The Personal Side (for those interested)

[Thompcat]

Mr. Scott

I have been a lurker for the most part but have been here a long time. I didn't initially sign up but just read a few posts. I remember reading your posts along with others that are here on the other site before this one. I have always enjoyed your posts and no I didn't always agree but respected your opinions. It seems that's where the problem lies. It's not just on this forum that has a problem with opinions, especially if it is political view.

I hope your wife and you the best. I am older than most on this board and you see as you get older somethings are just not worth getting upset about. I love Panthers and will continue to follow but not in a maniacal way. Keep Pounding!

 

[Icege]

This one hurts bad.  

Thank you so much for everything you've done. Your knowledge was one of the primary reasons I kept coming back to the Huddle, along with everybody else that spends more time trying to figure things out rather than scream about who is to blame. I hope that LCF and yourself find peace and joy going forward.

I understand though.  Yesterday was my 40th birthday and I only had one rule for myself: Don't log on to the Huddle.

Despite that, out of reflex, I  opened a tab for the forum (but quickly closed it). My wife watched her game (Giants) and I watched mine, commiserating over our teams now and then, and when it was all over we hung out until my mom came back with our son.

It was one of the best birthday's I've ever had.

Despite the ugly Panthers' loss, there wasn't any ugliness in my life. I was able to sit back and appreciate everything that I have instead of having to mentally steel myself for the toxic environment that the Huddle has become (made worse by the fact that an active moderator is one of the leading culprits and therefore validating the toxicity) when trying to see what other posters that are knowledgeable about football are seeing.

The Panthers lost, but I'm still a fan of the team and going to keep cheering on Sundays. If I want to talk about the team though, I'll probably spend more time in the group chat with some local friends that are also fans.

 

[outlaw4]

@Mr. ScotBest wishes to you and your wife. As another longtime poster, last few years have been rough so I understand. Hope you both are able to watch the game live so at least one of you will be happy by the end.

 

[Proudiddy]

49 minutes ago, TLGPanthersFan said:

Does seem like a lot of people have been leaving. Unfortunately years of being bad will do that. 
If the Panthers are ever good again I have a feeling this place will pick up, if it isn’t dead by then. 
Wish I could have been here during the hay day. 
But it is what it is. 

Maybe there's more of it going on now bc of the stretch we're in, but it's not new.  I've been here since 2004, just a few months from the inception of the site, and we've had countless posters disappear.  And I mean quality, well-liked, popular posters.  They still post on Twitter and such, and some have occasionally checked back in after years of being gone and then disappear again to never be seen or heard from on the huddle again.  I still remember some from those early 2000s and their avis and names...  but as someone else said, some of it is just the fact that internet forums aren't what they used to be, and on top of that the team has never been this bad for this long, and so people are forced to reevaluate what's important and how much time to spend on things they care about.  Our team is making it an easy decision on whether they're worth the investment or not.

[motocross_cat]

This place blows just like the rest of social media.  I just lurk to catch up on some news and go on with my day.

[ladypanther]

I have not posted here in the past 2-3 weeks except for a couple of posts in the Lounge.  Like @Mr. Scot I am about done.  Have been lurking here some and reading a few posts here and there. Mr. Scot's post prompted me to post at least 1 more time.

He and I have communicated some so I have been aware of what he and LCF have been going through and as always wish the best for them.  As I would for anyone here.

Just as someone said earlier I came here from the old Observer forum.  I was “recruited”  here by NanceUSMC. A great football poster from the past.  I still have a message saved from him from years ago.   Times were different.  There were so many knowledgeable football people....quite a few of them women. I learned a lot.  The nature of debate was different. I met a lot of good people.  That was also back in the day when we had the Huddle tailgate.  Each week someone sponsored the food and everyone gave donations so that we could buy hundreds of bicycles for Toys for Tots. ( @Zod    ...would love to know the total number of bikes that were donated)  We met each other and had a community. Things were different when we actually had face to face contact a few times a year.  Very few of those people remain today. As the nature and quality of the “discussion” changed a lot of the good ones left.

I hung around.  There were still some good football posters around and there was still some good information and debate to be found.

