For those of you that followed me here, or are new to the site, I gave a brief synopsis to what transpired that led to me starting a site on my own. The character maximum on twitter didn’t let me do it justice, so here it is…
I visited a certain message board quite a bit, and developed some pretty good friendships on there with not only other posters, but the site owner and the person I would consider the head moderator. The site owner at times would send things my way that he was creating to see what my thoughts were, and I had private conversations with the main moderator many times about things I had seen or heard in regard to the program. Things were great as I appreciated the conversations on that board and had also built up some “truth equity” (for lack of a better term) so people would reach out to me pretty frequently on a lot of things, but also liked hearing from people on why I may be wrong (there was a great debate on the 3-4 vs 4-3).
Along comes 2020 and with it a virus that shocks the world and sends everyone on edge, but also a new poster or two enter the fold on the site. If any of you read what I posted on there, I was pretty truthful/blunt with certain situations. While I consider myself a Nebraska football fan, I call it like I see it. Losses to Illinois, a third straight losing season for this staff (fourth overall), and failing to go to a bowl game again made it so the negative posts were a lot more prevalent compared to my positive posts. That didn’t go over well with certain posters, which i’m completely fine with. My argument was always “if we are 12-20 and not making a bowl game in our third consecutive year, there are going to be things to work on.” While I would comment on things we could improve on such as penalties, special teams, Omaha recruiting, etc., it would always be looked at as “bashing” by a vocal minority on there.
Some posters that disliked the negative posts I had (while bypassing the positive posts I made such as defending Chinander, praising Coach Fisher, etc.) started their own private message group which a majority of it was just bashing me. That’s fine, i’m a big boy, doesn’t bother me at all. The problem becomes when you see screen shots of the main moderator participating in that, and subsequently changing his moderation style towards you accordingly. When you see those screen shots and start to see them shifting how they moderate your posts, I knew it was a matter of time before things went sideways. With Covid-19 putting everyone on edge and another frustrating season completed, the tension really grew towards me as the “things we need to work on” posts came up more often than positives. I still don’t believe that to be out of line, again, we haven’t had a winning season since 2016.
I do normal write-ups and leave comments here and there, but the one that got a very healthy thread locked was when I stated “If Oliver Martin plays for us this year, he will lead our team in receptions.” I felt good about it, I was going out on a limb with a prediction of a guy I think will be very good while others may have been overlooking him, but also was showing caution because he had played for 3 different teams in 4 years. I get notice that the main moderator had replied to my post with “rumors are not allowed” and locked the thread. You see, if he would have asked what I meant by that, he would have read just what I stated previously in this paragraph that i’m hoping the kid sticks around because he can be very good in Lincoln. However, since the moderator was a member of the behind the scenes group that disliked my posts (again, the screenshots are wild) he took it as a chance to lock something and just assumed negativity and rumor. I started a couple more threads asking what the hell was going on, all of which got deleted, and subsequently got me a one month ban to Guantanamo Bay for “questioning moderation”.
People reached out to me via twitter as they had no idea what was going on. Eventually after a couple weeks I received an email from the site owner that my ban was lifted early, but I decided to stay off the main board and stuck to private messages. To me lifting the ban early was an admission of “we messed up”, but I never received anything like that. If I was banned for as little as what I posted a couple weeks ago, heaven forbid I make a comment like “If Omar Manning plays for us this year he will be all-conference.” One of the private threads I had was with someone that kept telling me the site owner wanted me to write for him with the partnership he was starting. I was intrigued, but I had never been asked, and since I had just been banned I preferred to have a conversation with the site owner himself and not “tell him he can write for me” through a third party. I don’t think that’s out of line. If I was going to write for someone’s site, I’d like that someone to ask me to. Further, I only write in my spare time and family/vacations/work could get in the way so I didn’t want expectations and frequency of articles to be something I wasn’t capable of.
Eventually the site owner gets a hold of me via private message and asks for me to call him. I asked what it was in reference to and he stated “writing for us and also to talk about the ban.” I responded with “I will give you a call as I have some questions what writing entails but also how it will be moderated as I will pretty much be putting the same things on there that just got me banned.” I told him my mid-year was coming up and I could get ahold of him after that. We also end up having a little ShortSideOption during this time, so the site wasn’t what I was focused on at the moment. When I logged back in a couple days later, I had a response from him, but then a separate conversation started between him and the main moderator (the one where I have the screenshots) titled “clearing the air”. My mid-year was over, but the holiday was upon us with a new baby in the mix, and the last thing I wanted to do is get into a back and forth with someone who I have seen gravitated towards an unfavorable opinion of me. I didn’t open either of the messages up.
