I have some thoughts on why our fanbase is so fragmented when it comes to message boards, and why there are so many smaller, struggling boards:
We have a weird fanbase that has an even weirder rival. And that weird rival is weird due to their religion (my religion). So, the weird rival has built up this fantasy where Utah fans all hate mormons and actively persecute mormons.
Then, there are non-members who have actualy been persecuted by mormons in this state (see all the talks in general conference about how not to be a jerk to non-members or even how not to be a jerk to members who may go to a different school). Those non members are a minority but a vocal one.
You end up with this weird feeling among Utah mormon fans, who get put down because somehow by being a mormon Utah fan, you are somehow sinning.
You have a small segment of Utah’s fanbase that feels like they need to “stand up against anti-mormonism”.
You have another small segment of the fanbase that feels like they need to “stand up against mormonism”.
BUT, here is the kicker. There isn’t a message board that allows everyone to just hash it out. Well, I take that back. There is one, Utefans, but that place is falling apart. It is why UFN did so well for so long and why it hangs on to this day. It’s one place where ALL Ute fans are welcome to discuss, talk, etc.
Every other message board seems to be built around one of those two “small” factions of our fanbase (and Utefans falls into this category as well. It has gone from a place for all to more of the “I need to stand up against mormonism” website).
There are three main Utah message boards and all struggle with numbers and none is really that amazing:
Utefans
Utehub
Utahby5
Utefans is falling apart due to lack of leadership
Utahby5 is where all the original, cool, UFN posters went to, after their little clique was overrun by the masses.
And there is this site. The question is, what will this site become? Right now, it is a site that only allows certain topics to be discussed. That is holding this site back.
This site has extreme potential, especially if webmonkey is going to continue to let UFN die. BUT, this site HAS to become a place for ALL.
We have to let us talk about every topic. Let the BYU haters talk about BYU. Let the rich, elite liberals bag on Trump. Let the poor, uneducated conservatives talk about how Hillary has a hit list (he he, see my dig?). Let there be discussions about mormonism and the government and football and basketball and byu.
People will get mad. People will be offended. BUT, we will all have one thing in common: Our love of all things UTAH.
Category filters is a great idea. BUT, some of us need to be mature enough to turn off certain categories instead of running away.
If this site stays as exclusionary as it is, and it only allows limited talk on this board, it will never grow into anything special. It will always stay a site where a few mormon posters can post a couple posts a day.
There is HUGE opportunity for this site. HUGE. There is a void in Utah message boarding. Someone needs to figure out a way to include ALL Ute fans. Not just the LDS ones. Not just the ones who don’t want to talk about BYU. Not just the anti-mormon ones.
Sports is the one area where EVERYBODY comes together. It is the BEST arena to have political, religious, etc discussions, because at the end of the day, we can put our differences aside and watch a game together with a cold drink of our choice and celebrate our similarities.
Holy s**t, this is long.
If we want this, or any other message board to survive, we all need to be more tolerant and allow all on here. We need to be willing to not post, or turn off a category.
Heck, I’d recommend that Tony set this site up where you can’t see politics or religion unless you are a donor. That way ALL fans can come to the site, the crazy is hidden, and we can all talk about Utah sports for free. Then, if you want to have this be your go to message board, you can pay a couple bucks a month and have access to the crazy.
I hope someone steps up and finds a way to include everyone.
Thanks for the detailed commentary. I’m just wondering a couple of things because you are making conclusions which I’m not sure are correct.
Right now, it (UteHub) is a site that only allows certain topics to be discussed.
I’m not aware of any topics that are not allowed, other than spam. What topics are not allowed here? I’ve posted no site rules and no statements anywhere saying what is or is not allowed.
If this site stays as exclusionary as it is, and it only allows limited talk on this board, it will never grow into anything special.
First, I think the site is already something special. Of course, I’m biased.
Second, how is the site exclusionary? Who is being excluded? How? What is being “limited” exactly?
It’s not you. You have been great. It’s been the posters. For example, has beehive posted since we veered off Utah topics last week?
There are some very vocal posters here that have made it clear that only Utah is to be talked about here. Not BYU, not politics, nothing but Utah.
That just limits the discussion.
I’d say be a stickler on personal attacks and messages posted in the right category.
Other than that, let the discussion reign.
There’s no way to be everything for everyone, unless you are a Holiday Inn lounge band.
Now that I’ve added the category filter to the site I hope it can provide a good space for a wider array of Ute fans who can tailor their feed to their liking.
Tony, I think he’s referring to the fact that the stream of consciousness posts on Utefans seems to follow the trending topics more than this site. That is both a positive and a curse, particularly with the devisiveness that pervades today’s society. I like to focus on Utah sports that this site provides.
