Media Ethnography: rec.sport.disc

Among my many professed passions, Ultimate Frisbee stands at the forefront. I started a team in college, I coach a high school team, run a summer tournament - I even fill in fantasy brackets for the college national championships (alone). All said, I'm fairly obsessed with the sport. Among its many virtues, one of the elements of Ultimate that lends itself to my passion is the current situation it's in, media-wise.

The sport is rapidly growing (there are over 600 active and registered college teams alone) and although there are media outlets covering the sport, they often are run by players and fans - thereby being more biased than one would prefer. The governing body of Ultimate is the Ultimate Players Association (UPA). Their website is ridiculously outdated, and as such, it has been left to the players and those passionate about the sport to truly grow it in whatever ways possible.

This brings me to my ethnography study. One of the oldest places on the internet to talk Ultimate is a holdover from Web 1.0: Usenet. Rec.sport.disc (RSD) has been active since 1991, and boasts over 60,000 unique threads. Honest Abe: At least a fifth of those are various spam threads - which only solidifies the group's popularity - rec.woodworking certainly isn't being hit hard with Gucci handbag spam. What makes this group particularly unique is that there is no working moderator - it works like an electronic bulletin board. You can post and reply, but there is no one of consequence enforcing the rules. In actuality, getting someone removed from posting is a long process, and there's not too much stopping them from creating a new account.

Like any online community, there are divisive issues. RSD's stems from a division in ideologies on how to properly grow and promote the sport. There are various facets of the argument, but the chief tenet is the current rules system, Spirit of the Game. There's a detailed explanation here, but essentially Ultimate is a self-officiated game relying on player integrity and honesty. At least 75% of the discussion is based around whether or not SotG needs to be removed.

The discussion is fairly vigorous, fueled by old players with still-simmering rivalries and those that have found a medium where no one can shut them up. Heated exchanges happen from time to time: race, class, sexual orientation have all been used to sling mud, albeit by a select few. There are perhaps 4 or 5 regular voices that post/reply daily and a host of others that contribute on a weekly basis. From the core discussion, unique terms and ideas have be spawned. "Spirit zealot" is a common term used to described proponents of SotG. Likewise, one anti-Spirit commentor has been nicknamed "Toad" by the community - he is so established as Toad that he now goes by the handle for recognition alone.

Toad is one of the more visible figures within the community. He comments multiple times a day, mostly in a retaliatory fashion, hijacking threads to talk only about the negative aspects of SotG or topics of personal interest. He is routinely offensive - he recently started a thread about why there aren't more "brothas" (black athletes) playing the game. Sample: Just think if a black school picked up ulti. I'd say theyde probably dominate college ultimate just as quickly.

Probably due to a combination of lack of moderation and his tendencies to devolve into insults at the slightest rebuttal, Toad is treated as a necessary evil of RSD, one that is tolerated because it has to be. Although there have been notable attempts to circumvent his posts, in the end he resurfaces. Toad (and an interesting standard) prevails.

This brings up a conundrum: with the exception of a few posters that either agree with Toad for the conflict or their own personal ideas, RSD is united in their disdain for him. Yet, he remains. He has become the spectre of RSD, continuously haunting the boards and looking for fights. And despite conduct that would have him hauled out of many public places, he continues relatively unfettered. As I noted above, attempts have been made to haul him out. There have been start-up websites with moderators attempting to move the conversations towards a more regulated (and Toad-free) forum, and every time they have failed. I suspect that at this point, RSD is as much a cornerstone of the Ultimate community as Toad is of RSD. It represents some of the noble beginnings of the Ultimate community, and some of the not-so noble ones. Going further, it stands as the largest source of Ultimate information currently available and doesn't look to be challenged in that regard any time soon. Until the sport receives a jolt from a source not yet identified, rec.sport.disc and Toad are here to stay.