Moderator Feedback to the Board

[AHF]

I've not been on the Squawk today but received multiple PMs about the thread discussing whether posters sharing 'inside source' information should be allowed on the site.  Mods have not discussed this issue and will be doing so before coming back to the board.  This is not the type of thing that the mods and admin will do on the site without prior discussion and consensus.  We owe all of you feedback after we have that discussion.

[AHF]

It has been almost a week since I posted the note above indicating that we would be discussing the issue of how posts that are made as passing along information from an inside source would be handled on the Squawk.  This has been discussed in the past in the context of whether to limit it to 'veteran' posters to avoid blowback on the posters themselves or due to the interest and at times unwelcome attention from fans of other teams.  (I say at times because we've had visitors who behaved themselves perfectly well in the majority of cases). 

The post last week came at this from a different angle as an appeal to @Sothron, @NBASupes and @thecampster to stop making these posts not because they weren't being honest but because mrh believed that their sources were unreliable and therefore that content was a a detriment to the board.  This is not the first time in the last month or so that we have had one or more posters weight in on this, however, so I'd like to take a broader approach in responding to this as a representative of the team of mods and admin.

How Moderators Will Deal with  Posters Who Claim to Have Inside Information - A post passing along 'inside information' tends to draw more attention than an average post on the Squawk and comes cloaked in a higher level of credibility due to the referenced source(s).  Some posters have been skeptical of the legitimacy of the posts and previously indicated they did not want to see them.  Others have showed strong interest in this content.  

As a moderator team, we do our best to assess whether these claims are being made in good faith or not.  If we conclude that there are reasons to doubt whether the poster is making them in good faith, we will generally pull those posts from the board as we do with other bad faith content.  Where the posts are being made in good faith, they will generally be permitted.  I think it is important to stress that we have evaluated this issue specific to Soth, Supes and campster in a couple of ways and our conclusion is that we will continue to permit these posters to share their 'inside information' on the board for these reasons. 

Character of the Posters - First, we looked at the posters themselves to see if there were indicia of bad faith.  I don't need to belabor this so I'll just be direct.  These are veteran posters on the Squawk who have shown themselves to be reasonable, ethical people in the past.  Like with other posters who have shown themselves to be honest men (or women) of character, this earns them a degree of trust from our team in the absence of some compelling reason to think that some ill will is in play.  We see none of that here.  We think that @Sothron, @thecampster and @NBASupes are not bull****ing the board for some capricious pleasure or out of some desire for attention and are passing along the information in good faith because they think it will be of interest to some posters.  In particular, I'd note that Sothron has been targeted by a really bad actor in the past who (IMO) criminally harassed him and his wife so he is a great example of someone who not only isn't out for attention but has compelling reasons not to share other than doing what he thinks is good for other people here.  So from the standpoint of bad motives which might be a reason to moderate that content (trolling, using the board to make money, whatever, etc.), we don't see any indication of that and believe in the good faith of all three of these people.  If we had a reason to think any future posts are not made in good faith, we would certainly treat that very differently from where we have some confidence about the good faith of the posters.  Notably, mrh specifically stated in his original post that he was not questioning the integrity or good faith of soth, camp, and supes.

Reliability of the Content -  Second, we took a look at the accuracy of the content that has been shared under the insider label and view the accuracy of that coming to pass as mixed.  This is likely to be expected if real since nobody is getting their leaks from TS (meaning there is a bit of the phone game in terms of degrees of separation from the ultimate  decision maker to the post coming onto the board) and if we use media members who share inside info that is not in the vein of Wojo (i.e., things that are done and happening and just leaked moments before they become verified anyway) this is consistent with their 'accuracy'.  We have no intent of banning media content of this variety so don't see that as being more problematic in terms of poster content.  To the contrary, all three of these posters have been very explicit about the limitations and distance from actionability of their information so there is a degree of caveat emptor for people reading this content.  The posters providing this make no bones about the fact that most of what they share will never result in something tangible because by its nature most trade talk and similar discussions between teams that might be shared by an inside source amounts to nothing and sometimes the inside source is simply wrong.  In sum, there was not a concern about reliability here that rose to a level where we felt moderation was required.

