Rumor vs Fact

[law_bee]

what is the standard of what should and should not be posted on BBS. I will add this link b/c this started on the hive.

LINK

Please read my response to their response.

This is an issue that is becoming more and more relevant b/c BBS's have become so popular. Ask yourself when is the last time you picked up the AJC to find out what is going on with GT. Maybe if you were trapped on a desert island w/o a computer but in the "free" world you would go online.

What is the ethical responsibility of the poster?

1. Everything read on a message board has to be taken with a "grain of salt." I believe most people do this. They understand this is the modern day barber shop chatter or standing around the pickle barrel gossiping.

But it can be harmful. When someone posts info that is misleading or incorrect there can be consequences.

Is there a standard? Should there be a standard.

I believe there should be.

In the end this is a BBS and I say again the standard SHOULD be that someone post in "good faith."

1. did you hear something from someone that has given you credible information before

2. should this person be in a position to know

FYI-this is the same standard that would be good enough for a judge to grant a warrant for your home to be searched

Over time you learn who to trust on a message board and who is full of hot air.

But I will say this. This is "holier" than thou attitude that some people take is ridiculous.

NO INFO SHOULD BE POSTED UNTIL VERIFIED- that is ridiculous. The way people attacked GG was shameful. When I see people attack BillyD I am shocked.

These are the same idiots that defend that idiot Hollis. He single handedly has done more harm to the program then all our dishonest prior coaches.

People need to understand that we are all around the "pickle barrel" and some info is more credible then others.

IMO

 

[bugboy]

Law,

You've obviously given this alot of thought. I'd say to don't let it worry you. These boards are full of people that want to give opinions and want to see Tech do well. As you said, over time, you can tell who is a good poster and who's full of you know what.

Some people really come down hard on others on these boards. That's one reason I like this one so far. People here give each other a little leeway. If someone posts something that turns out to be untrue, don't cut their head off. We all make mistakes.

 

[bellyseries]

I always thought it was the cracker barrell, but I'm willing to learn.

 

[oldfoggy]

I gave (way back in Sept and again in Nov) info that GOL was gone to ND. Everybody including some on this board and the hive as well booed me so loud I heard it all the way over in here in Huntsville. I even gave the info as to who told me what. SO if a person or many people for that matter wants to tell what the know (rumor or not) then let'em post. Then do like a lot of other either ignore or respond but no name calling like I was called and by the way I was correct.

 

[atlbee]

I agree that BOB's treatment was harsh, but that being said, I don't agree with the new opinion that he never interviewed.If you know what I usually post, then you know that I don'tsay things without merit.

 

[Gold Rush]

The whole issue regarding BOB was in at least a couple of newspapers, being reported as fact...

Now, if thats not worthy of discussion (due to being "unofficial", or "Rumor", or whatever...

Then my question becomes, when IS it safe to hold a discussion based on fact vs rumor ?
I mean, I don't have a personal staff to run down various news stories to check facts etc ( shouldn't the papers be accountable for this ?)

I came down hard on BOB, based on these "news" items....I was (gladly) wrong...Usually I'm pretty conservative re: Rumors, but geezz, when it gets published several times as facts....If thats not enough, I don't think ANYTHING is worthy of discussion based on the fact vs rumor issue.....

 

[bugboy]

Ahso,
That gets to the heart of the matter. Some people forget that they are arguing with fellow fans. Around here, that's not a problem currently. As this board grows, I predict we'll see some of that, but not like the Hive. The format of the posts, where you have to read through all of them and there are no attention-grabbing reply titles, limits some of that.

Anyway, good post.

 

[beeware]

ahso, you are correct. We are both TECH fans, but I haven't made any predictions about this season. It SHOULD be a tremendous season. It definitely WOULD HAVE BEEN a tremendous season, if we had kept the staff that beat the #9BCS Stanford Cardinal, in their own back yard in the Seattle Bowl, under the POSITIVE leadership of Coach Mac, and with his experienced ability to know when to let his coaches coach and when to step in with suggestions. The Seattle Bowl was just a tremendous effort that SHOULD HAVE MADE all TECH fans proud of that staff and team, to play through adversity at such a HIGH level.
Unfortunately, Braine decided to ignore all the positives of that staff and that proven performance, in order to get his own man. And now all we hear are all the "dawgvent like accolades" of how great Gailey is without the benefit of him even coaching a game. Even Braine foolishly started comparing him to Coach Dodd, and an embarassed Gailey had to publicly remind Braine that he needed to wait until he earned those type of accolades.
So we go into this season with great talent but a new and untested coaching staff and lots of question marks. To me one of the biggest question marks is how well our team gets along with the new coaches. If there is bitterness about the coaching change under the surface, then you can count on the fact that it will bubble to the surface and cause us to underachieve this year. And of course the question marks about whether Gailey can recruit are still to be proven one way or the other.
So to repeat, I have not made any predictions but I just hope that Gailey and his new staff do not underachieve with the talent and the potential of this team that has been handed to them on a silver platter. If Fridge had been handed this much talent at Maryland he would contend for a national title. We shall wait and see what Gailey and company can do. Therefore I suggest holding off on his halo until he actually accomplishes something. Again, always good to converse with a fellow TECH fan. At least, THAT much we can agree on.

