Content Pulled from The Hijacking of GrandMaster's Thread

[Tony's Table Tennis]

But people shouldn't have to ignore them.

If I was looking at joining the forum, and had a quick look through the most recent topics, I'd turn around and never look back.

Why should the majority have to turn a blind eye to a very small number of people who make the forum a tedious place to be?

How many potential users have they put off engaging in conversation?

My thoughts exactly and it does put me and a few off.

This thread is just like that: https://www.tabletennisdaily.com/forum/topics/the-different-ways-of-boosting.31382/

A user less than 1 year on TTD, that doesn't post much (and good percentage of his posts comes from this thread).
Very "innocently" and asks a question about boosting (just like so many other threads, and I see it as a normal question) and guess what, post 3 is a derail/confusion/attack.

Honestly speaking, any new user will have no clue what post 3 is about. Why? because old members just ignore, but how about newer members? left to take on something that is confusing and tedious?

Then my own thread here (I mean, how many videos can you leak out from top training center in the world?):

https://www.tabletennisdaily.com/forum/topics/sneak-peak-at-taiwans-top-table-tennis-school.31409/

Post no 2, calls it fake news (because he doesn't agree to my comment as his internet search results proves he is right and I am wrong?).
Civilized conversation could be- Tony, are you able to back your claim of Li beating Dima?
so easy right? But you see, the intention was not to get the evidence.

Post no 4? Starts throwing insults.

I have since posted Li beating Dima's video and i'm sure the attack will not stop because the problem is not the content, but the enjoyment of attacking someone else.

If someone comes to TTD with the aims of cursing, not just 1 member, but numerous, then that is really a common denominator.

I do see old members trying to "calm him down", like here and the posts that follows
https://www.tabletennisdaily.com/forum/topics/screaming-during-play-illegal.31323/post-411131
That is not right.

Any new users coming onto these thread would be, wow, what is going on here.

I'm not sure if derail, or trolling or cursing/swearing or what ever is the violation, but quality of thread and forum has been severely affected by a few users.

Maybe I should just ignore them too, but will that fix the problem? It will fix my involvement in the escalation. But will it fix the quality of the thread/forum? I don't think so.

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

Yeah: you guys who see personal attacks and bad language, please do report that. I have been leaving the reports and hoping someone else will look too. But I take my time, sort out how I want to handle, and then I will eventually handle things like that.

So, when someone is making personal attacks and using bad language, if I see it in the reports, I will not rush. But I will act on it.

Thanks.

 

[IB66]

Perhaps a flag or description can be added to the profile that appears when you post?
instead of ‘active member’ or ‘well known member’ it could read ‘disruptive member’ or something similar??

 

[latej]

But people shouldn't have to ignore them.

If I was looking at joining the forum, and had a quick look through the most recent topics, I'd turn around and never look back.

Why should the majority have to turn a blind eye to a very small number of people who make the forum a tedious place to be?

How many potential users have they put off engaging in conversation?

How many regular users don't bother posting anymore because of the tediousness they would have to go through - With many topics being derailed by "trolls".

There should be a zero tolerance on repeat behaviour like that if you ask me.

And this is where a moderation *team* can help (rather than just poor Carl on his own).

I would not underestimate new users/members or lurkers. People can make their own decisions about it. I would be surprised if that was the reason for someone for not joining - but of course, that I can't be sure of.

As Carl said, people should ignore them. I simply don't read anything from some members, and it is not complex to reach such decision. And for me it is not tedious at all. But banning - doesn't feel right to me. Glad I can let that to others ;-)

I obviously now agree the mod-team can/will help, especially that Carl wishes for it.

TTD just isn't as friendly a place as it could be - With one of the best/most constructive/friendliest threads, the one where people can post video of themselves.

Why? Because the only people who can comment have been vetted heavily.

Just imagine if the entire forum was like that? It would be amazing.

About the thread where one can post videos - I noticed multiple users have actually posted their videos elsewhere. And that is what I value - they decided that whatever feedback comes, it will not affect their mood, and maybe also they don't feel it is right to distinguish between different members. So if you ask me, that thread is not the way I prefer - however, the thread exists, and e.g Wrighty67 for sure finds it helpful. Which is enough of a reason for its existence. However I think the majority should and will post elsewhere!

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

I would not underestimate new users/members or lurkers. People can make their own decisions about it. I would be surprised if that was the reason for someone for not joining - but of course, that I can't be sure of.

