Did The Gainesville Sun Kill The Old GSMB (again!) And Nobody Noticed?

AlexDaGator

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Looks like the fossilized relics over at the Gainesville Sun are up to their old shenanigans again.

I haven't been there in ages, not since loooong before the season started. It's worthless, right? Curiosity got the better of me though. I wondered if there was any action at all on the old GSMB forum since we were actually playing football again. I expected to see maybe one thread with a newest comment 3 days old, another thread with a newest comment a week old, and the rest stale for months. I figured it would be good for a laugh so I checked it out.

First I see that the Gatorsports website has been "updated" (gasp!).

Then I see an article about the UF-aTm betting line. Not knowing what the line was, I clicked the article out of curiosity. Apparently, I had already reached my maximum number of free articles for the month (which is zero). I was then given the option of registering for 5 free articles a month, paying a monthly subscription fee for unlimited articles, or combining online access with physical newspaper delivery. :facepalm:

Full Disclosure: Not only am I not giving them a dime of my money, I refuse to register for "free" articles because fcuk you Gainesville Sun.

After a chuckle at their audacity (asking ME to subscribe to their drivel :rotfl:), I looked for the link to the forums. I couldn't find it anywhere. I think they killed it again. It must have been an embarrassment to them so they swept it under the rug. I shouldn't be surprised. It's been a zombie for years anyway. At this point, it was a mercy killing.

In a rapidly evolving world where physical newspapers will soon be extinct, they really needed to up their online game. The geriatric crew over there have done the exact opposite. :facepalm:



Alex.
 

BNAG8R

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That board was truly the only positive and growing avenue for their engagement with prospective clients in a sea of atrophy...every other part of that organization was in the death spiral. They ruined and killed the only positive thing they had.

It would be f*cking hilarious if it wasn't so sad.
 

Towels 'N Sporks

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Yep. Looks officially gone, and I'm gonna have to take credit for killing it. I think I've posted part of this story before, but never the whole thing. Get ready for a mediocre and not very interesting ride!

When they shut it down years back, it was because there were 2-3 Tennessee fans who had completely taken over adding new topics daily. The boards were still quite busy then (nothing compared to the days before gator chatter, but still had 4-5 dozen new posts/replies a day).

There were these two Tenn fans I remember, orange54 I think and lizard something (maybe?), who were constantly posting these new topics. I'm okay with other fans coming in, but when 2 are coming in, day after day, just to spread their toxic behavior and post stuff about the gators sucking and Tennessee being upcoming (as laughable then as it has been for the last 15 years), I felt like something needed to be done. I ended up emailing a couple of editors and other emails listed on the GSUN website about it because half of the topics were about TENN... on a gator board.

I also sent private messages to about 3-4 other board members, showing them the email I wrote and encouraging them to do the same. At least a couple said they would.

My email basically said- come look at the board and see how much of it is actually about gator sports, and how many topics are just Tennessee fans being unprovoked dbags who aren't there to discuss anything at all, but only to troll. Please do something about this.

Well 2-3 days later I tried to hop on, and it was gone. Eventually a message popped up about how they were going to try to "improve" the board before bringing it back. Dumbasses just had to ban like 2 accounts. I bet they didn't even know how to do it or have the ability to, so they just shut it down. Well I waited a few days, then weeks, and maybe even months. I don't remember how long it was shut down. When it went back up, I tried hanging around for a week or two but the place was clearly dead, only having maybe 1 topic and 4-5 replies on average a day. I had already made the full switch to gator chatter, something I had been considering doing for a while anyway. (I think I had another username here at the time, I didn't come back for 6-8 months of so because I was so busy with work, made a new name when I came back cause I hated the old one but that's a huge digression). I was on the gatorsports board since the early 2000s if I remember correctly, and had been lurking here for a while before the other board got temporarily shut down.

Really the main poster I miss (making fun of) is Alvin. I know why he got banned here. And I probably would have banned him too. But my name is a direct reference to that (almost beloved) idiot.

Also RIP to Lawrence of Florida on the gatorsports board who everyone was convinced was a FSU fan posing as a Florida fan. I miss that troll.

And that is the very long and boring story of how I shut the message board down for a while, and now, permanently. I deserve at least half off a lifetime membership for killing that board I think, right? (Kidding).
 
Last edited:

jdh5484

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That board was truly the only positive and growing avenue for their engagement with prospective clients in a sea of atrophy...every other part of that organization was in the death spiral. They ruined and killed the only positive thing they had.

It would be f*cking hilarious if it wasn't so sad.
Step off.
:lol:
 

Homer J

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I believe Graham Hall can take credit for killing that board.
 

AlexDaGator

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WTF? I though Brad killed it? :dunno:



Brad killed it like spraying a roach with Raid. It was dead, but still running around like crazy.

Towels and Sporks killed it like stepping on the previously sprayed roach. It's deader, there is white goo squishing out of it, but it is still using its one good remaining leg to push itself around in a tiny spiral, and maybe one of the wings or an antenna is fluttering a little.

