Towards a more civil rugby discussion on The Roar

Scott Allen was a great read in his field of expertise. However, it was a bit hard to take his analysis of the legal ramifications of the Beale text saga too seriously. Besides being dead wrong in many of his claims, he was clearly subject to an emotional reaction due to his relationships with the parties involved. He was claiming people would go to jail for goodness sake. Still, he seemed to get a bit upset and other people started handwaving frantically when his position was questioned as though his opinion on legal matters had to be accorded similar respect to his expert knowledge on all things rugby. Preciousness abounds.

I was a "Pro" but i got demoted because trolls (with no accounts) get the upperhand in the discussions, add that to the etiquette list ..since then i haven't written nor bothered to get into any discussions (i loveD this site), Its sad to see a few Guru's leaving but its actually the fault of ROAR to allow trolls to create "fake" accounts and incite and create havoc...get rid of them next time because you start hurting your real fans when you keep the trolls BUT and remove the fans ... "Your comment is awaiting moderation" isn't very friendly either...

The Roar is a picnic compared to Sport24. The abuse that goes down on that site is a wonder to behold. It does get a bit tiresome if you're actually trying to have a serious debate about something which is why the Roar is great. It's very mild and any comments I've seen on here are nothing to what I've seen on other sites. As long as it doesn't get abusive, differences in opinion are fantastic. If we all saw everything the same way, it would be a very boring world. People need to accept that they are not going to change people's minds, therefore when you write something you are writing simply to add to the debate, not to convince anyone that they are wrong and you are right. This is the problem with many commenters. They are convinced of their own rightness and think they can convince everyone else of this as well. It's not going to happen. In most cases you are arguing for the sake of it. If you're like me and you like that, then that's great - if you think you're going to convince anyone, you're deluded.

Thumbs up

Totally agree that a thumbs up and down button would be great. Sport 24 in South Africa has a great version of this, not so much the NZ Herald where a thumbs down simply reduces the score by 1 thumb and a thumbs up increases the score by one. it's really good to be able to see how many people liked a comment and how many disliked it. I also believe the Herald system of moderating comments before they are posted is terrible. You need real time posting to have any semblance of proper discussion. This is one thing that makes the Roar good. Moderation should err on the side of posting rather than not posting. Controversial comments are great, rascist or denigrating comments are not but the commenting community should be able to moderate these.

Human Nature were awful - Hope you raised that on that site.

I can't believe Biltong is gone . He was one of the best on here. .. if this site keeps going the way it is we will lose more smart rugby minds like him...

Too many rules. Let's drop two of them, and put a character limit on comments. We can gradually divert from this forum and create our own working class forum.

Would that make us the People's Front of the Roar? or the Roarer's People's Front?

I have suggested before that perhaps allow for a thumbs up and down button to group moderate comments and see where we all stand. This thought was sent quickly packing by a few so in the spirit of moderation I thought I'd tinker with the concept somewhat. Perhaps just a chance to thumbs up a good comment. That way if someone says something we agree with we can acknowledge it without adding to a thread with "agreed", "spot on", "+1" "+20" etc. I know I'd find an uncivil comment that much easier to ignore (and less provoked to respond in angst) if I could see it had been ignored by most and a great comment met with the appreciation it deserves in terms of a simple 'thumbs up'. For those thinking that I'm looking for gratification on my own posts, I don't think I comment enough these days to pay too much attention. Perhaps then you can sort the thread by number of 'ups' and just read the good comments of the day if you don't have time to work through a 300+ thread! Anyway just a thought. Great idea, Harry. I for one am over internet trolling and it makes great sites like these harder to take. I think people get confused as to what 'banter' really is...

Ignore the trolls and keep the conversation about rugby. We all have our sides and opinions, no problems with that as long we are mindful of other people. I like the comments in general and it what makes me coming back to the roar, long may it continue!

i know what you are saying peterK. but rugby, like any endeavour, is really a competiton fro something and thus it is impossible to tell if someone is cynical in the way they play. especially for someone like mccaw who understands and reads the game so well, but like any competition, can get it slightly wrong. aussie fans see everything he does as cynical, but deny the acts of their own players who don't play with the same subtlety. just like a parking inspector, he is a pest, but he is there to do his job and be one!! you mention mccaw, crusaders, abs, brumbies, but never skelton, potgeiter, hooper et al. and this astounds me, but has obvious reasons. whatever your motive, singling out certain individuals/teams as cynical, serial che.ats does you no favours at all, and easily leads to whole threads being taken over by people, rightly, defending him/them. in order to play the game, one must compete as much as possible, this is the foundation of the sport, so is it any wonder that grown men, whilst competing physically, get it wrong? I know you were/are a ref, but did you play the game? and if so, did you forget what it is like to physically compete against other men? its really not a study in perfection, is it? I guess, in the end, im more philosophical about what can happen on the field, and i would suggest that most guys don't have the time to decide about being cynical or not, it just happens when they feel the need to compete harder at any given moment. to me, it is just like a scrum: how can a team get penalised for simply having an inferior scrum? or being weaker? in rugby, you get penalised for being weaker and stronger!!

