12-31-2016, 10:54 AM
(12-30-2016, 11:16 PM)CINwillWIN Wrote: Just my two cents, scroll past if you need... (but)
I have known Denny for a long time. Got to finally meet him and 34 a few seasons back. I consider them both family.
Denny is a Bengals fan. He is a season ticket holding, 24/7 apparel wearing, bleeds orange and black just like all of us on game day. Denny is a good guy in real life, and a true homer, but like a few mentioned about him and the reds, he would roll with the negativity just like all of us, but with the Bengals, it is veered a little different. Only difference for him, (us), other moderators/administrators, we worked/volunteered for the organization. I was/am a positive influence among the others selected to these positions. 34 was very wise and fatherly in sort to show he was with the members in their frustrations and would attend answers were needed to push on. Denny was over-positive... which would lead him down a path that was frowned upon by most negative members, and some other mods (JoefromFlo). Denny, as all of us were directed in a way to promote positivism, and to look on the brighter side, or, there will be another day to fight kind of rhetoric. We all handled our positions differently, but across the board, we all held our positions in high regard to the organization. I was chosen, I wanted to do right by the staff, and promote the organization, and still help fans, or members...for me it was unbelievable.
As you all know, my contribution (mostly) was through signatures. I have been promoting positive sigs since 2005. You would rarely (if ever) saw a signature I made that was in a negative manner. At the same time, I get frustrated. I'm a fan as well...I (personally) just re-group, and go about my mentoring(s) from the admin|moderation intention. That's how it would be...it sucked, it was a game, we needed to move on and a learn from our mistakes and I'm sure you've all heard this before coming from Marvin's press conference.
Joe and Denny and their fighting wasn't real until the end...as it went a little sideways, and then, the moderation was getting on, and a few mods|admins were moving on, and then Bengals_moderator moved on and we got a new team that pursued other forms of social media. That was hard to see what Bengals_moderator, and the admins|mods build for over 8 years that there was a huge shift, and the board was in danger. The negative posts were in massive waves, and even though it was in good banter, the occasional death threat(s) to organizational owner(s) would be a ban-able offense, and then it would stem from there from the newer team taking over the message board found it not-useful, hard to obtain, and feared that these attitudes would extend further to the new social media they were building. When the message board finally went down, those of the Mod|Admin teams were asked to moderate the social outlets, to keep the positivist up, and the negative posts reported. I personally could not follow through ending my ties digitally after years of contribution not only to the message board, but the actual bengals.com website, twitter, and a few select player I was able to help with my 'abilities'.
Thank you very much to the new admin|mod group and members here for allowing me to be me, but it is still hard to be an extreme-negative fan from what I have been through for so long. I miss many former mods| admins|former members from the mothership, and it truly is a(n) island of mis-fit toys, meaning this fan-base deserves more, but are patiently waiting for something to change for the positive. It's easy to find the negative, but it takes time to find the positive...it is there, there is a lesser evil, and there is a greater good. Can't hate on those who always needs that 'brighter-side' or an inkling of hope to carry on.
/rant over, Denny is retired, happily...for better of for worse, he's still one of us...a Bengals fan.
Wow...there's a lot of good insight in this if people take the time to read it.
Were you guys paid for the message board or volunteers? Also, if you were volunteers, did the Bengals invite you to events?
It's interesting that they kind of had you guys steer conversations towards positive topics. The old 'We'll live to fight another day' part.
