New Comment Policy Experiment
Dave · August 10, 2007 at 9:58 pm · Filed Under Mariners
Okay, so, we’re going to try an experiment. As of now, everyone who has not added a comment to the site before will have their posts added directly to the moderation queue. They will have to be approved by an author before they become readable on the site. This will act as a de-facto trial period for new commenters.
To get your comment approved, you should focus on adding something substantive to the discussion and showing some degree of understanding of what has already been discussed. Think of your first comment as an audition.
To those who have been commented in the past, this change won’t affect you.
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“focus on adding something substantive to the discussion and showing some degree of understanding of what has already been discussed”
Seems like a good practice for all comments whether they’re a 1st or 9,999th comment. (Is Corco that high yet?)
“To get your comment approved, you should focus on adding something substantive to the discussion and showing some degree of understanding of what has already been discussed.”
Willie Bloomquist is a terrific player, I wish John McLaren would play him more.
Good thing I signed up 4 days ago… Anyway, good policy.
I think this is an excellent idea.
We’ve had a big rash of first-time posters lately who have ignored the entire history of discussion on this site and show up solely to be contrarian and start trouble.
Great idea USSM guys.
I haven’t posted in a month of Sundays, tending to take the “Everyone seems to be saying the same things I’d be saying, so what’s the point?” approach. But I had to chime in here to voice some support for this idea. In a perfect world folks would hijack threads and generally just be asshats. But as is evidenced by Jones and Broussard continually riding the pine, ours is not a perfect world.
Cheers.
Not to beat a dead horse but kudos, this is a great idea. The post has gone in recent months from fun discussion to having quite a bit of crud mixed in.
funny thing is, the way Lopez has been hitting, Wee Willy might actually be an improvement, and defensively he would be one heck of a lot better than Vidro.
And this is seems like a really good policy too. Glad you guys have this site, so it’s a shame when the comments get completely run over with the same stuff that was discussed every day for the past few weeks (months). Check this site first thing in the morn, and last thing at night – so anything that makes it easier to read through is groovy.
100% support from me on this, for what it’s worth. Game threads were getting to be a bit too much like “Crossfire” and I know I stopped watching that for a reason.
Thanks guys.
I agree, this policy is fine and probably overdue.
OTOH, even people who post regularly and know their stuff seem to often say the SAME thing OVER and OVER again. OK, we get it, you and everyone else on the blog feels that Adam Jones should be playing more. We know. It would be nice to have something a little more substantive (not to mention different) to talk/read about. I’m just saying people should try to add something original to the discussion, and develop it, just don’t ape everyone else and repeat the same thing over and over.
As a final note, I notice that when anyone on here expresses an opinion that doesn’t agree with the accepted wisdom (groupthink) of regular posters (such as, “Ibanez is starting to hit” or “Jones is inexperienced, so you have to consider that”*), they pretty much get criticized, dismissed, and laughed at. I’d suggest that maybe we should try to be a little more civil to others’ opinions, even if we do think they are completely wrongheaded.
My .02
*not my feelings by the way, just examples
good idea, Dave
The two most annoying things about the people who don’t agree with the so-called groupthink, though:
1) Their generally very poor means of expressing themselves
2) The snide comments from the few people who insist on repeating “oh yeah, you can’t oppose the USSM people! They think they’re gods!!1!”
I should add that the sometimes-arrogant tone that authors or commenters take does bug me. But the people who wander in without paying attention to conversations that are currently going on or have gone on recently and act like they’re presenting all-new Vidro or “chemistry” information is really just as arrogant, in its own way.
Sorry, that was really convoluted grammar and I think I lost track along the way.
THE BOX!
Yeah, I think the obnoxiousness of the comments here lately is keeping the good commenters from commenting… (not that I’m necessarily a good commenter)– but I used to actually read the comments once upon a time. Something needed to be done.
What goes on here is simple, really. The authors state opinions based on research. They expect anyone who shares an opinion here to do the same, or to sit and learn. Makes sense.
We all know what goes on at other blogs. Baker’s blog is awesome but has too many commenters there have no clue or are psycho. So if you are addicted to baseball and are seeking some logic and reason, you can find that here. I think that’s cool.
So yeah, extreme whatever week works for me.
To those who have been commented in the past, this change won’t affect you.
It probably should.
Thank you! Thank you!
I completely gave up on the “Hi John” post- I think it got even worse than the game threads have been lately. It has started to become like Baker’s blog over here (ok, not that bad).
