[bobbynorwich]

I am a Venus fan, but more importantly am a tennis fan with a high respect for free speech, open debate, and better tennis. Every thread in WTF that opens a legitimate issue of debate about her is promptly closed. Every true fan recognizes her faves' strengths and weaknesses, thus is not afraid to debate them.

This tendency of some mods to shut down debate of their faves is not only offensive to free speech, it renders the WTF as little more than a boring cheering section for the mods' favorites. Not much of a business plan.

Why?

 

[Pristine]

Don't get banned for speaking out.

No one is allowed to make threads on Venus' lack of strategy, poor forehand technique, poor serve technique, lapses of concentration, lack of fighting spirit, performance outside of grass, or any other major flaw in her game.

 

[Golovinjured.]

They are just, for the most part, powerhungry. They conclude that every debate is an out of control argument and close it.


It's a discussion, let things be. :weirdo:

 

[Cakeisgood]

You're all being a little drama queeny aren't you? The mods shut threads down because they get really rowdy with bashing and stuff. They do sometimes make questionable choices, but please, let's not make this a bigger deal than it really is.

 

[Golovinjured.]

I love it when Venus and Serena fans turn on eachother, though. :drool:

 

[bobbynorwich]

Don't get banned for speaking out.

No one is allowed to make threads on Venus' lack of strategy, poor forehand technique, poor serve technique, lapses of concentration, lack of fighting spirit, performance outside of grass, or any other major flaw in her game.

How many other posters have been either banned or left the WTF for expressing legitimate criticism of either Venus or Serena?

It may seem paradoxical, but although having tremendous respect for Venus' extraordinary ability and character, the immediate censorship on the WTF of any of her possible faults is so repugnant that it overrides my loyalty to her.

Isn't the purpose of an online forum to have open debate --- assuming it is respectful and intelligent?

Is there a list of other courageous posters who have also been banned for raising this objection? Please add my name to that list. In the meantime, the marketers at WTF can't add headcount visits of all the banned posters to their proposals for advertising revenue. Again, good luck with a business plan than drastically decreases the number of hits to the WTF site from all the departed and disaffected posters due to mod-based censorship.

 

[Pristine]

I agree but things are unlikely to change. Just go with Venus is the favorite to win on any surface regardless of her previous record, form, or speed of the surface. Until she loses in the second round to a moonballer, of course.

 

[drake3781]

Just so you know, this board is owned by an entirely different entity than WTA Tour. This board is owned by Vertical Sports. In fact they are so unlinked that WTA tour threatened to sue the owners of this board if they didn't remove "WTA" from the board's name. (Thus we have this stupid, generic URL ).

 

[hingis-seles]

WTF.

Haha. I love the acronym for women's tennis forum.

 

[Golovinjured.]

Just realised why this isn't called www.[B]womenstennisforums.com [/B]:haha:

 

[bobbynorwich]

Just so you know, this board is owned by an entirely different entity than WTA Tour. This board is owned by Vertical Sports. In fact they are so unlinked that WTA tour threatened to sue the owners of this board if they didn't remove "WTA" from the board's name. (Thus we have this stupid, generic URL ).

My comments were about Womens Tennis Forum (WTF) as owned by Vertical Sports and never implied a WTA connection. In that regard, Vertical Sports must show to potential advertisers the number of "hits" at each site to negotiate advertising fees --- its' only source of revenue. If biased mods discourage posters who leave because they believe that open and honest discussion is not allowed, it will depress Vertical Sports' bottom line.

 

[Pristine]

Here on WTF, WTF things happen.

 

[alfonsojose]

Venus sucks out of grass :shrug:

 

[drake3781]

My comments were about Womens Tennis Forum (WTF) as owned by Vertical Sports and never implied a WTA connection. In that regard, Vertical Sports must show to potential advertisers the number of "hits" at each site to negotiate advertising fees --- its' only source of revenue. If biased mods discourage posters who leave because they believe that open and honest discussion is not allowed, it will depress Vertical Sports' bottom line.

Yeah, sorry I misread that as WTA. We used to call this place WTAWorld, which was a great name, but now it has no good name.

 

[Volcana]

Every thread in WTF that opens a legitimate issue of debate about her is promptly closed.

No they are not. And you know they aren't. Hundreds of threads have been opened over the years about Venus' second serve, her (past) unwillingness to leave the baseline, etc. Threads don't get closed for what is said. They get closed for how it's said.

You can open debate about tennis without offensive language. It's really not that hard. Take this post

Venus sucks out of grass :shrug:

You can start being insulting. Or ...

Acapulco, Dubai, YEC, Zurich .....

Venus has won four of the last seven tournaments she's played. None of them on grass. See? Open and honest debate.

 

[~CANUCK~]

Who told you that everyone had the right to free speech on a privately owned message board? There are rules in place that everyone agrees to when they become a member here. Here's a refresher in case you have forgotten again.

http://www.tennisforum.com/showthread.php?t=214492

We as Mods do not enjoy going around having to close threads and for the most part will not do so unless it gets out of hand. We don't even know most of the time something is wrong in a thread until people start reporting the posts in their. If some sort of action has been taken, either the thread or posts has been reported and has been deemed to have broken the rules or we notice ourselves that a rule has been broken.

All the mods at one time were just regular posters who loved tennis and loved talking about. We would not go around closing threads that had nothing wrong with it. You state that no debate is allowed about Venus, this is not true, debate is more than welcome, but starting threads in ways that you know will do nothing but piss off Venus fans or bash Venus for the sake of bashing her is not allowed.

 

[Golovinjured.]

SUPER MOD When did that happen?

 

[drake3781]

SUPER MOD When did that happen?

And what exactly is a Super Mod, anyway?

 

[~CANUCK~]

There is an announcement showing all the new mod promotions and such, and where we are looking to fill new mod positions for certain forums.

http://www.tennisforum.com/announcement.php?f=12

 

[Pristine]

A mod with more powers? :rolls: