Thursday Cup of Canis

Hey.

Before we discuss the latest news and notes surrounding the Minnesota Timberwolves and Minnesota Lynx, I just wanted to share a few thoughts on the new SB Nation commenting platform (Coral) which officially debuted on Wednesday.

As I mentioned a few times in various posts, I am not someone who embraces or enjoys change, so a seismic shift like this was less than ideal for someone like me (especially less than a week removed from my honeymoon — hi Abby). With all of that said, the launch yesterday of Coral clearly did not go well. My plan for the entire thing was to simply let it happen, mess around with the new functionality, and then sleep on it for a night before trying to moderate or comment or really do any of the “tasks” that make up this “job.”

During my day-long hiatus, certain actions occurred at the site, including a weeks-long suspension of one of our longest tenured community members. Not only was I unaware of this action when it happened, I didn’t even really find out about it until this morning when I attempted to “log in” and check the pulse of everything.

As I’ve tried to do since taking over Canis back in spring of 2020, I want to be transparent as possible here — since everything occurred yesterday, I spoke to Chairman Bud as well as the appropriate people(s) at SBN. In short, my message/request to SBN was fairly simple — Canis Hoopus has one of (if not THE) most unique and passionate communities in all of SB Nation. While I stumbled early on as a Site Manager, I do take some pride in how I’ve grown in this role (primarily because of the guidance and feedback from all of you), and I take SIGNIFICANT pride in the fact that our community essentially self-polices one another. Sure, we may be a tad more boisterous and opinionated than other SBN sites, but — without getting cheesy — that’s also what makes this site so unique, special, and is why we have such a crazy awesome group of members who visit the site daily.

So that was my main talking point(s) when I connected on the phone earlier this morning with SB Nation folks — essentially, we (like other SB Nation visitors) were not a fan of how things played out yesterday, we expect certain bugs to be fixed as soon as possible, and more than anything we do NOT want seismic shifts to how we interact, engage, and moderate with one another.

Again, I’m probably a broken record by now, and I’m sure some of you hate seeing my comments below, but I do just ask for patience. I spent a good amount of my lunch break today just trying to learn as much about the new moderation tools as possible, and I do think they will come in handy when trying to keep certain situations well within the SBN Community Guidelines.

But I also want to see changes addressed immediately. I, too, cannot scroll through comments on my phone. I, too, have no idea why a string of comments can include 14 different versions of the Helvetica font. I, too, want to be able to reply to comments without having to scroll up for 20 seconds to the top of the page.

If you’re still having issues or want specific items addressed, please do reach out to the coralsupport@voxmedia.com inbox (I know I sure have). I’ll also jump into the comments a bit more these next few days to see what items people want addressed, and will be sure to forward those on immediately to the team in charge of the new commenting platform.

Thanks everyone. For real.

The lone bright spot of Coral debuting yesterday was that it did NOT occur during the announcement of a potential Ben Simmons trade. Instead, the Timberwolves spent most of Wednesday afternoon introducing a bevy of newly acquired/re-signed players as well as taking in a Minnesota Twins baseball game.

If you missed yesterday’s press conference, there wasn’t anything Earth-shattering to take away from the various comments and quotes, although I did thoroughly enjoy Patrick Beverley reminding everyone that he has never once missed the playoffs during his NBA career:

Considering Pat Bev just joined the second-youngest team in the league (as well as one of the least successful franchises in NBA history), that playoff streak will surely be tested come this fall. With that said, I’m a huge fan of players like Patrick Beverley who have grinded their whole lives to get where they are, and I expect the 33-year old veteran to quickly become one of the key voices for the team both on and off the court.

As for the Lynx, they currently find themselves in third place in the WNBA standings with two games left to go. Minnesota will be on the road tomorrow night to face a struggling Indiana team before wrapping up the regular season on the road against the Washington Mystics.

Our own Neil Olstad recently did a great podcast with Sloane Martin about everything Lynx-related, so I definitely suggest giving that a listen as we gear up for the 2021 WNBA playoffs, which are scheduled to start a week from today.

Other than all of that, I sincerely hope you all continue to enjoy the last few (official) days of summer, and thank you all again for your support and participation in everything we are trying to do here at Canis Hoopus.

Cheers, y’all!