I don’t think this a bad idea. This is y’all’s product, you’re free to regulate it as you see fit.
I’ve been registered for two years now, I think, but I don’t really have many enlightening things to say. So I leave most of the talking to the big guns.
Come to think of it, this wasn’t very enlightening, either. Guess I’ll go back to not posting.
A nice side benefit of this policy would be that it discourages immediate duplicate accounts. ]
10 – The biggest fixable problem with the Mariners merits continued discussion until it gets fixed. Especially when every day brings an ugly reminder.
I don’t understand why people feel the need to dictate terms or content to the authors.
I guess they’re used to yahoo or something, where they can do whatever they want.
There’s at least one issue on which I strongly disagree with the authors, but they don’t want to discuss it. So, there is a simple and obvious solution – I don’t discuss it.
Why should I resent that?
It’s easy to spot people that read each post only to see what they can disagree with. The contrarians revel in taking the opposite of whatever the group consensus is… and that kind of attitude adds nothing to the discussion, they just enjoy the conflict.
Why should I resent that?
I can think of a few reasons:
1) Contrary opinion sparks debate. Okay, not on most forums, image / message boards, internet chat rooms, or most of reality. But the hope still exists.
2) Some view the internet and any discussion therein as an extension of the essential principles of freedom. IE, because the internet is for everybody, and is a generally an area for the free and equal exchange of ideas, any website, blog, forum, whathaveyou is open to my ideals… no matter how stupid.
3) The prospect of being mostly anonymous creates a false sense of security in being a jerk. I know a lot of people who act exactly as they do when they “speak” on the internet as when I speak to them in person. However, I also know an equal number of people who are nice, pleasant, and wonderful human beings until they sit at a keyboard.
4) Ignorance. Somehow someone didn’t notice that this dude DMZ and this jerk Dave actually run the place, and think they’re just engaging in blabber with another peon. Should we blame the poster or the system? Also, why can’t we firebomb their homes?
I will admit I have a problem with discouraging the free exchange of ideas. I don’t like the idea that the Sneetches With The Stars Upon Thars get to blather amongst themselves about OPS and xFIP while the rest look on wondering why their magic marker’d pentagram isn’t flying. At the same time, there are about five billion other people on this planet I wouldn’t mind dressing up in an Angel uniform and sticking them in the same room as a freshly bean’d Jose Guillen.
So I suppose I’m torn. But, in the end, “their blog, their rules”. Anything else is moot.
I guess this is your site and you can certainly run it however you want, but it seems like if anybody’s going to be allowed to state their opinion, everybody should be allowed to state their opinion. Holding auditions seems a little…I don’t know…fascist.
And number 20, I don’t think anybody on here is talking just to be contrary. I know I’ve disagreed with several things that have been discussed on here (eg: I don’t think Ichiro is as good as a lot of people make him out to be, I supported Sexson a little longer than the rest of you (although even I am sick of him at this point), etc.) and I didn’t say any of it to be contrary. I really doubt that there are many people who bother to read the posts on this site just because they want to stir up trouble with people they’ll never meet in real life. It just doesn’t seem like that much fun.
This is my first post, after abandoning the team to suffer under the hamfists of Hargrove on his re-inking last year until his odd retirement.
Until now, due to the stupidity in not calling Adam Jones up and still refusing to grant him the least possibly explicable playing time, I have held back in commenting on game threads, nor am I likely to do so unless humor or knowledge move me to add some trifle.
Still, I do not see this as a useful, even workable, plan on your part. It’s your blog and all, but if you choose to run the discussions with that as the base philosophy…
I have great respect for USS M’s work and people, and for most of the regulars, since discovering it in 2001. I hope you prove more clever than me this time as well, but I will say – not knowing finally why you have hit upon this sort of vetting as a solution – it rings unusually tinny in my ears, even after several readings.
Do keep up the good work.
— BC
I agree, TIF, but, really, in your metaphor, I am a Sneetch With No Star, yet I am allowed to participate.
I don’t know the math, but I learn it and muddle through the steps that interest me enough.
But why would I feel the need to disagree with someone just because?
It’s like them logging onto a psychiatry forum and saying things like “scientology rocks” “shrinks are useless” or things like “Well, my friend’s uncle was a schitzo, take it from me, electric shocks… clears it right up.”
Yes, I don’t see why presenting a contrary opinion is a negative thing. You can only be sure in your opinions when you expose them to criticism, consequently someone with an opposing point of view who is capable of making their case rationally is pretty fundamental to having a discussion in the first place. I don’t agree with everything written on this blog and frankly, given the amount of entries, I’d find it strange if anyone did.
