We've already got several threads taking up top room in this folder so I'll leave it unpinned.
I promise.
I told some folks that this week would be a turning point for the site and so far it's definitely looked that way. But it seems that there are some misconceptions and rumors going around (Coey threads in HD) that I'll try to clear up here.
This will be long as I am going to do my best to make everything in here *crystal* clear and undo any confusion:
1. Adding new mods - this was discussed months ago but at the time it was felt we didn't need to add anyone else to the staff. But the day after we re-opened board registrations, Tom and I discussed whether or not we needed some new mods to help out with the board to handle the influx of new posters on the board. This wasn't something we had planned for a while and after we saw the number of new posters sign-up to the board, we simply decided it was time we go ahead and "reshuffle" the staff. Teke, AoO and Treble were added onto the staff as Global mods while Tony was de-modded as a Global mod. This came about due to him not being very accessible and in the event that there was a board emergency going on and we needed to get in touch with him then that would be hard (he still retains his powers in the OAOAST though so nothing really changes in that respect). Tony was one of the first mods on the board the site had and I personally wish him the best with the OAOAST.
Good luck Tony.
2. The main site's writers - let's face it; these guys don't get much love. They barely get any feedback, SKeith's work gets mentioned more than their articles combined in a given week and they also had a board staff that forgot they existed.
Until last week.
It came to my attention late last week that many of the site's regular writers were feeling burned out, underappreciated and just fed up with the lack of acknowledgement they got from the staff. They were the bastard red-headed step-children of the board and I wanted to change that. I spoke to a number of them and the main thing they wanted was to be shown something for the amount of work they've put up over the years. They wanted to be included in the board activities as well so I went ahead and made the call to give them mod spots. Modding several or so of them as Global mods would have been too many so I gave them the next step below a Global mod spot and asked them if they wanted to be folder mods. They were all unanimous in their approval and I went ahead and modded them. Nik Johns was added as one of the WWE folder mods after contributing to the main site for a long time and is one Hell of a writer as well as (an accolade I don't toss around often). Our one-two punch of RAW recapper JHawk and new SD! recapper KingPk were made the Old School folder and Sports folder mods respectively. Jay Doring, one of the Indy wrestling guru writer's of this site and a guy who knows the Independent scene very well was made the Indy folder mod and has settled in nicely there (fit like a glove).
The writers got first crack at any possible mod spots and Teke was the guy who got to replace Tony for his G-mod spot which I felt he deserved after contributing so long to the front site with his Shoot tape reviews (you deserve it Teke).
This brings me to Will, GoodHelmet
I've been talking to him this past week and he will (hopefully) be coming in to help out with the front site again. This is why you all might have seen him pop up more here posting in the past week or so. Based on everyone I've spoken to about Will, he was the glue who held a lot of things together in the beginning of the Dames TSM era but since he was more a behind-the-scenes type guy when it came to helping Dames and the writers out, a lot of people weren't aware of his contributions (don't worry, I wasn't really sure either).
Tom's been the go-to guy for the front site but with Will on board we'll have a guy who can look at send-in articles more closely in case anyone wants to write for the site (we're always taking applications, sorry if this wasn't clear) as well as act as a middle man between the staff and the writers so we don't see a breakdown in communication again like we had before Will came to me and set things up for the front site in the last week or so.
3. Chris Coey - I asked him if he would be willing to write for the site back in early February. He agreed to write for the site if we could meet his tech requests (the font he's currently using, being able to work with the writing tools, etc.). This came about after Dames had left town though so I wanted to get in touch with him before I went ahead and put up the first CRUN-CH. Luckily, Dames came on AIM one night for a short time and he agreed to let Chris write for the site. We ran into some problems with the main site that I didn't not know about when I asked Chris to write and that's why it took so long to get his work up on the site.