As Carl said, people should ignore them. I simply don't read anything from some members, and it is not complex to reach such decision. And for me it is not tedious at all. But banning - doesn't feel right to me. Glad I can let that to others ;-)

The most important thing to understand with this is, the people who are not ignoring the real trolls who are here to troll maliciously, or don't realize they troll maliciously and do without realizing--the people who ARE INTERACTING with the trolls--are people who are fairly long standing members. It is not new members who are getting trolled by these people. It is long standing members.

 

[NextLevel]

I guess another detail as regards to BB and Zeio: Zeio did not really prove anything. He was posting links to content by others that was not exactly about what BB was talking about and BB sets up his "debate subjects" so that he cannot be wrong because he NARROWLY defines the subject and the answers to it.

So, in a sense, BB and Zeio were talking past each other and while they were doing it, they were both calling each other names and behaving badly. Nothing was proven. Nothing was gained. And Zeio had being doing that to BB for just about a decade so, it is a long history of bad blood. Not just one incident. There were multiple threads, across which they had hijacked the thread and were having flame wars.

In an instance like that, you can't think of either side being right. They both were wrong. But while creating an atmosphere of anger on the site, Zeio was also attacking me and refusing to let things cool down after repeated direct requests.

Does BB deserve to be managed for how poor his attitude over years is? Yes. Is he a repeat offender where Zeio was primarily offending against the offensive? Yes. But he got pretty far out of line.

And as a result, these days, I try not to get in the middle of those things if I can help it. But I think the forum may very well be worse off with nobody monitoring that stuff.

Moderation is a thankless task. People focus on the privileges sometimes but it gives a wrong perspective - it is largely unpaid service.

I absolutely agree that Zeio has been and can be a valuable contributor. But I also know he crossed some serious boundaries, and THEY WERE WITH ME, ABOUT ME AND VERY VERY PERSONAL. He actually crossed some boundaries that no other TTD member in the decade or so of moderating has ever crossed with me.

Personally, I don't hold it against him. But he went way beyond that line with me personally and yet, all I did was ask him to take a few weeks of ignoring BB. When it stopped being an ask and I told him he needed to take a few weeks off, he went farther with the personal stuff against me.

So....

I do feel Zeio is a valuable contributor to whatever TT forums to which he will contribute, there were reasons things came down how they did.

And we don't have to agree on it all.

I hope you have a good day.

Yeah, we sometimes have different boundaries around privacy and trying to work with others. It's a complex topic, but I definitely hate it when you are trying to work out something in private and then, whatever the feelings about what you are trying to work out in private, it gets broadcast to everyone when it was never intended to be and in a context that is far from what you intended.

 

[NextLevel]

I would not underestimate new users/members or lurkers. People can make their own decisions about it. I would be surprised if that was the reason for someone for not joining - but of course, that I can't be sure of.

As Carl said, people should ignore them. I simply don't read anything from some members, and it is not complex to reach such decision. And for me it is not tedious at all. But banning - doesn't feel right to me. Glad I can let that to others ;-)

I obviously now agree the mod-team can/will help, especially that Carl wishes for it.



About the thread where one can post videos - I noticed multiple users have actually posted their videos elsewhere. And that is what I value - they decided that whatever feedback comes, it will not affect their mood, and maybe also they don't feel it is right to distinguish between different members. So if you ask me, that thread is not the way I prefer - however, the thread exists, and e.g Wrighty67 for sure finds it helpful. Which is enough of a reason for its existence. However I think the majority should and will post elsewhere!

Well, as someone who used to read the posts of players like brokenball 11-12 years ago as a newbie and used to think he knew about technique and the science of playing before he actually posted video, I will say that the thread you dislike is a valuable resource for those who want to use it. You also don't know what goes on with other users, you are not the moderator, so you don't know how many of them have taken offense at criticisms of their videos or posts.

I am broadly laissez-faire, but I also know that most people abuse information asymmetry. Usually, the main reason, though there are some exceptions, why someone doesn't want to post video of their play is that they know it will call their credibility in disrepute. As it should to some degree - one should really be aware of the damage that can be caused by speaking strongly about things you do not really understand. People think it is easy to biomechanically assess another person without ever having come close to achieving the same level of performance - it is possible, but it is hardly easy, and to do it, you should be honest enough to let people see how you play and if not, who you have coached, so we can get a better idea of what you bring to the table.

Usually, it is the person who has private security that supports living in a police free state. If you have ever trained in a TT poverty zone where you take everyone you see online as an expert, and then listened to players who have no business advising you, you will respect what Carl achieved with that thread much more. What you get when you receive input on that thread is some guarantee that you are dealing with someone who has put serious time into TT improvement. Many people who post online feel that just listening to their coaches and unsuccessfully learning anything (or just watching Ma Long, screw getting any coaching) gives them a right to tell you how to play.