I got through the holiday and took an extended vacation to help around the house and see family. I logged back on one day and saw my profile picture had been changed. That was odd, but I reset my password and changed it back and all was fine. I reached out to a private thread and told them what happened, but we all chalked it up to my password expiring and maybe that’s what happens. After I go to work for the day and get back, I receive a notice (still pinned on my twitter) that I was banned for “refusal to communicate”.
Long and short of it, is apparently they gave me 24 hours to respond, but since I hadn’t opened the messages I had no idea (that was relayed to me from someone else via Twitter). I had zero clue I had a timeframe to respond as I didn’t read the latest message from the private thread of the site owner, and had never opened the one he started with us two and the main moderator (again, the holiday and a new baby took a little bit or precedent). As i’ve told the many people reaching out, it’s probably for the best. If the main sheriff has it out for you based on what you’ve seen him participate in, it’s probably a good idea you don’t go back to that town. Further, if 24 hour communication notices are going to be given without someone even reading them and the result is a ban, i’m not sure I could fulfill what was going to be asked of me to write for the site anyway.
So here we are with my own site… I’m hoping to do a recap of each game and a preview for the next, but I know I have some vacations that will interfere along with heading to the USC vs Stanford game for one of the weekends. Hope you all enjoy!
Glad you got banned to push you to start this. No one should take a message board even half that seriously. Loser behavior.
I appreciate the post, really unsure what I did so wrong to get my IP address banned where I can’t even lurk over there. We went from “come write for us” to an IP address ban in 24 hours. But trying to make the most of it and so far it’s been great. The donations have blown me away and page views are great.
Thanks again!
What are you hearing about the latest investigation of Scott Frost by the NCAA? This sort of came out of nowhere. I will be interested to see your take of this.
Just put up a post brotha!
Just read it. Thanks.
What’s your new site?
You’re commenting on it.
Very happy to be able to read your thoughts without having to weed through the non-sense from Karens on that board.
Lol well we are happy to see you over here!
RR ruins that board. I dont get why he is not held to any standard himself over there. Someone should moderate the moderator IMO
Congrats on your new blog however!
Gotta be careful with that… my original one month ban was for “questioning moderation.”
lol i was wondering what the hell happened over there. i’m glad i found this site and get to see your side of the story. pretty ridiculous ‘moderation’ imo. i never joined hmax but always read your takes and appreciated your input. honestly its really unfortunate for them as there is not a lot of good football knowledge or content on the message boards w/o your presence so kudos for striking out on your own. best of luck and will continue to read your stuff.
Ya, more was just trying to defend myself with that story. Work mid-year and a baby being born with a 4th of July holiday and family being back made life accelerate on me a little bit so calling to talk about a ban on a message board or reading about it in the private message wasn’t high on the priority list for me at that moment.
Sucks, I liked it over there. But just taking my IP address ban as a positive and starting this site. Really good traffic so far!
Sucks. HB came for all my goodies too. Sons a bitches! 😉
lol maybe it’s early, but HB?
First and foremost I’m happy for you that you have your own space to do the things you want to do them. You’re literally one of the reasons I subscribed to the board as a long time lurker.
The second thing I wanted to ask I hate even talking about but there’s enough smoke that I just wanted to know some of your insight as a bit of an insider. Do all the rumors about Scott Frost’s personal life interfering with the product on the field have legs? I don’t want to get into the minutia of all the things that are going around because quite frankly I hate that. To me I would just want to know from a trusted source like you whether or not these are real issues with our HC. As far as I’m concerned a one-word answer would suffice. Have a great day SSO.
I think off the field stuff is wearing on him, yes. Whether that’s his job security or other things. I would also say a minor thing that happened (more than likely) has snowballed into massive rumors which is unfortunate.
I know how these things can snowball. I’m pulling for HCSF. If it doesn’t work out I wish him the best. Husker legend no matter what.
I am a long time lurker on the other board, and always found your analysis to be very enlightening. It’s amazing they would drive you off the board like that, but I guess a certain moderator’s jealousy runs deep! Kudos on starting up your own site and I will continue to follow!
