Let's put our heads together....... (The Arena's Improvement and Suggestion Thread)

It might generate a new type of discussion. For example, how can we rank team x ahead of team y.

Take for example the Power Rankings on espn.com. Right now, one set has the Mavs as the number team in the NBA, and the other has the Spurs as the number on team in the NBA. It's generated some very good debate that otherwise, we probably wouldn't have.

 

i'm in

 

It might generate a new type of discussion. For example, how can we rank team x ahead of team y.

Take for example the Power Rankings on espn.com. Right now, one set has the Mavs as the number team in the NBA, and the other has the Spurs as the number on team in the NBA. It's generated some very good debate that otherwise, we probably wouldn't have.

Exactly. That, plus just seeing what the people here think of teams in comparison to each other.

Might want to add the option not to rank every single team, but just the top so many, if they feel they don't know the bottom teams well enough. Point system could still be the same (i.e., in the NBA, 1st is still 30, 2nd is 29, etc, but if they only rank 20, then nobody gets 1-10 points) or adjusted (again, in the NBA, if only 20 teams were ranked they get 1-20 points instead of 11-30). Just a thought.

Also, I assume people could post their individual rankings as well as having the official combined poll, to foster individual debate over which team is better.

 

Just floating an idea for another type of game... I'm not sure what to call it, and I think this would probably only really work well for MLB and NBA, maybe NHL (though I don't really know NHL), not sure about other sports or leagues.. but for example if you had 10 players, each would pick one (or two, depending on number of players and league size, but this would probably be too complicated) team that they thought would do well that week. Teams would be picked by a draft system, redrafting weekly (or maybe every other week) on a rotating basis so that the person who picked first one week wouldnt be first the next, etc). The winner would be the person whose teams had the best winning percentage over the time they had them picked.

Might be a bit complicated, but I think I could work up a set of rules that would work, given some time.

Any thoughts/suggestions? Hate the idea? I don't mind, just a thought.

 

Sounds like a good idea.

I'd be willing to help draft a more formalized rules and guidelines and the such to help.

 

I'll write up a more formalized version of what I'm talking about, but it might be a couple weeks, given how busy I am right now.

 

What might be pretty cool that I already proposed to ObiWan but he stepped down, is having a top sports moments thread, like what they had in The Amphatheater. Have the JC vote on their top sports moments and then someone counts down the top 100.

 

we're discussing such a thing already among the mods of this forum.

 

How about a "curtrent events thread" -- a place to dicuss sports that fall on and off the radar, especially htinking of this being used for olympic sports like swimming or figure skating, that only enter our consciousness once a year at events like the world championships. Rather than having a swimming thread that's dormant for years at a time and awakens for the olympics and world championships (ie every year or two) the thread could move on to the next sport in the meantime.

 

I like that idea. It could have worked well with something like the World Swimming Championships that just finished in Melbourne, or the upcoming Tour de France, one off events that would probably only generate one or two pages of discussion at most.

The olympics we should start preparing for a year out - it's the biggest event in sport (barring maybe the Football World Cup). A countdown to Beijing thread a year out (so August 8 this year) followed by one to discuss the events of the games would work well IMO. Of course, that's at least a few months away, so nothing has to be set in stone yet

I also think we should be considering an issues in sports thread, where things like drugs (both performance enhancing and recreational), gambling, match fixing, sports and politics etc. could be discussed on a week by week basis. We had this thread early on in the forums history, so I'm not sure if it would be better to start a new thread or continue on with that one.

 

The drugs in sports topic is really getting rlevant again, wiht Jason Giambi's comments in baseball on the one hand, and the circus that is developing in cycling, where pretty much the entire Telekom/T-Mobile team from the 90s, except Jan Ullrich and Bjarne Riis, have now admitted to systrematic doping at the team. Plus the Landis trial, where things took an even more bizarre turn, as Landis's attorney threatened to reveal that cycling legend Greg LeMond was a vitim of sexual abuse as a child if LeMond testified at Landis's hearing. Lastly, 6 Austrian nordic skiiers were banned from the Olympics for life in the aftermath of the Turin doping raids, and there was even talk of banning all Austrian athletes from the next 3 Winter Olympics.

 

Drugs is always going to be in the news. Maybe we should have one continuous thread, which is updated whenever there is a new story - I know the AFL is coping a lot of flack for its drugs policy.

 

The JCC seems to be getting quite a few "who's better" "x vs. y" type threads lately.

Any Arena regular want to take on a task of coming up with daily/weekly/whatever topics/comparisons and "host" the debate by keeping it going, tallying votes, etc?

 

If its on a weekly basis, I'd be glad to do it... I get the feeling it would be mostly athlete comparisons, like maybe a current great with an all-time great player, stuff like that, probably mostly within a single sport but one could mix sports as well. I'd need some input on non-US sports (along with hockey), but open it up to suggestions throughout the thread and let people say what comparisons they'd like to see, and that will probably help make it a good mix.

 

From what I've seen, suggestions are PM'd to the host and they make the choice when the topic is changed and which one's go ahead.

 

That works too. Either way, I'd be happy to do it

 

Well, if Inty agree's I'd say you can start it whenever you come up with a first match-up

 

yeah, I guess I wasn't looking for someone to say "I can update a thread weekly", but rather I'm comfortable watching the thread, tallying votes, and keeping the feel of it for when it needs to move on, and when the debate needs to be allowed to go on further.

 

Right, guess I wasn't really clear with how I phrased that.

In other words, as long as I don't have to be coming up with topics every day (or even every other day), I can keep track of everything (as you said, tally votes, generally watching the thread, etc) and provide new topics. Given some help on things like soccer and hockey, at least.

 

I had an idea for a possible ongoing thread the other day. How about someone hosts a thread where we go through recently retired players who's status on whether or not they are going to make the Hall of Fame is up in the air and discuss whether or not we think they should/will get in.

 

I quite like that Idea. Maybe, it could start off with a rotating discussion of the current hall of fame for different sports, discussing who does and doesn't deserve to be in there, and then move onto recently retired players, dscussing them individually

 

I love the idea. Whether it's debating (and perhaps voting) on borderline candidates who are already in a hall-of-fame, voting and debating on recently retired players, or giving current players "lock", "work to do", or "no way" status.

I think between that and Rogue...Jedi hosting a general issue/question/debate thread, we could really start to see good debate pop up.

You both have my approval to post those threads whenever you want. and then just PM one of the three of us whenever you need a title change.

 

Alright, does anyone want to host it? I'd prefer someone more knowledgeable than me does it, as the only Hall of Fame I really have extensive knowledge of is the NFL's.

 

I don't think you need to be particularly knowledgeable in all Hall of Fames to "host" the thread. Just be willing to take suggestions via PM, decide when to change topics, and notify mods when you do change topics.

 

Being that there are hall of fames for almost any sport that is popular(and some that are not), I'd suggest having a user from the States, and than one or two users that are familiar enough with sports overseas, to co-host a thread such as that. It'd make it more balanced, and wouldn't isolate any international sports fans from the discussion. Unless, you want to kind of split up the topic into a few different threads, based on whatever region of the world the discussion revolves around.