So yes, as a rich learner who is probably in a good TT culture, I understand why you think one should post anywhere. As someone who learned old, and realizes how much bad information there is on the internet, I disagree. Hope that makes sense. For me, most beginners are getting free coaching and quality advice posting on that thread. Advanced players are the one who can and should post anywhere.

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

Well, as someone who used to read the posts of players like brokenball 11-12 years ago as a newbie and used to think he knew about technique and the science of playing before he actually posted video, I will say that the thread you dislike is a valuable resource for those who want to use it. You also don't know what goes on with other users, you are not the moderator, so you don't know how many of them have taken offense at criticisms of their videos or posts.

I am broadly laissez-faire, but I also know that most people abuse information asymmetry. Usually, the main reason, though there are some exceptions, why someone doesn't want to post video of their play is that they know it will call their credibility in disrepute. As it should to some degree - one should really be aware of the damage that can be caused by speaking strongly about things you do not really understand. People think it is easy to biomechanically assess another person without ever having come close to achieving the same level of performance - it is possible, but it is hardly easy, and to do it, you should be honest enough to let people see how you play and if not, who you have coached, so we can get a better idea of what you bring to the table.

Usually, it is the person who has private security that supports living in a police free state. If you have ever trained in a TT poverty zone where you take everyone you see online as an expert, and then listened to players who have no business advising you, you will respect what Carl achieved with that thread much more. What you get when you receive input on that thread is some guarantee that you are dealing with someone who has put serious time into TT improvement. Many people who post online feel that just listening to their coaches and unsuccessfully learning anything (or just watching Ma Long, screw getting any coaching) gives them a right to tell you how to play.

So yes, as a rich learner who is probably in a good TT culture, I understand why you think one should post anywhere. As someone who learned old, and realizes how much bad information there is on the internet, I disagree. Hope that makes sense. For me, most beginners are getting free coaching and quality advice posting on that thread. Advanced players are the one who can and should post anywhere.

I remember one time Matt Heatherington posted footage of him feeding multiball to a 2600+ level player and there were all these comments like: “that guy sux, his FH doesn’t look anything like Ma Long’s. He needs to do Z, Y and Z to be better”. I thought it was entertaining how guys who were basically sub 1000 level were trying to give advice to someone who was basically just short of the level of players on the international pro tour.

Now, while I may have thought it was entertaining that people who clearly did not understand how the body works in movement or TT technique were pontificating, Matt was furious and didn’t post for almost a year after telling people how angry those kind of comments made him. So, yep. Fully agree with what NextLevel is explaining here.

So someone who is higher level should be able to handle critiques that come from someone who doesn’t know what they are talking about. But it doesn’t make it any less rude. 😃

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

It is also worth noting there is a member who recently told two players who are relatively high level here on the forum that he was better than them, would beat them in a match and that they were mediocre players.

Having seen footage of all three players, I am fairly comfortable saying the player’s ability to assess the play of the two he was saying he was better than was almost certainly flawed. And his ability to assess his own level was also, in all likelyhood, not quite so accurate. 😃

So, higher level players should be able to handle it when lower level players insist on something like “I can beat you” based on something like video footage.

In video footage, and even in assessing someone’s play in person, there are things that are happening that are invisible to lower level players that higher level players are able to see because they have done, experience and/or played against those levels of spin.

I remember many times when I was less experienced seeing someone and thinking I could beat them and then getting beaten badly because, from watching I did not understand what they were doing.

 

[Tony's Table Tennis]

Yeah, we sometimes have different boundaries around privacy and trying to work with others. It's a complex topic, but I definitely hate it when you are trying to work out something in private and then, whatever the feelings about what you are trying to work out in private, it gets broadcast to everyone when it was never intended to be and in a context that is far from what you intended.

I have had that experience with zeio on mytt
he is the type of guy that believes it is fine to broadcast private messages.
So chatting to him does carry advisory warnings.
Some people just don't respect private messages and that is just different traits of people you get out there.

I had complimented zeio's time and effort to copy and paste content from asian forums to english forums.
he is a god for many, but to me, I prefer original content. zeio is just a text version of pingsunday.

