Lately I've had a little more time to read and post here or at themat.com but usually I have very little. Reading the forums used to fill an important spot in the entertainment part of my personal life, but that part seems to be dwindling. Maybe its my age, health, or the off-season. I don't know. I just came from reading the other site and left. It seems every morning or evening the college and non-wrestling forums are littered with endless bickering, foul language and trash. It isn't suffice to say its disturbing to see this behavior from anyone, but from a group of people devoted to the same love of sport leaves me even more disappointed.

Since this bothers me I suppose the best advice is not to visit there anymore, but its difficult to break old habits and honestly I'm resisting closing that page on that book. There are so many NCAA champs, google scholars, and just plan mean spirited posters there it has spoiled the entire experience....at least for me. From the participation there I see I'm in the minority. I'd like to say I'm done over there and with forums as a whole and find something else to fill the void, but I don't think I can yet. But I'm close. It nice to see a diamond of a post from Morris and a few others but even those come so rare anymore that it just doesn't make up for the dry periods. Why people find the need, or derive any entertainment from posting some of the most mean-spirited, intentionally personally hurtful things is something I don't honestly understand.

Best wishes everyone. It's Friday and I'm looking forward to sharing it with family.

--pm

Spider,
Thank you and happy holidays to you and your family.

I agree that anonimity plays a large role in the problem, but the are a few who are not, a couple who I know through wrestling, who contribute as well.

I'm also troubled with poor moderation because themat.com is the official board for USA Wrestling. On one hand they imposed a moratorium on discussing Mike Zadick's potential admission into the Beijing Games because the international community reads their board, but do nothing about the substantive decay of the board overall. Shameful. I'mnot the type to starts crusade, but I wonder if things don't improve maybe it's time for USA Wrestling to consider eliminating the NWT forum and stick exclusively to wrestling...and strictly enforce the posting rules.

Star, you offer sound advice thanks.

--pm

Agreed, I refuse to join themat.com for the reasons you guys mention. Forum software programs or not, some consistent moderation would quickly clean up the crap over there, which in turn would allow more polite and thoughtful posters ot feel comfortable posting again. How hard is it to find the rude and derogatory posts? Just look for the endless threads about religion (especially creationism) and Sarah Palin.

I've pretty much stopped posting there. I'll add something every now and then on the International section but I've pretty much stopped that as well. This past Olympic really turned me off. The Pro-Iowa bias on that forum is a major turn off. You can't post anything about Iowa or Gable without being slammed. It's quite pathetic.

I used to spend most of my time on the NWT and had some good debates. Some were very heated but at the end of the day I think we all had a mutual respect for one another. Now it's just a circus of hate-filled people whose main goal in life it seems is to cut one another down.

Eh, such is life.