It’s very exhausting to be accessible to players of a lower skill level. It’s rewarding in certain situations, like in person at a demo, but online it’s just very, very tiring. Because in person you can give people your attention, help them with something specific, and then you can say “Ok, I have to go now” and go get other things done.
All day long I am bombarded with questions from people. All day long. Before noon today I had 16 different people messaging me on Facebook about US Nationals, the IYYF, contest rules, asking if I had XXX yoyo for sale or for trade, asking what song someone used in some video, asking how to get sponsored, asking why this CLYW yoyo is expensive, etc etc and this was just on my personal account, and doesn’t even begin to cover what I answer on the CLYW or YoYoNews accounts.
At some point you have to back away otherwise you’ll never have time to get anything else done. And when someone messages you and you don’t have time to answer, you get ?? two minutes later and then the repeat the question 3 minutes after that and then they get mad or upset or think you are being mean to them and at some point it becomes easier just not to be available.
And to speak specifically to this forum, I glance at it every day. And most of the conversations happening are purely matters of opinion, about things that I have no opinion about. I don’t care about what string/yoyo/music anyone uses, I don’t care about yoyoing blindfolded (been there, done that), I don’t need to talk about gear at all. And as Kyle said, most of the discussion here is about equipment. I beat the heck out of my equipment and then once it’s crap I throw it away and I never think twice about it. I use one kind of string and don’t care if there is something else out there that is good because I have plenty of this stuff.
My priorities have shifted. I pop in and try to be useful once in a while but mostly I’m just struggling to get through my day and don’t have time to chime in on the same conversations I used to have 20 years ago when I started. It’s cool to see them happening, and I love that this place is still so active, but it’s not really my scene anymore. Now it’s my job to help create and maintain resources so that all the rest of you have the framework to build and maintain your scene. So that’s where my time goes now.
I spent too much time writing this, ha ha. Back to work.
Even if 1000 people say nice things there will always be one individual with a modem trying to keep it real or fighting the good fight for (whatever the good fight is that day) or just trying to take a shot at a name.
Sure its easy to brush it off… until its every day…
This has been a really interesting thread to read. Thank you, Gambit, for posting it, and thank you to the professionals who have taken a moment to share their feelings on the matter. I’ve been yoyoing for nearly 4 years but haven’t managed to excel at it, primarily because of some of the things the professionals mentioned. I have spent too much time ogling over different yoyos, buying some, selling others, but never just practicing. I have stagnated in the equipment aspect of yoyos. I have too many and find that I switch often between them, but the truth is if I had only one, I probably would focus more on actually throwing.
Due to this thread, I have some thinking to do. Thanks again to all who have replied.
You are most welcome Mike, thanks for the thanks. I’m really impressed by the responses we’ve had, people have bought up some fantastic reasons that really never even occurred to me. There is definitely a lot to think about…
I have especially taken these points on board:
Because whilst there are plenty of fine points that people brought up that we unfortunately can’t do anything about, the above is something that we can work on as a forum. These points made me realise that really, there are things we can do to enhance the forum experience for all of us, not just with a view to attracting more professionals.
These has hit home with me as something I need to personally work on. I hardly ever post forum topics, I just post on ones that already exist. I think I’ve posted like 5 topics since I joined.
So, I’m going to make it a goal to try and get some more in-depth discussion going. If others were able to try and do the same, then great! If we all band together then we may be able to take this forum above and beyond what is currently is.
Unfortunately, I did, and it was a disappointing read. Really, that was an oversight on the part of the OP who didn’t really understand exactly what he was starting. I tend to avoid posting in threads like that since any post, regardless of the content, just pushes it further up the page and adds another log to the fire. When I met Ann was nothing but friendly and civil, so that’s good enough for me.
Still, whilst I can fully understand that Ann personally might not feel particularly welcome here, our female members as a whole are well received. We have a small dedicated group of women on here (TA, Usagi, Abby), and for the most part I’ve seen them treated with respect. I can’t recall a time when someone has personally attacked any of them for being female… although they may be able to recall a time that I’m not aware of.
I genuinely don’t know how you do it. I frequent the CLYW Ask.fm page just to get the inside scoop on anything new, and the idea of answering questions like that all day long seems enough to drive a man to madness. Especially considering that when you give a straight-to-the-point answer to a question that’s already been answered about 5 times that day, people accuse you of being rude.
