Announcements
 

Gang,

We had a pretty lengthy meeting on our yacht from 4 all the way to 4:12 pm.

We covered a lot of ground... such as the direction of the board, employee development, and what we can do for YOU, the poster, to make this a more desirable place.

We thought, first and foremost, that we really want to encourage our open door policy to each and every one of you. Please, don't hesitate to shoot us a private message with any questions or concerns, or better yet, just post them here in the open forum so we can have a round table discussion.

We just want you to know you're our most valuable asset and we want you to feel at ease with coming to us for any number of things. Just note that we typically check out for the day around 1pm and we are fairly inebriated by noon.

We also want to keep YOU, the poster, informed of what is going on with any strategy or policy changes, future works, as well as changes in poster personnel. So let's start. Here are some news and notes from around the board:

- After much careful consideration, we may trade the poster '10 Pnt Move Up' to the Thoroughbred Champions board.

We asked for a trade with MtConverse "Straight Up" ... but but all we could get in return was an expired 10% off coupon on Sundays only for vertical blinds at a now defunct window treatment store in Sandusky Ohio. We feel good about this deal.


- We are still commited to building an enviornment and culture of happy people who beat the devil out of their keyboard and post good thoughts. We have decided that this most happy tune will be the new DerbyTrail.com theme song...please watch and enjoy...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLO7t...ature=youtu.be

Remember folks, when you post ... DerbyTrail.com is YOUR world and YOU are the creator.


- Lastly, this is more of a request than an announcement:

Whoever is sh!tting in the coffee pot, please refrain from doing so. It's damaging the machine, as well as slightly ruining the flavor of the coffee.

Thank you.


- The New Team

PS: Whether you think you can or you can't - you're RIGHT!

I love how Ross's Fro changes in size :tro:

How much of Scav's contract is going against our salary cap?

He was a bargain early on, but now he's in the money years of that elongated agreement and is barely phoning it in.

I don't know what we can get for him, but if we can't turn him around, we may need to consider an outright release and focus in grooming our prospects.


This is a tough business, but it is business.

i think doug needs to take more field trips and post the play by play. pictures are a plus...but only clean 'before' sock photos, please.

Dear New Team:

While I respectfully applaud your efforts to breath new life into Nerdy, no open forum, year end awards or trades are going to cut it. Now, this does not mean that you should take the all-expense paid trip to Costa Rica off the table. My summer tan has faded and I haven't updated a bikini pic on Facebook in months so I need this trip.

NT will rise from the ashes like the Phoenix the moment a four-legged Hero strides into town.

The knee-jerk reaction of such salty veterans as Blackthroatedwind and cmoriales is likely to be "No, not that!," but hear me out fine Nerdies. It is in the moments when faced with such statements as "Imagine how much he would have won by if he was asked!" or "She did only what she needed to do to win." that we, as a forum have risen to Greatness. Pages upon pages of lively debate will emit forth from our lively fingers! We scoff at the lack of competition, the cherry-picked spots and lack of true brilliance of our present-day Hero. We tell stories of the Grand thoroughbreds of decades past and when that doesn't work, we make magazine covers featuring the delusional and obsessed poster and his/her fine stead.

Ah yes, the photoshops. That will always be our greatest contribution to the horseyboard world. No one does it better than NT.

Sincerely,

Sighty

p.s. If any of you guys darted Riot, take the rest of the year off! You have truly done enough.

That put a smile on my face and a teardrop in my eye, Sighty.

Very beautiful.

Good call.

I'm going to make a few calls to GM's at other boards and test the waters. It's hard to say what Scav's market value is right now.

Is Richard being shopped as trade bait? It's the only explination I could think of for all the playing time is his getting lately.
Wow, if Richard could be dealt then no one is safe.

zigfried and roy weep..

we'd probably only get a conditional draft pick.

I think Dickie would fit right in at PA.

That board is totally schizo.

Wtf New Team???!!!!
 

I might suggest that the New Team board of directors revisit whatever "direction" was decided upon on the DT Yacht back in Dec. 2012 - those decisions ARE CLEARLY not working.

