ESPN, possibly the most popular and well known message boards in the nation,
continue to get worse with the passing of time. First of all, ESPN introduced a
validation system to get rid of members who have violated their Terms of
Service. There are numerous ways to get around these, exposing a major flaw in
the system. For one, free web based email addresses are not supposed to be
allowed to validate names on ESPN's boards. I know from experience that this is
NOT true, as one can get a 100% free email address at www.mail.com
and validate as many names as they want. In addition, some people who are worthy
of having ESPN names cannot validate because the other type of validation,
credit card validation, does not work at times.
Another major issue with ESPN is the increasing number of unintelligent members
on the message boards who never make sports-related posts. These people are just
out there to annoy message board regulars and are commonly known as "trolls."
Over half of all posts on ESPN have nothing to do with sports, and regulars must
sort through meaningless, worthless posts to find anything remotely related to
their team. Some people are very annoyed by this "trolling" and would like to
see the validation system get rid of "trolls" once and for all. However, this is
not possible, because ESPN fails to have enough people who monitor the boards as
moderators and administrators. This means the "troll" problem will only get
worse as more and more of these idiots beat the system and create dozens of
names to make posts without substance to them.
A third and final problem with ESPN's message boards is that people who should
not be moderators are able to access moderator tools. There are several ESPN
regulars who have gained this type of access and now abuse this power, which
they should not even have. They are able to use these powers to place permanent
blocks on users' accounts for reasons which do not make sense. I am convinced
that these people only do this because of the sense of power associated with it,
and ESPN should not have a system that allows these people to gain access to
these tools. The fact that these people can continue to do what they do is
something that ESPN should deal with right away, but after numerous complaints
about it on the questions/comments board, these people have not been dealt with
in any way. Yet another one of the many problems of not having administrative
people monitoring the boards.
As you have just read, ESPN has major problems in three areas. The first is the
validation system, in which people can get easy access to screen names they
should not have, in order to beat the system. The second is the large and
increasing number of "trolls" on the boards. Lastly, people can get access to
moderator tools without being a moderator. These are major flaws which ESPN has
made no effort to correct. There is no reason why one should subject
himself/herself to ESPN's message boards.
popular and well known message boards in the nation, 
