Issue #2, February-March 2013
**
Interview with Dan Patterson
**
(conducted by Wolfman Shapiro, Dan is the founder of
Strat-o-matic Fan Forum)
Wolfman:
We are now here with Dan Patterson the founder and main
moderator for the very popular and successful Strat-o-matic Fan
Forum. This forum helped me to return to SOM Baseball in 2004 so
I am very excited to be able to speak with Dan.
Dan, how
did the idea for the Strat-O-Matic Fan Forum come up? How long
have you been in existence? What was your motivation for
creating the forum, did you initially offer forums for all the
SOM games?
Dan: Back
in 2000 after a decade long layoff in which I had joined the
military. I got back into Strat football but when I went looking
around for information at all the lists I found they were all
Baseball dedicated. A majority which were the e-mail list kind.
I did manage
to find one message board dedicated to Strat football that fit
the bill. It was a simple setup with a good core set of members
that would later help form the initial group for the Strat Fan
Forum.
Sometime
toward the end of 2000 the owner informed us he was graduating
from school and the board, which apparently was hosted on school
servers, would be taken down.
So with no one
else wanting to do it I started the Strat Forum by purchasing a
soon to be defunct forum software on a server I was a webmaster
of.
At first when
it went online in February 2001 it had ONE section only and that
was for football. However, within a few months more people kept
joining, and more threads were started about the other
Strat-O-Matic games.
After several
requests and to keep things from being cluttered I created
sections for Baseball, Basketball, and Hockey.
It continued
to grow to a point that I eventually had to move off the website
I administered, to a shared server, before finally finding a
home on it's own private server to handle the traffic.
Wolfman:
Which
one of the SOM Games is your favorite? Are you participating in
any Leagues? Do you have any favorite teams?
Dan: NFL
Football has always been my favorite. Though I have enjoyed
playing the others and even tested the SOM Online baseball game
for TSN several years ago.
I am not
currently in any online leagues as my schedule just didn't leave
me enough time to properly commit to playing in a league.
Much to the
dismay of most members I am a Dallas Cowboys fan. ;)
Wolfman:
Which
section of the Forum do you believe is the most popular? What is
the advantage of having a forum from your perspective?
Dan: Obviously
Baseball and the Locker Room sections of the Forum are the most
popular.
The main
advantage up until Strat got involved with Facebook and Twitter
recently was the sharing of information and troubleshooting help
on the Forum. Also the forum gave everyone a center point place
to look for information first, interact, find other gamers and
as it grew Strat started stopping by. Plus thanks to some very
helpful members we probably saved Strat a few phone calls. :)
Wolfman:
Can you
discuss with us some of your most treasured moments being the
main moderator - some special experience you personally had
linked to the Forum, or a special post, something unusual
reported - anything that was unique and amazing.
Dan: During
Katrina and living in Mississippi near the Gulf Coast myself and
several other members down here in the path were offline for
awhile due to the massive power outages and damage caused by the
hurricane.
While cut off
you never realize that no matter how small or trivial the
interaction can be with people on a forum, even those you have
never met, how important they become a part of your daily life.
I thought that was a special moment.
Wolfman:
What is
needed to be a good moderator for a Forum? Do you have to have a
lot of hands on to keep the forum running or is it doing it well
automatically?
Dan: Probably
an even leveled personality. If someone every had to work a
customer support line you'll know what I am talking about.
Sometimes I've been good at that. Other times I have not.
Also you need
to have a set of guidelines from the start so members know what
is out of line and what is not.
I handle all
the software and server operations. That includes dealing with
errors with the database or other problems relating to how the
forum is running. For the most part the current software has
done an excellent job as it usually needs little attention
except for a moment here and there.
As for
moderation I have been lucky that several members have donated
their own time and helped me with trying to keep the forum a
nice place to hang out.
Wolfman:
Are
there any challenges to running a forum? Since a forum is open,
what happens if people are not polite or unfriendly to others -
is there a procedure or action you take.
Dan: When
I started this I had no idea what I was getting into. As the
forum grew so did the challenges in dealing with multiple
personalities and voices. I learned as I went along.
After awhile
it became obvious I had to set up a list of guidelines to
instruct people how they should act towards others on the forum.
Normally if
someone gets out of line the procedure is to remove the post so
the thread can continue on without an argument pulling more
people into it. If they are new member often I will just contact
them directly and let this person know why they were censored.
Most members
regardless if they like it or not, understand why and continue
on with no issues. Others have taken it personally and will
either leave the forum or persist. In that case their rights to
post will be removed.
(Wolfman's
comment: being a moderator of a forum as you can see is
not an easy job as we can never make everyone happy and at the
same try to do our best to be fair and allow freedom of
expression - great job Dan!)
Wolfman:
Related
to the Baseball Game - what specifically does your forum provide
for its members? Is there some different or unique that you
provide or are proud of linked to the Baseball Game which
doesn't exist elsewhere.
Dan: I
been proud of the fact that for over a decade the Forum has been
a tremendous resource for Strat gamers to find help. To find the
latest news and events on Strat-O-Matic. Some of which has been
provided by Strat employees themselves. An honor few if any can
claim.
(I am also)
proud to be aware that as other gamers come to the forum, they
find others who share the same love of playing Strat-O-Matic and
(now know that) they are not alone. That because of this Forum
some have gotten back into playing (the game) again because of
the stories, posts, and conversations on the game that they have
read (here).