There’s a difference between that and someone who mindlessly takes the opposite line irrespective of the merits of the original point of view. Clearly this sort of measure is aimed at such people rather than just those who disagree, so I don’t see why anyone would have a problem with it.
23-I wasn’t referring to you, but there most definitely are those who take their pleasure in being contrary. It’s actually really common in every forum on the internet.
And, yeah, I’m with you, I don’t get it. But I don’t get those “first post” idiots, either.
And as to the fascist bit – why? Is it because the subject is baseball?
Do you think anyone off the street should be able to wreak ignorant havoc on grad student boards, or doctor’s boards or what you have you?
This is a private site, what’s fascist about some easily-met entry requirements?
Almost all of the problems are actual troublemakers, people looking to make a stir. I won’t miss them.
Is there any chance that you guys can put IP addresses in the mod que?
It would help defeat trolls like the absurd moron who junked up the Mclaren thread last night.
I absolutely agree with Terry. In fact I think he’s brilliant.
To be fair though, IP addresses can cause problems. I’m typing this from a computer in a university library and there are about 30,000 students with the potential to be doing the same thing. If someone had abused the blog before me from this IP address I wouldn’t have been able to sign up (not that they would as I’m from Europe, but still).
Last night, I was just thinking that you needed to institute some kind of policy about no posting until 10 days after registration, or something. So not at all surprised or realy discouraged that you are doing this.
A long time ago, I used to read alt.sport.baseball.seattle.mariners (or … whatever – it has been awhile). There was some useful information posted on there, occasionally. But overtime, it became so hard to sift through the crap, it became not worthwhile.
With the amount of crap that has been coming in through comments, we end up either going to no comments, or it becoming a site not worth spending the time to read.
Thanks, guys. This probably represents even more work on your part, but it’s been a long time coming. I wonder if there’s a way to make this post and comment thread mandatory reading for first time commenters?
Like many above, I’ve gone from frequent commenting to almost nil, in large part because of some of the aforementioned nastiness. No, we don’t all have to agree, that would be boring and uninformative. But we can be informed in our opinions and civil in our discourse.
Having been a part of, and run, forums which degenerated into yahoo drivel and/or flamewars, I empathize with the problem. I think it’s endemic to the medium.
It’s only natural that people get tired of explaining the same thing over and over.
But it’s also natural for people who don’t know what’s going on to stumble in and get pissed off when people are rude to what they think are perceptive questions. Also, sports forums are not famous for their clarity of thinking or their calm, rational approach. Just because a boob is coming from a KJR place in the world doesn’t mean that he’s incapable of becoming a valuable contributor.
On the other hand, a lot of people are stupid. Sports fans especially.
The question is how do you impart the need for better thinking to him? Saying “here, bozo, go read all this stuff” isn’t going to work. It would be nice if it worked, but this is reality, not fantasy. People are attracted to the DISCUSSION, not the research. USSM comment threads are not primarily about education, no matter how educational some of Dave or Derek’s articles and comments can be.
So there’s no way to really fix the problem. This new approach of yours is innovative, and I wish it success. But I fear that you’re going to be even more frustrated with the moderation duties, and either get into stupid side arguments that will take up even more time than the bad comment threads, or you’ll end up just shutting off new people altogether. Which is too bad. It might make comment threads better at first but in the long run might starve them.
As for groupthink, well, if you think “Ibanez is starting to hit” is a meaningful statement, maybe a little groupthink is in order here. Ibanez is what he is; he’s not “starting” to do anything. If dice come up seven three times in a row, things are not starting to turn your way.
Well, let’s see how this “approval” thing goes here on my first comment.
McLaren decides to bring Washburn back out after he’s already thrown 100 pitches. He gives up two runs.
McLaren starts Ibanez in left and Ibanez badly misplays a ball off the wall, allowing the go ahead run to score.
McLaren starts Sexon, doesn’t pinch hit for him in the 8th, and Sexon hits into a double play with two men on and no one out.
Gee, I’m detecting a pattern in all of those things. McLaren. Let’s just hope that McLaren is smart enough to learn from his mistakes. If he is, then one loss isn’t all that bad. If he isn’t, then this loss is just the beginning of the comedy of errors McLaren will make the rest of the year.
I am not being rhetorical here; I honestly don’t understand why you feel this way.