 

[bugboy]

Beeware,

Regardless of how the team performs in 2002, do you think it was in the LONG-TERM best interest of the team to keep Mac over hiring CG? You base alot of your argument on the team chemistry of the current group of players and keeping the 2001 coaching staff in place. If we fast-forward to 2004, where do you think Mac or CG would have the program? All hypothetical at this point...but I think there's no doubt that CG gets us to a higher point than Mac, even if he has problems with GOL's players in 2002.

 

[beeware]

Originally posted by bugboy:
Beeware,

Regardless of how the team performs in 2002, do you think it was in the LONG-TERM best interest of the team to keep Mac over hiring CG? You base alot of your argument on the team chemistry of the current group of players and keeping the 2001 coaching staff in place. If we fast-forward to 2004, where do you think Mac or CG would have the program? All hypothetical at this point...but I think there's no doubt that CG gets us to a higher point than Mac, even if he has problems with GOL's players in 2002.

<font size="2" face="Arial, Verdana, Sans-Serif">I think Mac would have been Much better. You think Gailey will be MUCH better. That is fine. That is what makes the world go round. But for you to say that their is NO DOUBT about who is better is a crock. There is plenty of doubt about Gailey. It is just all these dawgvent type accolades don't recognize it; just like the dawgvent didn't realize that Donn_n wasn't the messiah they said he was. And Gailey probably will not be the messiah either. Let us all hope that he does ok. If he does better than that, then we can be pleasantly surprised.

 

[bugboy]

Yea, maybe I shouldn't have said "no doubt"...just like you saying it "definitely would have been a tremendous season" if we'd kept the old staff. :-D

Anyway, you may have a point about the chemistry of the team and new coaches in 2002. But I think DB made the right choice. I don't think it's a given at all that we do worse in 2002 than the old staff, but if that happens, I still think we rebound to higher heights than under the old staff.

 

[Gold Rush]

Beeware

I know that I've said this before, so my apologies for redundancy...

First, I think it IS important that we're all Tech fans...In that light - how happy are you (or me, or anybody) to see ANY fellow Tech fans at an "away" game ?? Sure makes me appreciate all those other Tech guys..

Anyway --- If you had been a UNC fan back when Torbush was hired at UNC, I can almost guarentee you would have been in the Torbush camop for the exact reasons you are in the Mac camp now...Clearly, that turned out to be a mistake...I bring this up (again), because the model was virtually identical to the whole Mac thing....MacK Brown had just left...The program was in great shape..Torbush was an EXCELLENT DC IMO....They wanted continuity...They won the Gator Bowl under Torbush, and played VERY inspired FB....Torbush was the players choice (it was very clear that the team rallied around him)...It was almost a dream...Now UNC "had their coach"...The stars were aligning....

Then, as it turned out - everything he (torbush ) seemingly brought to the table disappeared...
Morale slipped....Losses mounted....You know the rest.

The bottom line was - all those positives he seemingly brough to the table when he was first hired simply didn't apply to the vastly different responsibilities as a head coach OVER TIME....Thde one bowl game, under strange, unique circumstances, etc. no longer applied...

So in this particular instance, you would have been wrong...Do you think its POSSIBLE that you could be wrong in this circumstance as well ?

 

[beeware]

Gold Rush.....anything is possible. It is even theoretically possible that Gailey is half as good as y'all think he is (which would still make him better than Lombardi and Dodd combined). NOT likely, but it is possible.
I think there was no need to tear down what O'leary built and what was primed to move forward and reach new heights under Coach Mac's positive leadership. But Braine decided to start over....maybe it will work out ok. Let us hope.
But i do think all these dawgvent like accolades for Gailey, BEFORE he has even coached one game at TECH, are very counter-productive.
Just my opinion.