Now....it is just too different.  Too many personal attacks.  A good thread gets derailed by about the 3rd or 4th post.  Nothing but hate and insults.   There is nothing constructive or informative or clever about posting the pic of Tepper as a clown...have seen that one about a hundred times. ( By the way...I never wanted him but many here fell in love with the brass balls thing. They loved it because it was so badass.  To me, that smacked of an enormous ego...no respect for others, superiority and tyrannical. The bully gets his way.  I wanted the guy from SC who was a true Panther fan...that was his motivation.  Tepper wanted a trophy and to be part of another rich man's club. Well, he's in the club and the team has been a mess since).

Anyone can bash the team, players, and coaches.  There seems to be a contest here to see who can do it the most. There is also little respect for others and way too often a lack of decency.  Example...I have stayed out of the Game thread but Sunday, I pulled it up while Chandler Zavala was down...CBS kept going to commercials, would not show anything, and the Viking fans in the stands looked horrified.  CBS was saying little/nothing...so I looked in the game thread in case there was someone who was listening to radio...or some other source who might have said more. What did I find?  There were posters concerned and there were a couple who trashed Zavala as a player.  And then there was SpecialJuan who said that Person reported  Zavala would never walk again (he should be banned for a long long time for that shitt). I immediately was sorry that I gone there. Under the circumstance I expected better and got so much worse.

There are some good people here but they get drowned out by the others. There are attempts to have a football discussion and I admire those who try. Maybe this is all going the way that our general society is going...not sure how to explain it but here we are.  I miss what we had and wish things were different but they are not. For a while, I'll still peek in some and will check out the Lounge.

It is a tough time to be a Panther fan but I've been a fan from the beginning and not going to change that.

[Jon Snow]

12 minutes ago, ladypanther said:

I have not posted here in the past 2-3 weeks except for a couple of posts in the Lounge.  Like @Mr. Scot I am about done.  Have been lurking here some and reading a few posts here and there. Mr. Scot's post prompted me to post at least 1 more time.

He and I have communicated some so I have been aware of what he and LCF have been going through and as always wish the best for them.  As I would for anyone here.

Just as someone said earlier I came here from the old Observer forum.  I was “recruited”  here by NanceUSMC. A great football poster from the past.  I still have a message saved from him from years ago.   Times were different.  There were so many knowledgeable football people....quite a few of them women. I learned a lot.  The nature of debate was different. I met a lot of good people.  That was also back in the day when we had the Huddle tailgate.  Each week someone sponsored the food and everyone gave donations so that we could buy hundreds of bicycles for Toys for Tots. ( @Zod    ...would love to know the total number of bikes that were donated)  We met each other and had a community. Things were different when we actually had face to face contact a few times a year.  Very few of those people remain today. As the nature and quality of the “discussion” changed a lot of the good ones left.

I hung around.  There were still some good football posters around and there was still some good information and debate to be found.

Now....it is just too different.  Too many personal attacks.  A good thread gets derailed by about the 3rd or 4th post.  Nothing but hate and insults.   There is nothing constructive or informative or clever about posting the pic of Tepper as a clown...have seen that one about a hundred times. ( By the way...I never wanted him but many here fell in love with the brass balls thing. They loved it because it was so badass.  To me, that smacked of an enormous ego...no respect for others, superiority and tyrannical. The bully gets his way.  I wanted the guy from SC who was a true Panther fan...that was his motivation.  Tepper wanted a trophy and to be part of another rich man's club. Well, he's in the club and the team has been a mess since).

Anyone can bash the team, players, and coaches.  There seems to be a contest here to see who can do it the most. There is also little respect for others and way too often a lack of decency.  Example...I have stayed out of the Game thread but Sunday, I pulled it up while Chandler Zavala was down...CBS kept going to commercials, would not show anything, and the Viking fans in the stands looked horrified.  CBS was saying little/nothing...so I looked in the game thread in case there was someone who was listening to radio...or some other source who might have said more. What did I find?  There were posters concerned and there were a couple who trashed Zavala as a player.  And then there was SpecialJuan who said that Person reported  Zavala would never walk again (he should be banned for a long long time for that shitt). I immediately was sorry that I gone there. Under the circumstance I expected better and got so much worse.

There are some good people here but they get drowned out by the others. There are attempts to have a football discussion and I admire those who try. Maybe this is all going the way that our general society is going...not sure how to explain it but here we are.  I miss what we had and wish things were different but they are not. For a while, I'll still peek in some and will check out the Lounge.

It is a tough time to be a Panther fan but I've been a fan from the beginning and not going to change that.

You have summed the situation up perfectly.  You are not alone in feeling this way.