I’m not sure he was jealous, he and I usually got along great until that one new poster showed up. Then he completely 180’d on me and I don’t know why. Pretty frustrating I had to start my own site because I didn’t respond in a timely manner while my daughter was being born, but that’s life.
One new poster? I have a great deal of respect for RR. If you answered on another post who that one poster was forgive me but I would like to know who that was that could possibly influence Marc to turn on the most read and influential poster on there (you)
I’m not going to put it on an open forum, but feel free to email me. He was from South Dakota so maybe there was some common ground there.
Can’t stand the moderation (read moderator) on HM. Congratulations on your start up. I also have to thank a sneaky HM poster for sharing one of your articles and turning me on to this. I’m not on Twitter so I was out of the loop.
Pretty unfortunate I was forced out of there during a new addition to my family, but it is what it is. I’m overwhelmed with the support i’ve received over here. Thanks for the kind words!
I’m tuned in from here in Pecan Plantation, Texas. Would like to hang out here with the grown ups. Don’t look back…More power to you SSO!
lol thank you. Hope you like what we bring!
Glad to have stumbled onto your Blog. Always appreciated your perspective even if I didn’t always agree. I was on that other board and got banned because I posted for major news about to break and to keep your ears open. It was advance warning about the Pelini tape about to break. I couldn’t reveal the source without jeopardizing the relationship, but I just said stay tuned without even linking the news to any player or coach. I was told the the moderator to reveal what I knew or get locked out. I let my paid membership lapse and have lurked since. Thanks for sharing your thoughts with us. Someone over there thinks they alone should have the only voice on the team we follow.
Ya, I actually liked the back and forth I would get with some people. I still always go back to me liking the 3-4 and having a few guys love the 4-3. In a sense we were both “right”. It was just interesting when I pointed out how we were not doing well with recruiting Omaha, things really started to turn. The main moderator even posted he thought we would get 3 out of the 4 of the guys from Omaha and I go “what makes you think that” and his response was “just things I’ve been told and read”. We end up getting blanked just like I was saying was a possibility.
Things really came to a head when I talked bad about Husker Power. It was just a perfect storm and the culmination was me not calling the owner while my wife was in labor and having our daughter. It’s unfortunate because I wish I could post over there but this has been great. And people have been extremely generous.
SSO, what a great day! I got the ban hammer over on HM one day in 2020 when the owner woke up on the wrong side of the bed (somehow I disrespected his uncle in a reply to somebody else’s post? Killed my IP addy so couldn’t even lurk. lol). The only thing I really missed was your breakdowns of all aspects of Husker football. I clicked on a link to “Where do we go from here?” over in the reddit Huskers sub and HERE YOU ARE!!! I’m going to catch up on history and really anticipate your takes moving forward as the program navigates this next phase of the Scott Frost experiment.
Glad to have you over here! Not sure how it got so bad that my IP address needed to get banned but I suppose everything happens for a reason and it’s actually worked out really well over here. With how the season has played out, i’ve wrote way more than I thought I would this year.
SSO, so glad to have found this. You, MABC, and N2FL were the only ones who I thought contributed meaningful original stuff to HM. The moderator-who-shall-not-be-named was a colossal pain and ridiculously full of himself. HM has gone downhill significantly since you left. I go to see what’s up and leave quickly. Lots of posting tweets, little original content of substance. Thanks for doing this!
Nothing but love for over there, unfortunate I got the boot and would love to get back but it is what it is. This has been a great side venting situation for Husker football. I still speak with some guys from over that way so at least got to keep those.
Thank you for starting this. I have lurked over there for over a decade, maybe two but never could bring myself to join or put myself out there. It always just seemed like you could not have an open conversation over there. It’s okay to disagree, but as long as you’re being civil towards one another I think open conversation can happen. The mentality over there of “this is the way it has always been done” is tired and played out. I truly believe a majority of the posters and lurkers there want to see a move forward, rumors are fun and venting after a game can help release the emotions and help us move on from yet another, pitiful on field performance. Bless the person that mentioned Herbie’s Hangout in a thread, which quickly got removed, but I am here now. You have my support, I know there are good people over there, come here, speak openly, have some fun and let those crusty old farts ban free speech, complain about liver spots, rail on those that want to turn Memorial Stadium in to a raucous, ass hair on fire experience for opposing teams as opposed to the church picnic clap fest the old farts remember from the 60’s. It worked in the 60’s so it must work now….. mmhmmm