It is a mistaken notion to automatically presume that the judgment behind the decision is sound simply because the decision was made. It essentially implies that there are no miscalculated decisions, which is obviously far from the truth. The most likely explanation behind the shutdown is that it’s a cost-cutting measure that can now be written off under the guise of an expected natural progression of migrating conversations to the more current and popular social media platforms, i.e. Facebook and Twitter, an unspoken declaration of forums being an outdated means of discussions. If this is the expectation, then we have been woefully misread as a demographic. As a long-standing member on this forum, I can personally attest to the fact that I have zero interest in migrating my sports conversations to the wholly unmoderated platforms that are the physical manifestation of thousands of people standing in a single room and talking at the same time. I certainly can’t speak for everyone, but I would assume that this would be less than ideal for a sizable portion of other seasoned members.
I’m on multiple social media sites, have been and will be. From personal experience, I can tell you that the vast majority of the football discussions that occur in the comments are a barren wasteland of misinformation, uninformed opinions, and arguments which turn into poo-flinging contest and personal insults that immediately stream away from the main topics of discussion. This is mostly because a great deal of sports fans are relatively casual observers, thus the bar set for general insight is significantly lower. Couple that with the lack of repercussions for trolling or steering off-course, and in reality, the aforementioned result no longer comes as a surprise. And ironically enough, although we do debate on other platforms under our real names and profiles, the fact that we are unlikely to see the same faces in other discussions considering the infinitely-deeper pool of participants makes the ordeal less personal in comparison. The entire reason of most members joining forums is because they have a vested interest in the details of the sport that is generally greater than that of a casual observer. It has a sense of community where there are long-term residents, so you can choose whom you gravitate towards and whom you gravitate away from. And there are rules for everyone to abide by that ensure that the overall sense of integrity is protected, that this remains a place for intelligent discussions. That doesn’t mean that you won’t see head-scratching concepts or ill-informed ideas tossed around. But it’s still a far more ideal experience than that of the other platforms. These are the points being missed in the migration. Instead, it's treated that if we like X, we must like Y. What’s being lost on whomever is pulling the plug is that most members will either cease to hold their discussions on the internet, migrate to another forum, or go through a progression from the first to the second. It is of no surprise that other forums were immediately explored once the news broke. And I personally hope to see the familiar faces there.
