Some thoughts if I may. Note these are my own thoughts and opinions, and should not be considered to be fully based in reality.
1. PBA.com, Bowl.com and any other National Sport dot com has websites that reflect their marketing to the general public - especially their target demographic - the fans of that sport. Our sport is a little different in that the websites both have to be marketing oriented as well as information/tool oriented. With the PBA and USBC not pulling in the same cashflow the NFL/NBA/PGA is bringing in, it becomes more important that their money is spent wisely - especially when updating technology. Focusing on Bling/Flashgasms versus substance does a disservice to the credibility of the management, as well as indicates to the users who are supporting (directly or indirectly) a certain disrespect towards their targeted support base. A corporate website - and face it, that's what these are - needs to be professional, needs to be current, needs to be user friendly, and overall needs to work correctly at deployment - or at latest by the end of the first week. The tools that were in place before were working correctly - if you need to update the look of the tool to better fit the over scheme of the website, fine and dandy. However the basic design of a hammer (one for hitting nails - not the bowling ball manufacturer) hasn't changed all that much over several thousand years even tho there are many different looking hammers at the local home center - don't break the tool in the name of change.
1a. I wouldn't be suprised at all if there were people at both the PBA and USBC who lurk at a number of online forums (not just pba.com) to get a feel for how they're doing with both the website and the tour in general. The more intelligent/ constructive feedback that is given on forums in general will hopefull filter back to the "Powers That Be" which can be (hopefully) incorporated into future decisions. However, if the feedback isn't intelligent or constructive, it will never make it back to anyone of any decision making authority. The only caveat to this is when a change is so bad or destructive that it makes members who are normally pleasant, intelligent and constructive degrade into acid-spewing paragons of hate, that bit of knowledge will find it's way up the food chain pretty quickly.
1b. A modern axiom. Those who've been trained to do a job aren't paid well enough to do the job to cover all the possible issues. Those who love to do a job can't be paid enough to not do the job - and will burn all the midnight oil it takes to cover all the possible/potential issues. Those who can't do the job but would love to do the job cannot be paid enough to not criticize those who are doing the job - whether righly or wrongly. Those who can't do the job and have no interest in doing the job grumble "when will they find someone who can do this the right way."
2. One statement that I saw above was "But really is it that hard to be nice to people?" We don't know what's going on with the people who post on the various forums in their normal life. I've run into people who the concept of being nice is about as foreign to them as the ability to speak 1st dynasty Egyptian natively. The other thing is the joy of being anonymous behind the keyboard. People who normally wouldn't (as put forth in the Quentin Tarintino movie "From Dusk Till Dawn) "say s*** if their mouth was filled with it", will type with the ferocity of a grizzly bear w/hemmoroids. It truly doesn't matter the age of the person doing the typing - I've seen 14 year olds express themselves with more class, maturity, and thoughtfullness than some 40 year olds. Is it hard - no, is it unfamiliar to some - yes.
2a. There are members on other websites that come on with their self appointed role of "devil's advocate/troll" who do engender immediate resentment towards them - which is why most forums come with an "ignore" feature. If that doesn't give them a clue - there is always the "ban" feature.
2b. The first and best way of making sure that the forums are kept nice is to keep a positive tone in any and all dealings within the forum. If you have a beef with someone - take it pm's but still keep it civil. If you're already seeing red before you sit down at the computer - don't come here first. Go to comics.com or jokeoftheday.com, take a walk, go to the bathroom, see a prostitute, whatever it takes. But when you put fingers to the keyboard, make sure you're clearheaded and not bringing any outside baggage to your post. Remember the most powerful button on the keyboard is the 'delete' key.
Originally Posted by StormBowler13
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