If anyone is allowed to publish a story in a magazine, should everybody be allowed?
This is a site run by a few guys who want a high level of conversation. I don’t understand what could be wrong with that, when there are a million other places where everybody can express their opinions. It’s not like the bar had been set that high; “add something substantive” and “show some degree of understanding of what has already been discussed” should be the rule for commenting just about anywhere, so far as I’m concerned.
“if anybody’s going to be allowed to state their opinion, everybody should be allowed to state their opinion”
I don’t think that these rules preclude anyone from stating an opinion. The rules simply require that a person has facts and/or statistics available to support their opinion, rather than spouting off tired cliches that are not based on factual evidence. The authors of this site and the majority of the commenters on this site do these things already, so why should a new person be exempt from this expectation?
Or logic, or an educated question, or a vivid or amusing observation….
There’s a lot of leeway to “substantive”, and I assume that’s deliberate.
I’m pretty new here. I understand and agree with a drive toward sophistication with comments, but am a bit unsure of the “lay of the land” in regard to what constitutes acceptable and not acceptable stuff here. Maybe it’s because I’m a teacher, and hence a pedantic nerd, but if a few “Do Bee/Don’t Bee” examples could be laid out us newbies could get a better idea of what’s considered edgy and what’s considered over the edge. I’m especially interested in areas of sarcasm/snark, and where the line is drawn as my inanities tend toward the sarcastic/snarky.
From comments above, I’m guessing some “Don’t Bee” examples can be found on last night’s McLaren thread, but I’m avoiding that one altogether and want to get a better overall understanding of things, anyway.
DAMellen Says:
I guess this is your site and you can certainly run it however you want, but it seems like if anybody’s going to be allowed to state their opinion, everybody should be allowed to state their opinion. Holding auditions seems a little…I don’t know…fascist.
Why is it that every time an entity tries to place some order and structure into a system, do people have to pull the fascist card? What, is anarchy better? Or wait, all that free love-no-rules-hippies still think their system didn’t produce negative consequences?
I’ve followed USSM for a couple years now, while I only post maybe once or twice a month at the most. I come to this blog for Dave, DMZ and the other informed authors, usually I just search for Dave’s comments, since he does such a great job of responding to most every blogger, even when the question is stupid or been asked 100 times.
Keep up the great work guys, maybe a pay system might keep the blog intelligent, of course now the socialists will complain.
I think this is a very sensible new policy, and I hope it is not too much extra work for the authors – I’d rather have them writing posts than approving comments.
I also think that it wouldn’t be a bad idea to require new posters to read (and agree to) the comment guidelines, and to at least read the “Evaluating” posts in the Orientation section.
Thanks again to the authors for your hard work; I hope the new policy makes things less frustrating.
I, for one, welcome our comment overlords. Viva Dave & Derek.
I use to consistently read every game thread, top to bottom, if I missed a game. This was pure pleasure reading for me. I’d read the box, the lousy PI summary of the game and then come here to reconstruct a game I didn’t get to watch.
I have also watched countless games with my laptop so I could follow the comments, many times never posting a single time. I just wanted to know what many here thought and enjoyed the ‘fellowship’
Lately, many commenters have reached proportions of stupidity that even John Cleese would be at a loss for words to describe.
I like the new policy. It’s totally even-handed, fair, value driven and represents real life. As smart as I think I am, I still don’t get to spout my opinions anytime, anywhere….and that undoubtedly saves me sometimes.
Change is difficult…most always. There’s no pleasing everyone all the time, so don’t even try.
What you’re suggesting sounds like a lot more work for yourselves, but hey, it’s your site.
Although there’s no real topic on this thread yet, I’ll just say that last nights game was one of the most frustrating games I’ve watched this season, so far.
Mac just doesn’t seem to get it. I know Ibanez is hitting now, but his defense is still average at best. If Jones had been playing LF when that ball Ibanez couldn’t get too that bounced off the base of the wall and away from him, Jones probably would have caught it and we probably would have won that game.
Of course, we could also blame Mac’s insistence on using Sexson, too. When he came up in the 8th and killed yet ANOTHER rally, I was so angry I almost screamed in the middle of the restaurant!
I just don’t understand Mac’s decisions. Why play Ibanez in left when he has a better defender riding the pine? Why play Sexson at all, especially when you have adequate players to play first and who hit better?
Put Jones in left, DH Ibanez or Vidro and sit Sexson, period.