(I am) proud
because so many have tried to imitate the Forum but have never
replicated what we've done here (and been as successful as we
have).
Wolfman:
If
someone wants to sign up to your forum, how do they go about
doing this? If someone would like to contact you with questions,
what is the best way to do this?
Dan: They
can click on the Register link provided at the top of the forum.
One condition is they must use a non-free e-mail account.
Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo, etc.. are no longer allowed due to
spambots that are being used with these emails accounts and
cause an abuse. I'm sorry if this is an issue for those out
there but I did not have much choice. Spambots have been a big
issue lately.
If they would
like to contact me and they are not registered they may send an
e-mail to rawisdan AT hotmail DOT COM.
Wolfman:
Is there something else you would like to share about the Forum
that you feel would be important for our readers that has not
been covered by any of our previous questions?
Dan: I
believe we have the best core members and if you haven't done so
yet sign up and take a look. You can find out why we have lasted
for 12 years.
Wolfman:
Dan I want to thank you for taking this time to speak to us, so
we can gain a better insight into the longest and most
successful running Strat-o-matic based Forum, thank you!!
Dan: I
appreciate the interest and wish you luck on your newsletter.
Anyone providing such a valuable resource for free to Strat
gamers is to be commended. Hopefully I was able to provide a
little light on the Strat Fan Forum's how and why.
----------------------
Wolfman's Note:
We wish to acknowledge Dan and
the forum for all their good work. Quite a few of our members
for this newsletter came through our announcements on the forum.
Plus through the forum I have had a chance to reconnect with a
number of old friends from the good old days (1970's and
1980's). Also the forum has helped us to find some new
people to interview as well as get a handle on what kind of
information SOM Baseball gamers are interested in. As you
can see dear readers, as we each offer what we can, and all work
together it takes our ability to play the game to higher and
higher levels. If you have read Glenn Guzzo's book, you see all
the help and assistance the game company has received from
others on all levels to take the game we love to the ultimate
level of play. I look forward when we get our chance to
interview Mr. Richman and see how he sees the over 50 years of
the existence of SOM Baseball, which went from the idea of a
young man making a game with cards and dice to what the game has
become today.
Contained inside this exciting issue of Ultimate Strat
Baseball Newsletter:
(to view the various interviews, articles, columns and special sections click on
the links {underlined} and this will take you to the appropriate
webpage)
♦
RETURN TO NEWSLETTER MAIN PAGE
♦
INTERVIEW with BRYAN SWANK
SOM Gamer, league member.
(Sharing about his father, Thomas Swank)
♦
STRAT THOUGHTS with BRUCE BUNDY,
SOM Gamer, Creator of
Baseball Card Formulas, Baseball Strategy Advisor, Beta Tester
for the Game Company
(A new monthly column of "Strat Thoughts" from the mind of
legendary Bruce Bundy)
♦
ARTICLE with "REZZDOGG",
Owner/Moderator of
Stratomatic Baseball Village
(This Article is entitled "Fathers and Sons: Diamonds are
Forever".)
♦
COMMISSIONER's
CORNER with MARC WASSERMAN--
commissioner of the Cyber Baseball Association (CBA) continues
his column about what it is like to be a League Commissioner. In
this article he discusses how to deal with challenges from
league members when there are heated disagreements or
communication breaks down.
♦
EARLY SOM
CONVENTIONS COLUMN with WOLFMAN SHAPIRO --
editor of "The Ultimate Strat Newsletter" and 2012 CBA Champion.
Wolfman takes us back in this article to the second national Strat-o-matic
Convention in 1973 held in Brooklyn, NY and co-sponsored by the
Game Company and the Strat-o-matic Review. Wolfman will be
taking us through the first nine conventions going through 1980
of which he was present at each one. From 1974-1980 Wolfman
along with his friends
from Chicago held these conventions in Illionies. We will continue to share one new convention in
each future issue till all of these early ones are shared.
♦
SOM BASEBALL CARDS QUIZ
- our test of your knowledge of the SOM Baseball Cards,
questions and answers provided by Marc Wasserman. In this issue
we give the answers to
Quiz #1,
interview our first winner (Art) and have two new questions to
ask for Quiz #2. Who will be our next winner?
♦
RECOMMEND
ON-LINE SOM RESOURCES
-- Those On-line
Strat-o-matic and Baseball related websites that offer amazing information, special tools and products to improve
your game play
that we recommend and which we have had personal contact with and agree with our
idea to work together and help promote each other.
♦
BOOKS TO
DIE FOR and Become a BASEBALL GURU
-- This page
is a new page we are adding for the newsletter that is
specifically about special books we are finding that either will
expand your insights about the game of Baseball, help you in the
creation of your current league teams or with your replays and
learn more about the Strat-o-matic Base Game and Game Company's
history. At the time of the release of this newsletter we
have a special arrangement with Acta Sports to offer our members
a 10% discount. We hope to add more books in the future.
Contact Us for Questions or Submissions:
Wolfman Shapiro
Founder/Editor, the
Ultimate Strat Baseball Newsletter
email:
wolfmanshapiro@gmail.com
facebook:
www.facebook.com/wolfman.shapiro
twitter:
@StratBaseball4U
To Sign Up and Become a Member of this Newsletter
http://www.UltimateStratBaseball.com
(this provides direct emails when our bulletins
and next
issues come out)