 

[GT98]

Beeware,

You keep bringing up POSITIVE leadership for your reason(s) to keep Mac over Gailey. You aren't just basing this on one game are you? Mac did not do well as a head coach at Villa Rica HS or Div. III at W. GA. He has been a coordinator (1 season) at Memphis. That's it. What are you basing his positive leadership on? Do you know him personally (he is a class guy) or are you just basing that on a minor bowl win against an opponent that did not want to be there?

Looking at it objectively, Gailey is the more qualified of the two--based on resume. I'm not ready to annoint Gailey as the second coming of Dodd, but my enthusiasm has to do w/our team getting an upgrade based on the new staff versus last year's, IMO.

I am not sure what to think of the '02 season, but I do think that Gailey is the better choice over the next 5 seasons. Bottom line, we are both GT fans, so I hope that Gailey turns out as well as ahoisee thinks.

 

[jacketguy]

We need a beer for this thread guys and gals.....

1- Mac did a good job against Stanford, he did a good job while at Tech, he was not chosen for HC. I think he could have received better treatment from Braine, but I know very little about the situation, only what I read. Bottom line.. he is gone. We have to move forward....

2- Gailey has great credentials, I think he is by far the best choice for the long term. Can he recruit, can he adjust to college? Whos knows, we will see, I believe we will all be pleased with the results. Anything wrong with being excited about the prospects, I dont think so... I think its good to rally around your team, coach, etc... get on board or get out of the way... I think we will have a great year next year... and bios, GOL, Mac, recruiting, will all seem light years away.. the change is going to serve us well...

3. Does it matter that someone says "No Doubt" or "Without a doubt"... no... they are simply expressing strength in their affirmation of the subject .... it may just seem a little dogmatic on this board... but nothing wrong with it...

4. Rumor vs. Fact... I think at best, when something is put into print by a journalist, you would hope that its fact... a lot of times it isnt... but there is nothing wrong with someone saying, "I have a hunch", or "I heard a rumor" .. I usually take it as that... not much there until there is something there.. I usually even wait for a followup article in a newspaper sometimes ... just because I dont always trust the journalist writing the article (Can you say Hollis??)

5. Its great to have disagreements .. and I hope the way everyone handles disagreements on this board never changes... although I have never met anyone from this board, I have no doubt that the members are classy people... the disagreements thus far have been handled with class.. for me, it makes it fun to be here...

 

[beeware]

jacketguy,
2- "Gailey has great credentials, I think he is by far the best choice for the long term. Can he recruit, can he adjust to college? Who knows?"
Thanks for giving me a late afternoon chuckle. And for making my point better than I could have.

 

[bellyseries]

Is there an echo in here?

 

[jacketguy]

hey.. a Monday afternoon chuckle is never bad... is was my pleasure...

 

[bugboy]

I just don't understand Beeware's argument. You seem to think that the win over Stanford justifies keeping Mac over CG. You seem to think that the most important aspect of choosing a new coach was a seamless(sp?) transition to 2002...meaning using the same coaches and coaching staff that greatly underachieved in 2001. We took top 10 talent and went 7-5, well 8-5. We gave up 47 points to a 6-6 C-scam and 39 points to a 5-7 UVA team. This GREAT staff that we had in place went 8-5 with top 10 talent. I'm not slamming them, but we had the conference for the taking last year and we couldn't get the job done. There was not a great team in the ACC last year and no one with better talent than Tech. They were good coaches, but we weren't going to win a championship with them.

If anything, I think this program needed some shaking up. We weren't gonna get to the next level with GOL and I don't think we'd get to the next level with Mac and the same group of assistants. That's not tearing down what they built. That's just looking at what happened last year. Our best coach was Fridge and he left us after 2000. Our hopes for a championship went out the door when he left, IMO...and I know everyone doesn't agree with that, but that's the way I see it. He bailed us out of so many high-scoring games from 97 to 00, it aint even funny.

DB felt the same way I did and now we have CG. This hire is all about trying to get to the next level. This coach has been successful everywhere he's coached, assistant or HC. That's not even debatable. If nothing else, compare his EXPERIENCE to Mac and tell me why Mac would do better.

 

[beeware]

Originally posted by ahsoisee:
Gold Rush, I agree with you and also the criteria law-bee stated, "you post in good faith". Gee, if every thing we said had to be proved, I might not ever be able to post.

<font size="2" face="Arial, Verdana, Sans-Serif">Ahso, I think i FINALLY agree with one of your posts!!!! You would definitely have a hard time proving that Gailey is as much of a SAINT as you say...not to mention the greatest coach in the history of the world (apparently) before he has even coached one game at TECH!!!