I’m in the midst of re-reading ‘Moneyball’ and am struck by how discussions (or thrashes) around here tend to recapitulate the entire history of hard number management theories for baseball. “Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny” may be crappy biology but it’s surely seems true for maturation of rational baseball analysis.
Hitler over moderated people too – with a certain amount of success.
I would be curious to know what standard’s these posts would be up against. What would constitute a post not “making it?” A contrary point of view? Not having enough “intellectual content?” Not being on the Adam Jones “bandwagon?” Not ending a question with “quotes?” If I was a first-timer would I be able to post with typos, or would my post be checked for spelling and proper punctuation?
I found this site a couple of years ago and enjoyed it because it was a place for fans to share their opinions on the team. Now I hate it because it comes across as a bunch of snobs whining. It seems like I can only post comments that say things like “John McLaren is an inept manager” or I get bashed. There’s no room for a contrarian opinion. Apparently I have to do hours of research every day to post a comment that that goes againt the grain or I just rehash the exact same opinion.
I am a very average fan. Is there any room on this site for someone like me? Is this site so exclusive that I have to pass a college course to be qualified to contribute? Or can an every day fan find refuge here?
Good baseball teams start at the top. Poor ownership and management = poor team. I think it’s the same thing here. I really like the fact that these guys do the research and run the numbers. This site has the potential to be great. But the intolerance for a contrary view and whining about the team starts at the top and trickles down.
I hope the moderation can take this.
What bunk_medal (#26), scraps (#35, 37) and AQ (#36) said. I’ve never seen Dave and Derek put any commentators into the moderation queue because they disagree with the authors (on the contrary, I personally feel they may have been too patient with undeserved idiots until now). It’s not about difference in opinion, it’s about quality of it. “Not every opinion is equal,” as Dave put it, in that regard.
I’ve followed USSM since its early “blogger” days (mostly reading), and to me, Dave and Derek have been pretty clear what this site is about and what “standards” commentators (after the comment feature was turned on) are expected to meet. I don’t see any problem with that.
Thanks for the new policy. Let’s see how it works.
If you hate the site, leave. It’s that simple.
# 46 made my point for me
Having followed this site for a long time, I trust the authors to make sure that isn’t going to be operated in a way such that “if you disagree with us, your comment isn’t getting posted”.
But you know what? If you’re going to come to someone’s site and tell them what they just spent a lot of time researching and thinking about is wrong, it’s pretty rude to come in and provide a one-line justification for why you think they don’t know what they are talking about.
So if you want your “Dave is wrong about Richie Sexson” post to get up on the comment threads? Make sure it’s at least as well-thought-out and researched as /his/ post, and really it should be more so.
“But Richie has a .400 batting average the last ten games!” isn’t really acceptable anymore, and if that’s all you’re contributing to discussion here, there are lots of other places for you.
I come here primarily to read the writing of the authors, because they have proven to me over time that they know what they’re talking about the vast majority of the time; if the comments lately are jeopardizing their willingness to keep doing what they do, I’d be fine with comments going away completely, and I’m sure that was at least discussed.
You should be thankful that we even have the opportunity to comment here. It wasn’t always that way, and it certainly isn’t required.
If your point is that we’re not in the business of giving a pulpit to anyone who wants one, without requiring them to do any kind of critical thinking or hold them to any standard of useful commentary, then I’m glad I could make your point.
If you want to hang out in a community of people who just root blindly for laundry and have no desire to do any kind of evaluation of what they’re seeing, there are literally hundreds of places on the internet for you. The Times and P-I both have baseball forums full of average fans. The Mariners and ESPN both have team specific message boards. There are plenty of average fan blogs out there.
This isn’t that. If that’s what you want, go there. You don’t get to try to turn this place into one of those places simply because it fits your personal taste better.
You can be any kind of fan you like and hold any kind of opinion you like. If you want to comment here, though, the bar is higher, because some of us want a community to discuss baseball on a level beyond “Go M’s!”
“if anybody’s going to be allowed to state their opinion, everybody should be allowed to state their opinion”
Again along these lines. This is USSMariner, there are four people in charge and the site is what is because of the work that they do. No one is being prevented from stating an opinion, though so might be prevented from stating it here at this particular blog.
Jason Calacanis (founder Weblogs and former GM of Netscape) recently canceled all comments on his blog. His idea was that if someone had a truly intelligent and reasoned response to his posts that they would write it at their own blog.