We have lost a great deal of traction in this market. The loss of Coach Pants was almost insurmountable, and now coupled with the frequent, consistent and glaringly steady stream of departing DT regulars - our situation has surpassed alarming, and is now boarding on critical. Del Mar Fruit Club critical.

Occasionally, decisions are made that on the surface, appear to be salient in logic, forthright, and intelligently thought out. One such decision, I humbly may suggest, was the darting of an ENTIRE ROOM. Drastic, yes. But on the surface, a very effective method of staving off interactions between DT members that may have been taken out of context to presume nasty, personal attacks on one another.

One unintended consequence of vaporizing the entire room is that the action also opened the exit doors to a great number of frequent posters, some with ties to the horsey world, some not, but contributors nonetheless.

The unfortunate upshot of all of this is that the forum has become veritable wasteland, it's namesake in full stride, just 7 weeks removed from the Derby. It should not be this way. We need to reinstate the politico room, and invite our long lost regulars back with open arms.
We also need to reach out to some of the other forums and invite them back to the newly rejuvenated DT.

Unless he's actually been darted, this post is my attempt to help you get Coach back on the board. He's a more valuable member than I am, at least from a volume and LOL standpoint.

I just figure that post number 4,871 for me isn't likely, statistically speaking, to be the first one in history that I'm able to make without him quoting it and basically calling me a dumb ****, regardless of the topic, tone, or content of my post.

The above Coach bait is all I have to offer right now.

Coach isn't coming back. I doubt Indian Charlie is either. And add about 15 - 20 others that regularly participated here and perhaps you may get the point.

This is an attempt to stop the bleeding of participating, interactive members away from this forum by reinstating the politics room.

I was mostly kidding. I get it.

I'm sure I racked up 95% of my career posts here more than three or four years ago, and it's certainly not for a lack of interest in racing in the last three years. I'm more interested and invested now than I was five years ago. But I've got mine, and I'm sure everyone has their own reasons for not frequenting regularly.

Mine was generally nasty attitudes that made it more work to post and participate than it was worth. Maybe that has to do with the politics room, maybe not.

Either way, your point is spot-on. I've always been reading along even if I'm not posting, and my daily trip by usually lasts about three minutes these days.

Why don't you post a poll thread here to re-open the Politics/Society forum.
Yes
No
Don't care

I tried but don't know how to do the poll format...

i can't help but think that it will take me waaaay longer to get my next 24k posts than it took to get the first. it's too bad that a few bad apples spoiled that barrel for the rest of us. i miss it, i miss the discourse (altho it did get rough at times) and i still read stuff and think oh, i could...and then i remember we can't talk about such things here anymore.
slate is the only other place i post-and it's just not the same.

Let's get serious here...

Bring back the BEULAH thread:eek:!

everything else pales....

Sure you might get action in the political room, but the paddock will still be the sound of crickets...

Why and when did Indian Charlie leave?

This is just my opinion, but who cares about people posting about politics if they aren't talking about racing also?

When this board was going great it's because there were great discussions on racing. People actually had opinions on races both before and after the races and shared them.

I'm not sure why that doesn't happen anymore, but I just don't think people stopped talking racing because they couldn't argue the same political stance over and over again anymore.

Purely my opinion, but I didn't think the Paddock was any more polite than the Politics Room was. In fact, many times I thought people were much nastier to each other in the Paddock. The Politics Room had actually been pretty civil the last few days of its existence, compared to before. It seemed a weird time to end it.

As someone who doesn't have the time to aggressively follow racing the way many of the more knowledgable posters here do, much as I enjoy reading threads in the Paddock, I was (and am) reluctant to share an opinion in the Paddock because of how nasty some posters could be in tearing apart someone else's opinion. Making other people feel stupid is not a good way to encourage participation, especially for novices like myself. On the bright side, there's not much of that going on now. On the not-bright side, there's not much of anything else going on there now.

I also think Riot did a lot for keeping traffic moving in both rooms. She was extremely prolific, extremely opinionated and extremely polarizing and you could almost always count on a thread she posted in making for some very entertaining reading. Because people who didn't like her just couldn't stop themselves from replying to her posts. And hilarity would ensue.

I really miss the Politics Room because it was one of the few places I know on the web where liberals and conservatives would regularly argue things on a more-or-less even footing. Probably because what brought us here was a common love of something else.

