I often find myself feeling a bit sorry for Archo, he seems to get ganged up on a lot on here.
I probably don't know the full story, and I'm not saying he is totally correct in everything he says, and so maybe in the past Archo has said and done things to annoy some of you. However, there definitely seems to be a grudge held against him that seems pretty unnecessary. People bring up the past bit too often on here, and claiming that he is dishonest is a bit harsh. From what I can see, often Archo is simply asking for help on certain areas of the game. He may give his opinions without video evidence, but so what? Why do people make such a big deal about video evidence? It is up to Archo whether he wants to provide video, no one else. If you don't feel like a question can be answered without video evidence, don't answer it, or just kindly ask for it and go from there. From what I can see, he isn't looking for trouble, he is just a regular user who wants advice. People seem to look for the "wrong" in his posts, and bite way to easy. Why can't you guys just look for the positives and help when you can? People taking the high-ground against him is getting a bit boring, lets all just get along and help each other out. Lets all help to keep TTD as friendly of a forum as possible.
That includes you Archo!
Thanks for your post. I knew at some point it would come to this, because people who don't know what happen3d always show up in the 90th minute and see the score and think whoever is losing badly is getting bullied undeservedly. I actually put archo on my ignore list to avoid pulling my hair out so I tend to ignore his posts. But while there is some piling on, I want to make a post to set the context so that when we move forward and cut archo slack and he starts doing the things that got us to this point, no one will act surprised.
The first post that I ever saw from archo was on ooakforum and it was a post talking about how to loop properly and explaining why I and a player at that time I was teaching had bad forehand loops. As someone who has at long history of dealing with anonymous critics on the Internet, I have found that usually, people who post such things without presenting video of their play can be very interesting characters. Archo repeatedly felt the need to offer advice to players rated far higher than he was who were seeking advice, even though such advice was often when I read it of dubious quality. To his credit, archo eventually posted video of his play that showed his true level of play. I don't have a great forehand loop or pretend to have one. But I know that many good coaches while know the limitations of my forehand consider it a respectable shot. So someone saying otherwise should at least present his so I can understand the lofty standards.
I have a huge pet peeve against people who will not talk about their background extensively giving advice to people on the Internet. It's in part because I often listened to people whose level I did not know and ended up paying the price by trying out dubious things. Because of where I sit on mytt and ooakforum and TTD, I tend to know a lot of people who post who are anonymous experts to the larger public. And many people reading these anonymous expeats think they are 2300 players, sometimes including myself, even though I put myself out explicitly as 1950-2050 trying to get to 2050-2150. Many people offering advice on a variety of equipment and techniques are as low as USATT 800-1300. Some of the higher individuals though not necessarily with better coaching cred are USATT 1800 at best. For people who give regular technical advice, Myself and DerEchte are probably the highest rated posters, which isn't saying much. Our credibility is not our rating per se, but that as adult amateurs who worked with good coaches and got to a decent level, we tend to be able to put in words things that people who started much younger and haven't tried to coach just picked up without having a mental process.
Since I am not in the mood to go through the various things that archo does or has done, I do think that it is best to ignore him. At least, we have gotten to a point where he is not as quick to give advice to players who are much higher rated without presenting his true level. And since most of the people on the thread have seen video of him playing, I think that is enough for people to place his ideas in context.
What is interesting is that the people who are most critical of archo are the people who have tried to help him the most. That says something, though I am not sure what.
Players who are around good players and not looking to the Internet for advice tend to not see any issue with people saying stuff because they have the resources to ignore such nonsense. And people who have tried to help archo understand that table tennis advice is more complicated than stories using table tennis terminology and probably frustrated that he doesn't get it.
But you are 100% right, Yecats. The right way is to ignore the kid. He is not going to change. In some ways, he is a good ignorant kid. But in many ways, he is clearly a delusional basement player who imagines he has a 2700 understanding of the sport. But as long as he is not telling anyone on the Internet how to loop when he clearly cannot and has not taught anyone how to do so to a decent level, I am okay with what he does.
The reason why critics jump on the stories is that he usually has a knack for taking a buzzword that was introduced in a discussion and saying he did or experienced it. He sees a super league backhand, it is necessary Archo'so backhand. He hears about hook looping, he did a hook loop. I am getting more whip, archo is getting more whip. And all these things are described as if he is a 2500 player so it makes one curious to see what is happening since archo is unlikely to be doing these things. But it is all part of the charade.
This post is much longer than I intended and I don't have time for this.