While he does devote 10+ hours a day on forums by the look of it, I do like to know who is the one talking and over times, I have come to know a lot more of many members. what they look like, how they play, a bit of personal history and such and I do think that is great. For zeio, over a decade, he is still unknown/unseen. Well, that is just he I guess and he has the right to continue to remain anonymous.
I do feel it is very close to pingsundy, someone with lots of copied content and some people are fine with that.
With credits to zeio, his copy content value is way better than pingsunday.
could they be the same person, or maybe zeio should start his own page and make some money for his efforts? lol

 

[NextLevel]

I have had that experience with zeio on mytt
he is the type of guy that believes it is fine to broadcast private messages.
So chatting to him does carry advisory warnings.
Some people just don't respect private messages and that is just different traits of people you get out there.

I had complimented zeio's time and effort to copy and paste content from asian forums to english forums.
he is a god for many, but to me, I prefer original content. zeio is just a text version of pingsunday.

While he does devote 10+ hours a day on forums by the look of it, I do like to know who is the one talking and over times, I have come to know a lot more of many members. what they look like, how they play, a bit of personal history and such and I do think that is great. For zeio, over a decade, he is still unknown/unseen. Well, that is just he I guess and he has the right to continue to remain anonymous.
I do feel it is very close to pingsundy, someone with lots of copied content and some people are fine with that.
With credits to zeio, his copy content value is way better than pingsunday.
could they be the same person, or maybe zeio should start his own page and make some money for his efforts? lol

Nah, I do think zeio had a post a very long time ago with video of his play on one point and his level looked good - of course one can have doubts about any one video as identity of the poster. And zeio is clearly very intelligent, it is just sometimes he gets righteous (his moniker is "zeio" after all) and the righteousness makes him insufferable because he can't back off a mistake by admitting to being wrong in a truly humble way. That is not an uncommon trait with very smart people anyways, so I don't have any problem with the arrogance or self-righteousness other than in a social context that makes it unbearable like some of his arguments. And a lot of the stuff he shared was extremely valuable to me and others and still is to know about Asian TT, I know people who said I should just learn Chinese if I cared that much - the market for press information on TT can be really improved with the kind of stuff zeio was doing and unfortunately he was stopped from doing it without the gap between being plugged I find pingsunday to be in a special crooked class, I definitely consider zeio far above that. So I get why he has a lot of defenders amongst people who haven't dealt with the darker side of zeio. But I like to stress that I am no angel myself, having some of these traits makes you understand them. Web forums need characters, but the forum must have a way of maintaining its vision. Free for alls cater to no one by trying to cater to everyone.

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

If I am the biggest troll I have no idea why you just cannot ban me

I am just curious, what makes you think you are a troll?

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

Nah, I do think zeio had a post a very long time ago with video of his play on one point and his level looked good - of course one can have doubts about any one video as identity of the poster. And zeio is clearly very intelligent, it is just sometimes he gets righteous (his moniker is "zeio" after all) and the righteousness makes him insufferable because he can't back off a mistake by admitting to being wrong in a truly humble way. That is not an uncommon trait with very smart people anyways, so I don't have any problem with the arrogance or self-righteousness other than in a social context that makes it unbearable like some of his arguments. And a lot of the stuff he shared was extremely valuable to me and others and still is to know about Asian TT, I know people who said I should just learn Chinese if I cared that much - the market for press information on TT can be really improved with the kind of stuff zeio was doing and unfortunately he was stopped from doing it without the gap between being plugged I find pingsunday to be in a special crooked class, I definitely consider zeio far above that. So I get why he has a lot of defenders amongst people who haven't dealt with the darker side of zeio. But I like to stress that I am no angel myself, having some of these traits makes you understand them. Web forums need characters, but the forum must have a way of maintaining its vision. Free for alls cater to no one by trying to cater to everyone.

Yeah. This is well said. I definitely have that dark side as well and used to express it quite frequently before I was a moderator. These days it only comes out every so often.

I wonder what happened to that hardbat guy burndtman.....

 

[JJ Ng]

I remember one time Matt Heatherington posted footage of him feeding multiball to a 2600+ level player and there were all these comments like: “that guy sux, his FH doesn’t look anything like Ma Long’s. He needs to do Z, Y and Z to be better”. I thought it was entertaining how guys who were basically sub 1000 level were trying to give advice to someone who was basically just short of the level of players on the international pro tour.

Now, while I may have thought it was entertaining that people who clearly did not understand how the body works in movement or TT technique were pontificating, Matt was furious and didn’t post for almost a year after telling people how angry those kind of comments made him. So, yep. Fully agree with what NextLevel is explaining here.

So someone who is higher level should be able to handle critiques that come from someone who doesn’t know what they are talking about. But it doesn’t make it any less rude. 😃

That is funny how sub 1000 level players are commenting on a 2600+ level player.