You see the Mariners Blogosphere isn’t a closed system, there are literally dozens of sites/blogs/forums for Mariner discussion. Just because one can’t comment on USSMariner does not mean your voice has been stifled it means that you haven’t made it far enough along in class to contribute intelligent discussion about our joint passions for baseball.
All of us can read more, write more, and thereby contribute more. No one wants to read someone so stuck in their opinions that they aren’t willing to do the research.
I guess this is a long way of me saying, “I understand what you are doing and it makes sense”
I am totally onboard with this new policy/philosophy. I’ve been a reader of the site for several years (since about 6 months before USSM originally allowed comments) and I waited a long time before posting a comment. Even now, I rarely comment. I do a lot more reading than commenting. Why? Because I realize that I don’t know everything about the subject matter and I like to read the viewpoints of informed authors and informed commenters.
I’ve learned a lot from this site and I continue to learn from it on a regular basis. I applaud the decision and I hope that it prevents this place from turning into the ESPN message boards.
One. Not being able to post is not a permanent state. It’s fluid, dynamic.
Two. Contradicting conventional wisdom (as defined on this site) is quite allowable…if you bring something new to the table. And there’s that search function for the site.
I suspect when people realize that, the discussion overlords won’t be (and won’t appear to be) quite so heavy handed….
To the Masters of USSM. I have very much appreciated being able to read and participate in your site. I also very much appreciate the time, effort and devotion it takes to maintain this site while still being on the pulse of the topic of MLB and the Mariners in general. Keep up the good work and rule as you see fit. You owe us nothing. However, we probably owe you much.
Hey I just wanted to thank Dave and Derek and all the people who put this site together.
I am not really a Mariners fan but I am a huge Baseball fan. I found my way over from some Gleeman post, originally.
I have enjoyed the enlightened discussion here for sometime now. As someone who scours many different team blog sites, this is hands down the best single team site I have ever found.
So keep up the good work.
Also, do you think the Johan Santana vs Felix matchup on Monday could teach Felix a little about changing his pitching trends. Here’s hoping something rubs off from a 2 time Venezuelan Cy Young winner to hopefully a future Venezuelan Cy Young winner.
This is my first comment and oddly enough its in response to Dave’s Comment Policy Experiment.
For a while I felt like a student who stumbled into a higher level discussion on a topic I had interest in, but was in no way as schooled as those participating. Instead of assuming my opinion and ideas matched the level of thought brought to the table by Dave and Derek and some of those who’ve already commented, I of course read the “Comment Guidelines” and the “USSM Orientation” as well as “Evaluating Pitcher Talent” and then read old entries, and read them some more.
I still don’t feel like I have much to add today, but maybe tomorrow. I do hope Dave knows he’s getting through to some of us out there.
More thanks to the authors at the good ship USS Mariner. I don’t have a problem with stringent posting guidelines, and frankly I enjoyed the blog just as much without comments as with.
Just another frequent reader who doesn’t post. I greatly appreciate the informed opinions of the authors. They have added substantially to my knowledge of baseball. As noted, there are plenty of other sites available for unsupported opinions. What makes this site different (and better, in my opinion) is the fact that opinions are backed up by analysis/facts/research.
Therefore, I support any actions taken by the authors to eliminate the “clutter” of uninformed, unsupported, dogmatic opinions to allow them to concentrate on analysis and presenting more informed articles.
Lastly, I support Lauren, token chick — long live THE BOX!
I really totally disagree with the idea that DMZ, Derek, and Dave have to put up with everybody’s posts if they put up with anybody’s posts. Blogs in particular and the internet in general are not a closed medium. If Joe W. McLarenfan wants to talk about how great McLaren’s handling of his veterans is, it will take that person literally about ten minutes at most to create Fire USS Mariner at blogspot and start typing away.
Have you guys ever thought about appointing some willing reader to be in charge of approving comments, ala deadspin?
Keep up to good work, guys!
Fellow M’s fans: If you ever want the franchise’s management to value talent over unquantifiable traits like marketability and the intangible, bullshit chemistry meme, then support the work these guys do. I beseech you. The FO’ NEEDS to know we are not all Raul4Lifers, and that we are knowledgeable enough to call them on their more senseless maneuvers.
Take a look at the marketing angle the team uses…in fact, from now on I will refer to the blindly sycophantic “GO M’s!” people as “tent guys” or TG’s for short. The club seems to think M’s fans are all like that tool in the commercial praying to a Raul Ibanez bobblehead in a tent outside Safeco Field. If you were running the team and believed that people like Tent Guy are your fan base, you’d probably continue to play Richie “sub-Mendoza” Sexson and Raul “Less range than Kevin Mitchell” too. We need to be more and louder to compete.