The final coup de grace was delivered by the dynamic duo of Dooley and Andreu who picked up the sprayed and squashed roach in a paper towel and flushed it down the toilet.

Everybody contributed in their own small way.



Alex.
 

oxrageous

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That message board could have been making them tens of thousands of dollars a year right now. It's beyond belief that a struggling newspaper would voluntarily flush free revenue.
 

JDW

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That message board could have been making them tens of thousands of dollars a year right now. It's beyond belief that a struggling newspaper would voluntarily flush free revenue.

They’ve kept Dooley and Andreu this long and now you’re concerned with their judgement? Ok chief
 

maheo30

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As long as that paper employs the likes of Dooley, they will continue to struggle. My brother had Frangie on this week. Dooley was talking. He spoke for about 10-12 minutes and never said a thing. That is quite the talent to talk and talk and never provide anything of substance to the audience.
 

JDW

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As long as that paper employs the likes of Dooley, they will continue to struggle. My brother had Frangie on this week. Dooley was talking. He spoke for about 10-12 minutes and never said a thing. That is quite the talent to talk and talk and never provide anything of substance to the audience.

I listen to his podcast for the laughs...it’s like listening to the musings of an old man in a nursing home...makes me miss my papa
 

deuce

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How many Fks do I give?


ZERO!
 

GatorJ

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Yep. Looks officially gone, and I'm gonna have to take credit for killing it. I think I've posted part of this story before, but never the whole thing. Get ready for a mediocre and not very interesting ride!

When they shut it down years back, it was because there were 2-3 Tennessee fans who had completely taken over adding new topics daily. The boards were still quite busy then (nothing compared to the days before gator chatter, but still had 4-5 dozen new posts/replies a day).

There were these two Tenn fans I remember, orange54 I think and lizard something (maybe?), who were constantly posting these new topics. I'm okay with other fans coming in, but when 2 are coming in, day after day, just to spread their toxic behavior and post stuff about the gators sucking and Tennessee being upcoming (as laughable then as it has been for the last 15 years), I felt like something needed to be done. I ended up emailing a couple of editors and other emails listed on the GSUN website about it because half of the topics were about TENN... on a gator board.

I also sent private messages to about 3-4 other board members, showing them the email I wrote and encouraging them to do the same. At least a couple said they would.

My email basically said- come look at the board and see how much of it is actually about gator sports, and how many topics are just Tennessee fans being unprovoked dbags who aren't there to discuss anything at all, but only to troll. Please do something about this.

Well 2-3 days later I tried to hop on, and it was gone. Eventually a message popped up about how they were going to try to "improve" the board before bringing it back. Dumbasses just had to ban like 2 accounts. I bet they didn't even know how to do it or have the ability to, so they just shut it down. Well I waited a few days, then weeks, and maybe even months. I don't remember how long it was shut down. When it went back up, I tried hanging around for a week or two but the place was clearly dead, only having maybe 1 topic and 4-5 replies on average a day. I had already made the full switch to gator chatter, something I had been considering doing for a while anyway. (I think I had another username here at the time, I didn't come back for 6-8 months of so because I was so busy with work, made a new name when I came back cause I hated the old one but that's a huge digression). I was on the gatorsports board since the early 2000s if I remember correctly, and had been lurking here for a while before the other board got temporarily shut down.

Really the main poster I miss (making fun of) is Alvin. I know why he got banned here. And I probably would have banned him too. But my name is a direct reference to that (almost beloved) idiot.

Also RIP to Lawrence of Florida on the gatorsports board who everyone was convinced was a FSU fan posing as a Florida fan. I miss that troll.

And that is the very long and boring story of how I shut the message board down for a while, and now, permanently. I deserve at least half off a lifetime membership for killing that board I think, right? (Kidding).

I think the Lawrence guy was way after Gatorchatter got up and running. Saw a couple of his posts. Seemed a lot like Sid to me.
 

gator1946

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None of you can take credit. The Gainesville Sun killed it. They killed it the minute they sent out the disruptive poster message with no intention of fixing anything. First rule...listen to your customer. Second rule if you can no longer make money doing something the old way, find a new way and when you do don't screw it up.
 

Gator By Marriage

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Brad killed it like spraying a roach with Raid. It was dead, but still running around like crazy.

Towels and Sporks killed it like stepping on the previously sprayed roach. It's deader, there is white goo squishing out of it, but it is still using its one good remaining leg to push itself around in a tiny spiral, and maybe one of the wings or an antenna is fluttering a little.

The final coup de grace was delivered by the dynamic duo of Dooley and Andreu who picked up the sprayed and squashed roach in a paper towel and flushed it down the toilet.

Everybody contributed in their own small way.



Alex.
Thank you for that visual. I might skip dinner tonight.
 

Keene-Flint

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Ahhh the old GSMB. What ever happened to Syn? That dude could whip the rock around the intramural fields, or so I remember him saying.
 

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