A very fine point, and one that perhaps a person cannot fully understand until it happens to them. It really is the vast minority who are causing any issues, but I guess one personal attack can be enough to hurt someone.
Sometimes I feel like behaviour like this could be challenged better. A while back I posted a rather out-of-line post against a particular forum member, and he PM’ed me calling me out on it. I have to admit, I didn’t fully understand how rude I had been or how wrong I had gotten my facts until I was confronted on it. I apologised to him publicly and personally and I’ve been more careful to avoid jumping to conclusions since.
Now I’m not necessarily saying that every time we see someone post a sarky post at us we bombard them with PM’s saying “COME AT ME BRROOOO”, but I definitely question as to whether someone should be allowed to post numerous rude and sarcastic posts at will without any repercussions whatsoever.
Thank you for all the amazing responses one and all.
Now, my follow-up question to this is simple:
What can we do better? What practical steps can we take to improve the forum experience here?
I was talking to another board member about that very thread, long before it took the ugliest turn. I decided that I wouldn’t comment until it “went there.” I knew it would though. By the time it did, I had something new to add, and I believed that without it, the thread wouldn’t have the balance it needed.
I agree with this, to a degree. Being attacked for being female has happened, but by the time that becomes a part of the discussion, it’s just a sign that their argument went into the toilet and they’re about to tap out. I was never attacked by anyone I ever respected, so I have never truly been let down. Those kind of people earn their proper place with me. If I get attacked though, I attack back.
As far as what we can do to make things better, I’m not so sure there is a lot we can do. Unless there is going to be increased moderation, that people don’t want, it’s just the nature of the internet. I believe that, because a lot of the pro players know that, they steer clear. I do report what I see if it looks too crazy.
People just need to consider what the purpose and intent of their post is or will be before posting, as well as if the post will be perceived accurately. If people care enough to make a positive change they will do it one post at a time.
Moderate a new users’ first 5 posts so they don’t appear immediately. It blocks all spam, and allows the moderators to help users out of the public eye while keeping the forum from being clogged with the same questions over and over. I know this is a hard job for moderators and I don’t envy them one bit
Remember that YYE is a retailer, though. Many players are loyal not only to their sponsors, but to particular retailers. JD Steel, Vilmos Kiss, Shinya Kido… these are people who are not necessarily against traffic here (they’re probably all very friendly with one another!) but shouldn’t be expected to go out of their way to drive traffic here.
The front 2 pages of the general forum are typically filled with the same terrible threads, written by a different author who doesn’t know how to use the search feature. When I say terrible, I mean one of the following:
any stupid obviously subjective question about colorways
any stupid obviously subjective question about the best yoyo
customer service related questions that should never be posted on the forum
barely legible blog post by a child
BLAH BLAH YETI BLAH BLAH BLAH
CLYW IS DA BEST HERPADERPA BLAH BLAH
YYF IS BAD MADE IN CHINA IS BAD
DID SOMEONE SAY YETI?
There are also some non-terrible threads that can be interesting to read or fun to participate in, but none of them do anything to make you better at yoyoing and are just a time sink.
The YYE forum is largely designed to give people who are likely to buy from YYE a place to congregate and chat. Top tier “professional” yoyo players probably have 1-2 yoyo models that they regularly throw in preparation for competitions that they got from their sponsor, they probably don’t care what color the yoyo is, they are probably using whatever the stock response is, the stock bearing and the same type string that they probably already own 100s of that they have probably used for years. If I was in that boat, I would probably rarely/never come on YYE either unless I had some sort of agenda like promoting my sponsor or signature yoyo.
its a conspiracy… a wave of mass amnesia forced hundreds of professionals to forget their passwords to yoyoexpert… this action left hundreds of helpless forum members without a mentor thus dooming the community to a slow death…
and that my friends is my brain on caffeine… COFFEEE!!!
I agree that pros don’t want to come here for small talk about yoyos and meaningless conversations about equipment and opinions.
I know I post a great deal of fluffy crap in these forums that is small talk, but I have reason to.
I am simply the only person my age that lives within a thousand kilometers of me that yoyos. It’s all I’ve got. I also subject the other players on my team to a lot of discussion about yoyos and I think they put up with me well.
I was never attacked by anyone I ever respected, so I have never truly been let down. Those kind of people earn their proper place with me. If I get attacked though, I attack back.