So let’s hear it for informed fans, people who know who Carlos Triunfel is and see Betancourt’s range as lacking for a SS!
Somebody asked earlier if there was a place here for the “average fan.” There is indeed …. as a reader of comments. There are lots of boards for “average fans” to post their thoughts. This, however, is somebodies’ blog and they are not obligated to allow posting. They’ve chosen to allow intelligent, reasoned posting. As such, it is natural they would take steps to insure that’s what occurs. Why is this so difficult to understand or stomach?
I know it’s a blog and I’m a sporadic poster (2 one week, none for 2 months, 2 times a day for a 3 days then disappear the rest of the season) and I may have missed the train on this thought, but what about a simple forum? Not a huge full blown full-featured forum, just have maybe 2 different areas and that’s it, keep it all about the M’s (or Seattle sports in general, I’ve seen some seahawks posts here before)
Sorry if I missed the train and this thought was already shot down before.
I’ve been reading USSM for years now, commenting only on rare occasions. I’m here to learn, more than anything, and I hope one day I’m comfortable enough with what I’ve learned to be more vocal.
I honestly have to say, I don’t understand the opposition to the attempts the authors are making to restore the uniformly high level of discourse that used to be the norm here. There’s this belief that has become the norm in our society that every opinion is just as valuable and valid as the next, and that everyone should be free to express themselves in whatever manner they like-provided no one’s feelings get hurt. Well, nuts to that, says I.
Dave and DMZ have spent a lot of time and energy educating themselves, and when they make an argument, they have the evidence to back it up. When you have an opinion that you know to be well-informed, there’s nothing wrong with defending that opinion vigorously. If you express an opinion here (or in any other public forum, for that matter) you have to expect it to be critiqued, based on the standards of the community. The authors have repeatedly tried to impress upon people the fact that this is an intellectually stimulating blog, and fools will not be suffered, with diminishing success. This is an attempt to rectify that situation.
This isn’t a place for casual fans. It’s a place for hardcore fans and for those who want to become more well informed. If you want to join in on the dialog, you have to expect criticism. If that’s not your bag, this isn’t your blog.
This site has the potential to be great. But the intolerance for a contrary view and whining about the team starts at the top and trickles down.
This site has the potential to suck if the authors let it turn into a message board for ill-thought-out drivel. I’ll take the heavy-handed moderation and informed commentary over the clusterfuck nonsense of a message board any day.
Asking commenters to think doesn’t seem all that unfair to me. Thanks, Dave and DMZ.
Maybe this topic should have been closed to comments. I mean there’s really nothing to argue or debate?
To those who have been commented in the past, this change won’t affect you.
One potential side-effect that I see affecting everyone: If there are going to be more comments going through the mod queue, it will make it even more confusing to refer to other comments by their comment number. Even in the past, I’ve found it a lot easier to follow the comments when people are using quotations and not comment numbers in their replies.
As a constant lurker and infrequent commentor I’m alright with moderation, however won’t that just add to your already heavy USSM workload? Where will you guys find the time?
For those who are concerned about this policy, or have some sort of gripe with how Dave/Derek/Jason/Jeff do things, I submit my experience in overcoming my biases.
- I used to think USSM (and SABRmaticians in general) was/were too dismissive of traditional scouting and talent evaluation, and too dependent on pure statistics … until I paid closer attention and realized that USSM uses statistics only as tools to get to the truth.
- I used to think that Dave and Derek were too arrogant, too harsh, too dismissive of those that didn’t automatically agree with them … until I realized that they were only that way with lazy thinkers who added nothing to the conversation. I saw them be patient with newbies and point them to places they could research.
- I used to think that USSM was way too clannish and dogmatic; that once Derek and Dave staked out a position, the community blindly agreed with it no matter what … but now I realize that’s because Derek and Dave take well-thought-out positions and justify them well. And, frankly, they’re right a lot.
- I used to miss the chaotic, wide-open nature of Usenet and thought USSM was way too tightly controlled … until I got used to the high level of discourse. Now I break out into hives whenever I venture onto Usenet or read the comments on Geoff Baker’s blog.
Not coincidentally:
- I used to know nothing about baseball … and now, while I’m still no baseball genius, I know enough to roll my eyes when my brother-in-law complains that the Mariners should play Bloomquist more, and enough to be disappointed that the Jumbotron at Safeco doesn’t display OPS+ instead of batting average when introducing opposing players.