[Varking]

4 hours ago, Mr. Scot said:

Now that I've written about the team. The other question is what about me?

For those who are interested, here's my story, one I'll start off by setting the record straight...

Yes, I got pretty pissed off at a conversation with a mod, partially because I didn't say what I was accused of saying but also because despite requests for further discussion and clarification, the mod in question stopped responding to me at all. Others were unreachable, but the one other with whom I did still have some communication understood what I was saying (appreciated that).

Mind you, I've had discussions with mods before, been willing to admit when I was wrong and able to continue without issue. I've also had (sometimes contentious) discussions with other posters, but generally found it possible to reconcile with the reasonable ones.

This particular event came at a bad time though..

During the week in question, I was shuttling Lady Cowboy Fan back and forth to the emergency room on pretty much a daily basis and I was tired as hell. That, combined with the general mood of things left me ready to not just leave, but to ask that any and all previous content I had written here be erased.

I've had a chance since then to reflect and consider things.

Have I changed my mind?

Partially.

While I'm no longer requesting to have all previous content deleted, I'm also not planning to continue being a regular contributor here. 

The general mood of things is part of it. I get the argument that the team being bad means the fanbase is angry, but the reality is that there's a difference between angry and just plain silly. A pretty solid portion of the discussion right now is on the wrong side of that line. And yes, that includes some of the people who are responsible for moderating content. 

On top of that, you've got some folks who revel in things being terrible. If you've ever read "The Plague" by Albert Camus, you might remember a character by the name of Cottard. He was basically a small time thief and a nobody before the proverbial plague started but rose in prominence while it was going on. When it was over, he went back to being nobody and as a result, missed the terrible atmosphere of the plague.

The Huddle certainly has its fair share of Cottards, people who've got nothing of any value or worth to say when things are good but want to be all over the place shouting from the rooftops and beating their chests when everything goes sour.

(this is true in real life too, but that's a separate discussion)

For the record, these things (and others) are why several others have expressed to me that they're abandoning the Huddle as well. I won't attempt to speak for them, but one of the common concerns is that when the vast majority of discussion goes no deeper than "everything sucks, fire everybody" and anyone who tries to say otherwise gets shouted down by the doom and gloomers or attacked by the Cottards, it just isn't fun.

Fun and diversion were really the only reasons to come here. I never came here for the purpose of bolstering my ego (definitely came to the wrong place if that was the purpose) but rather because I enjoy discussing football, particularly Panthers football. Yes, even when the team was bad.

But it's not fun right now, and it isn't really a diversion either.

Nor is that diversion needed as much as it used to be.

In the early part of this year I retired, and that with my own health concerns being a big part of the reason why. Previously, a lot of my posting was done while I had free time at work. 

Now, free time is all I have.

And while Lady Cowboy Fan is still working, it still means that there's more time for us, our pets and our family.

I realized over the last few weeks that I was still spending a lot of time on the Huddle just out of habit, but that was cutting into other activities which would have been time better spent.

So for that reason more than anything else, I'm not going to be here on any sort of regular basis... and quite possibly not much at all. 

Bottom Line, for what it's worth: the reason I decided to leave in the first place isn't the reason I decided to stay gone.

On a positive note, Lady Cowboy Fan and I have purchased tickets to this year's Panthers Cowboys game. It'll be the first regular season game either of us have attended, and her first chance to see her favorite team in person. We're both excited about that.

There is, however, the possibility that it might not happen. Both of us have health concerns, and the prospect of spending an entire day out like that is a bit daunting for us. 

We're both hoping, but it's not guaranteed.

Beyond that though, I'm just hoping to see the team I've cheered for since its inception to finally turn the corner.

My mother died at age 61. My brother made it just a few days past his 62nd birthday before he passed. I share a similar health profile to the two of them and I'm currently 56. Meanwhile, Lady Cowboy Fan is in her late 40s s but has had a heart condition since her 20s as well as other health concerns since, many of which have manifested themselves over the past year or so.

So with that in mind, and no longer being burdened with having to work 40 hours a week, I want to prioritize the right things.

Talking on the internet isn't one of them.

So while this may not exactly be a firm goodbye for me, it is notice of a rather significant stepping away. Not from the team of course, but from the Huddle.

I bear no one any ill will in this (internet discussion isn't important enough for that). It's not an emotional decision. It's just what I feel is the right one.