Too bad Matt did not post for a year after.

I read fast. I tend to ignore unhelpful posts/people.

 

[NextLevel]

I remember one time Matt Heatherington posted footage of him feeding multiball to a 2600+ level player and there were all these comments like: “that guy sux, his FH doesn’t look anything like Ma Long’s. He needs to do Z, Y and Z to be better”. I thought it was entertaining how guys who were basically sub 1000 level were trying to give advice to someone who was basically just short of the level of players on the international pro tour.

Now, while I may have thought it was entertaining that people who clearly did not understand how the body works in movement or TT technique were pontificating, Matt was furious and didn’t post for almost a year after telling people how angry those kind of comments made him. So, yep. Fully agree with what NextLevel is explaining here.

So someone who is higher level should be able to handle critiques that come from someone who doesn’t know what they are talking about. But it doesn’t make it any less rude. 😃

We've lost a lot of forum history, I remember one wise engineer (was it killerspintt or something like that was his handle) telling us the story of Schlager posting on German forums and getting hounded about his technique or something he was trying to teach... people don't fully appreciate how insane people can get once you don't look like Ma Long. Of course, everyone is entitled to an opinion, we all say dumb things, but there are differences in the quality of dumbness when you have the right kinds of experience.

 

[JJ Ng]

We've lost a lot of forum history, I remember one wise engineer (was it killerspintt or something like that was his handle) telling us the story of Schlager posting on German forums and getting hounded about his technique or something he was trying to teach... people don't fully appreciate how insane people can get once you don't look like Ma Long. Of course, everyone is entitled to an opinion, we all say dumb things, but there are differences in the quality of dumbness when you have the right kinds of experience.

Schlager does have funny looking strokes. But to tell a world champion like Schlager how to do a stroke, what audacity! I think people don't realize everyone plays a bit differently. It is like in tennis, people love how Federer plays but most people cannot play like Federer. Diversity is fine. At the end of the day, just as long as you serve legally and you beat the other player fair and square, I don't care what techniques you use. I mean Lin Yun-ju flipped every serve with his backhand and look at how effective he is. He must be a genius at reading the spin (but to most viewers, they probably don't know how goooood Lin yun-ju is at reading spin because Lin yun-ju makes his return of service looks so easy and effortless). And then people start saying his forehand sucks? You cannot win with some of these viewers. They will criticize everything. When you can backhand flip return other people's serves like Lin Yun-ju, you can work on your forehand later.....

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

We've lost a lot of forum history, I remember one wise engineer (was it killerspintt or something like that was his handle) telling us the story of Schlager posting on German forums and getting hounded about his technique or something he was trying to teach... people don't fully appreciate how insane people can get once you don't look like Ma Long. Of course, everyone is entitled to an opinion, we all say dumb things, but there are differences in the quality of dumbness when you have the right kinds of experience.

Yep. killerspintt. He posted a few of the all time best posts on the forum way back then.

 

[Tony's Table Tennis]

That is funny how sub 1000 level players are commenting on a 2600+ level player.

Too bad Matt did not post for a year after.

I read fast. I tend to ignore unhelpful posts/people.

1000 teaching 2600 is one thing really crazy
More common you can see is like 1000 teaching 1500 or 1500 teaching 2000

Or like when I comment on coaching (I don't regard myself high level in any regards), but I feel there are 1500 or lower correcting me 🫡

And what is even more common is maybe 1500 suggesting to higher level players on what equipment to use and what has spin and what has control.
equipment understanding is actually very heavily influenced by the technical ability of the user, so it is just one of those things that amazes me.

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

I never considered myself to be a troll but you say I am when you say so.
How many other posters use big red letters to hilight ?

I think you have been playing TT for a long time. Longer than many on the forum have been alive. I also think you have a unique perspective and some information that it is worth it for people to understand.

However, you do also insist on your perspective being the only perspective and insult people who don’t agree with you.

So, like any human you have character flaws.

Ever thought about taking up bowling….cycling….rock climbing….? Or you could join burndtmann and take up hardbat….

 

[Gozo Aruna]

I think you have been playing TT for a long time. Longer than many on the forum have been alive. I also think you have a unique perspective and some information that it is worth it for people to understand.

However, you do also insist on your perspective being the only perspective and insult people who don’t agree with you.

So, like any human you have character flaws.

Ever thought about taking up bowling….cycling….rock climbing….? Or you could join burndtmann and take up hardbat….

Dang it Carl,

You have forgotten to mention Pickleball.