Utah – you CAN have that. Turn off the other categories. Then, you will only see sports stuff.
Why do we have to stifle other talk just because you don’t want to be involved in it? Why can’t you just turn off a category?
Dude, you’re misreading some of the objections that have been made.
Nobody’s against political talk. They’re just against shoehorning political talk in SPORTS threads. Or shoehorning BYU bashing in non-BYU threads.
That was the problem over at UF.N. You’d be in a basketball or football thread and all of a sudden someone would make a crack about a political thing, or a BYU thing, and boom. Thread hijack.
That’s been the only objections I’ve made or that I’ve seen over here. STAY ON TOPIC! If people do that, there’s no issues over here.
Don’t get your dental floss in a wad. 😉
I’m with ’72. I just want Utah sports. No politics, no BYU. Just Utah. 🙂
Then uncheck the other categories. Now everybody wins.
Uncheck is de facto division.
Between the self promoting so called fundraisers for WebMonkey on UteFan and the circa 1990’s bulletin board layout of UteHub I think UteFandom has a long ways to go.
I’ve been a regular on cougarboard, WeAreSC.com and several others just reading and the layout, look and cosmetic feel for all exceed anything that the UteFans get.
What I dont’ get is if the owners of UteFans.net were truly UteFans why wouldn’t they let someone run that site who has the financial stability/and mental to keep it up and running. UteFans.net has been around forever!
There are two entirely different ways of reading posts here, one is the home page with its “modern day ufn” layout, and under the Forum menu which is more standard.
Wearesc.com is awful. Can’t stand that format. Cougarboard actually has some really good layouts and functionalities, as painful as it is to say.
I think I’ve done some very cool stuff with the home page here though. Once again, the Holiday Inn lounge band syndrome.
I never leave the home page. I like that you have multiple ways to enjoy the site.
The layout of Utehub is far superior to any other board you frequent. Cougarboard and WeAreSC are dogs**t in comparison. Stay on those boards if you’re too dumb to recognize a good thing.
WeAreSC.com layout and functionality sucks. The posters there are nearly as bad as Zoobs on Cougarboard.
The thing I like here, is that it doesn’t go out of its way to be political. I know there are a lot of contributers here that have strong feelings in that category, but its relaxing to come here and talk about Utah sports. I don’t feel like anyone is being excluded. I just think posters here just might like politics / religion / sports just a little more seperate.
A couple of comments. First, I appreciate the passion you bring to message boards. It seems like you really think about this stuff and really care.
Second, I have a very hard time taking a person (or his arguments) serious when he uses “always”, “never” “everybody”, “nobody” etc. Such absolute thinking is rarely correct. You are arguing your opinion, tone it down a bit and you may have better responses.
Third, (and much of this has been said) I think Tony has taken a pretty laissez faire approach to topics allowed on the board. I haven’t seen anything stating “no politics or religious discussions are allowed”. I think you might be confusing “rules” with the current, natural selection of topics.
I think as this board sprung out of some of the frustration with uf.net, and I think attracted folks for uf.net that were tired of political, religious and anti-BYU talk. In short it attracted people that wanted to talk about Utah sports with Utah fans.
I disagree with your assertion that a sports message board needs to be a place to discuss all of these other topics. By it’s very name a “sports message board” is focused on sports. My argument is that if you want to talk religion you can find a message board for that, same goes for politics. I honestly don’t care what other Utah fans think about these topics as long as we can represent our school well in public and on game day. I am interested in hearing what they think about Domo Hatfield possibly not playing in the bowl game, or our inability to score in the red zone, etc.
Now, I have no problem with BYU bashing on a Utah message board. It can be pretty funny. You can check my posting history on uf.net and see I have engaged in plenty of it. I feel like they are a sport rival, so it makes sense to discuss on a sports message board. Next time we play them, maybe I will start a thread making fun of them. However, bashing BYU when we have a game against a conference opponent just kind of feels sad and pathetic to me.
Finally, this is just my opinion! You can disagree and that is fine. I have preferences of what I like to see on this board, but I don’t think this, or any board, it has to be anything. Tony has done a great job, and I hope he does more of the same.
Sig – A couple things. I used “always” once…and it was used towards the board, not towards any paticular poster. Same with “never”. I never used the word “everybody”. I never used the word “nobody”.
Here is when I used those words:
If this site stays as exclusionary as it is, and it only allows limited talk on this board, it will never grow into anything special. It will always stay a site where a few mormon posters can post a couple posts a day.
Yeah, I probably should have said “it will have a really, really, really hard time…” and “it will most likely stay…” because that is what has happened at the other sites that have broken off because some couldn’t handle the responsibility of going into their profile and hiding a few categories.