Understood. My final word on this. I think many articles have been written about Hanson and Meyer nb. No one has exposed or attacked them personally.

I understand your concern because a lot of the roar people do not think Sanzar has been doing a good job and needs a lot of improvement in a lot of areas. Personally it is an impossible to in many areas because you have to appease the 3 member unions and they have self interest driving them.

Well, Harry is Harry, I know what to expect. My point was that due to some of the comments and comentators I do not want to expose Peters.

and confuse argentina with brazil :)

Hi nobrain, thanks for sharing. I look forward to your article. Especially that SR16 is around the corner. Also TRC and RWC is looming like big party on Friday night. imo generally speaking about the Beale, McKenzie, Patston event. From afar, it may seem like merely an ugly argument between immature and angry oversized children.... But to me, its more than just shirts, plane flight argument, losing a coach, texts / missing texts, or even sexual harassment even though it is all that. That event is a one off. Well I hope so. It was a deeply disturbing event which touched the sensibility of every Aussie Rugby tragic and was very important to us all Aussie tragics. There were many torrid disagreements and they still somewhat exist. But I think we all love Rugby more than those ugly incidents and we generally have all moved on. I believe Roarers have an marked respect for foreign posters, as we are all generally here to learn from each other. As such, Im pretty sure you articles will be looked upon with great interest and respect. Except by me and Harry, who'll try to turn it into a story about cheerleaders or volleyball players heheh...

Don't worry about it Jameswn, we go forward from here. Several of us are all guilty of going too far at times, and to be honest some of mine might be simply down to losing a Snooker match at the club or something extraneous like that. That isnt fair on you or others either. Harry has injected a healthy reminder for things ROAR rugby so we get on with what we love. And its good that he's allowed us to set and abide by our own rules rather than have to be policed. Ownership is more likely that way. With the impending upcoming matches this year I suspect Harry might need a part two reminder somewhere down the line, but theres no doubt there's a lot of passion in this game. We just need to channel our energy better. Better that than a sport dormant of comments on any given day... :-)

I enjoyed for while the roar and I tried to express my point of views with respect , I thought to my self that this was an Australian kind of forum and me being and Argentinian had to be carefull in my post, but everything, imo, started to go down hill after the Beale/ case last year in the rugby union forum which is the only one I read. I had the feeling that this place became more than just a place to talk about rugby and decided to stop posting until now. My point on posting was just to give the perspective from , and info about one of the new comers in the RCH an SR and I undertood and comprehend those that were against the inclusion of the Pumas in the RCH and the expansion of the SR. I had great exchanges about this with BB ( he was totally against the expansion)but it was done with respect and solid arguments. I thought I could be a contributor for most of you that do not know about the rugby in our land and I even wrote an article explaining the effort we were making transforming from a amateur rugby to compete against professionals players. I think that we should comment and write about what we think we can have a contribution to something and not just to desqualify someone, I think we can have a different opinion about something but the debate has to be done with respect, it does not have to be boaring and I accept some spice on the comments, but we all know that there is a line we should not cross to keep things going. During the Beale saga I had the feeling that some guys wanted to take over the roar and kick others out and that fine line was crossed and did not recover until now. I was going to write an artcle about Peters, Sanzar boss, who is becaoming the general manager of all that has to do with profesional rugby in Argentina as of July the 1st, and what this means for our rugby at international level, but I felt discourage to do it because of the posibilty that his name will become the target for craws . The fact that I learned that his moving with his wife and two kids to Buenos Aires made me think that his kids and wife do not deserve to read the staff that may be posting about him, and decided that I was not going to give them that opportunity. I do not know to where my post is going, but I just wanted to give all of you my feelings about this.

Hi Harry. I too am a relative newcomer to Roar and can quite honestly say that I often learn more from the comments than from an article. I have noticed that some of the comments have been downright rude. I think the key is to have respect for others and their opinions, even if they differ from your own. If you wouldn't say it to someone's face, or wouldnt like someone to say it to you, then don't say it ! BTW I must say that I enjoy your articles,even though I don't often comment.