Disinterest / Negative Reaction from Some Posters - Third, we considered that there are some posters who don't want to see this content or simply think it is all garbage that the Squawk would be better off without.  That is fair but I think it isn't that different from posters who are uninterested in other discussion like Diesel's trade threads or arm-chair psychologist speculation on a player's state of mind, off-season work, etc.  That is part and parcel of a board like this.  The approach from the moderators that we will continue going forward is to try to keep most of this content in discrete threads so that it doesn't shut down other content that may be of interest to these posters.  Think of this as being somewhat like the tanking discussions from a few years ago where moderators did affirmatively step in to remove that content from threads.  In those cases, when the OP's subject for discussion was lost due to the thread getting derailed with tank talk we culled the tanking content out of those threads.  Please reach out to a moderator if you see this becoming an issue on the board and we will be happy to help out.  The intent is that this be a topic of discussion and not to overwhelm other topics.  I'm confident we can strike that balance.

Net Positive to the Board -  Fourth, even in the absence of a violation of the rules we considered whether the board would be better off without this content on the main board and concluded that just wasn't the case.  There are a lot of posters who are very interested in and enjoy discussion of these posts.  For those who don't, they can simply skip the "ask Supes" type of threads that are focused on this content and they will be spared most of it.  Removing this content or gating it in a more limited way we think would not do a lot for the board and would be seen as a real negative for the significant number of posters who are interested in this content.  In short, we think the discussion is overall a good thing for the Squawk and our members.

 

HOW TO DEAL WITH POSTERS OF 'INSIDE INFORMATION' - A natural corollary to the conclusion that we will permit these posts from these posters (absent some significant change in circumstances) is that we aren't going to have a debate on the board about whether they are lying or full of it, etc.  The mantra all of you are probably sick of hearing from me is "address the post, not the poster."  If you believe a poster is acting in bad faith PM a mod.  If you think that discussion is encroaching on other topics, PM a mod.  You are 100% entitled not to believe a word of these posts in which case it might be recommended to skip the thread entirely.  However, we are not going to move into a referendum on the posters and their good faith on the board. 

Report it if you think there is some compelling reason that there is a problem.  But do not insult the posters, attack their integrity, etc. on the board.  Feel 100% free, to the contrary, to give every reason under the sun you think that the inside information doesn't make sense.  Hopefully he doesn't mind, but I'll use bleach as a good example of how to do this.  There were 'inside information' posts concerning potential Ben Simmons trades that were made.   He did not attack the posters but very vocally stated why he thought that a trade along those lines didn't make sense and would therefore never happen.  That is totally fair discussion.  It is basketball discussion about the content of the post rather than the poster themselves.  That is how to engage on this if you don't think the 'inside info' is credible rather than to challenge the poster.  (Recap:  Engage on a basketball discussion or reach out to a moderator).

 

Conclusion

We appreciate your patience and you giving us the chance to have some discussion among the mods/admin in order to give everyone on that team a chance to voice their opinions more fully before we came back with something more official.  

The Squawk is a great site where all of us are united in our love of the Hawks.  We share the frustrations and celebrations along the way together so let's keep that spirit as we move forward.  Thanks.

 

[Sothron]

I can only speak for myself but thank you mods and staff for being fair about this. 

[AHF]

On the discussion of Cam:

1. We are not going to ban discussion of Cam or limit it to only a single thread but it is always fair to contact a mod to help out if the OP's original topic is derailed because another subject took it over.  We have pruned a lot of threads in the past to remove that off-topic conversation.
2. I do expect there will be continued discussion around Cam's time in Atlanta for several reasons:  (a) his departure is not clear and people can take very different interpretations of how dedicated he was; (b) the team's improvement coming after his departure also came after TS delivered a clear, public message to the team and came with the return of OO, Hunter, Bogi and Cap which means you have lots of different factors all in play and people will interpret what is causal and what is mere correlation differently; (c.) Cam's potential vs production was always a topic of debate and different opinions; and (d) the media coverage immediately following his departure threw some new negative information into the water and how seriously that kind of negative coverage is taken is a matter of personal interpretation.  But for fans and critics of Cam alike, the idea of "where would the Hawks be if he was still on the roster" is an interesting subject for a lot of posters due to the intrigue, potential and productivity that Cam has shown.
3. I am asking all posters to keep the discussion of posters out of this.  Don't want to hear about people being haters or fan boys.  Don't want to hear about posters getting what they deserve in light of their posts.  Etc.  You don't need to bring up posters when discussing a player.  Just discuss the player and keep the commentary on other posters off the board.  PM a mod if you think someone has crossed a line.