It's a bummer, but, as Danzig said in a thread a few weeks ago, the lack of DT activity means I've been much more productive at work lately, so there's always a pony somewhere.

:tro:

agree with everything you said. the paddock has had some real doozies. anytime someone came on there to talk about a good day or a good hit, they got everyone on them for redboarding. cause, you know, that's a grievous sin. instead of discourse, you've got people telling other people they're morons because of their view of a race.
i know i'm unable to follow racing as much as i used to, which is a shame. i wish i had more time for it, but i don't.

Hoss the 2 posters I mentioned by name are extremely knowledgeable horseplayers and while I'm not sure if IC actually bets, he knows more about horseracing than anyone I know. Both posters also frequented both rooms.

I have it on good authority that he no longer even lurks here.

To Nicole's point below, I could not even be certain what percentage of folks that frequented the Poly room were avid players, because the Paddock was so full of vitriol toward anyone that dared voice an dissenting opinion that most just avoided the conflict entirely. So I'm not prepared to assume nor draw the conclusion that just because they came here for the Poly room meant they were not horseplayers thus added no value to the horseracing discussions.
Additionally, there were plenty of folks that went to both rooms and offered lucid, knowledgeable opinions on both topics, but without one, they no longer post in the other. How is it that 7 weeks out, the most attended thread in the Paddock is a frigging Tony Black retirement thread? In years past the Derby Trail target thread would have been 10 pages deep at this point. Cause / Effect would dictate that the lack of the Poly room is affecting not only overall attendance here, but quality horesracing discussion.



:tro: Could not have said this any better - Thanks!

I'll put a little different spin on this Dan. One reson I enjoyed the Politics forum ( most of the time:) ) is because it humanized and brought down to what I felt was more my level some fairly intimidating paddock types. I remember early in my DT days Andy Serling would post in Eso about movies and books. They were incredibly articulate and intelligent threads that allowed me to get to know someone who, quite frankly, could be an imposing figure to a casual horse player like myself if strictly dealt with on a Paddock only basis. I know a lot of people here because of Steve's site, both personally and internet only. Right or wrong I've tended to wear my heart on my sleeve and that can be a good thing or get me called a p.ussy when it backfires:). I don't have the horse acumen to post in the Paddock and certainly don't have the knowlege to back up something I might say when challenged by those who really know this game. So..it's just human nature to shy away. I still troll regularly and lament the loss of so many great voices and threads but since Politics is gone, really don't feel comfortable posting anywhere other than sports. I think it's just human nature.

What is stopping Indian Charlie from posting here? Because Byk closed the Political room? I fail to see how or why that would stop him from posting his horse racing thoughts.

Seems like what you guys are saying more than anything is the overall environment of the paddock was not so nice. and that people are hesitant to participate there because of not wanting to be disagreed with? Or disagreed with sarcastically or with vitriol?

Yet you guys are clamoring for the room that was filled with nothing but vitriol where the posters who were hesitant to post in the paddock because of not wanting conflict....posted and engaged in conflicts.

I guess it doesn't make much sense to me. why are people intimidated (for lack of a better word) about posting thoughts on racing because they don't want to be responded to a certain way....yet totally comfortable posting thoughts on politics where they are responded to as bad if not worse?

I just went back and read some of the more popular threads on racing from 3-4 years ago.

Most of the same posters that engaged in those threads are still active, posting members here. They just don't post as much anymore, myself included.

For me, I just don't have the time. I suspect that is the case with others as well.

Yeah because people telling others they are morons for the way they view the world is so much better.

Seems pretty hypocritical to judge one, yet beg for the other back.

My point was that the one room was no more ugly than the other. One remains, the other is gone.
I think this is probably the busiest thread on the site right now, which tells a tale. And i agree with bob, i thought his post spoke for many here.

I agree with this. The lack of a politics room doesn't effect the paddock. IMO the political discourse was always more mean sprited than any of the racing discussion. Like Bob said, people are less confident with their racing opinions and more reluctant to offer them on the Internet.

What people are failing to acknowledge is that the people responsible for this site may not want to be associated with the opinions and nastiness that was taking place. Why can't we respect that?

