

Your moderators are Scarfman, Gagger, Moses, Noddy and barbarian.

Here are the rules:

1. Don't use an anonymous / masking proxy. If you have to use one for work, get permission from admins first.

2. Everyone with 50 posts needs an avatar, or a terribly amusing one will be supplied by the moderators.

3. If you get banned from another forum, feel free to whinge about it ONCE. This is your right of reply that has been denied by virtue of not being able to post any more. But don't go on about it. All forums have good and bad points. Except the Colosseum.

4. Some non-English is permitted here, in moderation. We Australians are a tolerant, open-mided people who would like to learn more about the backward cultures of the world.

5. Don't overuse the quote function. Usually it is quite clear what you are responding to. If you do use the quote function, edit out irrelevant text, leaving just the bit you are responding to. This helps make the forum tidier and the pages load more quickly.

6. Play the ball not the man. Personal comments will be deleted. If you notice that your posts or sections of posts are getting deleted, please take the message. Only a complete knob jockey resorts to personal insults anyway.

7. No selling stuff without a moderator's approval. If you are regular poster, this will be no problem.

8. Don't start a new thread when you could logically add to an existing thread. Starting a new thread on a special or hot topic is fine, but not every thought you have needs its own thread. Just think twice about it, OK?

9. If another poster does not understand or agree with your point after 3 or 4 attempts, LET IT GO, WALK AWAY. It is very boring for other posters when the thread gets hijacked by two people having an argument. Let this be your guide:

Note this are the cases for banning:

• Off topic posts (Warn, 0 pts)
• Lift your game (0 Points)
• Off topic posts (Warn, 1 point)
• Racially Offensive Post (Warn)
• Play the ball, not the man - towards public figure (Warn)
• Schoolboy: Talking up your mates (Warn)
• Play the ball, not the man - towards fellow forum member (Warn)
• Schoolboy: Speak respectfully about Schoolboy rugby players (Warn)
• Schoolboy: Discussing off field behaviour in schoolboy threads (Warn)
• Schoolboy: Discussing imports/NTS/Politics/Pappa in wrong thread (Warn)
• Being an annoying troll (Ban)
• Lacking the maturity required to add value to G&GR community (Ban)
• Racially Offensive Post (Ban)
• Oxygen Thief (Permanent Ban)

 

[Scarfman]

G'day all,

Schools rugby certainly brings out the passion in people, doesn't it? I guess a lot of people here are not just posting as observers, but as participants in some sense - selectors, parents, officials, and so on. That makes it difficult to keep your comments fair and square. A little bit of bias is inevitable, and I think we should acknowledge that as a fact of life and move on. If you think the NSW kid is better than the QLD kid, don't be surprised if other posters think the exact opposite. No amount of arguing will change their mind.

In general, this schoolboy rugby forum has been going really well. Certainly a LOT better than some other school rugby forums. However, there are a lot of new posters on here and I want to ask everyone to check out our forum rules, and to take a bit of heat out of their posts. If you can't do that, you'll be out - and that applies to everyone equally.

Also - given that some of the players and parents will inevitably have a look at this forum, it's best if we keep comments as positive as possible. Criticism is appropriate, but don't forget that we're talking about kids playing sport. What you yell out at the All Blacks isn't the same as you'd yell at your kid's opposition on the weekend.

If you are not happy with someone's post - don't start a flame war, use the Report to Moderator button instead.

Cheers
Scarf

 

[catchpole]

Scarfman,

Your posting is intelligent and timely.

Back in the day schoolboy players who had a poor or indifferent game suffered the criticism of their coach, team mates and pehaps some chiding by their parents, once or twice. Ultimately they may have been dropped. Players of today are subject to intense scrutiny by the entire community for eternity.

You can certainly appreciate why some young players constantly overplay their hand in pressure games in an attempt to perform up to or exceed expectations. Our analysis and discussion adds to that pressure.

Your comments give an insight into how cyber bullying starts and flourishes amongst teenagers.

 

[RedsHappy]

Scarfman,

Your posting is intelligent and timely.

Back in the day schoolboy players who had a poor or indifferent game suffered the criticism of their coach, team mates and pehaps some chiding by their parents, once or twice. Ultimately they may have been dropped. Players of today are subject to intense scrutiny by the entire community for eternity.

You can certainly appreciate why some young players constantly overplay their hand in pressure games in an attempt to perform up to or exceed expectations. Our analysis and discussion adds to that pressure.

Your comments give an insight into how cyber bullying starts and flourishes amongst teenagers.

Scarfman, and Catchpole: both excellent posts that lead the way in making public sports e-fora positive and code-aiding places to be....and I speak as the father of a young rugby-playing son.

(Btw, Scarfman, IMO some of your 'guidance' could well be applied to the 'non-schoolboy' fora as well...but I expect I am in the minority in saying that).

'Negative motivation' for kids - or anybody - is a grossly overrated route to anybody achieving anything very much. Positive analysis and constructively critical input from coaches and parents generally gets a young team so much further.

 

[Scarfman]

I'm reading the Grassroots forum every day now. I reckon a few people aren't getting it. Let me make it clear.