So, while I appreciate your first paragraph as it is very flattering, you didn’t really read my post. You jumped to conclusions about what I had written about and then went on your soapbox (which is fine, I’m ok with soapboxes).
Onto your “third” I’ve already addressed this. Again, go back and read what I’ve written please. I never once said this was on Tony. I’ve said the opposite. It’s a culture here, and it is very exclusionary and the culture here jumps on you if you post anything other than Ute sports (I’ve gotten some direct mails from certain posters attacking me for posting about non Utah sports topics).
Now, onto the issue of a sports board as a platform for politics. I disagree with your assessment. I think sports boards are the BEST place to talk about such divisive issues. Why? Because, on religion boards or political boards, there is no diversity. You either go to a pro mormon board and talk about how great mormonism is or you go to a anti mormon board and bag on it (or take out “mormon” and insert “republican”, “democrat”, etc).
What makes this such a great platform for these discussions is that we all have a thing in common: Our love of Utah sports. We can debate Trump in one thread and then come together in the next and bag on ARod. While we have differences, at the end of the day, we are all still Ute fans, we can all go and sit by each other and appreciate our different ideas.
I’d hope that by using a platform as this, not that we ever always agree with each other, but that you can start to see that even though someone thinks differently, we are all similar at the end of the day and all want the same things: friendship, to feel happy, to have sense of purpose and the Utes to beat whoever they are playing this week.
By using a platform such as this to talk about such divisive issues, we can hopefully soften the hate and the divide between the two thoughts of opinion and find compromise.
There is always three sides to every issue. My side, your side and our side. Sports message boards keep us united through our love of sports.
I get that some don’t want to see/talk/be a part of those things. BUT, if we allow them to bully off members of the board who DO want to talk about it, then this board will have a really, really, really hard time growing. The sad fact is, they drive posters away from this board, where if they would just hide certain categories, then we could all be happy. But, some refuse to do that, then complain when people try to expand the board and help it grow.
Sports, religion, and politics are all inherently divisive. Most fan bases don’t deal with all three nearly like our fan base does. If more inclusion and participation is the goal then sticking to the bond we share, University of Utah sports, should be the focus. When I disagree with a post about the Utes, I still know we wear the same colors and want the same goal. Can’t the same on religion and politics. Mixing in all three increases the chances of people taking offense and not participating exponentially. Not saying they shouldn’t all be talked about but that’s the fact.
True, but nobody is forced to respond to, or even read, political threads. I think having options, especially during the offseason, is smart, and I’ll never understand the folks who incessantly complain about the politics and religion discussions when they can simply uncheck the category.
I’m atheist and I prefer this site.
“Right now, it is a site that only allows certain topics to be discussed. That is holding this site back.”
Actually, there are no limitations on what is posted here. People come here for Utah sports. There are forums to post the unrelated stuff, but they get very little traffic. It’S painfully obvious by your posts here and over at UFN that you crave that attention.
UFN is effectively dead. It’s reduced to a few posters and a couple more gratuitous commenters.
First, according to board mail (and posts on this thread) I have received, you are not allowed to post whatever you want according to some posters.
I don’t want this to devolve into another “UFN sucks” thread, but it isn’t dead. Which goes to show how the inclusivity has kept that place alive while other Ute sites struggle.
There was a lot more activity on UFN yesterday and a TON more activity on there during the game last night. Your dream of UFN dying won’t happen until that place crashes for good.
Why is that? Why is a terrible site, that is completely unmanaged, doing so much better?
If people are messaging you telling you to shut up, then let me know who they are via DM.
UFN will often have more activity because it has many more members and about a 17 year head start. Many people go there out of habit. People don’t like change. Totally cool. I eat the same meal at the same restaurants all the time.
This site is only a year old. The strides in the site design/quality, activity and membership in that time I think are pretty damn good. Just a year!
What does or doesn’t happen at UFN has little bearing on what I do here. When it goes down more people will visit here. When it goes back up some of those people will go back there. I think we all suspect that one of these times it goes down and it won’t come back.
I will continue to work it and try to make this site better. It sounds like I might need to post a few basic site rules, mainly along the lines of no personal attacks or inappropriate messages, spam etc.
“First, according to board mail (and posts on this thread) I have received, you are not allowed to post whatever you want
You be wrong. It’s Tony’s site and he is the only one that matters.
The difference here is that it’s far easier to ignore irrelevant, worthless posts. It’s like asking whether a fart in outer space smells? I don’t care. You crave the attention. You seem to need the affirmation of your posting. You may or may not get that here. You seem to enjoy stirring it up at UFN. I’m sure you’re all proud of your red star count. So stay over there. Oh BTW, next gofundme for UFN is just around the corner, so pony up to preserve that star count.
For the record, I don’t think all Utah Utes message boards suck. I like this one. 🙂
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