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Pros and Cons of This Fourm
Posted by By the Book on 12/17/07
11:46 pm
JHall posted
something that hit a nerve with me about what he termed "It's
interesting...". I agree with his sentiments 100%, so I'll start this
topic and see how others feel:
This forum, in its best moments, is a terrific community of people that
love the sport of wrestling and find communion in it.
This forum, in its low points, reveals some things that aren't so
wonderful about our society.
The things I like best about this forum:
1. The "kitchen table" is infinitely large. Lots of us sitting around a
table with no limit on the number of chairs leads to lots of interesting
things to talk about with each other. In this case, the focus is wrestling
and we love wrestling.
2. The "open mike" is there for everyone to express their views. And it
can be fascinating to hear what other folks are thinking about, what they
enjoy, what concerns them and ideas about improving the sport.
3. Lots of variety in the threads means something for everyone's tastes.
4. A chance to explore some topics in depth. As an official, I enjoy the
opportunities to share some information from the rules/interpretations and
insights from officiating in a way that I don't get to while I'm actually
working many events. More knowledge is a great thing in any sport and
hopefully helps people understand/enjoy the sport more.
Things I don't enjoy on the forum:
a. Folks forgetting that we are usually talking about high school kids or
younger. Some of the comments or expectations expressed are not
appropriate for that level of wrestler - in my opinion.
b. Lack of civility. I don't know, maybe I'm old fashioned. But, people
feel free to say things or take shots because they are anonymous and/or
distant from their target. I think it's a good standard to use to ask
yourself this question - if I was sitting in your living room, would I say
this to your face? Maybe people in today's society feel more liberated to
say all sorts of things because they've lost connection with the
possibility that the person you are offending/criticizing/making fun of
might just punch you in the face if they could.
c. The fantasy league mentality. Sometimes I read posts and think to
myself, "Does this person realize we are talking about human beings, not
robots or video game characters?" I think lots of folks in the past
generation grow up thinking every time at the plate can be a home run
because that's how it works in the video game. Or that we can just swap
folks around and they'll perform at their peak everytime (e.g., if we move
Mangrum up to 215 he'd pin person X from school Z). Sorry, real life
doesn't work like video games.
d. 24 hour sports network culture. Everyone is used to seeing round the
clock sports, so they now demand some thrilling highlight to be
entertained by it all. That means someone who isn't pinning everyone in 15
seconds or winning by tech fall isn't a stud, or something like that.
Sports, and wrestling is no exception, are a human drama composed of lots
of little things executed well. Sometimes that "boring" 3-2 match result
actually represents a terrific achievement.
Anyway, I keep coming back because the positives outweigh the negatives by
a long shot. But, I do worry about those negatives popping up with more
frequency.
And a big "Thank You" to Dave G. for establishing this forum. You do a
tremendous service to our sport sir.
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