So for the online friends that I've made, best wishes . For the fun discussions that we've had, thanks. And to all Panthers fans on the Huddle and everywhere else, one simple message...

Keep pounding.

Prayers up brother. Wish nothing but the best for you regardless of where you go. Hope to see you around more if you do decide to get more active again. 

[ladypanther]

lol....who moved this?

It is relevant to the main forum.

Edited October 10, 2023 by ladypanther

[Pejorative Miscreant]

25 minutes ago, ladypanther said:

I have not posted here in the past 2-3 weeks except for a couple of posts in the Lounge.  Like @Mr. Scot I am about done.  Have been lurking here some and reading a few posts here and there. Mr. Scot's post prompted me to post at least 1 more time.

He and I have communicated some so I have been aware of what he and LCF have been going through and as always wish the best for them.  As I would for anyone here.

Just as someone said earlier I came here from the old Observer forum.  I was “recruited”  here by NanceUSMC. A great football poster from the past.  I still have a message saved from him from years ago.   Times were different.  There were so many knowledgeable football people....quite a few of them women. I learned a lot.  The nature of debate was different. I met a lot of good people.  That was also back in the day when we had the Huddle tailgate.  Each week someone sponsored the food and everyone gave donations so that we could buy hundreds of bicycles for Toys for Tots. ( @Zod    ...would love to know the total number of bikes that were donated)  We met each other and had a community. Things were different when we actually had face to face contact a few times a year.  Very few of those people remain today. As the nature and quality of the “discussion” changed a lot of the good ones left.

I hung around.  There were still some good football posters around and there was still some good information and debate to be found.

Now....it is just too different.  Too many personal attacks.  A good thread gets derailed by about the 3rd or 4th post.  Nothing but hate and insults.   There is nothing constructive or informative or clever about posting the pic of Tepper as a clown...have seen that one about a hundred times. ( By the way...I never wanted him but many here fell in love with the brass balls thing. They loved it because it was so badass.  To me, that smacked of an enormous ego...no respect for others, superiority and tyrannical. The bully gets his way.  I wanted the guy from SC who was a true Panther fan...that was his motivation.  Tepper wanted a trophy and to be part of another rich man's club. Well, he's in the club and the team has been a mess since).

Anyone can bash the team, players, and coaches.  There seems to be a contest here to see who can do it the most. There is also little respect for others and way too often a lack of decency.  Example...I have stayed out of the Game thread but Sunday, I pulled it up while Chandler Zavala was down...CBS kept going to commercials, would not show anything, and the Viking fans in the stands looked horrified.  CBS was saying little/nothing...so I looked in the game thread in case there was someone who was listening to radio...or some other source who might have said more. What did I find?  There were posters concerned and there were a couple who trashed Zavala as a player.  And then there was SpecialJuan who said that Person reported  Zavala would never walk again (he should be banned for a long long time for that shitt). I immediately was sorry that I gone there. Under the circumstance I expected better and got so much worse.

There are some good people here but they get drowned out by the others. There are attempts to have a football discussion and I admire those who try. Maybe this is all going the way that our general society is going...not sure how to explain it but here we are.  I miss what we had and wish things were different but they are not. For a while, I'll still peek in some and will check out the Lounge.

It is a tough time to be a Panther fan but I've been a fan from the beginning and not going to change that.

Well said.

I come in here expecting crazy takes and the over the top posts.  Previously it was entertaining but lately it has amped up to a Tinderbox level.  Maybe it is inevitable with social media but yeah, I can see why folks would choose to avoid this place. 

[HubKat]

6 minutes ago, ladypanther said:

lol....who moved this?

It is relevant to the main forum.

Literally just got moved as I was reading this - to Huddle Lounge of all places.  I had to search to find it again.  Not cool.  I’m another of the older crowd who came over from Observer Forum (although post count is minimal)….

 

moving the thread = part of the mentality I’ve seen on here lately.

[Zod]

I moved it. It isnt panthers related.

I understand your complaints. I dont have the time to spend on this forum anymore, I need to make a living. At this point this place costs me money but I keep it up because I've had it so long. Maybe I shouldn't.

If anyone has any constructive solutions or would like to volunteer to make this joint a better place please let me know. If you just want to whine and moan and not be part of a solution, best of luck. 

 

This place has always been a reflection of how the Panthers fan base is feeling, and right now that is more true than ever.