I kept this close to the vest with only a few folks knowing about this since I wasn't sure if he'd even be writing for the site after I found out about the tech problems on the main site. Chris was growing increasingly peeved at being unable to post the CRUN-CH (which I couldn't blame him for) the way he wanted it as the tech problems stopped us from meeting his requests for posting the CRUN-CH on the front site. This is why many folks were kept in the dark because I didn't want people to go crazy over something that might not have even taken place (it was looking pretty dim that we'd get Chris up and going without Dames coming back and helping us out with the main site). Luckily, Mike (the admin) got in touch with myself and Will and we set Chris up with his writing account and I thank Mike and Will for helping me out with getting Chris situated.
I apologize to anyone who felt "snubbed" in not knowing about Chris coming on board to write for the site but I didn't want any rumors to fly around in the event that the deal with Chris fell apart.
I'll re-iterate these few points though:
* He is still banned from the board. Chris told me one of the things he didn't want was to be able to interact with the folks on the board who he knew would flame him just for his mere presence being associated with the site and so both sides agreed on that.
* He is *not* Tom Collins and nor is he Ricky Choshu. Tom is a poster on Chris's board (PM him for the identity if you wish) and Ricky...well Ricky's always been one of Chris' staunchest defenders so nothing has changed there.
* His Q&A was him trying to drum up interest in the CRUN-CH folks. This goes back to the "bad publicity is better than no publicity" and I'd say it worked after the threads in HD that were started about him. Chris played off the hate and disdain many of you do/might have for him and it worked. You worked yourselves up into frenzy over comments that were made as obvious smack talking for the sake of helping his articles on the site gain more interest.
Hence why he dropped the line about paying the person who can guess what the CRUN-CH stands for $500 (which he is serious about).
NONE of the writers here have anything to worry about.
I'm not sure if anyone has noticed this but the only folks Chris has criticized by name were SKeith and his Puro clone Justin Baisden. Those are the two guys he does not like but they write for 411. Chris does not care about the writers on this site since he isn't here to make friends and feels it would be a "disservice" to his reviews if he were to launch into personal tirades on the writers who write for TSM.
SKeith managed to influence an entire generation of online fans with his reviews at Wrestle line and the rest is history after that. I wanted Chris to get more exposure for his CRUN-CH reviews and that is why I asked him to write them for TSM. He is one of the *best* at what he does online that I've ever seen. I've been online for nearly 10 years and he truly is a great writer in his own right and I wanted him to be a part of TSM. Unlike SKeith, Chris will explain why a match is worth your time or why you shouldn't give it the time of day. That makes a big difference in determing whether or not a match is great or not instead of just throwing snow flakes around and saying "great match" and leaving it at that.
With Chris on board, I feel we have one of *the* best regular wrestling writing line-ups on this site (or anywhere else) with Chris, Teke, Nik, JHawk, Peter, Laz, Doring, and Loss (who is coming back to write for the site with a bang when he makes his re-debut).
That's a hell of a line-up.
Do yourselves all this favor if you have a beef with Chris:
Let it go.
Chris is one of those guys who won't stop until he knocks you down (whether he is antagonized or antagonizes). You aren't going to win with him unless he stops replying to the argument or else gets banned. He is like a Doberman in that he will rip you to shreds if you cross him and the best way of dealing with him is to roll with the punches he throws and not take him seriously or else just totally ignore him.
If you know you're the better person than him then let him tire out and talk his head off until he turns blue by not replying in a serious flaming tone. Flaming Chris back is *not* the way to handle folks like him because you will never win with them. Ever. Call this the Anglesault Law of Posting since arguing with him is sometimes like arguing with a brick wall.
Chris is an abrasive guy, borderline prick, but there are a number of posters here at TSM who could fit this mold (or have in the past) and everyone here weathered the storm with them (unless we banned them). Chris has one thing refreshing about him: he will admit to being a cranky asshole. He knows this so he plays off it whenever he can and if folks haven't learned how to let him spew his bile in silence then he's already won the debate.
I'm speaking from experience here.