What I was saying was that I didn't understand why one room was banned for behavior that was tacitly accepted and even encouraged in the other room. That seems like a double standard. Especially when things had been better in the Politics Room recently anyway.

You're right that people will spend a lot of time at a site for awhile and then move on, or not post as much; I see it at the political blogs I like to visit.

Politics as a subject gets people riled up because everyone thinks they are an expert in it and, for whatever reason, people take having their opinion challenged personally. But because people feels secure that they KNOW what is right, they feel confident posting their opinion. In horse racing, you're pretty clearly and quickly proved right or wrong. The horse you like wins or doesn't. So there's not as much room to argue your position from an emotional standpoint. I love the way Jay Cronley defines value, for instance: "A horse that loses at a nice price." Heh.

And it's not even that being wrong about a pick is bad; it's how people would express it. People would pose an opinion and get shot down, without any attempt to explain why their thoughts on a horse might be faulty. Well, thanks, I'm sure it makes FillintheBlank poster feel better about himself to tell me I'm a dumb c*nt because I like Lawyer Ron (RIP), but it doesn't help me become a better handicapper if said poster doesn't explain why he disagrees. And I'm not interested in FillintheBlank's self-confidence issues; I'm interested in becoming a better handicapper. Whether or not a horse is good has nothing to do with how I view the world; it's based entirely in what he's done. That's something that can be discussed intelligently without calling me or anyone else a dumb c*nt.

And don't get me started on the cryptic "I'm going to tell you you are totally wrong about such-and-such, because I know someone who knows someone who told me what's really going on, but I'm not going to tell you the truth because it's all very secret. But it's very important I still point out you're wrong and that I know something you don't know because I have all the emotional maturity and social acumen of a teenage girl." Yeesh. That, at least, was something you never saw in the Politics Room!

Was it common practice that people were called c*nts in the paddock? I don't recall seeing that word used much in the last 4-5 years but everytime I did it was in the political room.

I have no idea why the political room was closed, but if I had to bet, it was probably for the reason 3Kings mentioned. Which seems like a good enough reason to me.

And in all fairness, it was really just the one poster in the Politics room whose default description of any poster with a Double X chromosome was c*nt. Most of the others preferred b*tch. But let's face it, that poster was very obsessed with ladyparts. ;)

I exaggerated for effect (and sadly, the last time I felt confident arguing in the paddock room was in 2006, which is pretty pathetic. Or maybe I just haven't loved a horse since then the way I did Lawyer Ron. Until Pletcher got him, but that's a whole different set o' issues for me).

I totally agree; the blog's rules get set by the moderators, but blogs are only as popular as the number of hits they get, and I think this thread started because it's been noticed that the number of hits on it seem to be dropping. Which may not be true; the amount of activity may be higher, for all any of us know and people just aren't posting. But it's getting into the best time of the year for racing and the Paddock is quiet, which is too bad. And people are speculating why there's been such a rapid drop off of activity on it. Could be the blog has peaked (which all things do eventually; even Law & Order eventually ended) and is just in a natural decline; could be that taking away the Politics room made the blog less appealing to some of the regulars. I'm not saying it did; I am a big believer that correlation is not causation until it's proved to be. But for whatever reason, it's been quiet in the main room and people are bummed.

And yeah, moderators get to decide to allow what they want, but the blog users can also choose to complain about it if they want. And there are a fair number of users who really miss the room.

i doubt anyone on this site is more respected than the host. i told him more than once that i didn't envy his job here.

I've been gone awhile....an certainly notice the ghost town atmosphere here lately....maybe Spyder is right about the Beulah thread...those fillies were .....well they were entertaining..

doesn't anyone have something clever to say about the races leading up to the Derby ?

Good post GR..only one poster i remember that used the c word liberally, the much loved coachdrawers...:zz:


Pulled this from your earlier post, also excellent..your analysis of riot spot on.:tro:

Didn't Riot leave on her own?

As long as the "colts" get equal time (no geldings please).:D



I like Oxbow for the Derby. Four prep races (unheard of in this day of kid gloves) and he seems like a tough sob who actually thrives on racing.



Now I must go shovel my driveway and walk the dogs. :)

Think so...her work was done after the election..