As a first-time-in-a-long-time poster, I’m having to recreate my account and so – I SUBMIT MYSELF TO THEE, GODS OF MODERATION!
66: Making it less of a real-time ‘conversation’ would fix more problems than it would create, IMO. Think about it…we are going to see cleaner, more vital threads with less rank idiocy. It would also prevent me from drunk posting (that’s a plus).
68 – Great post. Spot on, I think. If I didn’t know better I’d think you were a duplicate account of mine.
Speaking of which. Do many people have duplicate accounts? Thinking about that after that hilarity in the other thread. Never really occurs to me that people post under different names. That seems so very weak. Is it widespread?
I think it’s more laziness than a moral outrage at having the bill of rights repressed.. In other words IMHO, it’s not really an inability to express dissenting opinion that upsets some (and BTW clearly nothing could be further from the truth concerning dissenting opinion given the history of this site)….it’s the amount of effort it takes to actually formulate a counter argument that bothers them (and perhaps from time to time a stubborn denial that they might actually have to abandon a position they’ve clung to preciously for good deal of time)…
Maybe I’m nuts but I’m much more drawn to the reason for a person’s opinion than their opinion per se…
Fine, someone thinks Jones should/shouldn’t get more playing time. That’s not really interesting. Great, you think that. However, it’s neither more interesting than a bland checked box on a ballot nor does it move a discussion forward. Why someone thinks that…now there’s fertile ground for chewing the fat and for stimulating the neurons.
That’s really what the authors mean by a higher bar I think-it’s not enough to have an opinion. Commenters should share their reasons for it too while accepting the notion that you’re expected to have done your homework (google is free and it’s actually easy to use). And as all reasonable people would assume, you should understand the context of the discussion before jumping in and arguing.
The Constitution doesn’t guarantee equal protection for all opinions nor does it guarantee the right to post anything, anytime, anywhere. A moderation que is not a threat to democracy. All opinions frankly aren’t equal. Some are clearly more informed and supported than others. It’s silly talk to suggest inferior opinions should be valued let alone that they should be valued as equal to a stronger argument.
When was the last time I looked forward to watching the M’s face a pitcher with no control? Maybe 2000 or 2001 when we still had guys in the lineup that were productive AND patient hitters…like Edgar, Olerud and (in 2000) A-Rod. I expect as many strikeouts as walks tonight with this swing-happy crew.
Mat, I think this point is well taken, but that it can easily be solved if people get into the habit of quoting what they are responding to and responding by name. This would have the additional benefit, in my opinion, of making people pay more attention to the actual words they are responding to.
I hope the Mariners don’t bench Raul Ibañez for Adam Jones. This team chemistry should not be messed with.
Hoping that I’m already approved
Mat, I think this point is well taken, but that it can easily be solved if people get into the habit of quoting what they are responding to and responding by name. This would have the additional benefit, in my opinion, of making people pay more attention to the actual words they are responding to.
I guess I wasn’t very clear, but my intention was to discourage using the comment numbers rather than to discourage the new moderation policy. I’m in favor of the new policy in light of recent developments.
Speaking of quoting, what is the tag to use for quoting? I’ve scoured the site and haven’t seem to come up with it…
I officially move to put Victor Conte in charge of Mariners’ team chemistry. Hell, if it’s going to be an organizational imperative, we might as well see some damn results!!
I believe there’s something important here that nobody has commented on. Derek and Dave spend hours every week writing on subjects meant for our education and sometimes entertainment. They do not get paid for the effort they put in. In fact, they actually pay out of their own pockets, just to be abused. Do you folks realize that the bandwidth is NOT free? How about the multitude of servers that have been bought to keep this blog going?
Many loyal posters have chipped in but the majority of the expenses come from the authors’ wallets. They can run their site any damn way they choose. If you don’t like it, there’s always room elsewhere. Keep up the good work guys and thank you for teaching me so much about the game and our team.
Great idea, Dave. Can we go back in time and turn this on 3 months ago?
Oh, and the quote tag is blockquote.
[blockquote]
Oh, and the quote tag is blockquote.
[/blockquote]
Do you put that in brackets and then end it with a backslash?
Is this bold?
anyway….
Really it would be a great idea to have a short tag fact in the orientation….
I agree 100% with Terry. In fact, I think he’s brilliant
Mat, I understood you, and I agree.
LA M’s: Angled brackets, like so:
<blockquote>
</blockquote>
Much appreciated!