When Chris goes on a bender and reams you out, ignore it. He won't stop. He feeds off the negativity he gets from folks who don't know any better who also ignore the small nuggets of help and truth he'll toss out to them during a flame war. He has got the skills to back-up what he is saying and I look at Chris as TSM's version of Muhammad Ali which is one of the better analogies I can come up with (remember, there were a lot of folks who hated Ali's guts for talking so much smack when he was in his prime as boxer but now it's looked back upon favorably and revered in some circles because of the achievements he earned when he boxed and how damn good he was when he didn't shake like a mad man like he does now).
His work is what's been brought to TSM, not another message board posting account.
3. Rumors, rumors, rumors - I will re-iterate myself here: There have been a number of changes made to the site in the past couple of months but Tom nor anyone else on the staff is going to buy the board from Dames (or owns it as I type this response).
Dames still owns this place, it's his baby and he's not going to ditch it. He's in this for the long haul and explained why he hasn't been able to go online much since he left so we're cool on that front.
But here's the problem:
Dames left Tom in charge while he was gone. But you would have hardly known this had you not caught the mention in passing he made in his farewell post.
Simply put, Dames gave Tom carte blanche. Dames knew he wouldn't be around online much so getting in touch with him and trying to gets things approved (like bannings and such) would have been damn near impossible. We couldn't stand by and wait for Dames to come online and approve things when we might not know when he'd be online the next time.
So far, all the changes we have made have been modest in approval without anyone worrying or questioning whether or not Dames would like it. The one change that everyone was concerned about was whether Chris Coey could write for the site after the comments he made about 9/11 which Dames took personally. Luckily Dames came online and saw that Chris would be an asset for the main site and agreed upon letting him write for the site. Unfortunately I haven't been able to talk to Dames online since the night he came online and gave me approval to let Chris write so things have been rough when trying to get in touch with him (which he managed to clear up with the public).
Zack has been a trooper through all this though since I've become a PM whore over the past couple of months by bugging him over and over about Dames along with handling all of the OAOAST drama from a couple of months ago (which I commend you on patching up).
Whenever he could get in touch with Dames he always came to me and the staff and would let us know what was up with Dames since he didn't have much net access after making his move from the Bronx.
Thank you Zack, you've been a great asset to the staff as well a wonderful friend through all of this.
I'd also like to thank all of the posters who have come to the staff members with their concerns or problems.
Thanks.
4. Tom's not going to lay down - this has been said many, many, many times but Tom is going to respond with flaming or abrasive posts if he is called to the floor with an abrasive or flaming like post. He's not going to back down and "dumb it down" or play "nice" with anyone who gets in his grill about something. He is willing to sort things out if someone has an issue with him as was the case when Ghettoman from a couple months back (who just didn't know when to stop flaming him).
Tom is *not* the owner nor is he the long-term board leader (ditto for me). Dames is the owner and while he’s away Tom is the interim board leader. There was/is no one else who could fill-in Dames' shoes except Tom.
The thing I've found funny about all the Tom bashing is this:
You can never please everyone.
If there is one thing I have learned from being online for so many years and being associated with a number of site's it's that someone is always going to be unhappy with the choices the staff makes no matter what the outcome(s) might be.
People would probably argue with Tom *more* if he was on the fence all the time on issues or flip flopped constantly on items in order to appease everyone. People wanted the registrations re-opened and Tom accommodated that. But just as quickly, people were calling for the registrations to be closed again because of the lack of "quality" posters coming in.
It's a trial and error process which comes with the job of being a mod and making decisions that affect the board members.
Re-opening registrations was something neither Tom nor I were crazy about but we both agreed that having some new blood on the board might freshen things up (as posters brought up as well) so we re-opened the registrations. We're not going to close them though because there's always the chance that a couple of "quality" posters will show up and that's always good for a message board.
5. Dames is coming back - I just felt this was worth repeating.
If *anyone* here has anything they'd like to get off their chest, voice it in here or else hit me up in PM or IM. I'm always willing to answer any questions you all might have about anything that concerns the site since that can stop any nasty rumors from being spread that in turn can lead to poster discourse.
Folks, I appreciate you all reading this (if you managed to make it all the way down here, you're awesome) and I hope this has cleared up any lingering questions that Tom or Dames' posts might have left you all with.
Feedback about this post is welcomed if you have any.