1. Speak respectfully to each other

Change: "What planet are you on? Player X was shithouse ... "
To: "I didn't see it that way, I thought ...

2. Speak respectfully about the players

Change: "Lazy fat bugger with no rugby brains"
To: "Needs to come off his wing and get more involved"

Not only are these statement more respectful, they are more accurate. "Lazy bugger" doesn't mean anything specific.

There will be no more warnings. The standard first offence ban around here is 14 days. Expect to see a few shortly.

 

[Gagger]

Well put Scarfie.

I now well and truly understand why Sportal said fuck it

I love what we've got here; schoolboy rugby is the lifeblood of the sport.

But we can't let the bullshit shenanigans that's coming with it drag the site down.

If sanctions seem inconsistent and disproportionate vs what's allowed in other parts of the site, we make no apologies.

 

[Scarfman]

OK guys, from tomorrow I won't be moderating this forum. I'm going to leave it in the hands of Lee Grant and barbarian.

I'm generally really impressed with how far this forum has come in 3 months (June to August 2010). The debate is now much more reasonable and respectful. However, all the admins of this forum agree to a zero tolerance policy on this forum. We really don't have time to continually teach you how to speak to others. If you don't get it quickly, you'll be banned. As a further consequence, IP addresses will be banned, meaning that if you share a computer or a site (e.g., a school computer) you could effectively be banning your classmates, too.

So guys, keep posting in the best spirit, and we can keep this forum going to share info on grassroots rugby in Australia.

Cheers
Scarf

 

[Lee Grant]

Any schools thread should not refer to scholarships. We started a separate thread for discussion on scholarships for the 2010 season because whatever rules you have people are often compelled to mention the subject; they can't help themselves. They often mention things obliquely as part of a general post. I've done it myself, not thinking of the consequences of ruining a thread.

When using the scholarships thread please obey the protocols in Scarfman's 2 stickies about Schoolboy rugby etiquette and Rules of the forum. Also please refrain from mixing discussion on scholarships with general matters in the same post.

This should isolate the scholarship virus to a single ward. The only other ways to stop the virus are to zap every single post that has whinges about scholarships in it, and rebuttals to such whinges - or to edit them, which steals our time.

Thank you.

 

[Moses]

In addition to our forum rules, the following additional rules apply specifically to our schoolboy forums. They are simple to follow and we've found them to provide a good balance between allowing discussion of schoolboy rugby in a dignified manner, and our receiving legal threats from parents and schools.

For reference, the rules are:

Schoolboy rugby is the lifeblood of the sport. But we can't let the shenanigans that's coming with it drag the site down.
If sanctions seem inconsistent and disproportionate vs what's allowed in other parts of the site, we make no apologies.

If you wish to post in our schoolboy rugby boards, you must agree to our terms listed below:

1. Use the 'Report Post' button
If you report a post that breaks the rules, we'll warn / ban the poster.
If you start a flame war, we'll warn / ban you.
This is the report post button:

.

2. Speak respectfully to each other
Change: "What planet are you on? Player X was shithouse ... "
To: "I didn't see it that way, I thought ...

3. Speak respectfully about the players
Change: "Lazy fat bugger with no rugby brains"
To: "Needs to come off his wing and get more involved"

4. Discussion of off-field behaviour is forbidden
If something happens off the rugby field, there is no place for it in our schoolboys forums.

5. These topics are banned outside of their dedicated threads:
i. Scholarships
ii. NTS
iii. Pappa (details)

Guiding Principal: All posts should be considered, mature, and add value to the G&GR community.

 

[northman91]

By all means start a new thread such as: "Why Pappa shouldn't be ... " or some such.

What bothers moderators is that some subjects like:

Scholarships
NTS
Pappa

.... can poison other threads.

Sorry to be rude but what is "Pappa"?

 

[Lee Grant]

Rather who is he? John Papahatzis is one of the icons of NSW Schools rugby and was the controversial selector/coach of the NSW Ones last year, and is a selector this year also. He is only one of the selection panel but has an important say in matters.

He put several St Augustines and other other ISA lads in the Ones last year which raised the ire of several forum members who were more familiar with the merits of players from other school rugby groups who ended up in the Twos, or got overlooked.

The NSW Is didn't make the final last year and the IIs did, which had these forum members say "I told you so" though it's happened before. All of this clogged more than one thread when folks were agreeing with other, and vying to type out the most colourful adjectives; so we have outlawed the subject this year.

Any unfavourable posts on Pappa this year should be made in the " ... politics and bias thread". I will bring it to the top come Friday as it will be needed and the usual suspects will be busy.

Personally I don't care a rats who makes which team. I don't really agonise over who wins the Oz Schools Championship either; so long as the best NSW lads get a run in either team, that's good enough for me.

But some good players missed out last year Lee. Yep - like every other year.

 

[Pfitzy]

My dream is that - one glorious day - there is only a single Sydney schoolboy competition thread here

 

[Dismal Pillock]

Rules of the Schoolboy forum

For some reason I expected the rules to be a bit..... kinkier.

Like, "who's been a naughty schoolboy then?"

It is entirely possible I have completely misread the purpose of this section of the forii I suppose.

 

[Joker]

Thanks for these.